Research: A Four-Letter Word

[polkablues]

can slashers be meta now? i'd love to hear a killer complimenting themself aloud. "oh i nailed this." or a killing that is a little harder, "okay i got this, i got this." a look at the blood scene, "beautiful." the theme is that everybody knows how to be a killer, anybody can be a killer, just act natural and try your best

of course that's a whole thing and all i did was mention it

I thought about taking the meta route, but the original writer envisioned it as a very straight-forward throwback slasher film, and that was the pitch that the investors who are on board got on board with, so that's the direction I'm going with it. And anyway, I couldn't think of a self-referential route that didn't already feel played out. Between your Screams, your Hatchets, your Cabin in the Woodses, your Tucker & Dales, etc., it's an angle that's been fully covered.

And I recommend checking out Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. It's pretty much the exact movie you're describing.

[jenkins]

obvi i'm looking forward to your slasher movie btw, um incredibly

i just get myself all excited and follow tangents. i see (i read about) Behind the Mask there and that sounds great btw. but this one is still different. i'd write it with you as another slasher movie idea if you would want to write such a thing: there's no Leslie Vernon, there's no revelation of who it is. one of this person's heroes is the Zodiac killer. in fact i imagine writing a zodiac letter with the v.o. line "[laughter] i'm just making up crazy symbols as i go along you dumb fucks.' there's this person watching news about them and laughing but you never see the person and they get away with it like the Zodiac killer. the kills would take place in notorious slasher places across the country

[polkablues]

I'm intrigued by it. I'm having a tough time wrapping my head around how it looks as a story, but that's an issue for another day.

[jenkins]

i'm prepared and let me know and best wishes to your current endeavor

[Robyn]

Shelved for the moment. Less than a week after I posted about this, I was contracted to do a rewrite of a slasher flick this guy wrote that, if things go according to plan, will go into production this spring or summer. Pretty basic "group of young people partying in an abandoned creepy building get killed off one by one" sort of thing, but I'm doing everything I can to try and shoehorn some themes and meaning into the thing. It won't be great, but I think it has the potential to be good, which is a massive step up from the original draft they had.

you'll make it good i'm sure!

[polkablues]

Thanks, man! I'm pretty happy with how it's coming together, actually. I don't think it brings anything new to the slasher subgenre, but at the very least it's a well-executed example of the subgenre, which in and of itself makes it somewhat novel these days.

[Robyn]

how do one approach rewrites, especially you with this one? do you get creative freedom or do you mostly just polish what's already there? 

(EDIT)

anyway, I am doing research about the porn industry in general (it's ruining porn for me!) and child abuse (it was already ruined) so please let me know if you have any recommendations of things I should read or watch on those subjects!

[Drenk]

That is probably entirely unrelated but: I was listening to a podcast about Leaving Neverland, and this dude talked about how it made him realize that he had been abused by his baby-sitter when he was, like, eleven. She used to make him touch her naked body, and he thought he "wanted" to, but...

Well. I might use it for a story of my own, haha. Meeting the baby sitter years later and understanding the past, the Alice Munro way...

[polkablues]

how do one approach rewrites, especially you with this one? do you get creative freedom or do you mostly just polish what's already there? 

To me, it depends a lot on the state of the original script. I did a rewrite in a similar situation about a year and a half ago (that project has been shelved indefinitely, as far as I know), where the original writer's draft was fairly strong, but it was very high-concept and overly preoccupied with the action elements, at the expense of any sort of character development. So in that case, my role was mainly to figure out a compelling character arc for the protagonist that I could then fill into the cracks (and also do a big polish on the dialogue, mostly to  try and distinguish the different characters better). It still turned into a fairly significant undertaking, as changing one element often leads to needing to change another element, and so on and so on, but at least in that case, a significant amount of the original writer's writing survived to the end.

This one was different, in that the script just didn't work. There was no real sense to the structure, events happened randomly with no greater significance to what happened before or after, characters would talk and act completely differently from scene to scene, and the whole thing culminated in a "twist" that came out of nowhere and meant nothing, revealing the killer to be a minor character who had been introduced for half a page in the first ten minutes of the story, never seen or mentioned again, and whose motive had no greater relevance to the overall story.

So step one of the process was: what are the elements of the story that are necessary to keep it recognizable as that story? In this case, it was the setting, the general group of characters (taking a lot of liberty in fleshing out and differentiating those characters), and the initial setup for how the events of the story kick off. After that, I tried to figure out what the story is actually about. Beyond the series of events that happens in the story, what is the actual purpose of telling this particular story? Reading the original script a second time, I started glomming onto this undercurrent of classism that was present in the story, but seemingly by accident -- it went entirely unexplored. So I decided to build that up, give the story (at least to a certain extent) a metaphorical level about the economically privileged having their bubble of safety being burst by the economically oppressed.

With all of that in place, I threw out the original script entirely and started writing a whole new one. Starting out, I had that draft open in another window while I worked, and I would click over and consult it every so often, but pretty quickly I realized there was no point in it. So when it's all said and done, the rewrite will still be the same "story" on the level that it's a group of characters with the same names in the same setting having roughly similar things happen to them, but everything beneath that superficial layer is different.

anyway, I am doing research about the porn industry in general (it's ruining porn for me!) and child abuse (it was already ruined) so please let me know if you have any recommendations of things I should read or watch on those subjects!

I very highly recommend the blog of Jennifer Ketcham, who performed in porn as Penny Flame: https://becomingjennie.wordpress.com/

She writes incredibly eloquently about her experiences, the addictions that fed them, and the difficulties of readjusting to the world outside it all. I recommend starting with the oldest posts and working your way up. She also has a book published, but I haven't read it. I'm presuming it mostly covers the same points as the blog does.

Also, this is fucking harrowing: https://nypost.com/2019/08/22/ex-porn-star-jenni-lee-found-living-in-las-vegas-homeless-tunnel/

[Robyn]

thanks for the reply! that was an interesting read, though I don't have anything to add myself... always felt like it would be kind of fun to try it out someday, tho.

I very highly recommend the blog of Jennifer Ketcham, who performed in porn as Penny Flame: https://becomingjennie.wordpress.com/

She writes incredibly eloquently about her experiences, the addictions that fed them, and the difficulties of readjusting to the world outside it all. I recommend starting with the oldest posts and working your way up. She also has a book published, but I haven't read it. I'm presuming it mostly covers the same points as the blog does.

Also, this is fucking harrowing: https://nypost.com/2019/08/22/ex-porn-star-jenni-lee-found-living-in-las-vegas-homeless-tunnel/

yay!

these links are super helpful.

[Reel]

(EDIT)

anyway, I am doing research about the porn industry in general (it's ruining porn for me!) and child abuse (it was already ruined) so please let me know if you have any recommendations of things I should read or watch on those subjects!

Recently I watched what is now one of the most disturbing documentaries I've ever seen, "Body Without Soul." It's about teen male prostitutes in Prague who work in the porn industry and features one of the most truly evil characters you will ever encounter in a documentary in the director of these films. It's NSFL and I wouldn't recommend anyone ever see it besides you or maybe Wilder.

[Robyn]

(EDIT)

anyway, I am doing research about the porn industry in general (it's ruining porn for me!) and child abuse (it was already ruined) so please let me know if you have any recommendations of things I should read or watch on those subjects!

Recently I watched what is now one of the most disturbing documentaries I've ever seen, "Body Without Soul." It's about teen male prostitutes in Prague who work in the porn industry and features one of the most truly evil characters you will ever encounter in a documentary in the director of these films. It's NSFL and I wouldn't recommend anyone ever see it besides you or maybe Wilder.

sounds like an awful watch, but the evil characters you mention feels intriguing. where did you watch it?

[WorldForgot]

(EDIT)

anyway, I am doing research about the porn industry in general (it's ruining porn for me!) and child abuse (it was already ruined) so please let me know if you have any recommendations of things I should read or watch on those subjects!

Recently I watched what is now one of the most disturbing documentaries I've ever seen, "Body Without Soul." It's about teen male prostitutes in Prague who work in the porn industry and features one of the most truly evil characters you will ever encounter in a documentary in the director of these films. It's NSFL and I wouldn't recommend anyone ever see it besides you or maybe Wilder.

sounds like an awful watch, but the evil characters you mention feels intriguing. where did you watch it?

In the States it's available through Amazon Prime's subscription, on instant video. Don't know if it's available in any other region, though.

[wilder]

Recently I watched what is now one of the most disturbing documentaries I've ever seen, "Body Without Soul." It's about teen male prostitutes in Prague who work in the porn industry and features one of the most truly evil characters you will ever encounter in a documentary in the director of these films. It's NSFL and I wouldn't recommend anyone ever see it besides you or maybe Wilder.

I've seen it and it's as dark as you say it is. One thing to see an accounting of a horrible event that at least has some finality, but these kid's lives are just ongoing, black holes of suffering. I was around their age when I first saw the documentary, so maybe it hit me especially hard, but I remember it inspiring deeper feelings of hopelessness and despair than I thought were possible for a movie to create.

In the States it's available through Amazon Prime's subscription, on instant video. Don't know if it's available in any other region, though.

Also on vimeo.

But like Reelist said, don't watch it.

[polkablues]

But like Reelist said, don't watch it.

My dumb troll brain has taken this as a challenge, and I will almost definitely end up watching this tomorrow.

On a positive note, I finished my draft of the script and sent it off yesterday. Now I just wait and see what happens with it from here.