Fictional screenplays - my favourite form of writing. Before I began the foray into creating overtly psychological works of non-fiction, I was a writer of fiction, and have as of this date (November 2011) completed a couple of screenplays which - while certainly not the next Citizen Kane or Dawn Of The Dead, I remain proud of. Every now and again I come across an idea which either incubates in my mind over a period of time, or vanishes as a stupid afterthought. Yesterday, whilst waiting for the Eddie Murphy/Ben Stiller comedy Tower Heist to being at the cinema (An enjoyable piece of work), I came across a screenplay plot I would like to indulge you all in.
I recently caught a glimpse of 'Siri', the artificially intelligent mechanism of the iPhone 4s; which attains an ability to guide its owner with personal, daily advice; what to do, where to roam for the day ahead, as examples. Maybe I am just getting older, but seeing it leaves me slightly unnerved; humans guided by talking technology? Does anyone really need a phone to tell them when to eat? How long before they decide when we take a piss? Or have sex? Guess it is a good thing they never named it HAL9000.
So I present my script idea - Child's Play meets 2001: A Space Odyssey: PsychoPhone...
Chris Smith - an everyday, nondescript, principled accounts manager, is offered the latest, never before seen iMobile 8; the latest in interactive mobile technological progression. However, during pre-production, the phone is infiltrated by a self-aware demon, which slowly encourages Chris to engage in theft, infidelity, and drug abuse - in return for the riches and rewards he so desperately has always dreamed of.
As Chris begins to lose himself - through the devastating corruption of power, and the phones manipulation, he is pushed toward the idea of owning the entire company, by murdering his amiable yet dim boss Mister Whitlock - the only person who believes Chris carries a possessed mobile. Eventually, he is torn between destroying the phone and regaining his life, or allowing its destructive powers to eat him alive. Due to my love of happy endings, he eventually crushes the phone like the Terminator; unintentionally leaving a solitary microchip in tact, which ends up in the hands of a low-rated co-character - leaving an ambiguous open ending, as well as the possibility for a whole host of lesser, Police Academy-esque sequels.
I am brainstorming, but at this moment I love this idea - even though it is an unashamed rip-off of many other previously successful movies. However, come tomorrow - as with many other ideas which have resided in my head over the years, I may conclude it is stupid, puerile, and has no legs to work as any form of movie; be it a satirical pastiche, violent horror, or social topic on the powers man affords technology. Either way, it cannot be any worse than Son Of The Mask...
Lee.
The Beginnings Of The End Of Silence.
When was the last time you experienced absolute silence; the kind where your ears registered the vibrations of a pin, as it hit concrete from fifty-feet away? I am not referring to a moment of clarity between the sound of a constant slew of buses, cars, and eager birdies - as you lay in bed on a hazy Sunday morning. But a stream of pure, unfiltered, silence; where the only sound you hear, is no sound at all.
Me and Marissa decided to venture to the Science Museum this past Sunday. The building belongs to many of those arbitrary places I have remained aware of for many years, yet never visited. The previous weekend we had been to the Natural History Museum; engaging ourselves in Dinosaur fossils, geological rocks, and ex-Arsenal footballer David Bentley carrying his baby girl around, and chose the land of Scientific human endeavour over the National Gallery and Victoria and Albert museum - which surprisingly, isn't run by anybody named Victoria or Albert.
Whilst walking around the slightly unnerving full scale mock ups of Victorian life - in particular a smartly dressed inventor messing around with electrical impulses in his living room, I began to consider the minimal distractions at his disposal; it struck me hard - no wireless radio, Television, or gramophone. And what could he hear outside? There were no screeches of an auto-mobile, roar of powered flight, or annoying kids playing their tinny sounding music too loud on public transport. Beyond echoes of nature, and the burning coal fire of a cold winters night, there was silence - even the sound of the human voice was limited by sheer insular nature of towns, limited to the locals inability to travel beyond the slow drudgery of foot.
To many, silence is a beautiful sound. To others, it is a form of torture; forcing the mind to ruminate without refrain. Before all inventions of the past one-hundred-and-fifty years existed, generations were used to the notion of quiet, peaceful thought; maybe this made them a more methodical, philosophical, and certainly patient people of history. The world today moves so fast, and there is such an abundance of media and information at our disposal, it is so easy to discard thought as much as we discard news and information.
Perhaps there is a deeper notion here; in which human society thinks less for itself, in conjunction with the greater diversity of sounds created for the subconscious to register through its ears; in essence, I am wondering if this means less independent thinkers in the future? But I doubt this societal prognosis - the likely outcome is the human brain will, as usual, evolve through the ingenuity around it; meaning new waves of original idea, merely based around the technology afforded to it.
And this is the beauty of the Science Museum; while we are often guilty of acts which to me go beyond basic realms of stupidity - such as Racism, War, and manipulation of social preference, the exhibitions remind me how incredibly innovative, curious, and diligent the Homo Sapien truly is. We are moving forward as a species, and are going to invent all sort of wild and wonderful adaptations we as yet cannot even imagine, over the coming centuries. I only wonder - if the price we pay for these endeavours, is the beginnings, of the end of silence...
Lee.
Me and Marissa decided to venture to the Science Museum this past Sunday. The building belongs to many of those arbitrary places I have remained aware of for many years, yet never visited. The previous weekend we had been to the Natural History Museum; engaging ourselves in Dinosaur fossils, geological rocks, and ex-Arsenal footballer David Bentley carrying his baby girl around, and chose the land of Scientific human endeavour over the National Gallery and Victoria and Albert museum - which surprisingly, isn't run by anybody named Victoria or Albert.
Whilst walking around the slightly unnerving full scale mock ups of Victorian life - in particular a smartly dressed inventor messing around with electrical impulses in his living room, I began to consider the minimal distractions at his disposal; it struck me hard - no wireless radio, Television, or gramophone. And what could he hear outside? There were no screeches of an auto-mobile, roar of powered flight, or annoying kids playing their tinny sounding music too loud on public transport. Beyond echoes of nature, and the burning coal fire of a cold winters night, there was silence - even the sound of the human voice was limited by sheer insular nature of towns, limited to the locals inability to travel beyond the slow drudgery of foot.
To many, silence is a beautiful sound. To others, it is a form of torture; forcing the mind to ruminate without refrain. Before all inventions of the past one-hundred-and-fifty years existed, generations were used to the notion of quiet, peaceful thought; maybe this made them a more methodical, philosophical, and certainly patient people of history. The world today moves so fast, and there is such an abundance of media and information at our disposal, it is so easy to discard thought as much as we discard news and information.
Perhaps there is a deeper notion here; in which human society thinks less for itself, in conjunction with the greater diversity of sounds created for the subconscious to register through its ears; in essence, I am wondering if this means less independent thinkers in the future? But I doubt this societal prognosis - the likely outcome is the human brain will, as usual, evolve through the ingenuity around it; meaning new waves of original idea, merely based around the technology afforded to it.
And this is the beauty of the Science Museum; while we are often guilty of acts which to me go beyond basic realms of stupidity - such as Racism, War, and manipulation of social preference, the exhibitions remind me how incredibly innovative, curious, and diligent the Homo Sapien truly is. We are moving forward as a species, and are going to invent all sort of wild and wonderful adaptations we as yet cannot even imagine, over the coming centuries. I only wonder - if the price we pay for these endeavours, is the beginnings, of the end of silence...
Lee.
Memories and Melodrama.
I am glancing my head back into the past; a day, a week, a year, five years, a decade... it seems such a long road of life has passed in a relatively short space of a life - a life I hope remains barely a third of its way through; and that God, or whatever God is, is decent enough to hand me a full shot at, so I can achieve all those hopes and ambitions I believe will sate my soul; that and I would love to be able to one day face myself in a mirror as a bald, fat old man, wearing underpants so high they keep my nipples warm in Winter.
I am wondering if my introspective sensitivity and self-absorbed nature have been counter-intuitive - more often than not, and have heightened generally trivial incidents through the desire of intense melodrama; turning simple issues of non-event into a global crisis. It is as if I grew up watching too many Hollywood movies, and am somehow trying to recreate a fictional world upon a screen and transcend it into real life, to validate a psychological comfort which can only be found in childhood; an act of immaturity, I know - but I am human, we are allowed to make mistakes.
And this is why I look back. The residing factor of turning thirty, which has echoed through my mind this year - more than anything else, is that it is an age where you reach a point in which we have attained an untold number of personal memories and associations of the past, which continuously trigger the subconscious to feel all sorts of varying emotions, as we wander through our daily lives, to serve as a mental reminder of past events. And as life grows more complicated; through the responsibilities of time, ambition, and the powers of technology, it is so easy to get lost and forget that tomorrow is made by a today, which was itself created by yesterday.
I am a believer that all human nature is deep down, both pure and respectful of our own species (an argument as to why we refrain from cannibalism - yet eat virtually every other living creature, as well as engage in burial rituals of our deceased), and only truly wish to help one another - both in terms of biology and personal survival. So any acts of destruction of other humans, will register as a negative, as much as anything helpful, will signal positive. When we strip ourselves of all the conditioning life affords us, all we are really doing to one another, is making their day better, or making it worse; the levels are often threadbare, but it all makes a difference - good or bad.
So I am no longer looking back, but trying to understand that the next ten years of life, carries potential to create a whole host of positive and upbeat memories for both myself and everyone I meet. I genuinely wish everyone on this planet well, as I understand (as we all do), just how bloody tough it is to live life as a human being. If I wish to bring light into my life, I can only do so through bringing sunshine into the lives of others; a situation in which nobody loses, and everybody wins - I love those types of situation.
Or who knows, perhaps this is all a pile of bullshit, and I am being way too melodramatic. I just hope this article creates more smiles than it does frowns - as with everything I write...
Lee.
I am wondering if my introspective sensitivity and self-absorbed nature have been counter-intuitive - more often than not, and have heightened generally trivial incidents through the desire of intense melodrama; turning simple issues of non-event into a global crisis. It is as if I grew up watching too many Hollywood movies, and am somehow trying to recreate a fictional world upon a screen and transcend it into real life, to validate a psychological comfort which can only be found in childhood; an act of immaturity, I know - but I am human, we are allowed to make mistakes.
And this is why I look back. The residing factor of turning thirty, which has echoed through my mind this year - more than anything else, is that it is an age where you reach a point in which we have attained an untold number of personal memories and associations of the past, which continuously trigger the subconscious to feel all sorts of varying emotions, as we wander through our daily lives, to serve as a mental reminder of past events. And as life grows more complicated; through the responsibilities of time, ambition, and the powers of technology, it is so easy to get lost and forget that tomorrow is made by a today, which was itself created by yesterday.
I am a believer that all human nature is deep down, both pure and respectful of our own species (an argument as to why we refrain from cannibalism - yet eat virtually every other living creature, as well as engage in burial rituals of our deceased), and only truly wish to help one another - both in terms of biology and personal survival. So any acts of destruction of other humans, will register as a negative, as much as anything helpful, will signal positive. When we strip ourselves of all the conditioning life affords us, all we are really doing to one another, is making their day better, or making it worse; the levels are often threadbare, but it all makes a difference - good or bad.
So I am no longer looking back, but trying to understand that the next ten years of life, carries potential to create a whole host of positive and upbeat memories for both myself and everyone I meet. I genuinely wish everyone on this planet well, as I understand (as we all do), just how bloody tough it is to live life as a human being. If I wish to bring light into my life, I can only do so through bringing sunshine into the lives of others; a situation in which nobody loses, and everybody wins - I love those types of situation.
Or who knows, perhaps this is all a pile of bullshit, and I am being way too melodramatic. I just hope this article creates more smiles than it does frowns - as with everything I write...
Lee.
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