More on Writing

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting a place called Green Mango on Yonge and Bloor… at least I think it was called Green Mango… with Rumiko and Kana, two of the lovely ladies from Ashita’s story Cream Puff Explosion. And we were discussing acting and Ashita of course. I was thrilled to hear from both of them that they were excited to see the finished film and Rumiko quickly mentioned that if I were doing another film, that she would love to act for me again—I took that as the ultimate compliment.
The topic of the next film often comes up in my conversations with people working on this movie, again, their eagerness to want to work with me again is taken as the highest of all compliments. But, thankfully, I am not a big movie studio that churns out movies once a year… and I most certainly do not plan sequels while still in production of the first movie. Though, Ashita (the Japanese word for tomorrow) could easily have follow ups titles Today and Yesterday, but I do not work like that.
For me, writing is an escape from this crazy world we live in. The thought of being alone in a room with music, coffee and my imagination is refreshing. Sitting there creating a world, where I can be as violent or as peaceful as I want. I can hate, I can love, I can be happy, sad, angry… I can be or make whatever I want with this world. And usually I write when I have something to say, I don’t just write because I have to make another movie.
As a writer, Ashita has been the most interesting of all my projects, it’s the only film where I’ve had to remove an entire part of the story and replace with a new one. I guess this is either perfectionist or total insanity. But some people think that writing is simply writing about what happened to you. It’s more than that, its much, much more—it’s about bringing out all the moments in your life and all the feelings in your heart. Writing is less about documenting your experiences and more about what you retained from them. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll every stop writing, as to whether it will be a movie or not, I don’t know. I have often debated writing a novel. Recently, I wrote my very first manga (comic book) which was a lot of fun. My first film The Meatball Story, was never intended to be a made as a film. I wrote it as a play and was fully preparing to produce it as a play when the harsh realities of theatre (sometimes harsher than the realities of movies) came crashing into me like Optimus Prime at an Energon cube party (geek alert, geek alert).
Interestingly, today, I saw 8 people reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a book released only 3 days ago and the last of Harry Potter global phenomenon series. For all you would be writers out there, lets take J.K. Rowling as an example—as in my previous entries, I make references to what literary muggles would refer to as obscure personalities. J.K. Rowling, from what I understand, was a single mother and unemployed at the time she wrote the first Harry Potter book. Based on my earlier statement of writing about how your life is affected by your experiences. Here is a lady, who had very little money, writing about a boy wizard, who will grow up to save the world and be the greatest wizard in history. Now, I highly doubt that Rowling was foreshadowing her future as the most successful authors ever and as the richest woman on the planet. Or did she? I will conclude with a quote by the great Neil Simon who once said: “If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.” This coming from a man who wrote some of the greatest comedies of contemporary theatre. Interesting, n’est pas?

The Joys of Writing

As writer I get to have fun with a lot of things. Especially with a project like Ashita, which, explores the deep rooted pain and reality of being human. In a movie where almost every character drinks heavily, cries or has some kind of emotional breakdown, I am often asked where I come up with these ideas.
My lovely and multi-talented wife, Izumi, who has been a tremendous support to me over the course of Ashita is the very first to read all my work, she is also the first I discuss all the topics and themes of Ashita with. Like any artist, I work to ask questions that will make the audience think and feel. I am firm believer that humans are creatures of passion and that most of the illogical or irrational things we do are from the passion of our feelings and emotions. This is what makes us interesting and unique. I also believe that in order to have the audience react to a character, we must present a character with emotions. Theatre and film writer/director David Mamet, whom I admire greatly, is quoted as saying: “A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.” I would disagree here, I think that humans communicate through words and emotions, when making a film like Ashita, which is the study of the complexity of being human, one must talk and must talk a significant amount. In movies, as in life, people may or may not say what they mean, but they always say something designed to get what they want. In most cases, people want to be happy and happiness is like those places in fairy tales that are guarded by big dragons, we must fight in order to get in. This is the point I am making with Ashita is that people lie, people cheat, people hurt others in their quest to be happy. People live in the past in their quest to be happy. People shut down their minds in order to try and be happy. You have to fight in order to be happy. So the questions that are asked in Ashita: Is better to hurt someone to make yourself happy or is better to hurt yourself to make others happy? If doing the right thing is right, then why does it not always lead to happiness? Is happiness finite or is it different to everybody? What is loneliness? These themes are bounced all over Ashita’s six stories and
Like the great Alexandre Dumas said: “If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself.”

The Geeks of Popular Culture

I’ve been into comics lately both the traditional North American and the Japanese manga. Every few months I get in my Manga mood and I have deep routed urges to read art.

Again many people will point and snicker at me when I am in seen in public with a manga or comic book. There is a certain geek sigma with reading these (some sorry souls may not even consider it reading). To be honest, I find odd to ostracize anyone who is so largely into popular culture. Let’s be realistic here, who on the planet has not heard of Superman, Batman and Spider-Man? Superman along with Mickey Mouse and Elvis are among the most recognized figures in the world. There must be a lot of geeks (and Elvis fans) in the world. And if we look even deeper at Superman we will see how a character created in 1932 by American writer Jerry Seigel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster went on to span over three generations and almost 75 years in popular culture.
The first adaptation of Superman was as a daily newspaper comic strip, launching on January 16, 1939. The strip ran until May 1966, and significantly, Siegel and Shuster used the first strips to establish Superman's backstory, adding details such as the planet Krypton and Superman's father, Jor-El, concepts not yet established in the comic books. Following on from the success of this was the first radio series, The Adventures of Superman, which premiered on February 12, 1940 and featured the voice of Bud Collyer as Superman. The series ran until March, 1951. Collyer was also cast as the voice of Superman in the Fleischer Studios animated cartoons, distributed via movie theatres. Seventeen shorts were produced between 1941 and 1943. By 1948 Superman was back in the movie theatres, this time in a filmed serial, Superman, with Kirk Alyn becoming the first actor to portray Superman on screen. A second serial, Atom Man vs. Superman, followed in 1950.
In 1951 a television series was commissioned, starring George Reeves, with the pilot episode of the series gaining a theatrical release as Superman and the Mole Men. The series ran for a 104 episodes, from 1952–1958. The next adaptation of Superman occurred in 1966, when Superman was adapted for the stage in the Broadway musical It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman. The play wasn't successful, closing after 128 performances, although a cast album recording was released. However, in 1975 the play was remade for television. Superman was again animated, this time for television, in the series "The New Adventures of Superman". 68 shorts were made and broadcast between 1966 and 1969. Bud Collyer again provided the voice for Superman. Then from 1973 until 1984 ABC broadcast the "Super Friends" series, this time animated by Hanna-Barbera.
Superman returned to movie theatres in 1978, with director Richard Donner's Superman starring Christopher Reeve. The film spawned three sequels, Superman II (1980), Superman III (1983) and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987). In 1988 Superman returned to television in the Ruby Spears animated series Superman, and also in Superboy, a live action series which ran from 1988 until 1992.In 1993 Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman premiered on television, starring Dean Cain as Superman and Teri Hatcher (who’s still super hot, by the way) as Lois Lane. The series ran until 1997. Superman: The Animated Series was produced by Warner Bros. and ran from 1996 until 2000 on The WB Television Network In 2001 the Smallville television series launched, focussing on the adventures of Clark Kent as a teenager before he dons the mantle of Superman. In 2006 Bryan Singer directed Superman Returns, starring Brandon Routh as Superman.
I won’t list all the music references to Superman, but some of the most popular ones have been: Kryptonite by Three Doors Down and Superman (It's Not Easy) by Five for Fighting and a few others from Barbara Streisand, Eminem, R.E.M and The Kinks.
And here’s my personal favorite thing about Superman: Jerry Seinfeld, a noted Superman fan, filled his series Seinfeld with references to the character, and in 1997 asked for Superman to co-star with him in a commercial for American Express. The commercial aired during the 1998 NFL Playoffs and Super Bowl, Superman animated in the style of artist Curt Swan, again at the request of Seinfeld.
All this being noted, can we really say that comics are only for geeks? By the looks of it, the world is full of geeks like me or Spider-Man 3 would not have made $884 459 679 (US) at the box office.
To those of you who have been called a geek, be proud, we out number the rest of them. To those of you closet comic fans, come on out—we love you. And to those of you who have always wanted to make your own comic, do it! The world always needs more heroes and its never too late for you do something you love… my good friend Luc is a brilliant example of that, he will soon be the next great Batman writer.
And finally to those of you who have no interest in comics: Why did you read this far anyway?

-MJ

Getting it done

I had interesting conversation the other day with someone who wants to be a writer. She’s asked me for inspiration and how I do it. Well, honestly, there’s no secret to writing. Just pick up a pencil and paper, or sit in front of your computer and do it. That’s it, that’s the key. Doing it. Writing, like anything is not accomplished by simply wishing to do it.
I firmly believe that half of anyone’s success is simply because they showed up and committed to doing it. So if you want to write something, sit down and do it. Don’t be afraid, don’t think of excuses—in fact, don’t even think. Just sit down and do it. When it’s done, you will feel better about yourself and you may be inspired to do more. Not one of my films would have been made if I did not commit from day one that I was going to actually do—and not only me, everybody working on it as well committed to it.
Often I find that people are inspired when they work with me, I am not sure if its me and my personality or if it’s the fact that people are watching a movie get made, but often people feel a creative streak after working with me. Sadly a lot of them do nothing about it and feel depressed and constantly ask me: “How do you do it?” Again, I commit. It’s often not easy, and sometimes it drives me insane, but I love it. If you want something… commit to it, there is nothing more to it. If you want to be an actor, commit to acting, study it, learn from it, try and do it any which way you can. Same thing if you want to be a writer, read, study, learn… and then finally create. Write everything. Write stories. And don’t worry if they are bad or good, get it done finish it, then worry about making it better or making the next one better.
This person also asked me to push her. Really bug her to write something… the truth is I cannot push you—nobody can push you if you are not willing to commit and start doing it.