30 Minutes. 30 Days. Day 14, 15, 16

This is Buckingham Fountain. It was built to honour Charles Buckingham who was a well-to-do businessman and tremendous art collector in Chicago.

I've just written a scene around this fountain.
Joyce tells the history in improvisational glory. Her son Brady mimes good old Charles Buckingham. The tour group listens but is more distracted by wedding photography going on. On cue the fountain erupts into a dance. Lyric of the lake as they use to say.

Meanwhile our parking lot guy is below the fountain checking out the knobs and valves that control the show. This will play later in the film of course.  Where there is a great fire...a great fountain can be useful.

p.s. photo credit to myself on my one trip to Chicago and in which my fleeting memory of this park is the sole inspiration for this film

30 Minutes. 30 Days 11, 12, 13....I have no idea what day I am on.

Wobblies' Headquarters

Confession. I've skipped a day of writing. Maybe I skipped 2. I have no excuse other than I didn't want to do it. Obviously I'm classic. I'm the type of person who most likely breaks New Year's resolutions 2 weeks in, cheats on diets and generally has a very short attention span, even for a short attention span kind of assignment. It's only 30 minutes...sheesh!

However, I've jumped back into my script Millennium Park. Despite still being stuck in the first 3 scenes, my characters are all evolving.

Joyce, in her 50's and the only one not to become famous from her improv troupe, is a trooper. She will practice her craft no matter what - even if it means repeat performances for tour groups with only a slight interest in Chicago history. She lives for the laugh and is still hopeful to one day get an uproarious chuckle from a group of more than 10. In her wildest dreams it's in a stadium of 25,000.

Brady, is her son. He joins her in the tour group act because as a struggling millennial it was the only job he could get. He's an engineering genius and has little patience for the imaginary world his mother so adores. His ability to notice things (like fire hazards and how things are put together will be useful later!) But he goes along with it, even if he has to dress up as a cow.

Al, who may be Banksy, segways himself throughout the film, leaving his trademark graffiti here and there. It's not the graffiti that's the thing though, he is in fact mapping out a giant message via GPS from his route.

Immigrant Parking Lot Guy (sorry guy - no name or nationality yet) - gets yelled at often as he works the lot underneath the park. He tries so very hard with his English but never quite gets it right. His only source is his dog-eared Guide to Chicago which he is memorizing and mapping out locations of the park from it's underground points - which may look like some terrorist scheming (aha).

The history is rich. I did not know Walt Disney was from Chicago and worked there. I did not know there was a radical union organization called the "Wobblies" and I did not know there were bombs and terrorist threats. All of this, I intend to weave into this modern day-in-the life of unsuspecting tourists and guides in Millennium Park.

So...12, 13 days...maybe it's 14 days in. I don't have much of a functional script - but a whole hell of a lot of ideas.

30 Minutes. 30 Days. Days 8,9,10

I'm having doubts. I don't think I am progressing at all. I'm questioning my commitment to this challenge. I do get my 30 minutes in, but part of me knows that if this turns into a terrible script or an unfinished script it doesn't really matter. No one will read it. It will never get produced.

At this point my story is going in circles. I have 8 pages of content and I'm still stuck on the first scene. I'm wondering why I chose to write about a city I have only ever been to once. If I look back at all of my original work (plays, films etc..) they have always been completely fiction so that is not new for me. But this I'm missing a single clever premise for this. I have 100 complicated ideas that are not working themselves out yet. I will persevere...but tonight I have my doubts.

30 Minutes. 30 Days. Day 5,6,7

Day 5,6,7

I'm discovering I'm not nearly as disciplined as I should be. It's only week 1 and I've fallen off the bandwagon of my own self-imposed schedule a couple of times. Tonight I was even questioning why I even added this challenge to my already busy schedule. Other people just watch TV or read or book or go for a jog. I've decided to try to write a feature script in 30 days with only 30 minutes a day. What was I thinking?

What has been rumbling around in my head is the need for a plot. I seem to start with art direction. The whole thing could just be various quirky art directed scenes with no dialogue or any plot and that would satisfy me. But wouldn't really cut it for most audiences.
I have this idea to incorporate famous Chicago innovations or points in history into the script. Luckily there are a bunch of terrific stories to draw from.

I've decided to make my lead character (who I'm calling Joyce) a woman in her late 50's who was part of The Second City Improv Troup - but did not go on to any fame whatsoever. She now makes a living doing improvised tours acting out scenes of history with her 24 year old actor colleague Brady. Then there is Al, the graffiti artist, who is leaving his own visual commentary of the art and history of Chicago. He may or may not be Banksy. And then, the non-English speaking recent immigrant parking lot attendant who is trying so hard to learn English with only a well used Tour Guide Book of Chicago as his source. Of course all of these characters cross paths and at some critical point are going to solve a major problem (hint - a repeat of the Great Chicago Fire perhaps).

Stay tuned....

30 Minutes. 30 Days. Day 4

30 Minutes. 30 Days. 
Day 4

International Ballooning Contest Chicago - 1908

I tried writing in the morning. This seems more energetic as I'm fuelled by coffee. A good thing.

So realized that in order to write a script it's not very efficient to just start from the beginning and write. It's better to try to draft out some sort of plan or point form of what will happen. Now I know a bunch of the classic techniques. Something happens to someone at this page of the script and there is no turning back - so the rest of the film is that forward journey - then the twist etc...

I'm nowhere near figuring that out. I have this idea to try to incorporate Chicago history into this film. I know nothing about that history so I'm doing some research. Very interesting stuff.
There is a theme of disaster, resilience and innovation. And elements - Fire, Flood, Wind. So...needless to say at this point my film has become very big budget and will need a lot of special FX.  Not practical. But it doesn't matter at this point. I just need to find a story.

30 Minutes. 30 Days

30 Minutes. 30 Days.

This is my new project. I began 3 days ago. It's called 30 Minutes. 30 Days.
The idea for this came about when I was feeling down. Feeling like nothing was worth it. A malaise.
What I know about myself is that if I have a creative project then I am just fine. I'm a creative problem solver and doing that makes me feel alive. Throw any challenge at me and I will have 10 ideas within minutes (not all great of course...but sometimes they are!)
So I thought, the only way I can get myself out of this funk is to have a creative challenge. So I made one up.

What if I spent 30 minutes every day for 30 days and tried to create something. Maybe in a skill I had never done before or one that I had some skills in . Why not?
So I thought I would start with my biggest love which is film.
I committed to writing a film script spending 30 minutes every day for 30 days.

So I have begun. Here are some notes on the first 3 days:

Day 1
I downloaded the trial version of Final Draft (the industry standard scriptwriting software - so they say).
I titled my script Castro Castro - thinking I would finally pen that Cuban Political Thriller that has rattled around my head for years. But then something else popped into my head. I wrote the setting for the first scene. Millennium Park Chicago. I have no idea why. I've only been there once before. But I've decided to stick with it. The rest of my 30 minutes was spent reading Wikipedia pages on Millennium Park (that can be a slippery endless slope that can take you off your scriptwriting task. Note taken)

Day 2
I didn't do it! Can you believe it! Only day 2 and I didn't live up to my commitment. I was just too damn tired to sit down at the end of the night and write for 30 minutes. So I went to bed. Luckily characters for the film emerged. I'm not sure if thinking for 30 minutes on this task is within the rules. But I'm making this up so I guess I can make up the rules too.

Day 3
I'm thinking I should do my 30 minutes in the day or morning. First thing. Get it out of the way first so if I'm tired at night I don't feel guilty. I spent 30 minutes at lunch writing out my characters. The damn Final Draft Application then didn't even save my 30 minutes of writing! Can't recover it. So spent another 30 minutes re-writing it in a good old fashion word document.  I already like where my imagination is going. It's like having puzzle pieces in front of you but without the cover of the box to guide you.

Stay tuned for daily updates. I may set up a separate blog for this. But until then....

Jill

Cute Lobsters and Emirates SkyCargo

Lots of fun Producing and Scripting this animated infographic video for Emirates SkyCargo with the WOW Agency in Dubai. Emirates SkyCargo Lobster Journey Video