Hunger Games – Myth meets Science Fiction

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Administrator

Myth meets science fiction with computer game elements

Hello Readers,

It’s been awhile since the AtomicWriter has blogged but I assure you I’m still here and always looking out for your best interests. But where have I been you ask? I just finished my first spec TV pilot script. Yes, you read that right, the AtomicWriter has written a one hour science fiction original pilot for TV. What’s it about you ask? Let’s just say you won’t be disappointed but I’ll go into more details in a later post. And rest assured I am still writing feature screenplays. I’m just experimenting in different forms of writing. Nothing wrong with a little experimentation, right? (As long as it is science fiction, right.)

Let’s talk Hunger Games. I’m getting a bit hungry just mentioning the name. The movie was number one at the domestic box office for four weeks in a row. So what’s all the fuss about?

Book author and screenplay co-author Suzanne Collins has brilliantly mashed together two of Hollywood’s staple genres, the Myth and Science Fiction.   In fact, the premise for the Hunger games is based on the ancient Greek Myth of Thaddeus and the Minotaur. Every year King Aegeus must send seven young men and seven young women to be eaten by the Minotaur in ritual payment for a crime. Of course Suzanne changed the ages to 12-18 to target the young adult market but she did more than that to modernize the old myth. The challenge with making an old myth attractive to modern audiences is to add elements to the story that transcend the ages. She choose to place the story in the future in order to make the moral of the story appropriate for any age. While commenting on challenges teens face today but setting it in a future world, the author is able to make bold statements while not sounding preachy or on a soapbox.  Same thing Gene Roddenberry did with the original Star Trek series.

I have written before on this blog about the mythic structure in story telling and about ancient stories like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Joesph Campbell wrote a book titled, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, where he writes about a common story telling structure told in every culture on Earth. This is the hero’s journey and has been boiled down to twelve steps:

See how many of these you can directly relate to scenes in The Hunger Games.

1.Ordinary World - The hero’s normal world before the story begins.

2.Call to Adventure - The hero is presented with a problem, challenge or adventure.

3.Refusal of the Call - The hero refuses the challenge or journey, usually because he’s scared.

4. Meeting with the Mentor – The hero meets a mentor to gain advice or training for the adventure.

5. Crossing the First Threshold - The hero crosses leaves the ordinary world and goes into the special world.

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies - The hero faces tests, meets allies, confronts enemies & learn the rules of the Special World.

7. Approach - The hero has hit setbacks during tests & may need to try a new idea.

8. Ordeal - The biggest life or death crisis.

9. Reward - The hero has survived death, overcomes his fear and now earns the reward.

10. The Road Back - The hero must return to the Ordinary World.

11. Resurrection Hero - another test where the hero faces death – he has to use everything he’s learned.

12. Return with Elixir - The hero returns from the journey with the “elixir”, and uses it to help everyone in the Ordinary World.

WOW! The above could be the beat sheet for the Hunger Games script. In just about every single step you can visualize a scene from the movie. This is no coincidence. Collins knew this structure and applied it to her story. More importantly, she added elements to modernize and familiarize the story. Take District 12 for example. In a story set hundreds of years in the future she choose to include a rural backward mining town as the home of the main character. This instantly gave us something we could relate to and bond with. We all know what kind of place this is and it is important to ground science fiction stories like this. Most science fiction movies fail because we have nothing to relate to. The writer creates a bizarre and albeit cool new world, but it’s so alien we become passive observers instead of invested participants.

By combining myth with science fiction set in the future, Collins is able to tell a story and send a message in a compelling dramatic way. But that’s not all she did. By adding elements of computer game play she has also instantly made it attractive to the growing young segment of the audience who may have had to make a hard choice on Friday night. Stay at home or play a game on their X-Box.

Computer games allow the player to be the main character and is a challenge against either A.I. or another human player. The outcome is not certain and the course of play can take multiple paths. A movie is normally a single path. The challenge we as writer’s face is to make the linear story we are telling seem like it could go in any number of directions. How can a linear story with a fixed outcome have multiple paths? Of course in the near future we may attend theaters where each patron votes on one of many possibilities, but let’s stick to current technology. A writer must make it seem like a computer game by creating the illusion of multiple paths through cleaver placement of reveals and surprises. By making it so suspenseful our minds form these multiple paths and we think, “Oh no! If Catniss runs to the left she will burn to death – if she returns to the woods the gang will find her and kill her – if she hides maybe she’ll live. Get the picture? By creating junction points where the outcome is uncertain, and providing unexpected reveals, we as the audience will fill in the gaps and it will have the suspense like a game.

The Hunger Games does all this and more. Collins creates vivid contrast between District 12 and Capital City. The contrast not only of place but of people and how they dress. Contrast between the morals of the decadent upper class and the struggling lower class. In fact the contrast of the rich District 1 and 2 Tributes who have trained all their lives and the underdog Tributes of District 12, Katniss and Peeta, have had to struggle all their life and have learned survival skills. At least Katniss has.

This is truly a dystopian world made up of people who take monetary gain in a savage ritual where young adults are killed in a game under the guise of a national celebration. The Tributes are introduced in chariots not unlike those that would have been seen in Roman days. Days where Christians were led to their deaths in the Coliseum against a backdrop of cheering on lookers.

Teens love this trilogy of books, and soon to be movies, because they can relate to oppression. I was once a teenager and can vividly remember how I felt about adults ordering me around and feeling like a second class citizen. Teens love to rebel because it temporarily empowers them. They feel alive with a cause. Even though the cause may only be staying out late or growing sideburns, this story resonates with youths for these reasons and because as we’ll see in the other two stories how revenge can be so sweet.

Should the Atomic Writer pen a mythic science fiction Story? Hmm, can you hear the gears turning in my head…

Remember, never stop looking up in the night sky and asking, what if?

Victor Grippi

The Atomic Writer

Posted in Movies, Screenplays, screenwriting | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Update on Phobos – Where’s a shuttle when you need it?

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Administrator

Phobos-Grunt and Phobos LIFE launch A Zenit rocket lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 20:16:02.871 UTC on November 8, 2011, carrying Phobos-Grunt, Yinghuo-1, and the Planetary Society's Phobos LIFE biomodule into Earth orbit. There, the upper stage failed to fire, dooming the mission. Credit: Roscosmos / IKI

Hello Readers, the Atomic Writer just received an email from the project manager on the Phobos project. I feel sorry for him and everyone involved with the program here in the U.S. The spacecraft is still in near Earth orbit and descending everyday towards an eventual plummet to the surface. Too bad we don’t have an operational shuttle program that could rescue the ailing Russian sad excuse for a spacecraft. All they can do is sit and attempt to make contact with it. If they haven’t done so by now they never will. Once it reenters the atmosphere it’s not going to suddenly spring to life and start accepting instructions.

This is another reason I advocate the continuance of NASA and the U.S. run space program. We led the way into space and must push forward to explore new worlds and boldly go where no man has gone before. Beam me up… oh, sorry I must have got carried away. But seriously, if we had a reusable spacecraft that could go up and either repair the Phobos craft, or more importantly usher it safely back to Earth, we could possible save the mission and expedite a follow up launch.

Certainly, the private sector is making headway into this space – no pun intended. The Virgin Galactic operation based in the New Mexico desert has announced it will begin commercial  space flight at the end of 2012. These will be very expensive trips to near Earth orbit and are designed to just go up for a short amount of time and then return. Passengers will experience weightlessness and be able to see the curvature of the Earth and be able to brag to all their friends that they indeed have been into space. But these passenger baring lightweight spacecrafts are really no more than modified gliders. Built for the express purpose of making money. Packing the largest amount of people in the smallest space to allow for a fuel efficient ride. Unfortunately, if operational they would still not be able to rescue the Phobos rocket.

Passenger safety is of the utmost importance in these flights especially during the infancy period where public impressions will become very important. Over time the cost of a trip into space will lower and more people will be able to experience it. It is at this time that public acceptance of the cost of space exploration will become more favorable. When we can see a direct benefit of the cost to a tangible goal we will gladly open our wallets and help foot the bill. But we will never get to this point if we are short sighted and try to rationalize away a space program for the short term comfort of social programs that do nothing but extend the misery of the human condition.

Don’t get me wrong, I support social programs and community efforts to help people in need. But wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had a home to live in. Enough food on the table and access to high quality medical services when needed. On this planet, this is fast becoming an unreachable fantasy as we run out of natural resources. However, if we could spread out to new worlds with unlimited resources this dream may not be so far fetched.

Take this as an analogy – your driving your car through the desert on a lonely and deserted highway. You must reach a faraway town in order to find a job and survive. Currently you have half a tank of gas, a small bag of Nacho chips, and limited amount of money. A highway sign approaches in the distance, but you can’t make it out just yet. You continue to roll down the highway as the sign becomes readable: Last services for one hundred and fifty miles! Next exit. Do you stop and spend all your money to refuel and eat, or do you continue to save your money until the next services? Remember, you still need to reach the faraway town many miles past the next highway services. Think about it, we must not risk the chance of blowing our wad and not reaching the goal of leaving our cradle and stepping out into the cosmos. We need to establish ourselves in space while we have the money and the knowledge to do so. Let’s not trade this dream for short term comforts that keep us tied to the mother ship. Before we reach the inevitable tipping point where humanity becomes forever tied to the doomed existence it could have prevented.

I find the following quote opportune in light of the agency behind the Phobos fiasco.

the earth is the cradle of humankind……but one cannot live in the cradle forever.
- konstantin tsiolkovsky, 1895

Here’s the letter from Bruce Betts expressing his appreciation for all involved and hinting at a future mission and the pockets he will need to explore in order to raise the money again.

*****************

Since you are a valued member of the Planetary Society team that helped launch our Phobos LIFE experiment, I want to share with you excerpts from a letter we just received from our colleagues at the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

As you’ll read, the Phobos-Grunt (Soil) spacecraft failed to leave Earth orbit after it was launched last month, carrying our LIFE capsule on what we hoped would be a round trip to Mars’ moon Phobos and back.

The letter came from Lev Zelenyi, Director of the Space Research Institute. It reads:

“As you may already know, the launch of the Phobos-Soil spacecraft was a failure. On November 8, 2011 the spacecraft was put into the near Earth orbit, however, the booster did not turn on, and, therefore, the spacecraft did not manage to change this initial orbit and transfer to the interplanetary trajectory. The reason of this failure has not been determined yet.

“Immediately after this unpredictable event all forces of the mission control team were concentrated in order to attempt to establish communication with the spacecraft. Several foreign organizations, in particular, ESOC-ESA, DSN-JPL-NASA, NORAD-STRATCOM, numerous amateur observers tracked the spacecraft to establish communication with it and determine parameters of the orbit, its orientation and attitude. However, despite people being at work 24 / 7 since the launch, all these attempts have not yield any satisfactory results. We are grateful to our foreign colleagues, who provided us with every list of information about the spacecraft which was crucial at the time.

“Currently, the spacecraft is rotating at the near Earth orbit, lowering every day, and we expect that it is to enter the atmosphere in several weeks. Lavochkin Association specialists will continue their attempts to establish connection with the spacecraft and send commands until the very end of its existence. We are working nevertheless on the issue of re-entry and probability of where and which fragments may hit the ground (if any).

“We would like to express our deep gratitude to you and all the scientists and specialists for collaboration on the Phobos-Soil Mission, preparation of scientific instruments and provision of ground support. We are deeply sorry about the failure of the Phobos-Soil Mission. We hope in future to continue our collaboration on space science projects.”

The loss of Phobos LIFE is a blow, but we are already recovering and looking forward to the future. We are even now analyzing the microorganisms that flew with our Shuttle LIFE project on the last flight of Endeavour, and we are seeking out future exploratory opportunities to share with you.

With your invaluable help and support, we know that together we will make our future in space vibrant, coming ever closer to our shared goals of understanding and appreciating the worlds around us.

Thank you again for all your support.

Sincerely,

Bruce Betts,
Phobos LIFE Project Manager

************************

Remember, never stop looking up into the night sky and asking, what if…

Victor Grippi

The Atomic Writer

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Reason to keep NASA – Phobos Transpermia Fiasco

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Administrator

It appears the Phobos Life project has been lost to a malfunctioning Russian rocket. What is the Phobos Life project, you ask? More importantly, what the heck is transpermia?

Transpermia is a scientific hypothesis which asks the question: Could life be transferred from one planet to another on rocks traveling through space. The theory goes like this; during meteor collisions rocks containing life are blasted away from the surface of a planet, travel through space and then land on another planet, thus transferring life. We’re not talking mammals like four legged animals hitching a ride on a rocket rock, but rather microscopic microbes buried deep inside the rock. Perhaps Mars once held life and during a massive collision spewed out life laiden chucks of its surface towards the third rock from the sun.

Phobos Life Experiment is a Planetary Society funded experiment where an assortment of different organisms are sent into space for a period of time and then returned to the surface to see who has survived. Some of the organisms are extremaphiles found near volcanic vents in the oceans and survive at extreme temperatures and those that survive at very cold temperatures.   The samples are placed in a capsule that mimic a meteorite and sent into space.

On June 1, 2011, the LIFE samples returned to Earth after flying on the last space shuttle flight, STS-134. The results found at least two forms of microbes still alive after being exposed to the harshness of space. The next test would be on a mission to Mar’s moon Phobos with the Russian Phobos Sample Return Mission. The mission is to land on Phobos, collect soil and rock samples and then return to Earth. The Planetary Societies LIFE experiment is also going on the three year round trip journey with a window that opened on Nov. 8.

Now that you have a bit of background on the project and some sort of context, let’s get down to why this was a bad idea from the start. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. The problem is that the Russian’s have lost communication with the spacecraft that launched earlier this week. There is no confirmation that it has left Earth’s orbit and may indeed be stalled out burning its fuel as it tries to break free from the pull of our planets gravity. Amateur astronomers have spotted the rocket and it appears to not be tumbling in orbit. This is good news. If they cannot revive the rocket it is estimated to fall back to Earth no earlier than December 3.

Our home as seen from space.

To leave planet Earth an escape velocity of 11.2 km/s (approx. 40,320 km/h, or 25,000 mph) is required, however a speed of 42.1 km/s is required to escape the Sun's gravity (and exit the solar system) from the same position. The Phobos rocket is caught in Earth's orbit and will eventually fall back to the surface.

Eventually it will run out of fuel and fall back to the surface. How could this happen? We’ve been launching rockets into space since the 1950′s. I mean come on, it’s not rocket science. Well, okay, actually it is. But the science behind it has been well documented and tested over the years. The amount of kinetic energy needed to break free from the surly bonds of our home are well known. This leaves only two possible reasons. Malfunction or incompetence. The former seems to be the explanation but then again we are hearing this story from the people running the mission in Russia and therefore may not be inclined to suggest the latter. Everyone make mistakes, I made one once many years ago, but that’s besides the point. Even if they prove a mechanical, electrical, or material failure as the cause of this fiasco it still comes back to incompetence.

Incompetence of design, incompetence of engineering, incompetence of manufacture, and incompetence of quality control. Quality has to be maintained at every step of the process when dealing with rocket science. You only get one shot at success. We, as in the US and our space agency, NASA, went to the moon not once but several times because we had control over the process. I’ll admit there were mishaps on the ground and an incident during the flight of Apollo 13, but through skill and determination the crew made it back in one piece. Since the Apollo missions we have not sent a man into space, save for low earth orbit, the shuttle missions, the international space station. We have only sent robotic probes and instruments in our place. The cost is less and the stakes are lower. If a probe malfunctions or crashes into its target then all responsible can go home and sleep well knowing they weren’t responsible for ending a life. Even when there were accidents they were our accidents, our mistakes. Our incompetency.

When we entrust others to do our work we end up with what happened this week. All the money in the world cannot replace the motivation and conscientiousness when people work together as a team. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating nationalism and doing everything ourselves. For example, the international space station has been in operation for many years and continues to carry out its mission as a multi-nation project. Honestly, the space station was designed by the now defunct McDonnell Douglas Corporation, who had the major design and assembly contract.  They parsed out other tasks to both domestic and international companies. We had control and the outcome is apparent. When we give up control, at the process level, we put our future into the hands of others.

I received an email from Bill Nye, CEO of the Planetary Society – I would like to share with you:

Dear Victor Grippi,

A few days ago, I wrote to you with the news that our Phobos LIFE experiment had launched and, riding on the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, it had taken its first step on the road to Mars’ moon, Phobos.

But, as you know, something has gone wrong. The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft has not yet made it out of Earth orbit. So far, despite many attempts to contact the spacecraft, no one has learned exactly what went wrong. And without that information, we don’t know if the mission can be saved.

We are closely monitoring all available information channels, from inside the Russian space program and around the world, and will be posting what we learn at http://planetary.org

Despite this setback, we are not giving up. Every time a mission launches to Mars, the Planetary Society will strive to be part of it. With you as our valued partner, we will keep pushing back the boundaries of the unknown.

Onward!

Bill Nye

CEO, The Planetary Society

I hope to never see an email like this again. “Monitoring all channels within the Russian space program” – translation – they are not telling us the full story. We are relying on information posted on their blog, like they are a local carpet cleaning company. They launched a 13.5 ton spacecraft into the air, containing God knows what and are now saying, “Opps!”

Is it fear of admitting incompetency or just pure ignorance. Lost communication? Unless it has already exploded how do you lose contact with something that hasn’t left Earth’s orbit? It was supposed to fly to Mars. Wouldn’t a craft going to Mars have a backup radio link?  A backup power supply? A way to manually override control of the ship. Or did all systems fail? Were parts from Chernobyl used?

Perhaps The Atomic Writer is being a bit harsh but I’d like nothing more than to see a mission to Mars succeed. I grew up watching Star Track and Star Wars – seeing before my eyes the wonder of space exploration, only to grow up and realize this thing called money is better spent on other matters, other things. I am disappointed because we were not in control of the process. We did not verify the quality of the component pieces that went into the spacecraft. We did not unit test the software navigation system, the propulsion system needed to reach escape velocity. We did not verify the integrity of those involved. We simply went to a another nation, with an active space program, and paid to put our experiment on it, like paying FedEx to deliver a package.

I know some of you are screaming, but the future is not a centralized government agency like NASA. You are citing the recent rise in the commercial space program. Having space tourism pay the enormous cost is enticing but only until the first mishap when everyone screams, “WHERE WAS THE QUALITY CONTROL”, why didn’t someone double check the parameters responsible. Why isn’t there a standard in place. This is why a central agency, full of anal retentive nerds is so necessary. Protocols need to be established and tested, like a UL listing for an electrical device. These are standards proven to provide a safe and properly functioning device. I recommend a dual private sector/government ran agency where the best of both worlds can be realized.

Make NASA commercial, don’t disband it in favor of the private sector.

We need to leave the cradle we call Earth and step out into the cosmos. If nothing else for survival. Eventually our planet will become uninhabitable, a comet or meteor impact, a virus, the core binding up and losing our magnetic shield, a massive coronal ejection from the sun could also do it with a full magnetic shield. If we are not spreading out into the cosmos, jumping from planet to planet, asteroid to asteroid,  we are burying our heads in the sand. We must not leave all our eggs in one basket.

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking, what if…

Victor Grippi

The Atomic Writer

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On the subject of subjectivity in screenplays.

Posted on October 15, 2011 by Administrator

I recently received feedback on one of my scripts from three different readers. Let’s just say they liked my writing style more than this particular script but you have to remember scripts can be revised and even rewritten many times and no one needs to know when they glance upon your words of plenty. These were contest judges and not my usual writing group. I can predict the feedback most of the time from my writing group; I know what catches their eye and their own internal writing style and it reflects in the analysis they give to other scripts. Sometimes it’s better to go outside your circle of readers to get feedback. But not just any feedback will do. You need to find someone capable of non-biased, informed, critical feedback who understands the most crucial element in all of screenwriting. Subjectivity.

Subjectivity is the single most important element when it comes to feedback from a reader. It’s the perception of story elements as defined by the cultural and environmental background of the reader.  It took me several years to fully comprehend this beast, but I can now look at feedback with an eye towards getting inside the mind of the reader to understand why a certain note was made and more importantly decode the real underlying meaning of the comment. Yes, you read me right, sometimes the reader makes a comment that does not fully capture what was in his head when he wrote it. I actually look forward to constructive feedback as all writers should because it offers a glimpse into our reader’s minds.

I recently received this feedback from a contest judge – character lacks depth, too one dimensional – Translation: Reader only read the dialogue. Skimmed the description.

Or this – don’t understand what the protagonist wants – Translation: Reader skimmed the description and the dialogue.

Contrast the above with this feedback on the same screenplay draft but from a different contest and judge – characters well defined, complex and layered.

Same exact draft of the screenplay. Subjectivity is at play here. Two readers can read the same material and based on factors outside the control of the writer, e.g., individual point of view, personal biases, tastes, social class, will interpret it through a filtered lens. So what can a writer do to minimize this effect?

Let me digress for a moment. When a screenwriter writes a story we tend to write the movie we see in our head. It plays out against an imaginary screen projected from an imaginary projector somewhere in our brain and we watch a mini-clip and then write a line of action, or a beat of dialogue, then watch another mini-clip. The trick is to get it right on the page so the reader, and subsequent viewing audience will see the same movie play out in their head. Translating the movie we see in our head into the correct sequence of words to invoke the same emotions we have when we think about the movie is what craft is all about. It is a transfer of energy from our brain to our fingers into the computer and onto the page. Those of us who can master this process can make it as a paid screenwriter.

The effect of mastering this transference of energy is the elimination of ambiguity and the narrowing of subjectivity in the reader who will receive this energy and attempt to process through his neural paths so that his internal projector will project the same story as we created. In an ideal world this happens with every script we write. I mean, come on, how could anyone interpret your kick-ass scene any other way. Doesn’t the reader know why Molly goes into hiding during the holiday season; because as a child her mother burnt down the family Christmas tree every December 24, to avoid explaining why they were so poor and why they had no gifts under the tree. They burnt up in the blaze, right. In fact they were so poor her mother used an artificial tree to burn down, with flame retardant branches and leafs, so she could wipe it off and burn it down again the next year. :-)

Getting it right on the page sounds like a gimmick from a coffee break screenwriter, but try to bear with me as I explain. In simplest terms subjectivity is the percent of error in the comprehension of what we write. The more vague and unclear it is the more the chance the reader is going to screw it up.

If I write this line of description:

A black dog went after a young girl riding down the sidewalk.

There’s a lot of ambiguity in the above statement. What black dog? A black lab? A black poodle, a black Irish setter, or how about a black toy chihuahua. All of these project different images on our internal projector. Now let’s examine “went”, does this mean walked, ran, ambled, rode in a car, a truck, etc… Are you catching my drift? And what is the girl actually doing? Riding could be: on a skateboard, a bike, the back of a bike, on her father’s shoulders? All of these fit within the above board statement.

Now look at this line:

Molly’s toy chihuahua jumped out of her purse, all fours hitting the sidewalk, then raced after a little girl who rode by on her bike.

Does this invoke a clearer more defined image? An image that may be less ambiguous? An image that can only be interpreted within a very narrow range of subjectivity? Although not perfect it certainly conjurers a more vivid scene with more energy.

These are simplistic examples but I hope they get the idea across.

Take these beats of dialogue: I will use — to denote a line of description.

Bud

Put the stuff where I can see it.

Louie

Over my dead body?

Bud

Where I can see it.

Louie

You mean in the light one?

Bud

Next to you.

–BANG!

–Louie bends over in pain.

Bud

Don’t play games with me.

Okay, what’s going on here? Could be almost anything right. What stuff? Where is it? Literally over his dead body? What one next to you? Is Louie shot by Bud or is it the burrito he ate for lunch. Well, it could be.

Now let’s try this:

Bud

Put the money where I can see it.

–Louie turns to a stranger who just walked in.

Louie

Over my dead body.

Bud

Put it in the suitcase.

Louie

You mean the light one?

Bud

Next to you!

–Louie wheels around and levels off his Dirty Harry pistol at the stranger.

–BANG!

–The stranger shoots Louie in the gut. He grimaces over in pain.

–Bud turns towards the stranger.

Bud

Don’t play games with me.

See how the subject of the scene changes radically with clear concise description and matching dialog. The goal is to eliminate as much ambiguity as possible while writing it in such a way as to flow smoothly and allow for an easy read. Screenplays are not books thick with descriptive passages about what a door knob looks like in the sunset. Scripts are blueprints for a movie, there’s nothing literary about them. They need to convey a ton of information in a small space, within 120 pages and tell a compelling story that catches the reader’s attention and does not let go until the final fade out.

Removing the possibility for error and subsequently narrowing the range of allowable subjectivity will improve your writing exponentially.

I’ll leave subtext and the danger it poses for subjectivity for another installment.

Remember never stop looking up at the night sky and asking, what if…

Victor Grippi

The Atomic Writer

Posted in Screenplays, screenwriting | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Steve Jobs 1955-2011 – Truly a great one of a kind.

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Administrator

Steve Jobs

The latest tests from the Large Hydron Collider indicate science as we know it, specifically relativity as outlined by Einstein may need to be changed. If history is any indication, we will discover more and more deviations from the accepted norm as these tests continue.

If you haven’t already done so, please read my below post on the Opera test being conducted at the LHC. This will give you context into this post and how it relates to Steve Jobs.

One can hypothesize that the above findings may lead to the possibility of time travel. Time is considered to be the fourth dimension in our ever expanding universe. If we were to step into the fifth dimension we would observe the other four dimensions differently. Perhaps we would see a tunnel made up of light from the past, present, and future. This timeline, if you will, could allow us to view all of history at the same time. Kurt Vonnegut wrote so elegantly in his book, Slaughter House Five, about a similar timeline that the Tralfamadorian’s used to view the sum total of human history at a glance.

Think of it like taking the frames out of a movie and laying them side by side on the sidewalk. We could literally see our history before us. The beginning, middle, and end all at the same time. I know this is difficult to fathom, but try to think out of the box for a moment here and entertain me. This reminds me of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Imagine you live your entire life chained to a rock along with others in a cave. The only interaction you have with the outside world are shadows reflecting off the back wall of the cave, presumably when they came to toss you a plate of food. What if one day someone breaks free and runs outside. They return and tell you about the outside world. The sun, trees, other people. Wouldn’t you have a hard time accepting this true reality. Wouldn’t you think this person is crazy. Remember absolutely no interaction with the outside world. Thinking of timelines poses the same problem. Back let’s get back to timelines and how they relate to Steve Jobs.

Perhaps we would see multiple timelines on neighboring sidewalks representing alternate realities where the frames of our history are similar and almost shared in some instances. What if timelines crossed each other? During critical times in our history the frames of one reality intersect with those of another. In these instances major world events could take place simultaneously.

Yesterday one such event took place. Steve Jobs, founder and visionary of Apple computer passed away. It wasn’t unexpected or accidental. He had health problems for many years. But I started thinking what if people like this, people who seem to rise to levels of achievement the rest of us only dream of; what if they exist on multiple timelines? Is this so far fetched?  Perhaps they are fueled by each timeline they occupy. These visionaries are called one of a kind as they go through life forging new paths for the rest to follow. What makes them special? Sure they are smart, dedicated, but they are also in the right place at the right time. They beat their competition to market. They seem to have been ordained by a higher authority. Maybe it’s because they are truly one of a kind and therefore exist on all timelines simultaneously.

Even though the history is slightly different, each timeline would exist in approximately the same epoch. Meaning all timelines are at the same level of technology or close to it. There wouldn’t be timelines where the humans are just discovering fire and how to hunt more efficiently.  We would be facing the same obstacles and problems in society and be searching for more or less the same answers.

Consider another hypothesis, one where chosen ones do not simultaneous exist but perhaps are sequentially called upon. Some of us may not have an evil doppelganger on the other timeline. Some of us may be what’s known in software engineering as singletons. A single instance that lives in the same location in a computer’s memory. When each thread of execution calls for this object it is handed back the same instance that lives at the same location in memory even though the thread of execution exists elsewhere.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things when a timeline is in need of change, to elevate its technology in order to avoid an obstacle, or to enact social changes necessary for their civilization to advance; perhaps they call upon certain persons and are handed back their singleton. I believe Steve Jobs is a singleton. And yesterday on the timeline where I am writing this, he was recycled. This does not mean the singleton fails to exist. He exists in the same global memory space where he will always occupy. Perhaps on another timeline he has just been instantiated. A child born to parents who will put him up for adoption, as was the case in this timeline. New parents who will nurture and grow the entrepreneurial spirit in the man who will empower others to reach their highest potential thereby elevating the timeline to new heights. As the work on one timeline ends, the work on another just starts.

We should all strive to become singletons. To rise to our greatest potential and be the best we can. To be the one of kind visionary who will change the world in our own unique ways. Steve Jobs was only 55 years old. Way too young to leave us. Perhaps another timeline needs him more now than we do.

Remember never stop looking up at the night sky and asking, what if…

Victor Grippi

The Atomic Writer

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Faster than the Speed of Light?

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Administrator

Is Einstein turning over in his grave? Has the cosmic speed limit been broken by a rebellious little neutrino?


 

neutrino test

Flight of the neutrino from the LHC to detectors in Italy. Project Opera.

OPERA experiment reports anomaly in flight time of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso

Geneva, 23 September 2011. The OPERA1 experiment, which observes a neutrino beam from CERN2 730 km away at Italy’s INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory, will present new results in a seminar at CERN this afternoon at 16:00 CEST. The seminar will be webcast at http://webcast.cern.ch. Journalists wishing to ask questions may do so via twitter using the hash tag #nuquestions, or via the usual CERN press office channels.

The OPERA result is based on the observation of over 15000 neutrino events measured at Gran Sasso, and appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light, nature’s cosmic speed limit. Given the potential far-reaching consequences of such a result, independent measurements are needed before the effect can either be refuted or firmly established. This is why the OPERA collaboration has decided to open the result to broader scrutiny. The collaboration’s result is available on the preprint server arxiv.org: http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897.

The OPERA measurement is at odds with well-established laws of nature, though science frequently progresses by overthrowing the established paradigms. For this reason, many searches have been made for deviations from Einstein’s theory of relativity, so far not finding any such evidence. The strong constraints arising from these observations makes an interpretation of the OPERA measurement in terms of modification of Einstein’s theory unlikely, and give further strong reason to seek new independent measurements.

“This result comes as a complete surprise,” said OPERA spokesperson, Antonio Ereditato of the University of Bern. “After many months of studies and cross checks we have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement. While OPERA researchers will continue their studies, we are also looking forward to independent measurements to fully assess the nature of this observation.”

“When an experiment finds an apparently unbelievable result and can find no artefact of the measurement to account for it, it’s normal procedure to invite broader scrutiny, and this is exactly what the OPERA collaboration is doing, it’s good scientific practice,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. “If this measurement is confirmed, it might change our view of physics, but we need to be sure that there are no other, more mundane, explanations. That will require independent measurements.”

In order to perform this study, the OPERA Collaboration teamed up with experts in metrology from CERN and other institutions to perform a series of high precision measurements of the distance between the source and the detector, and of the neutrinos’ time of flight. The distance between the origin of the neutrino beam and OPERA was measured with an uncertainty of 20 cm over the 730 km travel path. The neutrinos’ time of flight was determined with an accuracy of less than 10 nanoseconds by using sophisticated instruments including advanced GPS systems and atomic clocks. The time response of all elements of the CNGS beam line and of the OPERA detector has also been measured with great precision.

“We have established synchronization between CERN and Gran Sasso that gives us nanosecond accuracy, and we’ve measured the distance between the two sites to 20 centimetres,” said Dario Autiero, the CNRS researcher who will give this afternoon’s seminar. “Although our measurements have low systematic uncertainty and high statistical accuracy, and we place great confidence in our results, we’re looking forward to comparing them with those from other experiments.”

“The potential impact on science is too large to draw immediate conclusions or attempt physics interpretations. My first reaction is that the neutrino is still surprising us with its mysteries.” said Ereditato. “Today’s seminar is intended to invite scrutiny from the broader particle physics community.”

The OPERA experiment was inaugurated in 2006, with the main goal of studying the rare transformation (oscillation) of muon neutrinos into tau neutrinos. One first such event was observed in 2010, proving the unique ability of the experiment in the detection of the elusive signal of tau neutrinos.

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The Atomic Writer

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Somebody please green-light a sci-fi spec script…

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Administrator

As a preface: a spec script is a screenplay written on the speculation that someone will buy it and make it into a movie. The writer creates an original story in his overactive imagination, a process similar to the catharsis one experiences when watching the finished product.

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As a sci-fi fan I suffer from “lackus originalius contentius”. It’s a condition that affects my ability to sit for two hours in a dark room full of strangers and enjoy images flashing before me on a two dimensional screen. I used to enjoy this activity very much. Unfortunately my condition is spreading to all my friends and even people I’ve never met. I’ve tried all the home remedies such as doses of cable, dvd, and netflix, but these are only temporary fixes. I usually wake up in the middle of the night with the sweats.As treatment for my condition, I will go to the movies on an occasional Friday night and pay to see reboots and remakes as I wait for a true cure to come down the pipeline. I heard a new treatment of Terminator 4 + Blade Runner 2, followed by a chaser of Flatliners 2 and a snort of Robocop 2 might tide me over for a few weeks. I’ll have to wait and see.

Please reply if you know of any other treatments or possible cures.

Signed,

Somebody please green-light a sci-fi spec script.

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As a science fiction screenwriter I happen to have three solid spec scripts that could help cure “lackus originalius contentius”:

Immortality

Second Earth

Alien Attraction

I offer them up to the Hollywood gods as a sacrificial offering in order that sci-fi may return to its heyday. A time when the unbridled imagination may run wild without fences and restrictions. With the cost of SFX lower than ever, I hope to see a renaissance of new creative stories. Of all the genres, science fiction is the least populated. I’m talking about pure science fiction, not horror with gadgets, or thrillers with something a little fringe about them. Not little Tolkien’s trying to find a home for a ring. Not to bash LOTR, but it always seemed a little too much medieval for my taste.

I’m talking pure hard science fiction. Fantasy is okay if the world is built with reasonable physics, however most are not. Most of the stuff Phillip K. Dick wrote falls into this category. Hail PKD! I also like to call it speculative fiction. A version of the future where technology and human behavior has run amok. These are typically cautionary tales where the lesson may help us avoid the future the story spins. In the process we are entertained with the type of cerebral stimulation we all crave.

I do have to concede the upcoming movie, Passengers, when and if released, may help cure my ailment. But in reality it will only make me jones for more. I see plenty of sci-fi spec scripts being sold around town, however very few of them make it to the big screen. What’s up with this?

Remember never stop looking up into the night sky and asking, what if…

Victor Grippi

The Atomic Writer

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Blade Runner 2. Here’s my take…

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Administrator
Blade Runner

Blade Runner

An untitled Blade Runner project is currently in development from Ridley Scott. Due out in 2014 it’s not clear yet if it will be a prequel, sequel, or remake. Here are my ideas and opinions and they are only the tip of the proverbial ice thingy…IMHO, the original Blade Runner is so original, iconic, and flawless, the only thing you could do is copy it. And who would go see a copy? It’s like trying to build a second Eiffel Tower or Mount Rushmore. Unless you duplicate it exactly it will look like a cheap spin off. Some movies need to be made again to fully experience them with modern special effects. This is not the case with Blade Runner. This is testament to the creative mixing of several brilliant artists including Ridley Scott and Phillip K. Dick. Remember Mr. Dick was still alive in 1982. I’m not sure if he lived long enough to realize what a cult classic the film was to become. With a poor opening box office the movie seemed a failure. The story is straightforward but complex. It’s the type of movie I love, where you have to think and pay attention instead of just taking it in like a mind numbed robot.

The film noir style, of reflective surfaces, dark angled camera perspectives, and scene lit instead of actor lit views had never been seen in a science fiction movie and this made it even more original and groundbreaking. Previously film noir had been the domain of detective mysteries and horror movies. The style originating in the German and French cinema.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

So that leaves prequel or sequel. If it’s a prequel you have to tell the back story of the original film. It can’t be a prequel of just the era, or any other story line. It has to include elements of why society became dystopian, the history of the blade runner unit, evolution of the Nexus android line, and the history of the Tyrell corporation. This can be done with or without the same characters from the original.One possible back story:Perhaps a virus is slowly killing off the human race. Birth rates are low, there are not enough workers to maintain the standard of living, so this motivates Tyrell to create the Nexus line. More and more humans are being replaced by replicants and the result is a cold and unemotional society that is in decline. What if Deckard was once a real human? He excelled in his profession and Tyrell made a Nexus model based on him. This would allow a new actor to play the role since Deckard the human doesn’t need to look like Deckard the replicant.A sequel would have to follow Deckard and Rachel’s story. Wouldn’t it? We wouldn’t want to see an “episode” where a different rogue replicant or replicants, have to be hunted down by another blade runner. Perhaps Deckard and Rachel discover they only live for eight years instead of four since they were specially built. They try to enjoy the time they have and accept their fate, but it eats away at him until finally Deckard springs into action. He goes back and finds Tyrell alive and well. You see, it was his replicant that Roy killed in the original story.

Okay, the screenwriter in me is showing. I could go on and on. In any case, another movie in this universe is a sure winner. As much as I prefer original spec stories, there are some that should be told again and Blade Runner is one of them.

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking, what if…

Victor Grippi

The Atomic Writer

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Difference between Science Fiction and Horror

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Administrator

Ever wonder why the science fiction genre and the horror genre are so closely related?There is a fine line between science fiction and horror since both deal with science run amok, or what can happen if man delves into any of the “forbidden” areas of science. These tend to relate to the Biblical myths of the tree of eternal life and/or the tree of forbidden knowledge in our western culture. Most stories deal with creating human life or a replacement for human life. If the emphasis is on raising the human condition then it is science fiction. If the story deals with the decline of man then it is generally horror. Put another way, science fiction is about the evolution of man where horror deals with the devolution of man.

To me the main difference between a science fiction story and a horror story revolves around how technology is handled. In both cases technology gets man into trouble and if technology is used to get man out of trouble without any sub-human or alien monster involved – it is science fiction. For example, in the movie Blade Runner, technology gets us into trouble in the form of replicants who become sentient and refuse to die ( be shutdown at a certain age). This is a man made issue and one that does not involve a new life-form created from man, or an alien life-form used to haunt man. In both above cases the “sub-human” is used to contrast a certain negative aspect inherent in humans. Blade Runner asks the question: What does it mean to be human? Who is more human? Decker or the replicants? Key here is that the replicants are models or substitutions for humans. The focus of the story is the noir style detective mystery where a blade runner tracks down these androids. The replicants do contrast humans in the question of who is more human, however I would hardly say they are “monsters”.

Pure science fiction deals with the problems created by technology whether it is a lack of resources on a remote space outpost, being Lost In Space, or a lack of fuel on a starship taking the last remnants of humanity to a habitable planet as in BattleStar Gallactica. The solution comes in the form of technology conquered by man in order to obtain a goal and survive. In the original, The Day the Earth Stood Still, the alien warns the human race not to use nuclear weapons. An issue on everyones mind in 1951. Here the alien is not bent on antagonizing humans and is not a “monster”. In the 2008 remake the message they bring is “stop destroying the environment”, a more in vogue issue for this time period. This story is focused on improving the human condition and is therefore a science fiction film.

Horror, on the other hand, deals with an entity that poses a threat to the human race with the central problem of the story focused on will man beat this monster and survive, or can man change his behavior in order to beat this monster. When the monster is the antagonist it is most likely a horror story. Technology can be used to get us into trouble but the result of this technology gone wrong is the “monster”. Giant ants as the result of nuclear testing, or mutants with super powers bent on revenging themselves. These deal with decay of the human condition and are therefore horror. Frankenstien violates a core tenet of the tree of external life and the forbidden act of man acting like God when Dr. Victor Frankenstien, no relation, creates the “monster” out of used body parts he digs up at the local cemetary. This truely is a “monster” who perhaps has admiral intentions at birth and is an innocent, but quickly becomes true to his nature when he starts enacting revenge and killing those dear to his creator, Dr. Frankenstein. Here we have a sub-human creature who degrades the human condition and therefore this film is horror. Although I might note that there are science fiction elements in the story with the laboratory and the technology Frankenstein uses to create the monster, but the main focus is on the creature and this goes in the horror pile. Ditto for the Saw series of movies where normal people become the “monsters” and the question is raised: What would you do to survive? The answer comes in the form of brutal killings and a bloody mess. Survival theory is explored in these movies however the shock factor is prevalent and yes, you guessed it, horror or perhaps slasher rings truer.

Granted there are hybrids that are both sci-fi and horror. Event Horizon, in my opinion is a sci-fi/horror film. The story deals with a spaceship that disappears for seven years, after jumping to the edge of the known universe, and when it returns it is not the same. Humans seem to be taken over by an evil force that brings out their dark side. They become “monsters” who are sub-human. In the movie Alien and its sequel, Aliens, we have a pure horror movie dressed up as a sci-fi movie. We have spaceships and distant planets with all the trimmings of a space adventure story, only here the “monster” takes the form of an alien life-form destined to destroy man. In fact it’s so “alien” there’s no way to communicate with it. It’s simply a killing machine. This becomes the chief antagonist and focus of the story. Would you agree?

Personally I like pure science fiction because of its speculative nature. I like writing a version of the future and posing the tough questions that warn us of what may come if this future becomes reality. Perhaps we can avoid the pitfalls of this fictional future and make the real world a better place for all of us.

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking – what if?

Cheers,

Victor Grippi

The Atomic Writer

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Living Like Ants

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Administrator

Sitting in traffic, I realize just how unnatural waiting my turn to move my car, an unnatural object, a few more feet down a manmade road while side by side with others trying to do the same. We are like a trail of worker ants commuting down a well established route, mapped out long ago by foraging ants who had found a source of food. They mark the path with a scent so that the worker ants will instinctively follow. The ants move in a synchronized parade led by instinct alone. In much the same way, land developers and urban planners, layout a city and create highways to allow us humans to travel from one point to another much like a connected ant colony. For humans this is not instinct, we have not developed this behavior through natural selection, those who travel the routes survive better than those who do not. It is voluntary, and in some ways necessary in order to have employment, and to survive. But at what cost do we survive? What environmental signals do we ignore in order to survive?

My parents retired several years back, and moved from the city to a rural area in southern Riverside County. I have enjoyed breaks from the city whenever I travel out there on weekends and holidays, and have always noticed the contrast of this landscape to where I live and work during the week. I most enjoy looking out in certain directions, and seeing an unaltered vista, where no signs of human presence can be seen. It relaxes me, instantly calms me down and triggers an unexplainable sense of place and purpose in my life. I sometimes drive on a dirt road and find a quiet place to sit and read. When I’m out there I feel normal, like I’m connected to the land. It’s hard to explain, but is almost addictive behavior to me now.

Perhaps humans have a need to see the natural world as our ancestors once did. Maybe it produces a chemical reaction in an area of our brain that evolved during a more primitive time. The lack of this chemical may be the loss of our true selves, the collective effect on all of us could be the loss of community and brotherhood we once all shared. For most of the history of mankind, we have lived off the land. Either as hunter gatherers, or as farmers. We moved in nomadic tribes following the migration routes of animals and only recently did we settle down in one place. We all have the desire to explore the world around us. Some build ships and sail across unchartered waters, while others travel to unknown and exotic lands. But what happens when humans become corralled, stuck in traffic, and unable to explore? Suppressing internal desires and needs may manifest in unnatural behavior in some people. They may have a tendency to commit crime, develop deviate behavior, or lash out. Others may overtly express themselves in a cry of attention. Some may turn to writing, and releasing their feeling in a sort of catharsis. I chose to write. The never ending cycle of being different so as to have an identity, drives each generation. These are all signals to the lack of humanity we once shared when we lived off the land.

There exists a tropical canopy fungus whose life cycle is dependant on dropping spores from the top of the canopy down onto the jungle floor. There ants are infected, and then for no apparent reason, the infected ant climbs to the top of a tree, sinks it’s mandible into a branch and then dies. The fungus then sprouts from the dead ant and the spores fall to the floor thus completing the cycle. No other explanation can be found except for the tenacity of this fungus to survive. Nothing the ant can do will change this behavior. The fungus enters the ant’s body, goes to its brain, and triggers a chemical reaction to change the ant’s behavior, causing it to climb to higher ground. The ant may believe he is suffering from a lack of oxygen, as if it was immersed in water, so the ant evolved to climb to higher ground. Ants will instinctively move to higher ground if they fall into water, so the fungus evolved to leverage this reaction in an ant.

As the years have gone by I have witnessed the development of the surrounding area close to my parents. Land developers spread like a fungus into areas that are ripe for development. They have evolved to leverage the desire of humans to live in a home of their own. Pure open spaces have been replaced by large single family homes as urban sprawl spreads its tentacles out from the central colony. Somehow the forager’s, or should I say real estate agents, have found a honey pot here and have marked the trail. Soon a constant stream of ants will file in. The fungus that infects the land developers blinds them to the realty of how much open space is really left. It has become so bad that there exists only one true natural vista in which I can get a fix. At night for as far as you can see, there are no lights, no white/red stripe moving across the panorama, evidence of a human ant trail, only the peace and quiet and smell of sagebrush that fills one’s soul.

Last week a sign went up on the edge of this vista, more homes to come. I am now faced with the choice to find another area to visit, to find and travel along a new ant trail in search of the natural unspoiled vista’s I so disparately need. Or am I to face the uncertainty of numbing the part of my brain I have grown used to stimulating. I could just give up and allow the lack of this natural chemical a chance to alter my behavior? Will I ever look at a vista the same again? Will I find a mountain, climb as high as I can, dig in, and wait to die? A trail of ants will surely follow.

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking, what if…

Cheers,

Victor Grippi

The Atomic Writer

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