{"id":4714,"date":"2012-10-29T07:27:23","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T12:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=4714"},"modified":"2012-10-29T08:24:37","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T13:24:37","slug":"better-writing-through-birdemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2012\/10\/29\/better-writing-through-birdemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Writing Through Birdemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Last Thursday, I finally saw Birdemic<\/a> (the RiffTrax Live<\/a> event). It was a blast; I was hoarse for a couple days from laughing so hard.<\/p>\n

Somewhere into the opening credits, which drag on and on and on and on, it hit me: people can learn some writing lessons from watching this movie mocked by the RiffTrax crew (or by watching old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000).<\/p>\n

The things they make fun of are the things writers shouldn’t do.<\/p>\n

Pacing<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I mentioned the opening credits of Birdemic<\/em>. The way they dragged on, it was like the anti hook<\/a>, a terrible way to establish that the director really doesn’t understand the importance of pulling in the viewer from the start.<\/p>\n

The lack of pacing in the beginning (and throughout the movie) becomes even more apparent with the RiffTrax crew calling out just how long things drag on.<\/p>\n

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It goes on even longer than this. And then, throughout the movie, there are so many more driving scenes as filler.<\/p>\n

Don’t destroy your story with pacing that drags on and on like a legless zombie.<\/p>\n

Dialog<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The dialog in Birdemic<\/em> is terrible to the point of jarring. It’s so bad, it doesn’t even need to be called out by the RiffTrax crew. Don’t believe me — watch the trailer!<\/p>\n

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I’m not one who believes every bit of what’s on a page must always drive the story forward, but dialog should flow naturally and generally serve a purpose.<\/p>\n

Continuity<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I’d say “Spoiler Alert” but really, with Birdemic<\/em>, you know what you’re getting all along, down to knowing things like continuity will be ignored.<\/p>\n

At one point, the protagonists are robbed. A reserve of gasoline is taken from them. The moment I saw the scene, I knew <\/em>there would be a scene (or two) showing the gasoline container back in the minivan.<\/p>\n

And…I was right!<\/p>\n

Most movies, and even some novels, have tiny continuity errors, but they are usually not as jarring as a disappearing\/reappearing large, red container of gasoline.<\/p>\n

Don’t Preach<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For all the schlock, Birdemic<\/em> is written with a goal in mind: to make people think about global warming.<\/p>\n

It’s good to have a purpose behind the things we write, but every few scenes in the movie, a moral lesson is forced into the story. Even if the scenes were well written, they’d make even the most sympathetic audience shout, “Okay, enough already — we get<\/em> it!”<\/p>\n

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Some of my favorite novels make a point about social issues, but they do it without flogging the issue.<\/p>\n

A Decent Ending<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For the sake of not spoiling the ending of Birdemic<\/em>, I won’t post a video clip…all I’ll say is this: it’s ridiculous. Characters who worked so hard to survive don’t affect the ending. And…the final scene drags on like the opening.<\/p>\n

In something like Birdemic<\/em>, that’s the payoff I want, because the whole thing better be terrible once it’s established how bad things are. But I’ve read many a novel where what seems like the ending isn’t<\/em> the ending. Things go on and on, and the payoff is deflated. Outside forces end things instead of the characters in the book.<\/p>\n

Watch Birdemic<\/em>, and don’t repeat the mistakes it makes from beginning to end.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

If, for some reason, you want to see some really bad acting, check out this clip:<\/p>\n

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And if you want to see how action packed Birdemic<\/em> is, check this out:<\/p>\n

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Last Thursday, I finally saw Birdemic (the RiffTrax Live event). It was a blast; I was hoarse for a couple days from laughing so hard. Somewhere into the opening credits, which drag on and on and on and on, it hit me: people can learn some writing lessons from watching this movie mocked by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[30,59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4714"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4730,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions\/4730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}