Writing and Directing Drama

Within this 'Steve McQueen' play I have got some ideas as to who this person is and where they are. 

One of my main ideas is that the main character is a man who is a boaster and I believe that he is making this story up and I believe he is making it up because of who he is.  He is a down and out character who is just barely getting by in his work. , which I would say is an estate agency.  I then thought of writing down shots of him at his workplace with other younger workers talking about him, or a younger manager shouting at him.  I then believe that he could then deliver his story within a crummy bar where he is possibly trying to seduce a woman by telling this story about his meeting with Steve McQueen.  And since he works in an estate agency, his story is very believable since he is naturally a good talker.  But I can envision him not succeeding in talking with this woman which therefore makes his character more tragic.  This character that I have in my head is quite like Jack Lemmon's character Shelley Levene in the movie "Glengarry Glen Ross" which was written by David Mamet.

"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out"

                                            Alfred Hitchcock

 

Writing and Directing Drama

For an assigment I am going to write and possibly direct a screenplay based on a short play by David Mamet.  I'll let you see the writings of David Mamet which this specific one is simply called 'Steve McQueen':


...well, I'm from Hawaii - I met him when he was at the Kalona Mar, he was there two months.
He wasn't well. You Know. We'd talk... we got to talking motorcycles. He asked if he could borrow my bike, I said of course.  He got to taking it out every day.  He was registered there as "McGuire". He was keeping a low profile, you know? But after a week or two, you know, I think that he was lonely. I'd see him aound the pool. He must have seen me one morning coming to work on my bike, becasue he asked me about it: How was it riding, something; and we started talking about bikes. He had at that time over one hundred bikes in his collection... I don't know where they were.. in the states.
You know, The Great Escape...? He did those stunts himself. You know where he jumps the barb wire? He did that himself - though it wasn't barb wire.
He found out that I was into martial arts and we took to sparring. He was in great shape - even though his disease - he was strong as a horse at the time. A fifty-sixty-minute workout was nothing to him. I'll tell you something else is he would drink a case of beer a day. Twenty-four beers a day. Lowenbrau. I know becasue I used to bring them to him. And smoke like a chimney. I guess he was just one of those men who are blessed with a completely perfect constitution. Though he was in great pain. I know that he was.
 Indians...Harleys...Nortons... he had all of them. Did you know on the old Indian the oil used to go through the frame? It flowed through the frame.  You know the stunt on The Great Escape where they get the bike? The German motorcycle rider's coming down the road, they stretch a wire...? They had the greatest motorcycle rider in the world... Rusty, something... Rusty... they told him "Just drive down the road". They told him, "Be ready for anything." That's why it's so authentic. He runs into that wire...? He didn't know it was there.  They did it in one take. (Pause)
I met his son. (Pause) At that time he was training as a flight instructor. I stayed at his house in Malibu. Three Days.

                                                                                                                        
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
                                                                                                        
                                                                                                        Charlie Chaplin

Performing Comedy (The Hardest of all Genre's)

This Video is a short film entitled 'The Red Balloon' (1956) which centres on a balloon which follows a litle boy around Paris.  This in my opinion is the greatest short film I have seen and it is a perfect example of the use of an object in cinema.  I would like to say how the director managed to get the balloon to follow the child, but I don't know how he and his crew did it, and to be honest, I don't want to know, it would ruin the magic of this wonderful film.

"Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke"

                                                                                              Steve Martin

Performing Comedy (The Hardest of all Genre's)

Within this short comedy 'Rupture' I learned the true meaning of using everyday objects as comedy, which was a great inspiration for me.  All of Pierre Etaix's films are a must see for any movie fan.  Currently I am in pre-production for my own physical comedy which Pierre Etaix is a major inspiration, as well as Jacques Tati which I will discuss in the future.  

“Life doesn't make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy's job is to point out that it doesn't make sense, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.”

                                                                                                                             Eric Idle

Performing Comedy (The Hardest of all Genre's)

While writing comedy requires a lot of creative and intuitive thought, it is also very difficult for performers to act out the screenplay, especially if physical action is required and even more so when it comes to physical comedy.  The above video is again 'Duck Soup' (1993) which shows the famous mirror scene.  If the Marx brothers hadn't repeated this sketch over and over again in there vaudeville days, then this sketch would have taken months of training to perfect.  This scene truly shows how so much physical training is required to make people laugh.  And the Marx Brothers act out this scene so well, that it is one of the greatest scenes of comedy history.

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger.  Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
                                                                                                         Mel Brooks    

Writing Comedy (The Hardest of all Genre's)

http://sfy.ru/?script=duck_soup

The link above will take you to a website which shows you an early draft of one of the greatest comedies of all time, 'Duck Soup' (1933).  When looking at this screenplay, I found out that it is extremely detailed on almost every single movement that the Marx's brothers make within the film.
From reading this screenplay, I learnt that to write a physical or slapstick comedy, one must go into agonising detail to describe each individual action, no matter how small.
And even though Groucho Marx was, in my opinion, the funniest man that has ever lived, Jack Ruby did right all of his dialogue for this motion picture...

"Humour heightens our sense of survival and preserves our sanity"
                                                                       Charlie Chaplin

The Beginning of the Beginning

Hello my name is Peter Moir and I am an independent filmmaker.  I would classify myself as a Director but I also have skills in various other fields of the media e.g. Photography, Producer, Editor, Cinematographer, Lighting, Set Building, Scriptwriting, and Screenplays.
I would eventually like to direct feature length motion pictures of any genre but I have always had a love affair with the 'Western' genre.  I also am very interested in acting and it's craft and I also hope to become an actor.  Within this blog I will discuss the various projects that I have done and the future projects that I will be completing with a brief on the history of cinema.

"Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling".
                                                                                                   Stanley Kubrick