Kit Anderson

THE TRAVELER – SELF PORTRAIT – 00

January 12, 2010 · Leave a Comment

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Riding On Lifts

December 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Mark Twain once said,

Every character he ever wrote,

Was a soul he met on a riverboat;

As for me,

And the characters I  know,

I met them all,

–Riding on lifts blinded by snow.

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Ten Keys to Writing a Salable Screenplay

December 10, 2009 · 6 Comments

  1. Start with the title. – The first exposure anyone else will ever have to your story is the title; therefore, you may want to consider starting there yourself, especially given today’s keyword culture and infinite movie databases. Let the title give birth to a poster; which is the visual metaphor to define your story and introduce the conflict. Craft a good tag-line to introduce your theme. Now you’re thinking like a producer, and those are the guys who sign the checks. If you can’t imagine a good title, picture a good movie poster, or think of a tag-line… Stop now. Don’t write a screenplay. Words and pictures are the vocabulary of cinema. If you can’t think of a combination that’ll get you excited–save yourself the cost of an abortion–don’t let that bastard premise out of your notebook.
  2. Use word pictures, not words. – Show. Do not tell. Remember, it’s a screenplay. People call them scripts, but that word includes a lot of stuff. This is a screenplay. It will play on a screen. Screens use pictures to talk. This is the vocabulary you have chosen. Respect it. Word pictures are not about the words, but about the images they foster in our imaginations. If an author chooses words the audience is unfamiliar with, the audience is reminded they are reading. Eliminate this. Use the journalists vocabulary that Hemingway favored. Let people get lost in your story, not the vocabulary you’ve cultivated since being bottle-fed on Berenstain Bears books.
  3. There is no camera. – You are a writer. Put down the camera. Focus on creating word pictures to be photographed. Inspire people to make the movie, don’t tell them what it is.
  4. Do not use adverbs and gerunds. – Keep the story sharp and snappy. Get in. Get out. Screenplays sell ideas to people who make movies. Activate their imaginations. Don’t waste their time. There is no use or time for modifiers and passive voices. Don’t get weighed down with grammar–simply try avoiding the “ly” or “ing”. Problem solved.
  5. Plays use Acts, while movies use Sequences. – The Beginning, the Middle, and the End; are not synonymous with Act I, Act II, Act III. There are no curtains in movies. There are reel changes. Write for the medium. Pull up the scene selection menu on a DVD and tell me where it lists the acts. Okay. Now, tell me where this scene selection menu actually lists the scenes. It doesn’t. Those chapters are sequences, and there’s probably 18-21 of them. To create a beginning-middle-end, divide by the number three.
  6. Cliches kill, but archetypes are immortal. - Both occur often, or are–at the very least–consistently recurrent; therefore, what is the distinction between the two? Simple. One is boring. Don’t be that guy.
  7. Details–fire for effect only. - If you need to know all the details, write a novel. If you need to see them all, direct the movie. Screenplays don’t have the time or space for details, but our definitions of reality are very closely tied to them, and a story loses a sense of authenticity without them; therefore–details are important. Indeed, the details in a screenplay are analogous to salt in cooking–and should be used accordingly. Writer beware!
  8. If you’re not cutting gold, the whole thing is shit. - David Mamet likes to cut the best scene from each of his screenplays, but he’s a pussy. This shit is pass/fail and it’s a crazy-competitive market. In every screenplay, there needs to be enough ideas for five movies. If you can’t fill the space, the idea is vacant.
  9. The reader is smarter than you, but only knows what you’ve revealed. - Respect! Until they understand you, no one knows what you’re talking about. No one has to listen to you. Everyone is busy. Take responsibility for the reader’s experience. You will be rewarded.
  10. Make them laugh, and all will be forgiven.

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Action Has Freed Me From Self-consciousness

November 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A selection from “Jupiter’s Travels; Four Years Around The World On a Triumph” by Ted Simon

The train rattles on through beer, supper, songs, sleep, tea and English breakfast. In the oval engraved mirror of a colonial dining car I actually take notice of my face for the first time in a long while. Action has freed me from self-consciousness, and I am becoming a stranger to my own appearance. It is a very satisfying feeling. I no longer think of people seeing me as I see myself in a mirror. Instead I imagine that people can see directly into my soul. It is as though a screen between me and the world has dropped away.

If you have not been exposed to this book, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Get it. Read it. Then apply to become my friend once more. T.F.C.O.

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Mass Embroidery’s First Job

November 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Mass Embroidery's First Job

Mass Embroidery's First Job

Mr. Stewart Gray and myself have acquired an embroidery shop. If you would like a customized quote (we do jobs of all sizes) just drop me a line here.

Please excuse the quality of the photograph. My camera phone is very hard to hold still after nine cups of coffee. Thank god Stewart has a steady hand!

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Why Make Another Gapers Gone Wild Movie

November 7, 2009 · Leave a Comment

The original “Gapers Gone Wild: Gapers In Paradise”…
…wanted to be cool.
…had shitty production value.
…didn’t know what it was shooting for, until it was in the can.
…didn’t have enough Random Bob or Mr. Mooyagi.
…had moments trying to be other ski movies.
…was a student film.
…didn’t have a barcode and was never promoted properly.
…got too serious.
…didn’t have enough duct-tape.

But “Gapers Gone Wild: HD Extremery”…
…doesn’t know what cool is.
…has solid production value.
…tells a story.
…features Random Bob and Mr. Mooyagi.
…is its own movie.
…is made by professionals with kick-ass resumes.
…has a barcode and marketing campaign.
…punches serious in the throat.
…is made entirely of duct-tape.

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The dregs of innocence, the last scrap of reticence. C’est dit!

November 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A selection from “A Season In Hell” by Rimbaud

Foreign parts are out. I’ll head for the roads round here again, saddled with my vice – the vice that took painful root in my side when I grew up . . . it rakes the sky, batters me, flattens me, drags me on.

The dregs of innocence, the last scrap of reticence. It’s on record. I refuse to carry my loathings and betrayals into the world.

All right then. The slog, the backpack, the desert, tedium and anger.

Who shall I sign up with? Which brute shall I worship? What holy image shall I desecrate? Whose hearts shall I break? What lie shall I espouse? Whose blood shall I trample?

Better to steer clear of the law. – The hard life; pure, mindless drudgery – raise the coffin lid with a shrivelled hand, settle in and expire. That way no growing old, no risks run: terror is unknown to the French.

- Ah but I’m so desolate, I’ll dedicate my drive for perfection to the first divine image that happens along.

What self-denial! What consummate charity! Still stuck here, even so!

De profundis Domine, how foolish can you get?

Read the rest of Rimbaud’s groundbreaking work “A Season In Hell“

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The Web as Random Acts of Kindness

October 9, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Feeling like the world is becoming less friendly? Social theorist Jonathan Zittrain begs to difffer. The Internet, he suggests, is made up of millions of disinterested acts of kindness, curiosity and trust.

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The Archer and The Ram

August 22, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I do hate shooting stars,
And the slow sweet taste,
– I cannot embrace;
Through cast iron bars,
Thrown down by tradition,
With little permission,
Or thought given to,
– The nature of you,
Or the nature of stars.
So, put a bullet on the moon.
Do paint pale this wound,
With ricochet scars,
– To remind us we are,
– Fireflies in mason jars.

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