Interesting

I had an interesting experience yesterday. Monday is my day off. I usually write all day, or do translations all day, or run errands. Yesterday the task at hand was finishing The Tempter rewrite for the producer. After I finished around 3 pm, I went back to Disfigured. I have been eager to go back to this script for a while, I guess mostly because I had to work on The Tempter, it sort was the last thing I wanted to do. What can I say, I’m a rebel at heart. If I have to do something, I’ll have to force myself to do it. The artist in me is life a spoiled child that has to be kept in check at all times.

But, I should say, going through The Tempter, I impressed myself at how good the story was. It had been a while since I had looked at it and I have to say I was pleased with myself. I have a feeling The Tempter is commercial and very much high concept. I think you’ll see that in the big screen before any other one of my scripts.

That wasn’t the strange experience I was talking about. I started working on Disfigured again. I came with this concept shot:



It helps me to have the visual inspiration to keep writing. I was afraid that the third act was going to be too short, that I didn’t have much mileage on this story anymore. But once I started writing it, I came up with stuff I had never even imagined before. This is why I like writing scenes versus outlining it. You never know what will come to you when you’re writing scenes. I can say that my writing ritual/style is very unique to myself. There’s very little structure to it, and I don’t think I’ve written two scripts the same way. Some I have outlined severely, others I have written with no outline at all.

But I digress. The interesting experience is I started writing this violent sequence in the third act, and the setting, the acts, the suffering, it all started to bother me and I finally had to call it a night. My own writing was making me squeamish. What is wrong with me? I’m not usually squeamish at all, especially if I’m creating it. It also occurred to me to change the ending of the script. I think I’m coming to terms with women and finally truly learning to love women.

This only makes sense to me right now, but once you read the script, it will make sense to you too. Right now the Alanis Morissette lyrics for the song Eight Easy Steps comes to mind. I think I finally get it.

“I'll teach you all this in 8 easy steps
A course of a lifetime you'll never forget
....
How to hate women when you're supposed to be a feminist”

The Sociopath Next Door

The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout

A great book I've been reading. A must for any writer, a very haunting read for the rest of us. You'll start to recognize people you've met out in the world and you just couldn't believe they could be so malicious.

Back on The Tempter

Yes, I'm back working on The Tempter. I had a great script meeting with the producer, and aside from hearing a Hollywood horror story that I won't repeat here, it was a very good meeting. I'm excited to get back to work. I guess long gone are the days I would turn bitter and angry when anybody told me I had to change a typo on one of my scripts.

I used to be very protective of my babies, I guess now I know the works has to be done. I agreed with all of his notes, I think that was a first too. That made me specially happy, because now I know we have a similar vision of the kind of movie we want to make.

New Food Blog

My good friend Kathy is one of the best cooks I know. She had this great idea to start a food blog. I'm a contributor, so go visit is when you can.

All Food Considered

At the risk of repeating myself

Seriously, we're out of control with the beauty obsession. This is a book for the purpose of explaining to children why their mommies are going under the knife after giving birth.

Is it me, or is there really something seriously wrong with humanity these days?



Quoting from newsweek website:

"What's the market for a children's picture book about moms getting cosmetic surgery? No one specifically tracks the number of tummy-tuck-and-breast-implant combos (or "mommy makeovers," as they're called), but according to the latest numbers from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, breast augmentation was the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure last year, with 348,000 performed (up 6 percent over 2006). Of those, about one-third were for women over 40 who often opt for implants to restore lost volume in their breasts due to aging or pregnancy weight gain. There were 148,000 tummy tucks—up 1 percent from the previous year."

At the risk of sounding like a bitter old hag

Mariah Carey was on Oprah earlier this week. This is her big comeback. She has a new album coming out, she’s lost a lot of weight, she’s back better than ever. I’m not the biggest Mariah fan but I do like her music. I won’t even get into her movie Glitter.

What bothered me was that Oprah teased the show saying that Mariah had just made history by breaking one of Elvis’ records. Big deal, right? Don’t you want to know more? Don’t you want to hear all about her journey getting there, writing songs, performing, failures and successes?



No, Oprah had to spend the first segment asking Mariah about her weight loss. We got to watch Mariah showing Oprah her kitchen and her French chef/trainer. (I was confused by the two in one too, but the same woman cooking some chicken with no butter or fat for Mariah is also telling her how to exercise!)

I pretty much checked out after a few shots of Mariah and the French lady working out and the sad little chicken pieces Mariah has to eat to keep her skinny body.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for health and weight loss. I’ve been trying myself to exercise more and eat less. But I don’t think that’s the most fascinating thing about me or Mariah. Call me crazy, Oprah, but I actually wanted to hear about the music! It is what Mariah does, isn’t it?



This is the world we live in now. We’re more interested in knowing how singers stay so pretty and skinny then to hear them sing. We’d rather give her kudos for not eating then for breaking a record and making history.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love Oprah. I just think she’s kind of feeding the image obsession by focusing so much on Mariah’s body. I guess there’s no way not to, since Mariah’s new hit single is titled “Touch My Body.”

In case you’re curious to know what the record Mariah broke was, here’s the info straight from Oprah’s website.

“In April 2008, Mariah made music history when "Touch My Body," the first single off her album E=MC² reached the top spot on the Billboard charts. With 18 number one hits, she broke the previous record set by a solo artist…the king himself, Elvis Presley. Now, she's second only to The Beatles, who had 20 chart-toppers during their heyday.”



And if you want to see how hot Mariah looks, just look up the music video for “Touch My Body,” but I’d rather you’d take a moment to think about the singers and artists out there who do use their bodies as a selling point.

Okay, I got a little preachy, I’m sorry. Mariah looks good and sounds good, but why is the first one more important then the second?

Even the fortune cookie agrees

I guess I've been focusing too much on one issue. It's so obvious even the fortune cookies know my deep dark secret. I promise once I'm done with Disfigure I'll move on.

I should be writing novels

I feel like I'm finally getting good at writing screenplays, but then I came across this blog entry on Amazon, thanks to my wonderful husband. Now I don't know what to do. I do want to make a living out of the written word. My passion for movies brought me here, but the odds are not all that great... Read the whole post here.

The Novel vs. the Screenplay (Guest Blogger: Lisa Lutz)

* If you have a completed novel and a completed screenplay, your chances of getting the novel published far exceed your chances of getting a screenplay produced.

This is an obvious statistic when you think of how many books are published every year vs. how many films are made.

* In terms of money, the scales tip in the other direction. If you have a major Hollywood film made you’re bound to make more money off the script sale than you would from a novel.

Script Notes

I'm back working on The Tempter. I just got notes from the producer. I thought it might be a good time to post notes I got from WriteMovies.Com last year.

---

THE TEMPTER
By: Julia M. Camara
Notes by: Aisleigh Sawyer
Date: 04/25/07

The premise of this screenplay is original and the story unfolds in a way that is suspenseful, unpredictable and exciting. The script’s open-ended finale leaves a lot to the audience’s imagination and provides a clever and dramatically satisfying twist to the story. The supernatural element is kept grounded in the everyday and is thus believable in the context of the story but the action and fantasy have the imaginative power to sweep an audience up into the thrill of things. There is a lot in this script to keep an audience on their toes, keep them intrigued and wanting to know what happens next: it is a compelling story that combines elements of horror, fantasy and drama to great effect.

Despite the unreal events, the story is still connected to real life – the universal themes of grief, desperation and fear are expressed via strong and emotionally deep characters whose relationships with each other are nicely developed. The central character, Debora, undergoes a significant character transformation, which adds emotional depth to the story. The characters are rendered with insight and natural dialogue that befits them, making them three-dimensional and believable. Hence, they are characters to whom an audience would relate and sympathize with. The only exception is the ‘evil villain’ John, who remains perhaps too much of a mystery. His characterization is too thin and hence he seems little more than a stereotype. Who he is, the background to what he does/what he offers and the Biblical reference that is only very briefly touched on could be fleshed out to provide a more compelling and dramatically rich backdrop. This area of the story would certainly benefit from being more highly developed.

Visually, this is an engaging piece that would work well on the screen; the supernatural and disturbing scenes are subtle enough so as not to be obtrusive but provide an interesting and stimulating spectacle. The fast pace is maintained by a tight and focused story and increases accordingly with the climatic final plot point and resolution. However, unless the story behind John is developed the story as a whole risks being too thin and too reliant simply on the momentum of events to propel it forward.

Back to Work

I have been back working on scripts since the last post, honestly! I can't say it hasn’t been on my mind and that I don’t oscillate between loving my curves and my body and skipping dinner because I just don’t want to be called fat anymore. At least I haven’t been too preoccupied with my body to write.

I’m working on two scripts at once. Retail Therapy and Disfigured. Tim just finished reading my crazy rough draft of Retail Therapy and now I’m thinking it’s almost time to work on it again.

Except Disfigured is coming so easily to me, I wonder why I ever decided to venture into comedy and black comedy. The good, old-fashioned thriller makes me so much happier. Maybe because I grew up on this genre, I feel like I know where a story like this can go.

I also have had mixed feelings from people on my writer’s group about Retail Therapy. From things like: “Being addicted to shopping is a real problem and not funny” and “People will be offended that you’re making light of a real addiction” and “Characters should not die in a comedy, even if it is a black comedy”. I brought up the Coen Brothers’ movie Intolerable Cruelty and I mostly got blank stares from people. I guess nobody has seen this movie. Go put it on your queue on netflix right now! It’s a must see.

I’ve managed to go whole three paragraphs without talking about women and their bodies! Progress… : )

Stop calling me fat

I just recently reconnected with an old friend I hadn’t talked to in years. I sent her some photos, a late Christmas card and all kinds of news about all the things I’ve been doing here in L.A. I talked about my script being optioned, the producers I’ve been meeting and where “Plastic” is as far as development and casting. (I can’t really go into much detail right here because nothing is set in stone.) After hearing all my news and seeing my pictures, her very first comment was: “How come you’ve gain so much weight?” She said it nicely and I’m sure really didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. She even went on to say that she gained a lot of weight herself.

This got me thinking that we women are so good at putting our fellow women down. Should I remind you she’s a friend? She named her youngest daughter Julia because we were so close when we were younger. I have no doubt in my mind she didn’t mean to hurt me. But, why is it that we do this to each other? I had many more exciting things happening in my life than what the scale says. I also happen to be happily married. Why does it matter that I’m a size 10? Does being a few pounds overweight really make you useless? Does that mean your voice shouldn’t count in the world? Why do we do this to ourselves? I’m sitting here not being able to concentrate on my writing because I’m thinking I should be working out.


We’ve gotten really good at sabotaging each other. It seems like no matter what you’re doing in life, other women won’t respect you unless you’re thin. Why is that? Is fat really all that awful and scary? Do we forget that we’re biologically designed to retain fat so we nourish babies?


Oh, yeah, babies. That seems to be second thing everyone wants me to do with my life. Nobody seems to care about my career, they just want to know when I’m having babies, and how come I’m so fat. I feel like I could find the cure for cancer and people would still be asking where the babies are, and how come I won’t go on a diet.



Women everywhere, I ask all of you: When are we going to stop sabotaging each other? When are we going to start celebrating each other for what we’ve accomplished with our minds and not our looks? When are we going to stop being so cruel to one another?

And people still ask why I’ve written three screenplays about women and body image.