The Devil's Camera was a Sam Raimi-influenced definition of treacle. I envisioned then-It girl Janeane Garofalo playing the lead. Such an envisioning reveals me not only old, but certifiably older than shit.
One of my fellow Ixtlan interns purported himself the son of sci-fi legend Theodore Sturgeon. At a Universal Citywalk hosted release party for the VHS (!) of Natural Born Killers, Andros' writing partner informed me she and Andros not only whipped out entire screenplays over the course of a weekend, but "they're good, too".
Every fool believes their way with words is new, good, original, maybe even a game-changer. Laying it on thick like that is quite possibly the most necessary portion of writing. Especially in the vacuum.
At Ixtlan, I wrote dozens of script and book synopses, the majority bearing soul crushing coverage reports. Ever hear of Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost's serial killer novel? I read the manuscript in a single sunny Santa Monica afternoon and gave it one of dozens of momentum-stopping thumbs down. I even dropped a deuce on Gus Van Sant's maiden Harvey Milk-effort.
For the longest time, post-Los Angeles, post-movie industry dreams shuttered, I refused to watch movies. Even today, mention of Ixtlan head honcho Oliver Stone unloosens something just beneath the surface. A vague yet potent dissonance suitable to some loser scraping by in a Philip K. Dick tale.
Strangely, for both Lucid and The Lipless Gods part of the prenatal writing process involved assembling a "trailer", rolling the most visual or violent scenes through the noggin', testing them out before setting them down in words. For fucks sake, even a Warner Bros. movie logo precedes the imagining.
Currently, I keep waiting for a trailer to run. Got characters. The vaguest wisps of conflict. I just need an ignition point to perk up and plant my butt so I can whip it out, easy as Andros and his partner could.
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