Quentin Tarantino has "Thought Disorder"

Researching a character for a script, I came across a Wikipedia article on Thought Disorder and was surprised to find how many of the symptoms actually show up in Tarantino's scripts' dialogue:

Thought is revealed through speech. Thus, observation of patterns of thought naturally involves close observation of the speech of the individual being considered. Although it is normal to exhibit some of the following, especially at times of stress, it is the degree and the resulting functional impairment that leads to the conclusion that the person being observed has a thought disorder.

Blocking - Interruption of train of speech before completion. e.g. "Am I early?", "No, you're just about on-" This is commonly seen when a joke is being told and the speaker forgets the punchline. At an extreme degree, after blocking occurs, the speaker does not recall the topic he or she was discussing.

Circumferential speech - Speech that is very delayed at reaching its goal. Speaking about many concepts related to the point of the conversation before eventually returning to the point and concluding the thought. Excessive long-windedness. e.g. "What is your name?" "Well, sometimes when people ask me that I have to think about whether or not I will answer because some people think it's an odd name even though I don't really because my mom gave it to me and I think my dad helped but it's as good a name as any in my opinion but yeah it's Tom."

Clanging - Sounds, rather than meaningful relationships, appear to govern words or topics. Excessive rhyming. e.g. "I'm not trying to make noise. I'm trying to make sense. If you can't make sense out of nonsense, well, have fun." "I heard the bell. Well, hell, I heard the bell."

Derailment (also Loose Association and Knight's Move thinking) - Ideas slip off the topic's track on to another which is obliquely related or unrelated. e.g. "The next day when I'd be going out you know, I took control, like uh, I put bleach on my hair in California."

Distractible speech - During mid speech, the subject is changed in response to a stimulus. e.g. "Then I left San Francisco and moved to... where did you get that tie?"

Echolalia - Echoing of one's or other people's speech that may only be committed once, or may be continuous in repetition. This may involve repeating only the last few words or last word of the examiner's sentences. This can be a symptom of Tourette's Syndrome. e.g. "What would you like for dinner?", "That's a good question. That's a good question. That's a good question. That's a good question."

Evasive Interaction - Attempts to annunciate ideas and/or feelings about another individual comes out as evasive or in a diluted form. e.g. "I... er ah... you are uh... I think you have... uh-- acceptable erm... uh... hair."

Flight of Ideas - A sequence of loose associations or extreme tangentiality where the speaker goes quickly from one idea to another seemingly unrelated idea. To the listener, the ideas seem unrelated and do not seem to repeat. Often pressured speech is also present. e.g. "My hand is five cigars. I've been to Havana. She rose out of the water, bikini. Mushrooms clouds, Wow. You're God."

Illogicality - Conclusions are reached that do not follow logically (non-sequiturs or faulty inferences). e.g. "Do you think this will fit in the box?" draws a reply like "Well duh; it's brown isn't it?"

Incoherence (word salad) - Speech that is unintelligible because, though the individual words are real words, the manner in which they are strung together results in incoherent gibberish, e.g. the question "Why do people comb their hair?" elicits a response like "Because it makes a twirl in life, my box is broken help me blue elephant. Isn't lettuce brave? I like electrons. Hello, beautiful."

Loss of goal - Failure to show a train of thought to a natural conclusion. e.g. "Why does my computer keep crashing?", "Well, you live in a stucco house, so the pair of scissors needs to be in another drawer."

Neologisms - New word formations. These may also involve elisions of two words that are similar in meaning or in sound. e.g. "I got so angry I picked up a dish and threw it at the geshinker."

Perseveration - Persistent repetition of words or ideas. e.g. "It's great to be here in Nevada, Nevada, Nevada, Nevada, Nevada." This may also involve repeatedly giving the same answer to different questions. e.g. "Is your name Mary? Yes. Are you in the hospital? Yes. Are you a table? Yes."

Phonemic paraphasia - Mispronunciation; syllables out of sequence. e.g. "I slipped on the lice and broke my arm."

Pressure of speech - An increase in the amount of spontaneous speech compared to what is considered customary. This may also include an increase in the rate of speech. Alternatively it may be difficult to interrupt the speaker; the speaker may continue speaking even when a direct question is asked.

Self-reference - Patient repeatedly and inappropriately refers back to self. e.g. "What's the time?", "It's 7 o'clock. That's my problem."

Semantic paraphasia - Substitution of inappropriate word. e.g. "I slipped on the coat, on the ice I mean, and broke my book."

Stilted speech - Speech excessively stilted and formal. e.g. "The attorney comported himself indecorously."

Tangentiality - Replying to questions in an oblique, tangential or irrelevant manner. e.g:

Q: "What city are you from?"
A: "Well, that's a hard question. I'm from Iowa. I really don't know where my relatives came from, so I don't know if I'm Irish or French."

Word approximations - Old words used in a new and unconventional way. e.g. "His boss was a seeover."

Sabi

Sabi Pictures are in the beginning stages of planning a theatrical tour of event-screenings in August 2010 for White Knuckles and Heart of Now. Simply add yourself to their fan map and encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same. If the demand is there, they’ll bring a Sabi Pictures event to your town. C'mon Vegas people! Let's get them here!

Goodbye to '09

Can't say it was a bad year. Wasn't a great year. Definitely an interesting one.

Laid off and out of work for four months before getting hired at MGM MIRAGE - funny thing about that being is that i used to be the ad guy, now i'm the corporate guy. you know the song "triangle man" by they might be giants? well, after i started i kept singing in my head: "agency man, agency man, agency man hates corporate man, they have a fight, corporate wins, corporate man."

Most exciting thing that's happened is an opportunity to do a campaign for the las vegas-based cirque du soleil shows. whatever comes of it, it's been fun to do some advertising again - with chris, no less. he does some freelance every now and then.

Speaking of freelance, i've had a couple projects come my way which have been a nice addition to my bank account - and a fresh client for my portfolio.

Also got addicted to LittleBigPlanet. love it. i could spend forever playing. there's something so amazing about the style, like a little crafty, handmade stage. love it.

During my hiatus, i took my first solo road trip and visited my good pal rachel in san diego. crashed on her couch (and thankfully not on the freeway). petted her dog non-stop (that's not a euphemism). had fun, chatted and chilled. (and was introduced to agave nectar).

Wrote a horror film while i was unemployed. it pretty much sucked, but was fun to write. Also finally got feedback on Detox - positive, no less. We'll wrap that one up shortly. Also working on plotting Beautiful and hope to have it moving along to get feedback early next year.

Also decided to work on the next DVXUser scriptfest (whatever it may be). I have less than a week to write one for the current fest (BetryalFest), but if i can bust out a feature in a week, i hope i can bang out 6 pages for a short. Definitely no lack of things to be working on. Just not much time to work on them.

That's my goal going into the new year. More time on the stuff that matters.

It's a thought.

"Detox" receives coverage

After finishing draft 14 and spending nearly 3 years working on it, Chris and I decided to send Detox for coverage. Script coverage is, according to Wikianswers, a filmmaking term for the analysis and grading of screenplays, often within the "script development" department of a production company. While coverage may remain entirely verbal, it usually takes the form of a written report, guided by a rubric that varies from company to company. Criteria includes, but is not limited to:

* IDENTIFICATION: Title, Author, Type of Material, Locale, Genre.
* LOGLINE: A one sentence summary.
* COMMENT SUMMARY: A paragraph summary of the analysis.
* GRADE: Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor for categories that include characterization, premise, storyline, production values, dialogue and more.
* SYNOPSIS: Summary of plot: 1-3 pages depending on script quality.
* BUDGET: The script reader's estimated budget.
* ANALYSIS.

In our case, the "grade" was either a pass, consider or recommend.

We got our coverage through ScriptShark. Chris ordered the 3-reader pack to get a variety of feedback since it's all so subjective anyway. The first issue was length, which somehow the script ballooned the past few drafts and we never went back to trim it down. This also lead to some comments about pacing. Both fairly easy fixes. There was also an across-the-board comment on the characters. They wanted them to more fully developed. Even so, there were comments that the characters were something top talent might be interested in. We knew all of this before sending the script in, but it was good to hear from an objective party that we knew what we were doing wrong with some concrete ideas on how to fix it.

They did, however, very much like the dialogue. This was an area Chris was nervous, but I always thought our dialogue was good. Natural, but cinematic. My concern was two of the main characters might have been too similar, but they thought the dialogue defined and differentiated the characters.

Then there were a couple of characters they felt weren't necessary. They felt there was padding to keep the plot points in their proper places. Various stuff like that. In all, though, the comments were positive - or at least constructive.

As for grade, we got a "Pass," a "Reluctant Pass" and a "Consider." Getting a consider made our script eligible for their scouting services to agents, producers, etc. We have until about April to refine the script to be submitted to that service. Pretty good news.

When I sent in Under as a trial run, knowing it was pretty bad, they tore it apart, so I knew they were capable of being heartless and cruel. And hearing their comments on Detox made us really re-evaluate what we were trying to do and say with the script. t made us a lot more focused. So we think the next draft should be pretty damn good.

Funding has begun for "Beautiful"

Funding for the new short film "Beautiful//The Janssen Twins" has begun. The official budget hasn't been sorted completely, but we've set $10,000 as the initial goal. Besides funding through IndieGoGo, a couple of other fundraising events are being discussed, including special screenings and other events.

Stay tuned. You can go to beautiful.rubbersquare.com for updates or, as always, send an email to updates +at+ rubbersquare.com to subscribe to the mailing list.

A new short script

Last week I finished the first draft of a new short script entitled "Beautiful // The Janssen Twins." Yes, the // is part of the title and, actually, a symbolic element of the script. It's an idea I've been knocking around for a long time. Something Chris Smith (co-writer of "The Bet") has been fascinated with as well. And when I sent him my draft, his response was that it was "remarkable and touching." He's too nice. By the end of the weekend, I'll have a 2nd draft done which will address Chris' comments and some things I knew needed noodling. After that...

My hope is that I haven't written something beyond a budget I can muster. It seems doable, but I never know. I pretty much used up all my favors on "The Bet," so there'll be no freebies this time. So, well, here's hoping it can get made.

I haven't said anything about the plot, have I? Well, intentionally so. The 'tubes have not been my ally lately. Once the thing's been registered and copyrighted, maybe I'll share a little more, but I can say this: In my interview with ShortEnd Magazine, I said that I didn't see my style really changing much, that with "The Bet" I had made a film I wanted to see, that I thought matched my "vision" - this one, at least on paper, does that, too. It's dark, it's controversial, but, as Chris said, it's touching. A combination I find fascinating.

Go to beautiful.rubbersquare.com for the tease and, as always, there's the (spam-laden) forum. Or follow me on Twitter or join the Facebook fan page.

The Wicked Blood

At the end of the school year, my son, Spencer, got all of his various papers and projects sent home with him. He had just finished second grade. This is one of the papers he brought home. Click it to make it bigger (opens in a new window).