by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 20, 2015 | TV & Movies
Last night I went over to the Cocteau theater to listen to George R.R. interview Andy Weir, author of THE MARTIAN. I had read the book several months ago and enjoyed it enormously because I’m a giant space geek. It’s fun and funny and makes science and scientists cool. It’s also a very short book so I finished it with in two days. I then went off with GRRM and others to see the movie. Which was great fun and inspiring, and apart from making cuts was a very faithful...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 19, 2015 | General
I had a plan for the day. I had worked very hard in the morning on breaking a script I’m going to write, and had a lot of success. Just a couple of scenes to add to act four and I think it’s cooked. I had promised myself a day up in the Santa Fe National Forest looking at aspens. My plan was to get there at 2:00, hike and then come back down to town and go see Crimson Peak at 4:00. Well, that didn’t happen because a business thing kept me from reaching the mountains until...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 16, 2015 | TV & Movies
I had a lot on my mind last night and found sleep to be eluding me. I was going to watch my recording of ARROW, but at one point I went channel surfing and came across McCloud an old TV show from the 1970’s. Dennis Weaver was the star and it was a show about a marshal from Taos New Mexico who ends up doing police work in New York City. It was a classic “fish out of water” story that Hollywood loves so much. It also had a hero who was from New Mexico so of course I watched...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 9, 2015 | About Writing
There’s a tendency in writing for people to think that if a three ring circus is good a five ring circus must be better and a seventeen ring Circus must be awesome. Except it’s not because a lot of stuff happening doesn’t mean it’s exciting. In fact it’s usually means that things are confusing for your reader/viewer. Worse it suggests that you as the creator don’t have a clue what you’re doing. That you’re just flinging stuff at the wall and...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 29, 2015 | TV & Movies
I watched the second episode of Gotham today. I should have been working, but I’m trying to clear off the DVR. What a mistake. The only good thing was Sean Pertwee in a scene with Lucius Fox. This entire episode was a lesson in what not to do starting with false jeopardy/tension. If anybody hates SPOILERS stop now. So Baby Batman has discovered daddy’s secret hide out, and starts to access the computer which Alfred smashes. Then Bruce “fires” him. One teensy,...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 27, 2015 | Blog
The Pope’s visit has raised a lot of long buried ghosts. Memories of attending mass with my father. Kneeling with my shoulder pressed against him, the hardness of the wood of the kneelers barely disguised beneath the velvet, the smell of incense and dad’s aftershave, prismatic light pouring through the stained glass window, the music of the latin, and the music. When I was a child the congregation didn’t sing. Just the choir and what music they performed — Mozart...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 21, 2015 | The Craft of Writing
There’s this concept in screenwriting that we call “hanging a lantern on it”. It basically means that we point out something before it can trip up an audience. By acknowledging that we are aware of the problem/issue we reassure the audience that we know what we’re doing and they can sit back, relax and take the ride with us. It came up in my spec Edge script. I had a beta reader point out that somewhere my Prometheus character has to point out that he will use any...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 31, 2015 | Blog
I wasn’t going to go to Spokane for the World Science Fiction Convention. I have a lot of work on my plate, a number of other trips so adding in Sasquan seemed like just too much. Then Puppies happened and I knew I had to go. My friend David Gerrold (the man responsible for Tribbles and defeating the Klingons with said aforementioned tribbles) was the guest of honor, and it seemed like there was a very good chance his moment in the sun was going to be spoiled by a food fight in...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 16, 2015 | TV & Movies
Let me stipulate right up front that I loved this movie. I want to see it again and that’s really rare for me. I went in torn between hope and trepidation. This was either going to be very good or a total train wreck. On the one hand you had Guy Ritchie directing. On the other it was based on the Man From U.N.C.L.E I loved the show as a little kid. I was madly in love with Illya Kuryakin. I even got to go on the set because of my father’s business partners in Los Angeles...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 14, 2015 | TV & Movies
I’ve spent a lot of time in Hollywood trying to sell various shows. Everything from a western set in NM in 1840 to contemporary thrillers, to shows about the army’s CID division. (Yes, I pitched that before NCIS went on the air, but I was a girl and the reaction in the room was “nobody’s interested in the military. *sigh*). I’ve also tried very had to sell science fiction shows. Even had a pilot shot of one of them. What I ran into over and over and over...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 6, 2015 | Blog
So here is my saga. On Monday morning the bank that issued my credit card realizes I have been hacked and they contact me. They cancel the card for my business and send me a new card Federal Express. Once I have the new card I call Direct TV and AT&T where I have auto pay because of my travel schedule. They put in the new card number. Done. I go on XBox Live and Amazon and the app store and do the same. This morning I call Century Link. I sit on hold for ten or fifteen minutes. A...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 4, 2015 | Blog
Last night I was wired after the event at the Cocteau Theater where we launched Victor Milan’s new novel, The Dinosaur Lords so I stayed up way to late reading. What kept me up until 2:00 a.m.? Another great book by my friend Max Gladstone. Last First Snow is the fourth book in his amazing Craft series. They are fantasy, but fantasy with an urban setting and ethnic and cultural diversity that is refreshing. For me their real strength is Max’s ability to take law and business,...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 3, 2015 | Blog
I did a fun podcast yesterday with the folks in Minneapolis who are part of that great Convergence community. Anyway, here’s the link. Ka1iban and Mikanhana asked great questions and we had a lot of fun. Just Enough Trope
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 31, 2015 | The Craft of Writing
Since I have a computer in L.A. I don’t travel between Santa Fe and Westlake with a computer. I figure I can read and listen to music during travel times. But on this trip home I had figured out the next scene and I badly wanted to get it down. So I fell back on a technique I haven’t used in decades. I took a notebook with me and wrote it out in longhand. When I first started writing I did everything by hand and then transcribed it on the typewriter. It takes double the time...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 24, 2015 | TV & Movies
I’m just back from seeing ANT MAN with my friends Len Wein and Christine Valada. I really liked it. It’s a slight film, but it has heart and humor and thank god we weren’t threatening New York, or the Earth or the Galaxy or the whole damn Universe (Thor: The Dark World). We were also watching it at the sybaritic Cinepolis theater with the full bar and meals and four kinds of popcorn (caramel corn — yum) and reclining leather seats with foot rests, etc. etc. Paul...
