Monday, September 13, 2010

Writing Dark of Moon

The first step in creating a quality movie is writing a quality script. Without a good script, all of the acting talent, technical wizardry, and production values in the world can't make a good movie. The vast majority of bad movies begin with a bad script, and can never recover.

When I set about writing my first feature script, I'll have to admit that I was a little nervous. During all of my previous script writing experience, I had been writing for someone else's characters, and someone else's stories. This would be the first time I would be writing for my own characters, my own story...and I wanted to get it right.

I actually started writing another story. In what has become habit, I started by writing a couple of scenes...not at the beginning, but farther in. After writing those scenes (which I still like), I realized that what I was envisioning in my mind would require a budget to achieve, and a budget was something that I could NOT count on my first time out! So I shelved that project, and started another that would become “Dark of Moon”.

This time, I wrote with the idea that this would be a low/NO-budget movie. The vast majority of scenes I placed in private residences, because those are easiest to obtain. Any exotic locations (and I would up with two) I secured at least a willingness to allow me to shoot there before I wrote those scenes. I kept most of the action indoors (because that's easiest to light and shoot), and most outdoor scenes I kept either in daytime or right by houses (again, because it's easiest to light and shoot where electricity is available). I also limited the amount of private residences I would need...while private homes are the easiest to obtain as locations, even the best intentioned people have lives that can get in the way, and depending on too many people is a recipe for trouble down the line.

In writing the story, I decided to fall back on that writer's axiom: write what you know. So I made the main characters Pagan. I've been a follower of a Pagan path (Wicca) for 23 years now, and I knew that I could write about that world with a certain amount of authenticity. Even though I was solitary for my first 5 years, I've hung about Pagans and Witches for the past 18 years, so I had a wide spectrum of people and personalities from which to draw inspiration.

I also decided to base this film in the Pagan community for another reason: it's about bloody time! Even by the most conservative estimates, we're in the seventh decade of modern Neo-Pagan revival. We have millions who follow Pagan paths, and millions more who have tested those waters. And yet, Hollywood always gets it wrong. We're STILL treated all too often as cartoon-ish villains. And even when Witchy/Pagan characters are the good guys (Willow Rosenberg from Buffy, the Charmed sisters), there's still so much fantasy involved that when someone asks us “is THAT what you guys do?” we have to say “no, it's nothing like that.

I mean, other minority religions have had accurate portrayals of their people and practices. And Pagans are definitely consumers of pop culture. In an atmosphere where originality is at a premium, you'd think that Hollywood screenwriters and producers would jump at the chance to try accuracy for a change. Well, I decided not to wait for anyone else to do it, and set about the task myself.

Allow me to split hairs here, though...I would NOT describe “Dark of Moon” as a “Pagan Movie”. Why? Because the phrase “Pagan movie” invites assumptions that this movie doesn't meet. To be “the” pagan movie (or eve “a” Pagan movie), then it would need to show people just “what Pagans are and what they believe”. Those familiar with modern Paganism can see just how impossible a task that would be. For those who aren't: the word “Pagan” covers a wide, WIDE assortment of beliefs and paths that may appear similar, but are as different as the day is long. Wicca is just one particular Pagan path, and IT has so many permutations that no movie could ever hope to show you what Wiccans believe in one sitting. No matter how broad and generic one tried to make the final product, someone would always feel left out. Now, combine that with the need for characters, plot, and the development of both of these things, and it's easy to see why any film that tried to be a “Pagan movie” would fail miserably. For now, we'll have to leave such things to the realms of documentaries.

What I COULD do, however, and what I DID do, was to write a story about people. People with hopes and dreams, virtues and vices, ups and downs. I could write a story about people at a crossroads in their lives, and how they deal with this. People who are fully realized characters, and who's religion is but one part (though be it a big part) of who they are.

So while Dark of Moon isn't a “Pagan movie”, it IS a movie about people who happen to be Pagan. And I think this is best...after all, if we want more movies to feature Pagan characters who are realistic, then we can't go around breaking ground with a movie that ONLY appeals to Pagans, now can we? While a movie that contained 1,000 inside jokes that only Pagans would get might feel good for Pagans, it would classify films with Pagan characters as a niche that can be safely ignored by the rest of the entertainment industry. And that does us no good.

Writing Dark of Moon happened over a 6 week period stretching from the last week of December 2009 until February 2010. After that, it was time to read, revise, and re-write like a madman. I didn't know then that writing it would be the easy part...

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