is two guys collaborating to write on writing and collaboration.

Monday
Oct 30, 2006

re: Where Do We Go From Here posted by Martin

I too am happy with our final choice. It’s interesting how the option that I wasn’t the most passionate about is indeed the one I’m most excited about writing.

I like the idea of Points of Conflict, and I think we should incorporate that idea in our writing and outlining, but first I wonder if we shouldn’t do a brief one-page treatment each just to put some plot sketches on the table and see where we are.

At this point, I think it serves the story better to see it from the 10,000 foot elevation before we zoom down. Previously we’ve had character outlines that are not necessarily about the story itself. Let’s put some story on the table and see what happens.

Then, I would also like to have a discussion about mood and tone — what other movies feel the same? What’s the pace going to be like? I’m still all-for starting with a very violent opener where the husband gets snagged and killed. What say you?

Oh, and one last thing:

(apologies to the Alan Parsons Project, which I believe was some sort of hovercraft.)

Never apologize to the Alan Parsons Project. They should be apologizing to us.

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What is Spitball!?

Spitball! is two guys collaborating to write about writing and collaboration. We're writing partners who have worked together since 2000, and placed in the top 100 in the last Project Greenlight for our script YELLOW.

Currently, we are both working on multiple screenplay, short story, and novel ideas independently and together, and collaborate on this blog.

What Spitball! used to be

Spitball! started as an attempt to collaborate on a screenplay online in real time. From January 2006 to July 2007 we worked on an interactive process to decide the story we were going to make. A full postmortem is coming, but you can find the find all the posts by looking in the category Original Version.

During this period, we affected the personalities of two of the most famous spitball pitchers from the early 20th Century. Look at our brief bios for more info about this, and so as not to be confused as to who is talking when.

We rebooted the franchise in early 2009 in its current form.

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Kent M. Beeson

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Kent M. Beeson (aka Urban Shockah) is a stay-at-home dad and stay-at-home writer, living in Seattle, WA with his wife, 2 year old daughter and an insane cat. In 2007, he was a contributor to the film blog ScreenGrab, where he presciently suggested Jackie Earle Haley to play Rorschach in the Watchmen movie, and in 2008, he wrote a film column for the comic-book site ComiXology called The Watchman. (He's a big fan of the book, if you couldn't tell.) In 2009, he gave up the thrill of freelance writing to focus on screenplays and novels, although he sometimes posts to his blog This Can't End Well, which a continuation of his first blog, he loved him some movies. He's a Pisces, and his favorite movie of all time is Jaws. Coincidence? I think not.

Martin McClellan

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Martin (aka Burley Grymz) is a designer and writer. He occasionally blogs at his beloved Hellbox, and keeps a longer ostensibly more interesting bio over here at his eponymous website. You can also find him on Twitter.