High Roller

Been driving all day. The main characters' motivations and key plot elements have been coalescing in my mind as I get around doing mundane tasks. Gotta write them down before I lose them! Gone a bit cold on my working title but it will do for now.
 
Well, when I opened the thread I initially misread the title as 'Dicking with the Devil', so how about going with that? ;)
 
swopiv said:
Well, when I opened the thread I initially misread the title as 'Dicking with the Devil', so how about going with that? ;)
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In a trend reversal this the dramatic parody of the porn film you mention. :evil:


Got fired up after work. Already written act I, roughed out act II and outlined the third. Key characters are shaping nicely, haven't decided whether to play the devil literally or not but the thematically this is my take on a well worn idea. Main themes of addiction, temptation and rock bottom through the lens of devil-related folklore. Need to work up a new logline. And a new title. Two locations. Three or four speaking parts and four extras. Was originally planning on a ghost stry but the games requirement put me in mind first of Fritz Lieber's 'Gonna Roll Dem Bones', which lead to Milton's 'Paradise Lost', various incarnations of 'Faust', and a number of devil themed songs such as The Devil Went Down Georgia and Crossroads. Oh, and a poster.
 
The first image i had was the Seventh Seal, but naturally that a games of chess against death, rather than the devil. Many confuse them.

I love the idea that someone has;

1 got themselves into a position where they can confront the devil
2 face up to him/her/it
3 challenge it to a game, rather run away etc

Says a lot about the character, the needs, the desires. I can see the parallel with addition.

Interesting one to consider. Sounds longer than five pages!
 
Yes! I was hoping someone would square off against the devil in a game of chance.

When I read the contest rules I immediately thought of "Devil Went Down to Georgia".
 
Why do you think I had to get my thread up so quick :)

Actually I had the Fritz Lieber story floating around in my head already when this came up. I had been chasing a copy for one of the other short stories in it and I couldn't remember the title or the anthology. Thanks to this fest it triggered the title which lead me to find the book I read 20+ years ago. I win.

I've only got mini-act III to go and then hopefully I'll have time for at least two complete re-writes before the deadline. Hoping to get it to come in at 13 pages for fest-topic symmetry! It's looking like it will be 15 so far before I trim the fat. Could probably get it down to 10 or 11 if I tried. Need to lock in a logline, make a poster and finalise a title but the writing has been flowing and I don't want to interrupt it.
 
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Poster up. Doesn't entirely capture the feel of the piece, may even be a touch misleading but there it is. It took two hours and I like it so it stays.

First draft finished. More by accident than design it turned in at exactly 13 pages. Going to lose two days to drinking over the weekend but that still leaves enough time for at least one rewrite.

The title's okay, could be better but I'm sticking with it.
2 main characters, 2 minor characters, 5 extras.
3 indoor and 1 outdoor location in a single venue (club/bar).
Minor makeup effects, practical or just a few frames of cgi.
If buckets of blood are a requirement I'm screwed.
 
Congratz on a nice poster...really looking forward to reading the script.

Mine will not have buckets of blood either, but hopefully enough to suffice....looks like you definitely stayed within the parameters of the fest rules.
 
Nice poster - as I am completely useless with this type of thing, ie I can't do any, I have a degree of poster envy.

Looking forward to reading. I have to say I've made mine more low key, but as Horror is not my thing it's been fun to play with.
 
Had a boozy monday when I got home from work to find I still had beer from the weekend. Go Dockers! Which means only two days to rewrite, wowsers! Better get cracking, can't hand in a draft when I was first cab off the rank!


RE: posters, i use little ole paint. scan the internet for copyright or non-copyright images. manipulate them until they are unrecogniseable (less effort than getting permission - i'm only after the shapes, i reduce most the images to silhouettes) smash similarly treated images together. add titles, spend time finding the right font. usually takes me about four hours, using nothing but google images and ms-paint. half that time is spent looking for useable images. a couple of hours trimming, rotating, colouring and manipulating images and up to an hour on layout. You can even lift a matte out of an image in paint using a pseudo key. each poster i do is saved through multiple formats and manipulated dozens of times, my main goal is to obscure the source material and create something pre-visaged and new. i usually have 2-4 layers and end up with some 200+ intermediate files to get my finished poster (paint only has three steps of undo so you have to save every significant step). using paint in the new millenium is the equivalent of ascii art back in the 80s. it helps to have lived through the 4-/8-bit experience.
 
KhamIsk said:
it's about rolling the dice
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Arghhh, that is so much better than my logline. Mine is pretty much just a quotation from dialogue and tries too hard as a logline. This is simple, to the point and sums up each of the different layers individually and collectively. I'm taking it! If I have time I'll update the poster.
 
This is the second script of yours that I've had the pleasure to read and both of them have impressed me. You write well. I can tell that thought and craft and effort go into what you write.

I'll be honest that when you posted this thread I was less than excited by the prospect. Gambling as the game seemed tired. A man playing for his life? Seen it. But you crafted a unique take on a tired subject and I ended up enjoying it very much. Well done.

My only suggestion to you is admittedly personal preference. You might find value in it, or it could easily be ignored. I would restructure the script so that at the beginning you don't go from Alley to Milton's to Alley to Milton's. It seems like the script would flow better if when they're in the Alley the first time the Man brings the Bouncer out and they do the whole golf bit and then you introduce Milton's. That will add some more mystery to the Man, strengthen Joe's motivation to follow the man, and hook the audience more because we'll want to find out what's going on. Then you can introduce Milton's in its splendor and glory and keep us in that setting because it's fascinating. To take us away from that back to the Alley was a little disappointing.

I also question Joe's motivation when he steals the money from the Man's coat. Seems like a really gutsy and risky thing to do, but until the very end I don't see Joe as the gutsy and risky type.

Great work. Keep it up!
 
Thanks Chris. I'm glad it comes through. It means a lot that I could refresh a tired plot for you. I've been putting a great deal of work into writing more 'script-like', I'd be very interested in your opinion (and others who read Transmission) whether by comparison that work is evident in this script. I feel I've gotten about halfway to where I want to be compared to my previous entry. It still feels a little too wordy, especially compared to Keaton's work but hopefully I've taken a big step. I felt pretty good about this one when I finished.

I totally agree with your point about going back into the alley. It was done for two reasons and I realise now you've raised it that I didn't pull it off. One was to provide Joe another opportunity to leave but then the option to refuse the cane is sufficient, the other to allow Harry to deal with the body (dead or alive ambiguous). The bouncer could have been brought into Milton's and there's no reason Harry couldn't have come down the stairs to play his part. Joe had already crossed the threshold, he should not pass back over it until it's over. I'm disappointed now I didn't make that choice. A man like Joe having the opportunity to physically best the Bouncer should only be possible in the special world.

As far as Joe's motivation to follow the Man, he's supposed to be on the threshold of turning around and leaving at any moment until he picks up the dice. I also wanted the sense that he was being drawn to his fate by a force beyond what was on the screen. That while he had choices his decision was inevitable. It is symbolic of the inevitable slide to ruin of gambling and ties into a key theme.

He is a blustery man, always ready to challenge a fight but not so much to back it up. Possibly a wife beater. I was experimenting with an unsympathetic protagonist that the audience can still connect with, named Joe for the initial inspiration of Joe Slattermill (think that's his name) from the Fritz Lieber story. My Joe is much more pathetic though, lacking any notable talent, a real loser. As it is for Joe the mystery and hook for the audience is supposed to be 'who is this unseen man?' And 'what kind of filmmaker doesn't show us the main character?' I raised this in a thread while I was writing and noone could get their head around the idea of not wanting to show the character's face. Admittedly they didn't have the context available to my readers.

In answer to Joe stealing the money, he does it because he is brave behind people's backs. He's all bluster but also selfish and greedy. How could he resist? And who's going to notice a few notes off a wad half an inch thick? Of course he craps himself when he thinks he's found out, revealing his true nature. But his act of stealing is in fact the final test and the act that prompts the Man to conclude the offer.
 
I think your writing style is very good. I didn't feel that the script was wordy or overly descriptive or anything. I felt it was appropriate and never while I was reading did I think "this needs to be trimmed down." In that respect I think you're close to accomplishing what you're after than you think you are. Keaton's style works for Keaton. I mentioned this in another thread, but it's hard to balance the sparseness of a screenplay with an individual's writing style. I think you do it well.
 
I don't think I made it a secret at all when I read your last script....but, I think you're writing is really, really good.

You definitely pared your descriptive blocks down in this script compared to "Transmission" I thought they got the information across in an efficient manner. Maybe they're a tad more descriptive than some writers, but we each have our own style and nothing you wrote was so long or detailed it took me out of the story.

Chris already pointed out my main criticism and that was when they left the room below to go back up top and deal with the Bouncer. It broke the flow of the story and I was taken out of it a bit when it happened. You've already addressed this and I think you're right on about the manner in which it could be rectified.

James...I love your dialogue...it's delivers information and yet sounds very realistic. I did feel it was a bit lengthy at the end when The Man is sharing his tale with Joe, but admittedly this is a critique after a secind examination of the script, at the time of the first reading, I was just enjoying the dialogue and the picture it painted. But it might seem a tad long if it were being viewed. Though maybe not if it was accompanied by visuals.

This...Suddenly the Man jumps/is sucked into the gaming table,gone in an instant.

Does he jump or is he sucked into? It read to me like he was being sucked into the table, at least that's how I took it in the context of the story. Or was it supposed to be a combination of both? Which would imply something else.

It met the requirements. I enjoyed the story overall and liked how it enede and came back around.

Really good work!
 
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