It's Probably Nothing

INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY

TWO MEN sit across from each other at a small table in the middle of the room.

A: So there's this thing I do in my sleep. I don't usually talk about it. But maybe - I don't know - maybe it has some relevance to what you're going through.
(beat)
A: I don't know...

Q: What is it?

A: Nevermind. I don't think it will help.

Q: But you thought it might a minute ago.

A: Yeah, I was wrong. I'm wrong about a lot of things. Really very unreliable.

Q: It's okay - I'm not going to judge you or anything. Even if I wanted to, what kind of position am I in to judge. All my shit. You know -

A takes a moment to consider this.

A: No, I don't think so.

Q: This is bullshit!

A: It's not that a big deal.

Q: Maybe from your perspective, but I'm the one in the bind here. I mean, Jesus, I come to you as a friend and now you're hemming and hawing over what... How is that supposed to make me feel? I'm out there - looking for a lifeline, man - and you're just like, nah, this is my good rope. Might want to hang on to that for a while. Fuck you. Seriously.

A: I know how it seems, but, really, if I thought it might help I'd have no problem...

Q: Fuck you. Seriously.

A: Yeah, I caught that the first time.

Q gets up and walks away.

CUT TO BLACK.

------

EXT. PLAYGROUND - DAY

TWO WOMEN sit on swings next to each other.

G: Sometimes you just have to.

H: I don't think so.

G: Well, if you don't care that's one thing, but otherwise, I think, yeah, you do.

H: I care. Really I do. I'm just done with that. For now, at least.

G: So this is a temporary rebellion? I guess I don't see the point...

H: Why does there have to be a point? Why can't I just make a decision and act on that? He does it.

G: So it's revenge.

H: No. It's not revenge. It's not about him at all.

G: You were the one who brought him up.

H falls backwards off the swing - she hits the ground hard.

G: Oh my god, are you okay?

H remains on her back, staring up into the clouds.

H: How am I supposed to know...

CUT TO BLACK.

------

Let's see a show of hands: Who thinks either of these is a story?

NEW RELEASE: The End

The End from grammar school on Vimeo.

(available for streaming in HD at vimeo)

SCREENING: Icebreaker

To Whom It May Concern:

Hello.

The Grammar School Pictures digital short, Icebreaker, will be screening at this year's Eugene Celebration Film Festival. It will be showing at the DIVA Center on Friday, September 4, at 9pm, and Sunday, September 6, at 2:30pm.

The director and some of the cast and crew will likely be sitting in the back of the room during the Sunday screening, so if you plan to attend, please laugh extra loud.

The full schedule for the film festival can be found here: http://www.eugenecelebration.com/film_festival.html

Thanks and we hope to see you there.

New Release Monday (not this Monday, but next Monday)

We've finally got a locked-down release date for our new short film...

Monday, August 24, will see the internet release (on this very blog) of "The End", which will complete our Mike Johnson cycle (see also: This Song and YOU ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF A CAVE (Icebreaker, also featuring a character named Mike Johnson, is enough of a thematic departure that it doesn't count)).

That gives you ten days to revisit the characters, relive the ups and downs, and prepare yourself for the next (and potentially final) chapter of this epic story.

In other news, we've got a bunch of really exciting stuff maybe coming up that we can't talk about. So, I guess there's no other news. Maybe later, okay? Fine, a few hints: Satisfaction, t/s, Dufur, Wonder, hammers and cleavers, national security, Payam, baristas, weekend ruckus. There's like four potential projects buried in there - and no guarantee any of them will ever see the light of day. So don't hurt yourself trying to figure it out. Just know that we are busy working on revolutionary new ways to inform and entertain you.

See you in ten days.
MTK

THE AWESOME OTHERS no. 1

The Awesome Others is a new (occasional) series of posts directly your attention to awesomeness that GSP had little or nothing to do with, but that we enjoy and appreciate.

Our debut post is giving big ups to Chris A. Bolton (creator) and the cast and crew of "Wage Slaves" a new comedy web series set in Portland. The first two episodes went live this week and they are terrific. Sharp, fresh, funny, all that stuff. You really should go to www.wageslaveseries.com right now to watch them. If you need further convincing, check out the trailer embedded below.

"Wage Slaves" Trailer from Chris A. Bolton on Vimeo.

NEW RELEASE: YOU ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF A CAVE

YOU ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF A CAVE from grammar school on Vimeo.

(available for streaming in HD at vimeo)

Soon.

Greetings!

This is just an advance warning to check in with us often throughout the summer as we are due to release a new short film, YOU ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF A CAVE, within the next week or so, and some fantastic concert footage from our friends The Builders and The Butchers shortly thereafter.

Plus, we have a few other developing summer time projects to entertain and amaze you.

Seriously.

In Praise of Michael Johnson...

Still one of my favorite GSP productions, This Song (re-embedded below for your convenience), recounts the romantic foibles of of a singer-songwriter named Michael Johnson, portrayed by Michael Johnson.

This Song from grammar school on Vimeo.

Portraying an exaggerated character has a number of inheirant risks, the most significant of which is the potential for the viewer to project a character's extreme behavior or attitudes onto the actor, himself. This risk is further elevated when an actor agrees to allow the character to share his name and portions of his personal history. Creating even more potential for confusion, This Song consists almost entirely of interviews and musical performances with the characters - it never feels quite like a fictional narrative.

And Mike is perfect in that role. We shot about six hours of footage for this 10-minute short and there was not a single false note in his performance. Mike (the actor) fully commits to allowing Mike (the character) to be the punchline of the film. The other characters have their quirks and weirdness, but the camera's critical eye is focused squarely on Mike and his confusions and frustrations. Watching Mike (the character) struggle to articulate the inspiration behind his art is funny and fucked-up and kind of pitiful all at once.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Michael Johnson (the real person). He's a talented, hard-working musician who's extremely studied and articulate about his work. If you want to see the difference between Mike (the person) and Mike (the character), check out this recent interview he did with Willamette Week.



You can see the superficial overlap in cadence and mannerism, but there is no mistaking the sizable gap between the actor and the character.

So, my general point: Mike is a huge talent. We at GSP feel lucky to have him as a collaborator.

the news

it's kind of quiet around here when we are writing and post-productioning.

so what exactly has been going on?

old stuff:
The End and YOU ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF A CAVE are both undergoing some audio fine tuning. While these are both fairly low key projects, we want them to be in the best possible shape when we send them out into the world. We expect to have CAVE on-line no later than 6/30/09. The End will follow shortly afterward, no later than 7/14/09.

new stuff:
while we are polishing the sounds of the old stuff, we've been writing down a few words for some new stuff. in the active development right now, we've got two projects:
Satisfaction is a 5-episode satirical web series written by Matt Knapp & Joe Ballman, slated to go into production in March 2010. (that seems like a long time from now, but considering we've just completed a very rough first draft of the scripts, it's actually appropriate.)
The Executive is a feature-length screenplay by Matt Knapp, currently mid-first draft. production info TBA.

pretty vague, i know. but we really really like what we're working with and would hate to spoil the surprises we have in store for you. so, just sit tight for another month or so and we'll have something new for you. cool?

FUNNY OR DIE

In case the title of this post didn't already give it away, we're now playing on Funny or Die. A permanent link is available on the sidebar. Vimeo will still be the all-inclusive page for everything we do, but anything that might be considered funny will also be posted to FoD. If you ever get a hankering to revisit the classics, we'd recommend clicking that way - they allow for a much larger file download there which hopefully means better quality. plus you can vote us in as "funny" and maybe get us a little bit of attention from the comedy moguls running that site.

Thanks!

PS - Those two new shorts are coming really really soon, I promise! If you get impatient, bug Joe Ballman about it.

ALSO COMING SOON

COMING SOON

Catching The Big Fish

the title of this post is copped from David Lynch's fairly recent book... which, i guess could be best described as a series of thoughts regarding the creative process.

it's pretty obvious and pretty brilliant at the same time (i guess that's why they call it insight).

now i'm no great originalist or creative mastermind like lynch... but i do have a process that i think works pretty well. we'll use an idea i "came up with" just a few minutes ago as an example (it's unlikely i'll use this for anything significant in the future (at least, it was unlikely until i wrote that sentence. now it's probably exptremely likely (at least it was extremely likely until i wrote that sentence...))).

first off (a generalization): A (always) B (be) W (working). Always Be Working. in my experience, it is so much harder to start working (creatively) than to continue working (creatively). even if you're not focused like a laser on a specific project, just doing a little bit of something on a fairly regular basis keeps the mind open for playing with new ideas.

secondly (some context): i watch/listen to a lot of news. i don't read as much news as i probably should. lately it's been all about politics and economics. not uncoincidentally, the script(s) i'm writing now have political/economic undertones. you write what you eat (or consume, rather).

thirdly (the example): one person that pops up a lot in the various news outlets i consume is economist and nobel laureate, Paul Krugman (the man deserves capitalization (and capitolization)). for some time he has been critical of the obama administration's ecomomic recovery moves. i understand his general point to be that they aren't altogether "bad", just generally insufficient.

Krugman is a pretty smart guy. and for this, he has been booked for loads of television news programs, although his television presence is mediocre at best (last year i heard him repeat the same joke on four different programs over the course of one week - though it was a clever joke, it fell flat every time). he is bookish. and not in a cute, hodgman sort of way.

this morning, i came across this:


that's a pretty evocative cover. Krugman looks extremely serious and looms large over a negative reference to the new, popular president. this representation almost casts Krugman not as a critic urging the administration toward what he feels to be better economic policy, but as an idealogical nemesis.

that was my immediate response to the image. knowing a little bit about the subject, the cover image seems pretty absurd.

this is key: whenever i see or hear something absurd, instead of rejecting it, i try to source it - figure out how that absurdity might become a reality.

taking that absurd image of Krugman and merging it with his awkward television bookishness, i started wondering what it would be like if Krugman really fed off the media attention. what if he bought into his own hype. what if this very smart, albeit awkward, man used the newsmedia attention to feed his ego and, over the course of the next few years, developed into a blofeld-ian, luthor-esque villian for obama. that would be kind of comic-booky, but weird because he's an economist.

since i immediately cast him as a comic book villian, it makes sense to cut out every aspect of the concept that seems too much like a comic book. you want to avoid the easy answers and the obvious stories. eliminate the "obama" character - don't give him direct opposition. flip it just a little so that, out of his nobel prize, this character uses a lot of improbable newsmedia attention to slowly grow a physical empire based entirely on his economic philosophies.

and that's where the lesson ends and we move on to something else.

Krugman as lex luthor (sans superman) is not a great idea. it's weird. and the source was interesting. but i really don't see a story there. so you wrap it up and put it away (i write it down in a little moleskine i carry around in my back pocket). maybe it finds it's way into something else sometime later.

this one didn't work. but sometimes they do. sometimes you can see something absurd, try to imagine a world in which it makes sense, and discover that the imagined world actually says something about the real world. that's where a story begins...

Pre-Production/Post-Production

Dear Reader,

We thought it might be nice to show you our pre- and post-production documents for the "Elysian Fields" video. The scans below represent our complete dossier of pre-production and post-production notes and documentation for this one. As you will see, it's a grueling, detailed process.


Pre-Production: Storyboards generally begin as hand-drawn sketches on a legal pad.



Pre-Production: They are then refined to slightly neater hand-drawn sketches on printer paper.



Post-Production: Occasionally, editing ideas are formulated away from the desk. In such cases, it is handy to document these ideas on novelty post-it pages.

We hope this has been entertaining and informative. If you have any questions, please feel free to email us: headmaster@grammarschoolpictures.com.
We would love to hear from you.

NEW RELEASE: ELYSIAN FIELDS

Parks & Recreation - Elysian Fields (We're Dead We're Dead) from grammar school on Vimeo.

IMDB

this doesn't count as one of the many updates we previously promised, but it's kinda cool nonetheless...

Icebreaker is now listed on the IMDB. I guess that means it's officially a movie (at least according to the internet).

The page is pretty sparse and only seems to want to list a few members of the cast plus crew credits for some guy named Matt Knapp... but hopefully the names of the rest of our hardworking cast and crew will get their links approved soon.

so, yeah... hooray internet!

status on lots of stuff unfinished

took a few hours yesterday to convene with the venerable michael johnson and the inimitable joseph ballman to records various noises, sounds, even words, that will hopefully put us on track to finish all those projects still in post-production limbo within the next month. as soon as they are done, we'll update with links and video and assorted awesomeness.

this big push will hopefully clear the slate for new and exciting developments...

keep your eyes open.
m