is two guys collaborating to write on writing and collaboration.

Wednesday
Jun 27, 2007

Re[4]: Shockah's Time to Die Pitch: 1.0 posted by Martin

I always pictured her getting a call on Earth that her husband won’t be coming home. I find the story compelling because she needs to find a way to the prison and that seems like a huge hurdle to me. But, believe it or not, I don’t think we’re really speaking that different of a language here.

Are you saying the second act is mostly her journey there?

Not at all — this isn’t a road-trip movie in my mind either. The journey could be instantaneous, but it is a huge hurdle she needs to overcome to prove how fucking absolutely impossible-to-get-rid-of she’s going to be in getting her husband back in time for the regeneration (But we could make the trip back to Earth a balls-out, chased by the law and bad guys, running on fumes sort of thing. Or it could be the final break into the prison and pulling a big show to get the body out).

I mean, think about the Warden sitting on his lily white ass (figuratively, at least) up on a rock wondering how the hell he’s going to contain the massive prison riot he’s got, when suddenly the soon-to-be grieving widow that he thought he had contained with patronizing words over the space-phone shows up and taps him on the shoulder?

So, we still have the triangle. We still have her on the rock, she just doesn’t start there. And we can have her in communication with Okkervil before she heads out. I mean, what if Okkervil is losing control of the riot and he helps her get there?

Looking back, I think we were probably both saying things our way and reading things the other. For instance, in my first take on her I made her work for a space ship company just to give a nod towards solving this dilemma.

Of course, I also gave her a dominatrix and stripper roommate, so not everything I do is rational, even though I will defend those choices quietly to those who are interested because I had reasons. I swear, I had my reasons.

Honest to God, I thought I did this.

If we define back as “back to life” you did. If we define back as “back to Earth”, which is what I was getting at, then I don’t think it’s there. But then, I don’t think Earth figured at all into your concept, so that’s splitting hairs.

I think I gotta get working on my treatment. But first, let’s have a few more goes at the pitches. Whattcha think?

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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

Urban Shockah pic

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

Burleigh Grimes pic

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.