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+ Show Spoiler +On March 26 2013 17:17 Shady Sands wrote:
I was going to make some awesome irrelevant post in here to get the ban, but having tasted the short end (or infinitely long, if that makes sense) of that stick before, I don't want to mess up my mod history. Requesting two weeks off, thanks =)
EDIT: my last post for two weeks is going to be about tasting a long stick =S
User was temp banned for this post.
Banned myself for two weeks to
-- Better focus on work
-- Polish up a pair of script proposals/pick up the art of screenwriting
The Beijing International Screenwriting Competition just closed. The reqs were that you:- Had to set your script proposal in Beijing
- Had to write your script in English
- Had to live in the US
- Had to be willing to travel to China if you won
Yeah. Add in the fact that they only wanted 5-11 page script proposals, no entry fee, and that you could submit as many as you wanted... and I was like YES SIGN ME UP PL0X
Step 1: Learn how to write scripts from the masters
LA Confidential
Twelve Monkeys
The Godfather
The Graduate
Chinatown
Annie Hall
Step 2: Come up with some concepts
DOPPELGANGER (分身术): Girl who grows up with a single dad goes overseas for school. Her father dies - but she quickly finds out her dad is actually two twins and they've both been working like a slave to support her education. She decides to come back to Beijing to confront him.
ADONIS (数字男): Highly educated 'leftover woman' programs a software program to be the perfect digital boyfriend, since no guys in society satisfy her. The trouble is, the "Manbot" begins to learn about love, and the more he learns, the more she likes him and the less he likes her. Can a robot teach an ice queen that there's more to love than perfection?
TOMB OF THE PRINCESS (公主坟): A Chinese-American undergrad interning in a large Beijing bank falls for the bank president’s daughter. Over the course of two months, he tries proving he can offer something to a girl who seems to have everything.
PLASTIC (整形): Construction supervisor kills a girl and her child via criminal neglect in his latest development project. When his wife spends the money he got from said neglect on plastic surgery and comes back looking exactly like the girl who died, can he confront the truth and be honest before his marriage and sanity unravel? Will his wife understand? Will society forgive?
Then I phoned my grandpa for an initial filter, since he worked in the Ministry of Culture in the 80s/90s and keeps in touch with the guys there. I figure he has a pretty decent pulse on how these guys think. His response after hearing the ideas was amusing:
The city government's backing the competition. These scripts are going to piss them off. Tone it down.
And so I struck out Adonis and Plastic.
That left Doppelganger and Tomb of the Princess as choices. Even though the city government was backing the competition, I wanted to make sure the idea was appropriate for the venue. Doppelganger sounded to art-housey to me, so I ended up going with Tomb of the Princess. Standard romcom fare - plus it matched with my own experiences in Beijing Blues well enough, so I wouldn't have to work very hard to conjure up the scenes. Time to write the full synopsis.
FULL SYNOPSIS: Justin Tai is a Chinese-American undergraduate interning in a large Beijing bank, who falls for the bank president’s daughter, Weng Huilan. He takes her on a date to the National Grand Theatre using tickets borrowed from a classmate interning there, and narrowly makes it to her home near Gongzhufen subway station before her curfew.
The next day, the bank president, Weng Yikun, asks him how much money he’s spending on Huilan, knowing full well that Justin doesn’t make enough as an intern to spend very much. Justin doesn’t know how to answer the question, so Yikun decides to set up a test: he tells Justin that Huilan’s birthday is approaching in just over a month, and he should host a surprise party for her at Vics, a nightclub far beyond Justin’s income range.
To pass the test, Justin gets a second job tutoring Business English, which quickly turns into a series of one-on-one therapy sessions for stressed-out Beijing professionals, including two students introduced by Huilan: a beautiful, older, PR consultant named Ting, and a single investment banker named Mao who makes constant visits to his three-year-old ‘niece’. Ting is unhappily engaged, and takes it out on Justin by relentlessly pursuing him. Since Justin needs the money, he keeps teaching Ting regardless, but avoids any romantic entanglements. Mao offers Justin a post-college job if he keeps secret the existence of his niece. Justin, eager to stay in Beijing after graduation, agrees.
In the meantime, Huilan grows increasingly suspicious of Justin’s relationship with Ting. To calm Huilan down and deflect Ting’s loneliness, Justin introduces Ting to Mao, taking the two of them, as well as Huilan, to a double date. All seems well, but the following week, Ting discovers Mao’s niece is a child from a previous marriage and Mao discovers Ting is engaged. Both are highly offended and stop interacting with Justin.
Out of options, Justin meets to tell Huilan the truth: that he’s too poor for her, and, furthermore, is unlikely to be working in Beijing after graduation. Huilan reveals that Ting and Mao were her friends, and they’ve told her everything Justin has done. She then calls her father, who writes Justin a large check for Huilan’s birthday and tells Justin to repay it by continuing to take care of her. Justin and Huilan meet in Beijing after graduation; the film concludes with a shot of Justin and Huilan ice skating in Houhai.
Quick check for the components of a successful entry:
Nice happy ending - check
Loads of Beijing glamour shots - check
A somewhat sympathetic protagonist - check
An excuse for onscreen sexual tension between young attractive people - check
At this point, though, the entry felt a little shallow. I was in a rut. What to do?
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2
  
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you can ban urself, but I can't 5 star my own blogs.
coming up with concepts is hard work. I'm glad you put your hiatus to good use
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On April 09 2013 10:00 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
you can ban urself, but I can't 5 star my own blogs.
=/ should petition R1CH about that =D
coming up with concepts is hard work. I'm glad you put your hiatus to good use
Thanks!
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Please do :D
I liked Adonis the best, but its smart to consider to base your script on who you sending it to.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On April 09 2013 10:00 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
you can ban urself, but I can't 5 star my own blogs.
that would be nice ... and awkward lol. Of course, I'm gonna 5 star my own blog XD
Good ideas. The Doppelganger seems to be overdone though. I think Adonis is definitely a nice one, would be interesting the direction you would've had to take with it though. I think it might've actually become really difficult for you tbh. I mean, let's say that the program starts to dislike her, what's next? Is the program going to tell her that? How will it show her that there is more beyond perfection? After all, isn't perfection(of all types) what we humans aim for in all of our daily activities? Definitely the most interesting idea imo but Tomb Of The Princess would be easier to write based on your Beijing Blues. BTW, you never finished writing part 6 last I checked  As for Plastic, I think it would've been a wtf, unexpected twist lol. I think it would've been difficult hard to pull off as in how will his wife have a similar appearance to the women he killed? Did she just see her face in some magazine? Is it random? etc...
I will star this 4/5* unless part 6 of Beijing Blues makes a mysterious appearance :D
*will give you a grace period 
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Aww I thought Plastic actually sounded like a super interesting story. That plot twist would be very twisty if done well.
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Oh no! I hope this means the last project hasn't been discarded half way through
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Adonis and Plastic both sound very much like episodes of The Outer Limits, was that what you were going for? Maybe I'm just rooted in sci-fi. Good luck either way 
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Adonis intrigued me the most as well Sad to see it go. Pretty interesting story!
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I like the concepts, but all the scripts sound very sci-fi, I notice that a lot of screen writing is at it's most artistic when the work relates to real world concepts using the abstract. As much as you have the glitz and glam checked off, I think real world implications (not like animal farm level allegories, but you know what I mean) really do make a story. Just my $.02
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On April 09 2013 23:02 docvoc wrote:
I like the concepts, but all the scripts sound very sci-fi, I notice that a lot of screen writing is at it's most artistic when the work relates to real world concepts using the abstract. As much as you have the glitz and glam checked off, I think real world implications (not like animal farm level allegories, but you know what I mean) really do make a story. Just my $.02
The only sci-fi element I can see (vaguely) is in ADONIS, and that's not far off from being reality, lol. I see a few twists. You really have to take into account the audience he is writing these for. His summary of execution at the bottom identifies the elements which the BISC wants to see, and his conversations with his grandfather show recognition of what they want to avoid - deeper social/cultural questions and those pertaining to human nature. DOPPELGANGER, ADONIS and PLASTIC all ask these sorts of questions.
So, it is only natural that he chose to go with the shallowest of these concepts - it takes a lot of work to plant the leads to deeper questions without said questions being invasive/overwhelming.
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Im glad you are back, i was wondering.. where are the shady blogs? its been a while T_T
Plastic idea was sick! i hope you find time to write something of this.
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I came here expecting some perl or python or C scripts. And was confused not to see code anywhere. Been working too much lately..
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On April 09 2013 13:37 BigFan wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 10:00 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
you can ban urself, but I can't 5 star my own blogs. that would be nice ... and awkward lol. Of course, I'm gonna 5 star my own blog XD Good ideas. The Doppelganger seems to be overdone though. I think Adonis is definitely a nice one, would be interesting the direction you would've had to take with it though. I think it might've actually become really difficult for you tbh. I mean, let's say that the program starts to dislike her, what's next? Is the program going to tell her that? How will it show her that there is more beyond perfection? After all, isn't perfection(of all types) what we humans aim for in all of our daily activities? Definitely the most interesting idea imo but Tomb Of The Princess would be easier to write based on your Beijing Blues. BTW, you never finished writing part 6 last I checked As for Plastic, I think it would've been a wtf, unexpected twist lol. I think it would've been difficult hard to pull off as in how will his wife have a similar appearance to the women he killed? Did she just see her face in some magazine? Is it random? etc... I will star this 4/5* unless part 6 of Beijing Blues makes a mysterious appearance :D *will give you a grace period
Beijing Blues... sigh I promise promise promise I will get to it after I finish 2023. (About 6 more parts to get through for 2023)
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On April 09 2013 19:55 FFW_Rude wrote:
But i liked Adonis !!!
I do too. Out of all the ideas up there, it was my favorite - but it's not the right one for this competition.
Maybe if I do well here, I can pitch Adonis to a somebody in the Chinese movie scene...
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On April 10 2013 00:12 Qwyn wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 23:02 docvoc wrote:
I like the concepts, but all the scripts sound very sci-fi, I notice that a lot of screen writing is at it's most artistic when the work relates to real world concepts using the abstract. As much as you have the glitz and glam checked off, I think real world implications (not like animal farm level allegories, but you know what I mean) really do make a story. Just my $.02 The only sci-fi element I can see (vaguely) is in ADONIS, and that's not far off from being reality, lol. I see a few twists. You really have to take into account the audience he is writing these for. His summary of execution at the bottom identifies the elements which the BISC wants to see, and his conversations with his grandfather show recognition of what they want to avoid - deeper social/cultural questions and those pertaining to human nature. DOPPELGANGER, ADONIS and PLASTIC all ask these sorts of questions. So, it is only natural that he chose to go with the shallowest of these concepts - it takes a lot of work to plant the leads to deeper questions without said questions being invasive/overwhelming.
This. This is something I think Chinese cinema has historically had trouble with.
I came up with two other scripts that I rejected prima facie - American Bromide/美联溴 (a retelling of the 2001 storyline in the 2023 novella) and First, Do No Harm/勿害为先 (a medical drama involving organ trafficking and the last honest cop in Beijing.)
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Thumbs up for Adonis too.
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lol tasting long sticks, ya know nobody woulda noticed if u hadnt pionted it out
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i like the synopsis, for the 4 reasons you provided lol. it may turn out to be cheesy and sappy, but it also has potential to be a heartwarmer that can make people feel nice and fuzzy inside. hmm sorta like my sassy girl, if you've seen that.
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EPT
