I’ve been really sick for the last three days (cold, flu, whatever), and so I’ve been watching a ton of movies I PVR’d off the movie channels.

It’s taught me a fair amount about movie making.

1) On Golden Pond is based on a play that was adapted for the screen by the actual playwright. This leads to a movie that is massively heavy on dialogue. All telling, no showing. Andy and I have spoken about too much dialogue in a movie, and I never really got what he meant until I saw this movie. I mean, the dialogue smokes (I suppose), but modern films will show much more with images.

2) I’m watching Quarantine right now. The zombie movie is generally the first genre movie attempted by the low budget genre filmmaker because zombies are a cheap monster to make, and the makeup effects are well understood. Found footage is another way that independent filmmakers compensate for shitty equipment–”Yah, it’s SUPPOSED to look shitty because random people don’t have the money to buy Hollywood cameras.” Seeing a major studio do a found footage zombie movie with real actors and shit feels wrong. I mean, they do a good job, but it’s hard enough to make an independent film, and it only gets harder when Hollywood raises the bar like this. I’m not really advocating cordoning off certain areas of filmmaking for low-budget “film ghettos”, but I AM saying that Hollywood should make movies no one else is capable of making, not simply better versions of cheap movies. (And, yeah, I know this is a shot-by-shot remake of a cheap Spanish independent flick. That makes it worse, not better.).

Also a reason why word of Joss Whedon’s “Cabin in the Woods” film is disappointing. The “Cabin in the Woods” is the domain of the low budget horror. Evil Dead, Cabin Fever, Bag Head, Eden Lake (no cabin, but plenty of woods)… I could go on and on. Intersect is set at a cabin in the woods, with a big, big, big caveat of course. This is because it’s a controlled environment that you can usually get for cheap from a relative or friend for weeks at a time. To see a filmmaker of Whedon’s calibre using the setting just makes it tougher for the rest of us.

As my friend Andrew LeBlanc says, the trick about independent filmmaking is not to make a shittier version of a film your audience has already seen. My second script was like that. A romantic comedy and a road movie, I think it had a certain charm, but cast say, Owen Wilson in it, and it gets drastically better. Which means that I’m competing with Owen Wilson movies.

Instead, I decided to make a movie only I could make. The tentative title is “Intersect”. Obviously, it’s not a zombie movie.

3) I watched “The Brothers Bloom” recently. The writing in the movie was absolutely wonderful, but the ending was a let down. I would recommend the film though, because its director, Rian Johnson, is followed pretty much the same path as I aim to into film making–that of the storyteller.

In my admittedly uninformed opinion currently there are three paths to success for the young director:

1) Work your way up. Graduate from film school, work 5-10 years in the industry, eventually get a shot. Alternatively, direct music videos, make short films, eventually get a shot.

2) Be a SFX wizard. Neil Blomkampf (Live from Joberg), Carl Erik Rinsch (The Gift) both followed this path. Being a great storyteller helps here too, but if you impress enough with your short film, you can get hired to direct and have someone else write the movie.

3) Blow people away with your storytelling. Rian Johnson’s first feature won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of vision at Sundance, and the Brothers Bloom is a smoking script (aside from the ending). “Primer” also succeeded for this reason.

Obviously, it’s this third path that I’m aiming for, and I think Intersect is going to do it for me. The script is fully plotted, over 2/3rds written, and I’m in the process of locking down cast, location, and props. I can’t wait to get started.

Oh god. Quarantine. It’s a zombie movie. The characters are aware of this. There’s a little girl, clearly a zombie, and the cop goes up to her all calm and reassuring. “Hey little girl who couldn’t possibly be a zombie even though she’s bleeding from the eyes, everything’s going to be okay! Just stay calm while I get real close.” Also, why does the camera man never say anything and continues to film when his life is in danger? Put the camera down and save your own life, man! There’s hundreds of people involved in the process of filmmaking. Why does no one ask these kinds of questions?

So, yeah, I’ll be at VCon tomorrow in the morning and afternoon. If you’ll be there too, I’ll be the dorky guy who likes sci-fi and video games. You can’t miss me.  Seriously, though, i’ll be checking e-mail all day due to the wonder that is the iPhone. So e-mail me and I’ll come say hi!

For everyone else, this is 100 YouTube hits in four minutes. How many do you recognize?

Tags: Awesomeness, Cons

I was recently interviewed by the lovely and talented Silvia Moreno-Garcia over at Innsmouth Free Press regarding my stint at Clarion West and Writers of the Future. I was extremely pleased to do the interview, first off because Silvia’s a friend, and a fellow Vancouverite, but also because I’m excited by the concept behind Innsmouth Free Press.

From their website:

Innsmouth Free Press is a fictional newspaper publishing faux news in a Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos universe, as well as original short fiction stories. We also feature some of Lovecraft’s classic tales.

My own fiction has, of late, been inspired by the Lovecraftian Mythos. It feels like a rejection of the popular “god as just a dude with super powers” theme that’s emerged recently. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read my share of Forgotten Realms/Dragonlance novels and loved them, but if you want to write outside of media fiction, you should steer clear of their ideas too, and the “gods as suped-up characters” is really their thing.

To Lovecraft, gods and demons were alien to our universe, and thus, by definition, beyond comprehension. The divine beings who show up in my fiction are closer to the one described in Nancy Kress’ award winning short story “Trinity” than an old guy in a beard–that is to say, creatures of such immense power that we are as beyond Their notice as an ant is to us. Or an amoeba.

Innsmouth has also been publishing some of my favourite spec fic personalities, from Campbell Award Winner Mary Robinette Kowal in their latest issue, to editor/writer Nick Mamatas in their debut. With such big names anchoring each issue, expect great things from this little magazine.

Tags: Innsmouth Free Press, Interviews

I wrote a posting called “Lame Responses to Rejected Stories” a couple of days ago that has caused way more angst than I expected from a 102 word posting. The problem arose from my choice of articles to which to link.

First, a little framing.

Nick Mamatas used to be the slush editor at Clarkesworld Magazine, one of the highest paying, and in my opinion, most literary of the pro magazines. It’s been one of my top markets to submit to for quite some time, and guided much of my professional development as a writer. Nick used to give personal and detailed feedback to every single submission, which was one of the main reasons I subbed to it.

Upon receiving one particularly positive rejection, I started a thread on SFReader “bragging” about it, since I felt like I was getting close to cracking the market. The thread quickly evolved from “congrats on the positive feedback” to “your feedback was much more positive than mine” to “Mamatas is a jerk”.

Several writers shared particularly caustic remarks that Nick had made about their stories and writing in general, and then in response to a posting where I said that I thought Jeff Vandermeer’s “Third Bear” was an excellent tale, Chris wrote this:

it seems like you’re saying that since he was a World Fantasy Award winner he wrote a great tale and it was accepted by Clarkesworld. I have a different take on it–I think that because he is a World Fantasy Award winner, that got his mediocre tale into Clarkesworld. I seriously doubt if a no-name submitted this story it would have been accepted

Nick Mamatas had been following the thread, or it might have come to him through a Google Alert or whatever, but he commented on his blog:

I enjoyed this thread about me, especially the thirteenth item, which complains about my acquisition practices by complaining about two stories I did not acquire — Sean Wallace acquires for the “prominent author” slot. Also hot, a later item in which it is declared that the story in question was only acquired because the author and I are friends. Finally, we get to the bit where someone says, inevitably, “I seriously doubt if a no-name submitted this story it would have been accepted…”

That’s probably where it should have ended. Mamatas is a guy who you tangle with at your own peril. Witness his dismantling of Luke Jackson, the guy who posted the rejection letter he received from Helix that sparked the whole William Sanders controversy, AND his dismantling of Sanders in the same controversy. Yeah, that’s right, he took apart two of the major players in the same controversy. I could post several more links where he has exposed hypocrisy or hidden biases quite definitively, but let’s just say he’s the Zorro of verbal sparring and leave it at that.

Chris ended up taking on Mamatas, and the results weren’t very flattering for anyone, as you can see from the link.

When I wrote my posting and wanted to link to an example of Mamatas’ zeal for verbal sparring and lack of filtering, I recalled that thread and found the link. I most certainly did NOT link to it to hurt Chris in any way, who is a writer I’ve known from SFReader for years. Once again, I linked to it to illustrate “Going Mamatas on someone”, and not to state that Chris’ response to a rejection was lame.

HOWEVER, as a result of my linking to that article, someone added an anonymous comment to that thread attacking Nick, who, as you might have guessed, is a dude I greatly admire. Anonymous comments are just cowardly. It’s worse than gossiping behind someone’s back, because it’s very public. Seriously, if you have something to say to someone, either have some balls and sign your name to it, or keep your mouth shut. End of story.

After all, Chris might have posted anonymously, but in the text of his comments, he identified himself. Chris is a writer who has balls. And you have to respect that.

Tags: Christopher Heath, Nick Mamatas, Rants

This… this defies imagination. There are six pages of people laughing at this poor guy. At least he’s a good sport about it!

Tags: Awesomeness