Category: Uncategorized
Her
Spike Jonze sets himself a tough task in his first feature film screenplay. He needs to make the audience believe that a man can fall in love with a voice. In ‘Her’, he succeeds, but goes even further than that. This is the best film I’ve seen in dealing with the heartache of breaking up and the wandering of loneliness. The attention to detail is amazing – the film is set in a not-to-distant future, but that’s never the focus, it’s the backdrop for the characters’ every day life. There is no time wasted on exposition, explaining the future, it just is. Joaquin Phoenix is excellent and is really coming into his own as an actor since that weird mockumentary film that never really worked. Amy Adams, too, once again proves herself to be a major talent worthy of significant roles.
I noted after I’d seen Her that ‘if you’ve never been in love and had your heart broken, this film might not be for you. For everyone else – must see’. I felt every emotion that main character Theodore Twombly felt, it had me from the start. And the subtle way Jonze plays the emotional notes, without ever overplaying or getting caught up in the scenery is pure genius. Jonze has a great sense of the romantic and can find simple, beautiful moments in the mundane. Just like real life, if you have a moment to take it in. His preceding short film ‘I’m Here‘ had similar moments that captured that perfect feeling of being so lost in love that you’d give anything for this person (literally, in that film). There are moments in Her that I found extremely moving, moments that made me want to be more open to the world. That’s the most any art can do, move you to open your mind and want to experience more of life.
I can’t recommend Her enough, an amazing film, well written, well acted, well executed. You should go see it, as soon as you can.
Are You a Writer?
Why are we afraid to call ourselves writers? This often comes up if you’re in a writing course or at a writing event, if you were to ask the room ‘who here would identify themselves as a writer?’ you’ll see a lot of hesitancy. People aren’t sure they have the right to take that label. It’s as if saying you’re a writer is aggrandising yourself, as if, by owning it, you’re immediately putting yourself up alongside Hemmingway and Tolstoy and writers you’ve idolised your whole life. ‘What right do you have to such a title? Because you ‘try’ to write?’
Why are we afraid to say ‘I’m a writer’?
Here’s a couple of things to consider:
There are billions of great stories in the world, more than could ever be told in the history of time. There are not billions of great storytellers. That’s the way it is, not everyone’s a great writer destined to produce works of literary brilliance. Almost everyone has at least one great story to tell, but for the majority of us, that story will never be heard or written. For every great film or book you read, there are probably thousands more you’ll never experience, because they simply don’t exist.
There are billions of writing tips and strategies and people who’ll tell you what, in their experience, is the best way to go about creating stories. But they’re not all right. There is no ‘right’ way to go about producing literature. There are certain things that you should do – like writing everyday, reading everything you can, learning and taking on feedback – but no one can say ‘you do these things and you’ll become a published author’. Because there is no one way to go about it. If there were, everyone would do it. It always reminds me of Mark Haddon’s ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time’, a novel which includes pictures as part of the text. Next time you go to your writing class or group, you put your hand up and ask whether you should put images in as part of the text in your novel. No doubt you’ll hear scoffs and someone will tell you ‘no, absolutely not’, which makes sense, you would advise against it. But that book sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. There are no definitive rules on how to write great literature. You can make anything work, within reason.
The thing is, if people are afraid to own the label ‘writer’, people are at least somewhat afraid to write. At the least, people are afraid to show their work to people, because ‘it’s just something silly I’ve been working on, nothing really, forget about it’. If people are afraid to be writers, we’re missing out on great stories. You need to do it, you need to put your words down, do what you feel. You need to get it out there – yeah, you might get criticised, but that’s part of the process. Every author gets rejected and trashed and hurt. You take on what you can while staying true to yourself, want to achieve. What you think makes your work great. You only have to answer to yourself, know that you’re doing the best you can to achieve what you want.
We need people to own that label, to stand up and say ‘I’m a writer’, because we don’t want to miss out on great stories. It’s quite possible that the greatest novels of all time have never been put to paper, and that’s a massive shame. And maybe your stuff isn’t going to change the literary landscape, sell millions of copies, affect the lives of people in generations to come. But it might. Why not you? Kurt Vonnegut sold cars before he became ‘Kurt Vonnegut’. JK Rowling was a secretary. Great writers are people, just like you, doing the same things you are. Why can’t you succeed like them?
And that’s the one thing to keep in mind.
There are billions of people in the world. But there is only one you. No one else can write what’s in your head. And if you write, you are a writer. So be it.
I am a writer.
Maybe one day, you’ll read my stuff.
How to be a Better Writer
Sometimes people will ask how they can get better at writing. What do you do? How do you come up with ideas? How do you start on something? The answer to all these questions is: you write. I have been writing for as long as I can remember – I was writing hand written, 20 page horror stories in grade four. I was writing a novel when I was 15 (by page 54 I was at the end, so not really long enough). I have always been writing.
I write 1000 words, every day. Not all of it is good, quite a lot of it will never see the outside of my hard drive, but I do write, every day. It’s like when you get to that tipping point when you’re doing a regular exercise routine, where you feel guilty if you take a day off. That’s how I feel about writing, I can’t stand not doing it.
It’s one of the hard things to explain to people – the ability to write well is not something you can pick up and start straight away. Everyone can write, but not everyone can communicate through words, and even fewer can convey emotion or feeling through language. To be able to find the emotional centre of what you’re writing about and re-create those feelings in the body of the reader is incredibly difficult. Only the best can do it consistently, and that’s after years and years of work. It’s hard to explain that I can write well, because I’ve spent years doing it. And even then, I’m still working everyday to get anywhere close to that next level.
How you get better at writing is you write. And you research. You read everything you need to form an entire city of ideas inside your head, till the story flows through your fingers and daydreams come to you in complete sentences. I research everything, from the specific sound of a punch, to the smell of the inside of a jail cell. I recently wrote a piece where I light-heartedly used Shakespearean language – no one would have noticed, but I researched the differences between ‘thy’, ‘thee’ and ‘thine’ for authenticity’s sake. I love the research, I love getting to know the world I’m working in. And I love to read. And I guess that’s the key point of the whole thing.
How you get better at writing is you write, you research. And you love it. You don’t love it and your readers will know. You’re not passionate about it, your writing will be flat. You might write something quite good, but the key to great writing is that you have to love it. You have to love sentences and paragraphs and the feeling that can be captured in the smallest details. How one line can break your heart or make your day. You have to love the content, find the heart of it and bring it out. If you’re not real, if you’re not able to put humanity into what you do, you’re never going to reach that next level. It’s hard to do, and it’s difficult to open yourself up to readers and put yourself on the line. But that’s what you have to do.
How you get better at writing is you write, you research and you love it. And you make it your own.
And the key to getting better is you have to do it. Every day.
Undeniable
I was watching the 30 Seconds to Mars documentary ‘Artifact’ recently when lead singer Jared Leto said something that really stuck with me. The documentary, for those who haven’t seen it, is about how 30 Seconds to Mars had been signed to some ridiculous contract whereby despite their global success, the band members were not actually making any money at all. The band then sought to change the terms of their contract and were subsequently sued by the label for $30 million. The film looks at the challenges of the modern music industry and the issues faced by artists in trying to make money from their work, and it’s a really well made film. Their music doesn’t do it for me (though I’m not the target demographic) but the film was compelling and definitely made me empathise with the situation.
So there’s one scene where Jared Leto is talking to one of the other band members – they’re lamenting their position and debating whether they even go on as a band. They’re facing building legal costs in a battle they aren’t likely to win, things are not looking great. Then Leto says this:
‘Don’t you wanna’ make something that lives forever? That’s phenomenal. That’s great. That’s undeniable.’
For some time in writing my second novel I’ve been trying to think of a way to describe what’s been the problem with it. I’ve written several drafts, and at least one of them was okay. But it wasn’t brilliant. I’ve been working and re-working and trying to get it on track – my view is that it’s alright, but it’s just slightly off target, like a train running with its wheels off the tracks. If it were on the tracks, it would be smooth, it would flow and it would be not good, not great, but perfect. It would be undeniable. When Jared Leto said this I was like ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s what I’ve been aiming for’.
I imagine this is both the strength and weakness of writers – you want something to be great, so you do all you can and the more work you do, the better it gets, but as your own worst critic, you’re also thinking ‘is it that good? Could it be better?’ I don’t ever want to read great literature and think to myself ‘I’d be happy if I could write something close to this’, because I wouldn’t. My work should hold up when compared to other great work, that’s the way I view it. And of course, brilliance is in the eye of the beholder, one man’s genius is another man’s trash. But I know my ‘brilliant’, and I know I haven’t hit it yet with that book. I remain ever confident that I will. .
Maybe it won’t be a literary classic known the world over and held up as an example for decades to come, but as long as it is, in my eyes, something that I can honestly say ‘that is the absolute best book it could be’, that is what I aim to achieve.
The aim is to create work that is undeniable.
Jared Leto gave me to words to express that desire. Who’d have thought the drug addict from ‘Requiem for a Dream’ would serve as a source of wisdom?
Social Media Today
I’ve had an overwhelming response to some recent articles on Social Media Today looking at SEO and social media best practice and the future of Facebook. There’s been quite a few more visitors to this page because of it (alot more than I’d expected), and I’ve generally kept this page confined to my fiction writing work, but I’m looking to add more social media insights here as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading, will have more info on the ‘Social Media Content and Strategy’ page soon.
That Time I Tried to win a Logie Award
Yes, one time I tried to win a Logie Award. I was not on TV at the time, I had no right or reason to win a Logie Award. But I did it anyway. It went like this.
One day I wrote a fictional article about my attempts to win a Logie Award. The article was about Day One of a campaign I was going to run:
‘My name is Andrew Hutchinson. I want to win a Logie Award. I have no television experience or actual acting ability. I have however, discovered a loop hole in the Logie Awards process which stipulates that they are based on public opinion, not ability (like we didn’t know that already), so my plan is to campaign for a Logie election-style, get the people behind me and triumph over the well and not so well known names of the Australian small screen. “But Andrew”, I hear you say, “why would people vote for you? How will you garner these pledges, get people to join your cause? How do you have the time to waste on this?”
Everyone has a dream, and I believe the people of Australia want a real person to win, a genuine no-namer. An underdog. And I plan to do ANYTHING for the votes.‘
You can read the whole article here.
I sent this article to a website I’d come across called Work in Progress, which was run by two creative types looking to publish new work. This fitted into what they were after – a work in progress, so I sent it through. The detail I didn’t clarify, I didn’t note this was fiction. The guys loved it, but they were under the impression that it was real and when they asked me if this really happened, what could I say? ‘Of course it did’.
This lead to more articles (Day Two, Day Three), and, in a pretty big surprise, media coverage – below from The Sydney Morning Herald, including TV Week’s response, published the next day and, bottom right, a piece from MX:
So it got pretty big, pretty quick and I started to get nervous, because none of this stuff was actually happening. The website set up a contact form where people could put down a challenge for me to do to win their Logie votes and we had a heap of people sign up. I was interviewed on several radio shows, I got onto the Logies ‘Black List’ (after the newspaper article in the SMH, TV Week contacted them (in image above) and told them I didn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell of winning and were, apparently, pretty annoyed that I was making a mockery of their Awards – see ‘Conversations with TV Week’), things were all moving quick. Then the TV guys started calling.
We got a call from a TV producer who wanted to make a comedy show. He said he had a few known comedians keen and wanted to add the Logie Quest, and other comedy work of mine, to the show. This was pretty amazing, and of course, I was down for anything. Then ABC TV called, leading to the above video. The main issue with this one was now I would actually have to do all these things, for real. I was extremely nervious, a camera crew followed me around Federation Square for hours to get this footage, but it turned out okay. They then took me to the Logie Awards (‘How I Walked the Red Carpet at the TV Week Logie Awards’) – which was hilarious. Because I was on the ‘Black List’, they couldn’t list me as the talent, so I had to be listed as part of the crew, and one of the ABC TV chiefs at the time really didn’t want to upset TV Week, so he was totally against them taking me, so we were on some covert mission, very funny. Very nerve wracking also, but the people I worked with were excellent, Shelley Horton and Edwina Throsby were both great.
After the TV show, I kept going back and forth with the producer about the comedy show for a while, then he moved to the US to work on a kids show and by that time it was a few months later and the initial buzz was gone. I also wanted to write serious fiction and was concerned that if I kept doing this it might hurt my reputation and work against that, so I just stopped. The website closed down about a year later, I never heard anything else from the producer. Then it was a just a cool story about that time I went to the Logie Awards and got on TV for being an idiot. And this picture of me standing outside Flinder’s Street Station in my underpants.
Kinglake
I grew up in a small town called Kinglake where there is no lake. We would often have people drive into town towing boats and they’d stop and ask us where the lake was at. We’d be there, sitting on the wooden bench outside the milk bar, our BMX’s lying down in the dirt and we’d tell them there wasn’t one. ‘Nah, come on mate, don’t be a smart ass, where is it?’ When I tell this story, people think I’m making it up, that no one could be that stupid to tow a boat all the way up to Kinglake (it was a small town on top of a hill, about 45 minutes from any suburban area) looking for a lake that didn’t exist. I don’t know what to say, it happened, regularly. Like, at least once a month. Maybe people confused it for Lake King, and this was in the days before GPS, I don’t know. But it happened, dudes would ask us where the lake was at. Then we’d give them directions to no where – ‘…left at the roundabout, go as far as you can down that road, then turn right and follow that till the bitumen runs out…’ Who knows where they ended up.
I always had to explain where Kinglake was to people. Even people who lived half an hour a way seemed unaware of it’s existence when I told them where I was from. It was a process of elimination from that point – ‘do you know where St Andrews is? Do you know where Whittlesea is? Greensborough?’ moving closer and closer to the city with each example till they had some vague idea of which Kinglake was in. This got worse as I got older and started working in the city. I was working nights for a while and people were amazed, startled even, that I would drive an hour to get to work and back. An hour was normal for me so I never really thought much of it, though it did get long on those drives home at 8am after work. I did fall asleep at the wheel a few times, though not enough to be seriously dangerous. But now, everyone knows Kinglake. Ever since 2009, when half the town burned down in a bushfire. It was a strange dynamic, going from no one knowing anything about the small town I came from to seeing the Prime Minister shaking hands with kids outside the local fire shed. It became something sympathetic, to be from Kinglake, then respected, like you’d been through a traumatic event, even though I hadn’t lived there for years before the 2009 fires.
I was in Canberra when the bushfires struck. I moved out in 2003, my family moved out of Kinglake in 2008. My brother stayed and was one of the senior officers in the local fire brigade. I have several other relatives who also still live there. And it was weird seeing it all unfold from another state. The town I grew up in was all over the TV – I was watching the scenes on Sky News, the blackened streets and horror stories. It was terrible, I wrote about it here. I rushed back down from Canberra and got into town (they had blockades up and were only letting locals in) and caught up with my brother but by that stage there was not much anyone could do. Everyone was just walking around in a daze, weaving between Army and CFA and police officers with news crews roving round between. It was strange, the whole thing felt surreal.
One of the strangest things for me was that after that Kinglake felt a lot less like my home. I’d grown there, running round the paddocks, swimming in dams, playing in fallen gum trees. It was me, and I felt an ownership of the place. I felt like it was mine, in some part. But after the bushfires it all changed. New buildings came in, the landscape changed. Now when I drive around town, it doesn’t feel as familiar anymore. The family house my Dad had built (in the photo above) burned down, my brother’s house burned down (he built a new, better one on the same block and still lives there), everything became newer – better, I guess, for those living there, but one of the side effects of that day for me was losing my home town. I have so many memories of Kinglake and what it was, and I remember how it contributed to me as a writer, to the stories I want to write, so it was sad to feel the connection frayed. I still love Kinglake, I still like going up there, but it’s not the same as it was. It belongs to the people there now, like I can’t claim a part of it anymore, which is fine, and it makes sense, I moved away from there a decade ago, but it always left me a bit sad. That it, through necessity, had to change. I miss the huge trees in our old backyard on Victoria Road, climbing up them to the point where they thinned out and swayed in the wind. I miss playing basketball on my dirt half-court. Of course, people lost way more than a few memories or connection with their home town, it’s trivial of me to whinge about such minor things in the larger scheme. But every now and then I think about my home town and remember that I can’t really ever go back. It’s everything I was and everything I would be.
I remember writing on my Dad’s computer into the night while the rest of my family slept, losing track of time as I got absorbed into whatever story I was putting together. I remember looking out the curtains in the night, the dirt road trailing off beneath the streetlights. No cars, no traffic. Just silence.
That Time When My Book Nearly Got Made Into a Movie
It’s the dream of almost every writer to have a book published. But close behind that is the dream of having your book turned into a Hollywood movie. I got somewhat close to having this, sort of. Here’s what happened:
When my novel ‘Rohypnol’ was published in 2007 we were contacted by a couple of groups interested in the film rights. I had no idea about this stuff, I still had stars in my eyes about having my book in Borders, so I took the advice of my publishers on what to do, who to listen to, etc. There were four groups trying to buy the rights to ‘Rohypnol’, which was awesome, and in my head, it meant it was definitely getting made. But the film world is incredibly complex, there are so many variables when seeking film funding – you’re asking investors (producers) to put up millions of dollars on the promise of a return, I can understand why there are many hoops to jump through.
I met with one producer and director combo in Melbourne. The director was Amiel Courtin-Wilson, who has gone on to do some fantastic short and feature film work in recent years. Amiel was a really cool guy and seemed really into the project, had a good vision, I liked everything about him. But there was one other group who had got in contact with us late in the piece which were pretty much the winner as soon as we heard them mentioned. The group was Seed Productions. Seed Productions was owned by Hugh Jackman, his wife, Deborah Lee Furness and their business partner John Palermo. They were working on a a couple of major films (Deception and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) so they had the contacts – and it was Hugh Jackman, of course he knew people who knew how to get a film made. Seed were the safest bet to go with – they had a clear funding plan, they wanted to get moving on the project straight away. They were the ones. So I signed the film rights over to them.
I started working with John, who had asked me to take a shot at writing the screenplay. I hadn’t written a screenplay before, but I’d read all the books and who’s going to say no to having at writing a Hollywood screenplay? We went through a few drafts, with John giving me regular feedback and sending me reference books and DVDs to help get the story down. By the end of that process I was reasonably happy with the screenplay. I was pretty sure it needed work, but it felt okay as a starting point – it didn’t feel way off. Seed then signed up a director for the project, Kris Moyes. Kris was best known for his music video work, but he’s always working on major art projects, amazing stuff. I was a big fan of his video for ‘Are You The One?’ by The Presets. In fact, when I saw that video had won the ARIA award for best video I thought it would be awesome to get that guy as the director of ‘Rohypnol’. And there he was. Kris is one of those guys who’s way cooler than you. Not in a bad way, he’s one the most down to earth, easy going guys you’ll ever meet, and I really liked him, but he’s cool in that he can, say, wear some outlandish kaftan in public and totally pull it off without looking like a douche. The sort of guy who you’ll run into in the strangest of places and it’ll seem completely normal that he’d be there. ‘Cause he’s cool, he can just do whatever and make it cool. His ideas were great, he was keen, everything was moving in the right direction.
Of course, this is over the course of a year or so by now. John was based in LA wo we’d go back and forth via e-mail and I’d write and re-write and wait for his feedback, like everything in publishing, things take time. After probably a year and a half we got to a point where we needed to get an expert to go over the screenplay and fix it up. Andrew Bovell was one of the names put up as someone who might be able to go over it, which was great – Andrew wrote the screenplay for Christos Tsiolkas’ book ‘Loaded’ (the film was called ‘Head On’) and ‘Lantana’ which was a great film. But that never came about, Andrew was working on something else and wasn’t able to do it. I met with Kris and John at Seed’s offices in Fox Studios in Sydney and we went over where everything was at then things got real quiet for a long time. ‘Wolverine’ was getting close to release so I figured they had a heap on, so no problem. Both Kris and I got VIP tickets to the cast and crew screening of ‘Wolverine’, which was pretty cool then after that nothing. For ages and ages.
Kris and I stayed in contact for a little bit, but he had other projects overseas so that sort of faded out and I’d heard nothing from Seed for months and months. Then one day I read on a news website that Seed Productions had shut down. The guys had decided to part ways, with Wolverine being their only major production credit. After I read this, I sent an e-mail to the Seed guys saying I guess this means the film is no go, and thanking them for their time and efforts and for giving me a chance to be a part of the process. Hugh sent me a polite e-mail back, wishing me all the best and that was it. By now the book was a few years old, no longer in stores – the ‘heat’ of the book was gone and the film offers had died down. It’s been under offer a few times since, but it’s never gone any further. It’s disappointing, but that’s how it is with film stuff, so I’m told. A whole lot of things have to align for you to get the green light, even if you are working with a major company or a company with major contacts. I still hold onto the dream that it might one day get made, but it’s pretty unlikely now. I never met Hugh Jackman. People always ask this, but no, I never met him. I think one time I was in the Seed offices just after he’d left, that’s the closest I got, other than via e-mail.
So despite the disappoinment, I really did enjoy the process. Being able to work with John and Kris and just the excitement of working on the possible film adaptation was amazing. John went on to produce the excellent ‘Drive’ with Ryan Gosling – which was interesting to see because after reading the book of ‘Drive’ I could relate the transition from book to screenplay to some of the advice John had given me as we went through ‘Rohypnol’. Kris is always working on something ridiculously amazing, living a life of creativity we can only dream of – you can see his stuff here. And Hugh Jackman is doing something, somewhere, I don’t know, he faded out a little bit after that.
And that’s the story of how my book nearly, almost got made into a real movie. I’d already imagined myself in a tux on opening night too. That’s how it goes.
Little
There’s this bell that starts ringing when the bucket is nearly full. It’s a huge bucket, massive, and it sits on top of the kids play area at the pool. It fills up then it tips, white water crashing down onto everything below and before it’s full this bell starts ringing, getting faster as it gets closer to tipping point. My daughter’s still too small, so I took her up in my arms and went to the spot just beneath the bucket, a point where the water won’t hit you, and I told her to get ready – Are you ready? Yeah. Are you sure? Yeah. Then the water crashed down all around us, a cone of liquid, just her and I inside. She flinched and ducked into me, then peeked out and watched the walls flowing down around us. Smiled those little white teeth.
Gravity
After recently posting my top 5 films of 2013, a couple of people asked why I hadn’t included ‘Gravity’ on the list – I hadn’t seen it. I watched ‘Gravity’ last night and everything I’ve heard is correct, it’s an undeniably great film. Gravity knocks you on your ass in the first 10 minutes and tells you to buckle up for the ride, and it delivers on this over and over again. The scope and ambition of the film is amazing, held together by a deceptively intricate plot. And the way the story is delivered – there’s no glashback, no blatant exposition, it’s a straight up story starting from A and going to B, allowing the viewer to get drawn into it’s complexity and intruigue.
Everything about ‘Gravity’ is well done and the performances are pitch perfect. It’s amazing to think Sandra Bullock was the goofy damsel in distress in ‘Speed’ and the tomboy in ‘Miss Congeniality’ and now she’s here. Her Oscar winning performance in ‘The Blind Side’ was well deserved, and I suspect she’ll be up for another for ‘Gravity’. The fact that we know her from these different roles yet she is so totally believeable as the doctor in ‘Gravity’ is testament to her ability. She conveys emotion from hopelessness to happiness without ever over-doing it or losing character authenticity and is a big part of the film’s success (I’ve read that Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman were both, at different times, attached to ‘Gravity’ – I can’t imagine either being as good as Bullock is). Clooney too is great as the in-control veteran.
One thing I’d noted when talking to people about ‘Gravity’ is that no one tells you much about it. No one explains the storyline or what happens – I think that’s because it’s an almost un-spoilable film. Like, I could detail the whole film for you, scene by scene, right here, and it would make no difference. Explaining it will not do it justice, telling you about it won’t make any difference. ‘Gravity’ is a film that needs to be experienced, probably multiple times. In this, director Alfonso Cuaron has created something that underlines why cinema is still so vital. It’s a work of art, from start to finish, and will capture the imagination of viewers for years to come. The soundtrack, the set design, the detail, the cinematography – everything is right in ‘Gravity’. It’s a near perfect film.
And I love that Ed Harris was back working at mission control, too.
twenty six 