writing
With Christmas break being as crazy busy as it was, I completely forgot to talk about my new creative outlets. :)
First, I've gotten to write a few dramas for church lately (skits to do during the service). I got to write this narration/frame story for last year's Christmas Eve service, one back in (I think) November for the regular service, and then one section of this year's Christmas Eve service. It's been fun to do.
The Christmas Eve service at our church is a big production, and this year's featured like five shorter skits tied together by music and teaching. They decided to have separate directors for each skit, and since there aren't a whole lot of drama directors in the church, I got asked to direct the one I wrote. It was TONS of fun. (Note: when my mom found out who was in mine, she was worried -- someone as ADD as me in charge of the two actors I had, a father and son who are totally random and two of the biggest hams you'll ever meet. But it turned out great. And I say again, TONS of fun working with them and the other actors in the skit. It MADE my Christmas break.)
And since I didn't COMPLETELY screw that up, I guess, I've been asked to start directing dramas for the adult service sometimes. I did my next one back in January, I think, and really enjoyed it. I'm directing again this week. (I'm not going to get started on my casting problems that had me insanely stressed out on Wednesday. They're fixed, I have an awesome group put together, and that's all that matters at this point.) It's a fun one, one of the "Pastor Howtizer" skits (there's a series of them that Willowcreek has put out). Aside from the awesomeness simply of having a character named Pastor Howitzer, there's a pseudo-sword fight, and not only a mime, but a mime who gets punched in the face by Pastor Howitzer (and promptly told to "Turn the other cheek!").
And so I'm really enjoying this new way to be involved at church. I love working with the kids, but it's terrific to have something different to do once every month or two.
The other writing news is that I took a screenwriting class over the break, too. I've waffled back and forth between wanting to write screenplays or novels for years, but now I'm definitely leaning screenplays. I learned a ton about structure in this class, along with simply getting the creative juices flowing.
I don't think the teacher liked me much. I argued with him a few times about what movies are good and bad, and was prone to making kind of random comments or giving him examples that kind of pissed him off. And I think the kicker was what I came up with as a movie concept for our first homework assignment. The original assignment was to come up with two movie concepts that could eventually become scripts, but he changed it to only one. When it was two, I was like, "I can't be totally serious with both, so I'll make one a serious idea and one a joke one." My joke idea, a play on Snakes on a Plane (which, as rumor has it, was the result of a contest to come up with the worst movie pitch ever), was "Zombies on a Cruise Ship." When he decided to drop the requirement down to one, I chose that one because a) it was more entertaining and b) I didn't want one of my real story ideas becoming class property. And so when it was time to announce/explain our concepts, I announced to the class with grand gestures that my idea was "Zombies on a Cruise Ship" (actually, the title I wanted was "Dead Sea")
Yeah, the teacher was not a big fan of that one.
The more we went around that day deciding which idea would become the "class project," the more I hoped no one would want to use mine. I was getting attached to the idea and kind of wanted to write it myself.
Luckily, they chose something else.
And then while Randy was visiting we started talking about possibly working on some scripts together. (He was serious enough that he picked up the receipt from our dinner when we talked about it and wrote himself a little note on it and said, "We talked business. I'm writing this off on my taxes.")
And we're starting with Dead Sea. :)
I just got my copy of Final Draft, the standard screenwriting program, the other day and am importing the two partial scripts of my own that I've been working on into it. I've got about 20 pages of one and around thirty something of another, though that story needs a lot more revision than the first.
In fact, I think I'm going to work on one of those now.
First, I've gotten to write a few dramas for church lately (skits to do during the service). I got to write this narration/frame story for last year's Christmas Eve service, one back in (I think) November for the regular service, and then one section of this year's Christmas Eve service. It's been fun to do.
The Christmas Eve service at our church is a big production, and this year's featured like five shorter skits tied together by music and teaching. They decided to have separate directors for each skit, and since there aren't a whole lot of drama directors in the church, I got asked to direct the one I wrote. It was TONS of fun. (Note: when my mom found out who was in mine, she was worried -- someone as ADD as me in charge of the two actors I had, a father and son who are totally random and two of the biggest hams you'll ever meet. But it turned out great. And I say again, TONS of fun working with them and the other actors in the skit. It MADE my Christmas break.)
And since I didn't COMPLETELY screw that up, I guess, I've been asked to start directing dramas for the adult service sometimes. I did my next one back in January, I think, and really enjoyed it. I'm directing again this week. (I'm not going to get started on my casting problems that had me insanely stressed out on Wednesday. They're fixed, I have an awesome group put together, and that's all that matters at this point.) It's a fun one, one of the "Pastor Howtizer" skits (there's a series of them that Willowcreek has put out). Aside from the awesomeness simply of having a character named Pastor Howitzer, there's a pseudo-sword fight, and not only a mime, but a mime who gets punched in the face by Pastor Howitzer (and promptly told to "Turn the other cheek!").
And so I'm really enjoying this new way to be involved at church. I love working with the kids, but it's terrific to have something different to do once every month or two.
The other writing news is that I took a screenwriting class over the break, too. I've waffled back and forth between wanting to write screenplays or novels for years, but now I'm definitely leaning screenplays. I learned a ton about structure in this class, along with simply getting the creative juices flowing.
I don't think the teacher liked me much. I argued with him a few times about what movies are good and bad, and was prone to making kind of random comments or giving him examples that kind of pissed him off. And I think the kicker was what I came up with as a movie concept for our first homework assignment. The original assignment was to come up with two movie concepts that could eventually become scripts, but he changed it to only one. When it was two, I was like, "I can't be totally serious with both, so I'll make one a serious idea and one a joke one." My joke idea, a play on Snakes on a Plane (which, as rumor has it, was the result of a contest to come up with the worst movie pitch ever), was "Zombies on a Cruise Ship." When he decided to drop the requirement down to one, I chose that one because a) it was more entertaining and b) I didn't want one of my real story ideas becoming class property. And so when it was time to announce/explain our concepts, I announced to the class with grand gestures that my idea was "Zombies on a Cruise Ship" (actually, the title I wanted was "Dead Sea")
Yeah, the teacher was not a big fan of that one.
The more we went around that day deciding which idea would become the "class project," the more I hoped no one would want to use mine. I was getting attached to the idea and kind of wanted to write it myself.
Luckily, they chose something else.
And then while Randy was visiting we started talking about possibly working on some scripts together. (He was serious enough that he picked up the receipt from our dinner when we talked about it and wrote himself a little note on it and said, "We talked business. I'm writing this off on my taxes.")
And we're starting with Dead Sea. :)
I just got my copy of Final Draft, the standard screenwriting program, the other day and am importing the two partial scripts of my own that I've been working on into it. I've got about 20 pages of one and around thirty something of another, though that story needs a lot more revision than the first.
In fact, I think I'm going to work on one of those now.