blogs/ The Collector/ Edmonton Film School

Jun. 14 Blogs: I found this through my Freelance Writer's email: The Daily Reese: This is a really good blog post.  It seems to be about a daughter writing to her father who passed away. http://www.shereesemaynard.com/2012/04/apple-that-falls.html?goback=.gde_101577_member_108888806 Joe Hinojosa: This blog post is about asking: "Do you feel exposed every time you commit something to writing?"  He talks about mixed feelings like how he doesn't like his writing/ blog to be judged, but he does like it when someone reads his post and makes a comment.  There was a poll at the bottom to the question.  I answered it and I was with the majority (35%): "Not really, but I appreciate people's feedback." http://joehinojosa.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/like-equals-love/?goback=.gde_101577_member_108307438 Jun. 15 The Collector: A few weeks ago, they showed this movie called The Collector on Space Channel on Sun. night.  I caught the last 40min of it because my brother wanted to watch something else.  Here's the description on imdb.com: "Desperate to repay his debt to his ex-wife, an ex-con plots a heist at his new employer's country home, unaware that a second criminal has also targeted the property, and rigged it with a series of deadly traps."  I watched it because it stars Josh Stewart, he played JJ's boyfriend Will on Criminal Minds.  I recently saw him in the season 7 finale of the show where he played a big part in it.  He's a good actor.  I caught the last 40min, so then I went on Youtube and watched the first 1hr and 20min I missed.  Here's my review.  I won't spoil it for you. Josh Stewart plays the lead Arkin who's an ex-con.  He works as a construction guy at this huge mansion.  They introduce the husband and wife Michael and Victoria Chase, the rebellious teen daughter Jill and 10 yr old daughter Hannah who live there. Arkin cases the place.  They show his ex-wife and 10yr old daughter in the first quarter of the movie.  He gets there and starts to crack the safe, but the serial killer is there.  He is torturing the husband and wife.  It's very fast- paced because it all happens in one day. There is a segment where there is a lot of silence as Arkin is creeping around the house.  There is good pacing as the camera pans around to all the booby traps.  There is lots of suspense during that sequence and through out the entire movie.  It was creative with the torture and booby traps. It was scary because I jumped twice in the beginning.  There were a few really good surprises that I didn't expect at all.  When I saw the last 40min of the movie, I wanted to see the whole thing so I can know why the serial killer kills people.  There was actually a reason why he kills people.  Arkin asks someone that and that person tells him.  I didn't expect that reason. I watch a lot of Criminal Minds about the FBI figuring out why a serial killer kills people.  I also want to know for story reasons.  If the serial killer doesn't have a reason to kill people, then I find the movie pointless.  When I saw the last 40min., I see that it was a dark and stormy night.  It reminded me of 28 Days Later (my favorite scary movie.)  In both these movies, the last part of the movie is basically running around a huge mansion from scary and bad guys.  Also the good guys rescuing and saving each other. Review: It was from the writers of Saw, Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan.  For all you fans of scary movies, Saw movies, and torture- porn, you will like this movie.  I give this movie an average rating.  It was entertaining and kept my attention.  I like Josh Stewart, the suspense, the creativity in the booby traps, and the creative ways the characters fought for their lives. It was also creative in the fact that they had the ex-con Arkin in it.  It would be boring if it was a regular family running around a booby-trapped house.  Arkin is an ex-con so he's tough and smart.  He's different from a character in regular family. I guess it loses points because it's a torture-porn.  I'm not really a fan of Saw movies.  I only saw the first one.  I did like watching The Collector on this Fri. night. Jun. 16 Zach Lipovsky: I wanted to email this filmmaker, but I couldn't contact him on his official website: http://www.zachlipovsky.com/ZachLipovksy/Home.htm I then went and found his Facebook fan page and posted on the wall.  Then I found his real page, and emailed him the same message: Hi Zach I'm a fan of yours since I saw you On the Lot. I also read about you in The Globe and Mail on May, 30, 2012. I hope to see more of your work. Writing: Here is something I haven't done in a long time.  I really thought about it, and I have been writing the Rain script since 2009.  It's been 3 and a half years and it's about 70 pages long.  I want to get it to 90 pages.  I was really busy with my life and there was a lot of script- writing and blogging. 2009: I was working full-time, and looking for an office job.  I was mainly re-writing The Vertex Fighter and pitching that script in my free time.  There was a lot of writing a new script.  I reread my Garret script that I wrote back then.  It was basically The Vertex Fighter with different character names. I also wrote Daniel.  It's like Garret, but without MMA.  I reread Daniel, and I thought it was kind of boring.  Things do happen in the script, but what was the point of it?  I deleted Garret and Daniel off my 3.5 floppy disk, but I kept the drafts saved in my email. It's interesting to read something you wrote a few years ago.  It's like taking a snapshot of your life.  Kind of like rereading my blog. Jun. 18 Rain script: Today I was going through all those saved drafts I had in my email account of the Rain script.  I would say it has certainly improved from the 2009 version to the present version.  I reread a scene and noticed the inconsistency in dialogue. I also noticed that the bad guys need to be more bad.  From what I've read, the bad guys seem to be more like annoying and intruding into the lead character's life.  There needs to be more danger.  Jun. 19 FAVA: I "liked" FAVA on Facebook and I got an invite to a Producing class from Sept. 4-Dec. 11.  It's a weekly class for 3 hrs.  It costs $1000.  If I remember correctly, one writing class at Professional Writing was like $500 something.  They also invited me to "Get a Grip! with Dean Davey" on July 18.  It's about grip and lighting.  It's for FAVA members only.  I'm not really interested in lighting. Jun. 20 Edmonton Film School: I was going through my old agenda, and I found something I wrote in 2009.  It's about the Edmonton Film School.  From the website, it seems this school came out in 2005.  It looks like it hasn't been updated since 2008.  It's like FAVA with some film making classes for adults and teens (not as much as FAVA does.)  They both show their short films at the Metro Cinema. There's a section called "1 Day Film school" and it provides a tour of FAVA. http://edmontonfilmschool.com/news.html Glenn Atyeo: Interesting, it could be the law of attraction.  I had contacted him last year, but he never got back to me.  I then found out he made a short film called Red Flag and it's on the Edmonton Film School website. http://edmontonfilmschool.com/gallery.html