Perfect Day

This was it. It was now or never (well, probably not, but he always had a flair for the dramatic).

She was sitting at her desk, her eyes glued to the computer, her hand moving the mouse left and right, up and down.
She paid no attention to him.
Her hair was dark and long and curly, strands of it falling and covering her left eye.
She twisted her lip and puffed some air up and the renegade curl flew away.
His heart skipped a bit.
He said:
“Hey”.
She tilted her head and saw him. Her eyes were brown and large. How he loved those eyes of hers.
“Hey!” She replied, leaning back and stretching her fingers. “God, this report is a pain in the ass”.
“So take a break”.
“Yeah, I guess I should. What’re you up to? Still with the fall paperwork?”
“Yeah”. He said.
“Poor guy”.
“Oh, that’s alright”.
Ok, enough with the damn small talk.
“Listen, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you”.
“Hmm..?
“Would you like to… you know… go out and do something togeter? Maybe this Saturday?”
She looked at him with her big eyes. His heart sank for a minute.
This can’t be a surprise to her, he thought. The way he’s been talking to her, the way he’s been trying to be close to her, she must know that he likes her more than just a friend. She must.
“Sure” she said.
He felt a smile appear on his face, widening and widening. He felt himself turn into the Cheshire Cat.
“Great!” He said.
“What did you have in mind?” She asked.
“Mini Golf? At The Grover Grounds? On Saturday”
“Yeah, sure”.
“Then we can go to Kiki’s”.
She smiled again.
“Listen” she said, “Lets talk later. I have to get back to this damn report”.
“Yes” he said, “Yes. Okay, so… thanks. I mean, good.”
She laughed.
“You’re funny”.
He went back to his cubicle, but there was no chance he could focus on his work today.
No chance in hell.

Saturday morning was beautiful and sunny. They met at the entrance to the Grounds and played till 11:30. He won, but it wasn’t really important. He helped her choose her clubs and aim. She let him hold her arms and guide her. It was wonderful to touch her, to smell her. His whole body and mind were on a natural high.
Then they went into town and he bought her ice cream. She laughed at his jokes. At some point she held his hand.
They talked about all kinds of stuff, sitting in the park eating their ice cream. They talked about what movies they last saw, about the wonderful weather in this April day – as if god arranged it just for them after a week of rains. They talked about his family and her family, about life in a small town and their dreams of getting out. They talked about books and music and cats. They both loved cats.

They didn’t talk about work at all. Not even one bit.

After the ice cream they didn’t feel like lunch so they went to the Gladstone Theater instead to catch the 4:30 show.
He couldn’t beleive his luck. They showed Casablanca.
When they went back out into the street (part of them still in the black and white wonder), they needed a few seconds to adjust. He felt like he’s hovering a few feet above the ground.
But it was getting dark.
And they were tired.

Her place was just a few blocks away and he walked her there.
When they got to the walkway in front of her house, she turned to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Thank you” she said. “I had  a wonderful, wonderful time”.
“It’s me who should thank you” he said. “thank you for a perfect day”.
“It was great, wasn’t it?” She said.
The sun was setting, making their shadows growing longer and thinner on the pavement.
Then he leaned and kissed her. She let him.
He held her tight.
“Yes, it was wonderful” he said. “Let’s do it again soon”.
“No” she said.
He let her go and looked at her, befuddled.

“I’d have to say no” she said from behind her desk. She wasn’t really smiling anymore. And she did act surprised, for some reason.
“Ah, okay”. He blurted.
She went back to her computer.
“I just thought I’d try, you know. You only live once”.
“Yeah, I know” she said. This time she smiled, but it wasn’t the smile he was looking for. “But it’s still no, okay?”
“Okay” he said. He kept standing there for a few seconds as if someone poured concrete on his shoes, but she didn’t look at him.

It was as if he wasn’t there.

He turned and slowly went back to his cubicle.
It was longest walk of his life.
He felt eyes looking at him. But they couldn’t have heard the conversation, could they? Could they?
He sat back on his chair ans stared at his computer.
He would keep staring at it until it was time to go home.

Home.

The weatherman on TV said that the rains will be over by the weekend.

He said Saturday will be sunny and warm.

He said it’s going to be a perfect day.

Make ‘em laugh

Getting ready for my screening at WILDsound Film Festival in Toronto, I started to think how nerve-wrecking it is to do a comedy compared to all other film genres.
With comedy, the rules are simple. If the audience don’t laugh, you’re screwed.
If you do a drama, a horror film, an action-adventure, you usually never know if your film worked until the credits start to roll. Then, either people clap, or boo, or couldn’t care less. You may know if it worked by talking to the audience, by looking at their faces or listening to their conversations when they’re leaving the theater, but comedy is the only genre where you absolutely know if your film worked WHILE it is shown.

But does a comedy HAVE to make you laugh to be considered successful?

Well… Yes.

I’m the first one to admit that my film, Hype, is not a laugh-a-minute-riot, nor is it a slapstick comedy or a comedy of errors. Instead, it relies on a certain punchline to deliver the laugh.
Whenever I watch it with a group of people I always get very anxious at the end, because i know that if people don’t laugh now, the film didn’t work for them.
So tonight, watching Hype with the (hopefully) largest audience I ever had for it, I feel excited but mostly anxious. You sit there and you know that if people won’t laugh, your film is a misfire, a dud, a waste of space. A comedy is meant to make people laugh through satire, irony, black humor, slapstick. Like every good film, it needs to say something about life and the world we live in, about the characters, and it needs to do so in a way that makes you laugh. Maybe not all the way, but I believe a good comedy has to have at least one big laugh proportional to its length.

Woody Allen made some great comedies. Some of them were funnier than others. Bananas and Love and Death were ribald and crazy. Radio Days and Mighty Aphrodite were much more subtle. All of those films made you laugh at one point or another. But while Allen’s first films are considered his funniest, his later comedies are considered to be more deep, more rounded and profound. They are more about something, while his early spoofs are more like 90 minute sketches.

But they are all comedies, and they all work in their own way. I love comedies such as Take The Money And Run and Airplane because I love nonsense humor, but I also admire comedies that are more mature. There’s a lot of leeway inside the genre confines, but the rule always stays the same:

Your audience needs to laugh. And laugh for the right reasons, too.

A comedy can sometime tickle your funny bone without causing you to burst uproariously with laughter. There are countless examples of that. But as I’ve said, it’s not enough. If you strive for a comedy, you need those laugh-out-loud moments. Because what comedy filmmaker would want to sit at a screening of his film and have everyone chuckle inside for 90 minutes, or 20 minutes, or 5 minutes?

No, when we do a comedy, we want to make ‘em laugh.

And we will sit in the dark and hold our breath until then…

Winter is Coming

Ha. There we go again. How’s that Weather Girls song goes? “Humidity is rising, barometer’s getting low”. Only in Toronto it doesn’t rain in the winter, is snows and freezes.

We had a fairly wet, cool summer. Now it’s fall, and it starts getting colder and colder. Last winter was very hard for me. Up to that point, the coldest temperatures I’ve ever experienced were -5c, so it’s understandable that finding myself in -15, -20 territory was a… revelation.

As a general rule, I dislike coats and sweaters and layers of clothing. I feel most natural in a t-shirt. The immense cold of the Toronto winter, including the lack of sun, has had a real effect on my mood last year, and when spring finally came, I felt as if I’ve awakened from a deep slumber.

The winter actually scares me. I remember quite well how I roamed (stupidly) around the streets last November without any head cover and lost sensation in my ears. I remember walking up Bathurst street, arriving to the streetcar stop, and trying to ask someone something, only to realize my jaw is numb and no words, only gurgles, are issuing forth from it. I remember going out on Christmas Eve and taking off my gloves and taking out my camera to snap some photos at the ice rink next city hall – and it was so cold that I couldn’t hold the camera for more than a few seconds.

It might well be I’m overly sensitive because I hail from a warm country, but it doesn’t change the fact that I suddenly feel this sudden urge to book a ticket to California and come back in March. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the snow and all – it was the best part of the winter, although it too overstayed its welcome – but this is really going too far.

One of my great pleasures is too just walk. To walk around town and see places. And no, I haven’t yet seen everything Toronto has to offer. In the winter you just can’t do that. You hurry from one warm place to another, trying to minimize your outdoor time as much as possible. So that sucks, because you get four months where you’re an indoor prisoner. I don’t even remember where I walked or what I did last winter. It’s all a blur. To me, it was if I experienced one long snowy, frozen month. Come on, No human is meant to experience this shit. Why can’t we do like bears and hibernate?

The funny thing is Toronto got it the easiest compared to the rest of Canada. To other Canadians, we’re like a friggin’ resort town in February. It’s true what they say, that everything is relative.

There’s only one thing i can’t understand: Where do all the squirrels dissappear to for four months?

But that is for another post.

3-day novel contest – 3rd day and epilogue

The third day was the easiest one. I finished writing the book on Sunday night and had 85 pages on my hand, and the 3rd day was spent on editing and especially stepping outside and feel the wonderful sun on my face. I also felt the fatigue in a tremendous way.

At night I did some more editing and that was that. I haven’t sent it in yet. I still haven’t figured out how to do a proper numbering in the openoffice Writer, but I’ll fix it soon enough.

So what can I say about those 3 days? I don’t think it really sunk in yet. The longest thing I have ever written in prose form up to now was a 25 page novella and it took me 6 months to finish fist draft. Here I wrote 85 pages in what was basically two days. The ramifications to my physical and mental well being are still to be determined, but it was like an out-of-body experience. I done nothing but write, eat, go to washroom, write, eat, go to washroom, sleep, wake up screaming, sleep again.

Who the hell needs to go to a shack out in the woods to write? If you get enough into your story you forget there’s a world out there anyway. And if the outside world invades your little cocoon all you need to do is put the headphones, listen to some music, and lose yourself.

I drank copious amounts of tea and even a cup of coffee which I usually don’t drink. Parts of the novel were written in a Starbucks in a book store. I like writing surrounded by books. At some point I even tried to download a software which enables you to speak instead of type and the words get written that way, but it didn’t really work out and I realized I was just procrastinating again.

It’ll take me some time to get back to the story to do some more editing (the version I’m sending to the contest includes of course whatever editing I managed to do in the 3 days and nothing more). I feel energized though in a peculiar sort of way. Maybe I’ll try and get back to my short story roots and write a couple of them that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time.

My short novel is called The Forever People and it has to do with the effect movies can have on our lives, especially when we’re young and impressionable, about coping with loneliness and heartbreak and missed opportunities, and about following your dreams and not be afraid to be yourself.

It may all sound terribly cliched and familiar, the way i put here, but you know what? Tough break.

I only had three days!

3-day novel contest – 2nd day

Wow, this was a crazy day.

Yesterday seems like a walk in the park compared to today. Yesterday had a 30 page output, while today I added 43 more.  But today was hard mainly because I was stuck a lot of the times. At the end I decided this is not going to be a 100 page novel. I will have to make do with 80. I knew my ending, but there was no way  I would feel another 20 pages with fluff.

So that was it.

Tomorrow will be mainly devoted to editing and giving the mess some kind of shape, but the book is basically finished, I think.

And I hope i’m not wrong!

3-day novel contest – 1st day

The day isn’t over yet but I’m taking a break, and taking the opportunity for a quick update. Right now I’m on page 23, which is less than I hoped to achieve by now (10 pm). I must have at least 30 pages done today, so that means working at night until I get it. My original plan was to begin last night after midnight but after a hard night of partying (and I make no excuses here. I partied because I needed to!) I came home at 2 AM, head buzzing with alcohol, set at my computer, stared at the blank page, typed the word PROLOGUE, shut down the computer and fell on the bed like a ton of bricks.

I woke up at 6 am, determined to begin my writing now. I went to the washroom, brushed my teeth, went back to the living room, went past the computer, looked at it, looked at my bed, looked at the computer again, looked at my bed. Somehow, I don’t know how, I ended up in bed and fell asleep again.

I woke up at 10 and then I finally started writing. I did it almost without any breaks except for lunch and a stroll to a near-by coffee shop with my laptop because, you know, there IS a world out there.

It’s hard keeping consistency. There were a few instances where I went back and had to change names or facts because I changed my mind about the plot at some point. I’m sure there will be consistency issues but that’s what you get.

Anyway, a quick break (a person has to shower) and then back to work.

3-day novel contest – The pre-show

Okay, I’ll make it quick.

This weekend, that’s what I’ll be doing:

http://www.3daynovel.com/index.html

The challenge was too enticing to pass by. Yes, I had my doubts. For a guy who sits in front of a computer almost 50 hours a week, doing intense typing for 48-72 hours isn’t something that he looks forward too. But yet, I think there’s a way to do it.

I have an idea. I’ve had it for weeks. But it doesn’t mean I won’t change it at the last minute. Perhaps what scares me the most is getting stuck in the middle and not knowing where to go from there. I just know I’m going to feel the panic at some point!

I have been writing for years now. Short stories, screenplays, and in this weblog. I haven’t ever written a novel, though, and figured this contest is a great excuse to finally do it. I think I operate well under pressure when it comes to writing, but we’ll see…

I don’t have a real plan for writing the story. No outline. Just a bunch of details I jotted down in my notebook, like character traits, the inciting incident, and some background. That’s it. Similarly, I don’t have a plan for how to write it. I’m not going to sit for more than three hours in a row, I think. I’ll also go outside and write in a coffee shop. I will eat my regular meals not in front of the computer. I will have some snack near-by and drink a lot of tea. I will disconnect myself from the Internet. I know the breaking point will arrive at some point and I think I need to hang a sign above my desk which will say DON’T GIVE UP!

And most of all, I hope the story will carry me through to the finish line. I hope to lose myself in it and forget about the outside world.

I think this is the only way to write a novel in 3 days…

See you on the other side.

All the Hype

Well, I have an excuse. I didn’t write in the Blog since last November. I was busy.

Busy making a short film.

Hype, that’s the title, was a real energy drainer. It was hard work. It took 11 months to complete. I’m sure I broke some records as far as short films are concerned. Principal shooting began in September 2007 and went on until December. We only had 5 days of shooting, but they were spread over three months. Scheduling problems. Don’t ask. Weather problems. You can guess. Then came the post-production which stretched over 6 months, after I ended up, unexpectedly, as the editor and color-correction guy, and had to learn complex programs from scratch.

Oh, and I managed to have a couple of anxiety attacks in the process too. Fun!

But heck, it was all worth it. It was all worth it.

I had a great cast and crew I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

So I present to you, Hype. A short film about love, movies, love in the movies, love outside the movies, and small dogs.

Enjoy.

JUMP

The wind struck his face. Hard.

He pulled the chord. Nothing happened.

He pulled again.

Nothing.

Oh my god, He thought. Oh, Jesus Christ oh my dear god.

He opened his eyes. Nothing but blue skies all around him. A perfect friggin’ day.

He couldn’t see the ground. Then he realized he has turned upside down, and was grateful for it in a kind of a foolish way, considering he’s about to hit the ground at about 300 Kilometers per hour.

He pulled the chord again.

Nothing.

He wondered how the others were doing. He wondered if they could see him hurtling towards the earth like a shot pigeon. He wondered if he’ll make a huge dent in the ground like in those WB cartoons he liked so much. T-T-THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

He wondered why he took that stupid sky-diving course in the first place.

Oh yeah, he wanted to spice up his life. Well, it sure is spiced now.

Sitting in that windowless office, day in day out, entering the invoices in the excel sheet, making the phone calls, going to meetings, drinking coffee at 8 AM, at 10 AM, at 12 PM. Wanting to call Lizzy and ask how she’s doing, and never doing so because it’ll hurt like hell just hearing her voice.

Only three months ago he sat at the edge of his bed with its rumpled sheets, and looked at the tiny box he was holding in his hand. Looked at it as if it was a live grenade. 20 of these little pills, and he’ll be out like a kite. (He invented that expression and was very pleased with himself for about half an hour).
He wasn’t brave. He wasn’t brave at all. He didn’t want to blow his brains out and he didn’t want to jump off the roof. He didn’t want to leave a stain. He wanted to go nice and clean. Yeah, nice and clean. And pain-free.

What a coward.

He put the pills in his mouth and spat them right out again.

Time seemed to freeze. He didn’t know how many minutes he was hurtling like that. Could be 20 seconds for all he knew.

He panicked and started to flail his arms. He knew it was stupid, but he did it anyway. For some reason, the image of Foghorn Longhorn came to his mind and he stifled an almost insane laughter.
And then, suddenly, he saw it. Coming towards him, green and brown. The Man Who Came To Earth, he thought. That’s me, that’s me.

He pulled the chord again, knowing it was useless, but not able to think about anything else he can do. The wind blew so hard at his face he could hardly breathe. He thought it would be hilarious if he suffocated before he hit the ground. His hair blew around him and he was sorry he didn’t and up getting that haircut he planned to get.

Why the hell was he thinking about about such mundane things when he was about to SPLAT?

He was at his therapist’s office. They were talking about his depression. The therapist said that his depression was mild.
He told her about his lack of love life, about his loneliness, about the job he hated and about his stupid boss.
He didn’t tell her he took the pills, though. To be honest, he wasn’t sure he really wanted to kill himself. He thought he was just joking around.

Maybe he was fooling himself. He thought, what’s the use of going to a therapist if you don’t tell her the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god?

He didn’t really feel the therapy was making him feel better. On the contrary. He often felt quite miserable when he emerged out of her office, after spewing all this self hatred of his.

And It stayed like a bile in his throat.

One day, when he was sitting in the waiting room, looking at magazines (whenever he sat there he envisioned himself as Tony Soprano, who made going to the shrink cool again. Too bad he wasn’t half the man Tony was, he thought helplessly), he came across a large ad which read:

SKY DIVING – THE ULTIMATE THRILL

FEEL THE ULTIMATE FREEDOM

LEARN TO SKY-DIVE AT THE FREEMAN SKYDIVING SCHOOL

NOW WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY  PRICE!

IT’S AN ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME!

It caught his imagination.

Inside the office, he discussed with her the idea of going for it. She was very encouraging and enthusiastic. She said it will do him good.

Yeah, real good, he thought now.

Stay calm! He thought helplessly. Remember what they told you to do in case of an emergency! There’s a… There’s a…

That’s right! There was a second, back-up chute. He fumbled, trying to find the chord. He couldn’t find it and panicked again. He tried to concentrate.

There it is!

He pulled at it. Hard. A sudden jerking force blew him upward. He felt the chute open above him and cried tears of joy.

But still, he was flying too fast, too goddamn–

The impact blew what little air he had left out of his lungs. He felt a crushing pain all over his body and lost consciousness.

When he came to, he found himself hanging in midair. He had a weird sensation in his belly. He gazed down and saw a large, thick branch poking out of the right side of his abdomen. He studied it, strangely unaffected, like it was some third limb that has always been a part of his body.

Blood was trickling down into his eyes, and his back felt like it was chewed up and spat out by a combine.

But he was alive.

Someone shouted something. He couldn’t understand what. The world has been reduced to the branch in his belly and a ringing, peculiar silence, like what you hear, or don’t hear, if you’re at a shooting range without wearing your ear mufflers.

He tried to move his head, but the pain was excruciating. Then he saw that some of them were running towards him, pointing. Someone shouted, someone else answered.

Then there was a snap and he fell down. Again.

In those brief few seconds, he tried to imagine he’s Duffy Duck so it wouldn’t feel that bad.

He lay on the ground, and suddenly felt an urge to laugh, although trying to do so only meant more pain.

He fell from height of 3,000 meters and survived.

He, who thought about killing himself only three months ago. Wasn’t it fucking ironic?

He heard a siren. People were standing around him, talking in what sounded like gibberish.

Before he closed his eyes and went into a blissful sleep, he thought:

Man, what a story to tell the grandkids.

Fairy Dust

A few months ago I went to a huge SF and Fantasy convention here in Toronto. It had all the stuff you’d expect in a convention of this sort: Books and Comic Books, Action Figures, DVD’s, Vintage memorabilia, T-shirts, toys, posters, video games. The Common stuff and the rare stuff.

Yes. It was Geek Heaven, and I was relishing every minute of it.

I’m kind of used to seeing all that stuff from smaller conventions I’ve been to in Israel. It’s basically the same, only BIGGER.

And yet, there was one thing I wasn’t used to, and that got me very excited. That was the big roster of famous Science Fiction celebrities attending the Con and signing autographs.
That is, until I came to understand the dubious financial drive behind it all.

Let’s not pretend. SF Cons, or any Fan Cons for that matter, are a money making machine. A commercial enterprise. They exist, first and foremost, for the purpose of selling stuff to the fans. That’s how the game is played. That’s capitalism. And it’s fine. Nobody forces anyone to go to a Con and spend money. Fan Conventions are very similar to Casinos. They psychologically erode your resistance. They’re usually held in huge enclosed places with no windows. Bright lights, and a lot of noise. You find yourself lost, delirious, hypnotized by the oodles of goodies splayed in front of you, and thus, your ability to make logical decisions is compromised. It might be that if you were in a regular store you wouldn’t have bought that 25$ Jawa club because, well, you don’t really need it. You just bought it to make yourself feel better. Unless it’s that great book or movie you’ve always wanted to buy, you look at all this stuff you bought: The toys, the gizmos, the stuff, and once you’re home, without all the noise and clutter and bright lights, you ask yourself: Why did I spend 150 dollars if I swore to myself I won’t spend more than 20?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Where was I? Oh, Celebrities’ autographs.