Movies/Scripts
Review of my graduate script rewriting as a stage play
An Assessment by Poet and Playwright, Lynda Chanwai-Earle of Notes on a Film, previously a graduate manuscript now being reworked as a stage play:
Okay, (Reno) is an intellectual risk taker, no doubt about it. He deliberately defies the format requested for this feature-length film script assignment and writes outside the square. He’s a rebellious writer, anarchistic and defiant to the end. So, what’s the central question raised by this work? What exactly is the point of his piece? Honestly, I’m not sure if I can answer that within this assessment. This 'script' reads like a sharply observed, fiercely intelligent, densely layered, yet arguably barely cohesive thesis. The very premise (audacious as it is) on which he bases this piece of writing, is arguable. It felt like an emotionally charged, philosophical discussion in the extreme, about the crafting of storytelling through film 'script writing' to be precise. It reads like Hal/Reno’s bleakly humored, self-aggrandizing intellectual critique on the foundations and processes of scriptwriting itself.
The piece starts in BLACK (funny that). Reno has written in a richly layered prose-like style, in the present tense, mostly third person, with characters and sporadically, with dialogue. Up until ‘Dystopia’ I follow these internalized monologues with their basic storylines as I would read prose. Reno’s descriptive language is vivid and complex. His novel contains morbidly precise, detailed action with some sequences (the orangutan and the red monkey get the most action in the first part). His perfectly formatted short film script contained at the end of the whole piece, ironically titled ‘Dystopia’ is a kind of philosophical argument about why we could never attain Utopia (n-imaginary place with the perfect social and political system, Oxford Concise). And Reno gives us Hal Frunde, a central protagonist with whom we struggle to empathize, as well as a host of other characters including, rather humorously, the unfortunate Mr. Desmond (Des) Harper, the scriptwriting teacher whom Hal dislikes and has an uneasy and competitive alpha male relationship with.
The Golden Script Festival review of my screenplay: My Thumb
MY THUMB – The Golden Script Review The authorship theory states that a film should reflect the filmmaker's vision and mind throughout the choices they make, even regarding the minor details. In addition, a director must exhibit recurring characteristics of distinctive style that would serve as their signature. As actual authorship films are rare to find, we are happy to be given a chance to review such an original film as My Thumb by all aspects of dramaturgy and the aesthetics within. My Thumb is a short feature-length script that opens with a rural road in New Zealand. Abe is a hitchhiker in his twenties who comes across a van in which are Mileene and Anderson. Mileene has stolen the Volkswagen van, and Anderson is excited to welcome Abe on their adventure. Afterward, the story moves to the Emersons and their family night that is being disrupted by Amanda, a furious woman holding a shotgun and ready to wreak havoc. In-between the two isolated storylines come Gem Marinolde, a teenager who explores sex, drugs abuse and alienation with the help of a striking woman named Fairnighl. My Thumb is one of those rare and most unique and captivating scripts that one could come across in their dramatist careers. The first thing to notice is the stunning style over substance dimension. The plot is secondary or tertiary at the very least, and it takes only a couple of pages to realize that. The writer has prepared a whole new world for us to experience, and all we need to do is sit back and enjoy the ride. The story starts with Abe, Mileene and Anderson. There is a certain foreshadowing that My Thumb is set to become a road trip story, but the indication is a red herring at its very best. The narrative goes to two other places; Gem, who will meet the trio at one point, and Kent, who will stay as a minor character until the end. Gem’s storyline indulges the flashbacks, and as soon as the story hits the second act, it concentrates entirely on Fairnighl and her. The writer's solid and authentic narrative voice could be seen in many things, starting with the play with time and space. The storytelling jumps forward and backward, and it doesn’t want to pay special attention to the passage of time and space identity. The audience is left to perceive the dimensions differently, reflecting their life experience upon the film and its heroes and heroines. The writer gives a reference to Lynch at one point, when there is a question of the fake movie that plays in Fairnighl’s apartment.
