Catapulted to the edge of known space by an incident in the Mutara Nebula, the USS Farraday is now under the command of the ship’s untested former first officer, Anthony Lennox. With limited supplies and uncertainty among the crew, Lennox has made it his first priority to find a planet that can provide enough supplies to give them a decent start on their journey home.
Author’s Note: I’ve had to cut my time writing this portion short. I apologize for the delay in finishing section “b” but it should be up around this time next week.
So that idea I mentioned in yesterday’s IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! podcast? I got it off the ground. I actually got off my ass and tried something new. Basically, the idea goes something like this.
There are a lot of podcasts out there that get awfully boring awfully fast. I enjoy podcasting, but just because I enjoy talking about stuff that’s interesting to me doesn’t necessarily mean you’d be interested in listening to me talk about it. So why not open up the forum for people to contribute by sending me ideas? I mean, I don’t want to be boring and you don’t want to be bored. And you’re probably going to be more interested in what you’re hearing if you had a hand in making somebody talk about it. Give folks the keys to the city, so to speak, and let them vote on what’ll be discussed. One could even open up the possibility of having people donate to put weight behind their vote.
So I picked a song that’s freely available for some opening & closing music, brewed up a cup of tea, and blathered the first thing out. Oh, the other gimmick? Unscripted, unrehearsed, unedited. A little raw, as it were. Getting the creative goods directly from the source without worrying about little hiccups or snags. A more conversational experience, rather than me acting like a professional on a pedestal dispensing precious knowledge to you peons below.
Alfred Hitchcock once said that there’s a big difference between surprise and suspense. I hope he won’t mind if I paraphrase a little. If I were sitting here talking about movies, and my desk were to explode because someone planted a bomb here, that’d be a surprise. Now, if you as the audience knew there was a bomb under my desk, and I sat here for the next six minutes or so blathering on about a movie, only to get up and walk away without the bomb going off, that’s suspense. And we wouldn’t necessarily need jump-cut shots to a ticking timer or dramatic music playing. No, just an establishing shot of the bomb being placed, then me coming in and sitting down to do another one of these recordings, without any other trappings or clever gimmicks. That’s good storytelling, right? Right. The makers of The Hurt Locker know suspense from surprise, and have created one of the most suspenseful movies I have ever seen in my life. It stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Evangeline Lilly, David Morse, Ralph Finnes and Guy Pearce.
“…Oh boy.”
The Hurt Locker follows the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit Bravo Company during the summer of 2004 in Iraq. Staff Sergeant Will James (Renner) is a soldier who defuses bombs. He’s one of the best, even if his methods can seem a trifle cavalier or even reckless to others, especially Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Mackie), who is charged with James’ safety during his operations. Yet this seeming bravado is just the first impression of a brilliant professional who understands his role in the grand scheme of modern warfare and also carries a great deal of compassion for those around him despite his outward appearances and behavior. As Bravo Company embarks on one potentially deadly mission after another, we are drawn into their lives and shown the environment in which these men toil, from the desolate wastes of the desert to the equally deadly streets of Baghdad.
There are some movies that, when a war is mentioned, I think of almost instantly. World War 2 brings Saving Private Ryan to mind. Discussions of Vietnam trigger memories of Full Metal Jacket. I spend just as much time remembering Jarhead as I do my own childhood experiences when the first Gulf War is mentioned. The current conflict in the Middle East remains a muddy, ill-defined struggle, but The Hurt Locker brings the lives of the participants into sharp relief. This film is every bit as intimate as it is intense. It never becomes political or preachy, focusing entirely on these men and the situations into which they put themselves day after day. Like the other films I’ve mentioned, we see these soldiers not so much as swaggering macho heroes but more as flawed, driven human beings who are all the more heroic because of their shortcomings.
“This one, I’m gonna disarm with the sheer power of my massive balls.”
This film is almost entirely without a musical score. The scenes involving the defusing of explosive devices and stalking an enemy sniper are possessed of a chilling stillness, which builds the tension with each passing, quiet moment. The shots are not cut short to try and jar us into a tense feeling artificially, but are left long on the faces and fingers of the protagonists, ensuring we understand who is doing what at which point in time and thus becoming more invested in the outcome of the scene. And in an odd yet telling juxtaposition, one of the film’s closing scenes that takes place in a suburban supermarket, far from the front or anything resembling danger, has an extremely similar stillness about it.
A lesser team of storytellers might pack a film like this with explosions from end to end. But considering this is a story about soldiers tasked with disarming ordnance, rather than setting it off, one of the many factors of The Hurt Locker that works so well is the fact that we are aware of the fact that any of the bombs we see might go off. Hitchcock would be proud, as writer Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow build layer upon layer in every scene to mount the tension to an explosive potential not unlike that possessed by the bombs themselves. It’s also established very early in the film that these are not the sort of explosions that our heroes can have much hope of outrunning. There are no rushing fireballs chasing our heroes down corridors here, no shiny CGI to make these explosions look larger than life. They don’t have to be larger than life: they are awesome, deadly and downright ugly just as they are. You don’t want to be anywhere near them, yet the men and women whose daily lives inspired the story of Bravo Company choose to get right next to them every single day.
“I popped that smoke myself. Why? Because covering fire is for pussies.”
This is one of those movies I’m sorry I missed in the theater. Not because I think it would be more impressive on a big screen, since it held me in rapt attention from start to finish on my television just as it would in a cinema. No, I would have liked to given these artists more monetary support. The talent on display in The Hurt Locker, from Jeremy Renner’s star-making performance to Katheryn Bigelow’s near-perfect direction to Mark Boal’s captivating screenplay, is a wonder to behold in a cinematic environment where gimmick is king and stories are often sacrificed on the altar of CGI and cheap adaptations. Whatever your feelings might be about the conflict in Iraq, the United States military or a movie that didn’t do all that well at the box office, you owe it to yourself to see this movie. I think it’s a strong contender for Best Picture at the Oscars, provided James Cameron doesn’t buy the committee five-star dinners and oral sex with his massive box office returns.
The bombs in the film are designed to blow up human targets. If you’re anything like me, you will agree The Hurt Locker is designed to blow your mind.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
We all study at the feet of giants. Even if they are only giants in our own minds, we get from where we are to where we want to be by studying others. As an aspiring writer, I look towards people who write and are not only enjoying a measure of success, but have what I consider to be an accessible method. Instead of admiring folks who are successful but come off as either completely selling out or being a pioneer in their own cult of personality without doing so with their tongue embedded in their cheek.
Here are the people I’m checking out to make sure I don’t wander too far from the path of good writing.
It’s the Magic Talking Beardhead. Need I say more?
I do? Okay, it’s this guy Chuck. He writes lots of things. He writes things well. In fact he writes so well he was recently at the Sundance for a screenwriter’s workshop and rubbed elbows with greats. It was kind of like the experience of meeting cool folks at GameX, only Chuck got really good feedback from others already in the industry. I got a couple signatures and some compliments on my clever handle. Anyway, if you’re not already reading Terribleminds, you should be. So go and do.
Will Hindmarch is somebody else I’ve met. It was years ago at an event called NEGLECT in Chicago. It was in the embryonic days of Vampire: The Requiem and he ran some of us through an example module. It was an absolute blast. Will is a friendly, creative guy, and to this day the only Requiem item I own is the storyteller’s screen he signed which I won on a random die roll.
I confess I don’t comment on his blog as often as I should, but he’s always got good ideas on writing and insightful meditations on other writers. It’s like the stuff I post here, but better.
This guy might be one of the coolest cats on the planet. Seriously. What’s that? You thought Wesley Crusher sucked? Well, so does Wil. In his Memories of the Futurecast he not only takes the piss out of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation in general but himself in particular. I really want to pick up his book, as it sounds like a fantastic mix of nostalgia and facepalming, as he puts it.
To say that Wil is an inspiration would be a gross understatement. Here is a man who spent many of his formative years in the public spotlight but never got too far ahead of his own shortcomings. He’s had his share of interesting journeys both across the country and into himself, and the result is a surprisingly humble and humorous man who isn’t afraid to be a nerd, never hesitates to laugh at his own failings and is deeply thankful for being where he is now. Go read his blog, listen to Radio Free Burrito, and brew up some Tea, Earl Grey, Hot.
This is hot stuff, dear readers. Like fresh off of the presses stuff. I just came across Kung Fu Monkey today. This morning. And it’s all thanks to Wil Wheaton. He told his listeners about Jon Rogers, writer for the TV show Leverage, doing cool stuff over on his blog. I went over there, and I’m glad I did.
Wil Wheaton: Giving you the mad nerd hook-up and reminding you not to be a dick.
Anyway, Rogers talks about writing for the show, and does post-mortems of the episodes where he takes the questions of the audience. It’s really fascinating, to peek into the mind of a creative work in progress that is already successful. It’s worth your time to check out.
Did I mention Wil Wheaton’s an inspiration? Well, he is. He’s inspired me.
“What’s he inspired you to do, Josh?”
Oh, you’ll see. You’ll see.
Stay tuned. There’ll be something of a special announcement during tomorrow’s IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! which I am really looking forward to doing – it’s something more recent per request from fans at the Escapist – so please cruise by tomorrow and give a listen. Thanks.
Today’s update is going to be quick and dirty, folks. Let’s just dive right into my thought processes about how I’m wasting spending my free time.
Last week I tried to put together a video supplement for my preview of Star Trek Online. Since Flash is the ‘new media’ platform with which I’m most familiar, I figured that the least time-consuming method for achieving my goal would be to use that platform. Sadly, I was mistaken, and I ended up burning a lot more time on the project than I probably should have. And the end result wasn’t even in a video format easily disseminated to other formats or venues.
With some measure of disgust, I filed that project away and got back to work. I have a day job, after all, no real time for dilly-dallying or rumination upon how to improve upon something that, to me, didn’t turn out very well at all. But as time went on and I thought more about the various tools at my disposal and efforts I’ve made in the past to branch out beyond static text, I thought back to Powerless.
Remember that? Powerless, my attempt to break into the high-profile world of the Escapist’s video elite? The concept of talking about things gamers can do to amuse themselves without relying entirely on electricity still strikes me as solid, I think my effort got bogged down with trying to add a story element to what is essentially a vlog. That’s “video blog” for those not up on the lingo.
Anyway, Powerless was assembled using Adobe AfterEffects. For some reason, I had filed that program away as something to only be used when actually recorded video is involved. But, au contraire! A video is images matched with sounds along a timeline, right? And my Star Trek Online preview is – anyone? anyone? – images matched with sound along a timeline. So why not use AfterEffects, reassemble the video portion of the preview, and plop it on YouTube as per my original thought?
This opens the door for other possible projects, as well. Perhaps some images to go along with the soundtracks for IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! or a revamped and more focused Powerless series solely about the tabletop games without any major trappings. Except maybe the bursts of static for transitions. I’m not sure. All I know for certain is that this can’t detract from The Project, my work for Polymancer or any other writing gigs that come my way. Or the day job either. Insert weary sigh here.
What do you all out there think? What would you like to see me vlog (if anything)?
