Lesbian space alien craziness at Sundance

It was a delight to see the headline The 8 Craziest Sundance Films We Haven't Seen Yet pop up on Twitter, because #1 is Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, a documentary about playwright-turned-filmmaker Madeleine Olnek. Oh, wait, maybe it's not a documentary. Anyway, Madeleine and I used to be a writing group. It began as a proper group, but dwindled, as these things do, to a group of two. For a year or so we met every week to do automatic writing. Madeleine would set a timer and we would write for an hour. She had very strict rules: you had to bring a fast-moving pen and you were not allowed to stop writing or lift your pen from the paper until the alarm went off — even if all you could think of was "I have nothing to write. I hate writing. I am hungry." I wrote Aphrodisiac — a play in which the characters tend to speak in very long monologues — during those sessions.

P.S. Bonus interview with Madeleine (nice clip too) including this exchange:

Do you only make comedies? Do you only make films with lesbian-related content?
I only make comedies, and will only ever make comedies. I think it’s almost immoral to make a drama if you can do otherwise.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Thomas Tull, chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures, met with the dramatic writing students and their colleagues at the School of Drama recently. Working at Carnegie Mellon, where we are reminded daily that you really can achieve your childhood dreams, it was striking to meet a visionary who really has translated his lifelong passion for comic books into a career. Whether you like his blockbusters or not, I think it's hard to deny that they are powered by a genuine love for Batman, Superman, Alan Moore, and Frank Miller in a way that Hollywood's previous attempts to co-opt these characters were not. Whenever powerful film and TV people visit the School of Drama, I am surprised anew at their generosity and willingness to give a thoughtful answer to any question, from the mundane to the argumentative. Mr. Tull (not pictured) was no exception, and it was a delight to moderate a public conversation with him.

embarrassing prom photos of the 13P

If you are not on the 13P email list you should join now because you are missing hard-to-believe stuff like this video.

Whose career do you want?

A good question to ask yourself, no matter what part of the arts you work in: whose career would you like? It's a useful exercise, because to respond you not only have to be specific about your own goals, but you have to know who in your field has paved the way. (Or — thinking about it another way — who your competition is.)

Here's someone whose career I'd take — and it's available, because she just died at the age of 96. One of the writers on The Bicycle Thief among many other triumphs, Suso Cecchi d'Amico has 118 writing credits on IMDb, the first in 1946 and the last sixty years later. As I say, I'd take that.

Scientists betting on reality. No, actually betting real money on it.

If I was writing a screenplay for the Sloan Screenplay Competition sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the Public Understanding of Science (which I would be if I was a student in the dramatic writing program, and hoping to win the $20,000 prize which goes to a CMU student each year)... I might well discover a plot in this story from the Economist in which bookies actually make book on scientific discoveries and disasters. Think you know many polar bears will die this year? It's one way to make money from climate change. There's a range of bets on what the Large Hadron Collider will detect. And then there's the story that begins this way:

The story was different, though, for the fifth wager—that gravitational waves would be detected. News that the bookmaker was offering 500/1 against this happening spread rapidly among the small group of physicists and astronomers searching for such waves.

Did you hear the one about the Polish actress?

The recession has given the movie studios a reason — or an excuse, depending on the perspective — to adjust in their favor how they employ screenwriters.

When screenwriters do get a shot at work, they are increasingly subject to "sweepstakes pitching," in which as many as a dozen are pitted against one another, with producers picking the one they like best.

Or writers are often paid only for the first draft of the script in "one-step deals," and no longer offered a fee for subsequent drafts, as in the past. Writers also are expected to produce elaborate outlines of the script before they are hired for the project, losing valuable time if they are not selected.

Los Angeles Times, 7/2/10