Mike Milo’s Journal

So, lately I have been doing nothing but writing. I have just finished my first treatment for an animated feature and am anxiously waiting to see if my boss likes it. I am also actively developing ideas for live action kids films as well and I am having more fun than I have in a long time. I love to draw but to me, writing is sort of like drawing with your mind.

What I love most about writing is that you do not have to use anything but your imagination. The better your imagination is the more outlandish you can go and it does not cost a dime! With making films usually my role comes after the script and it is my job to visualize that script. In the case of writing, I do not have to worry so much about what everyone looks like or how a shot will play out or staging or even trying to make the character be believable when he acts. Okay, maybe I do to some degree, but I don’t have to visually show it and that’s what’s intriguing to me. I must find ways to write it out so that the reader will think what I am trying to convey. What an awesome challenge!

Sure I think about those things because of my training and I have been told I write very visually but nevertheless I don’t have to worry about them. Storyboards are hard to do man, and while I enjoy it, I prefer this earlier step of writing. It’s just me and my mind trying to find the best way to tell a story.

Armed with the Wonderful World Wide Web as my guide, I have really been studying the methods of writing structure and it really is quite formulaic when you get right down to it. Yes you have to tweak it so the formula is not so obvious and becomes unique to your personal story but in the end the experts say that most films are very similar in their structure.

Of all the sites I found on the web these two , Michael Hauge’s Screenplay Mastery and David Siegel’s Nine Act structure are the most informative for me.

Mr. Siegel’s website is really amazing and he goes to great lengths to point out his theory that films really have Nine short acts and not three big ones. Quite a concept and yet when you read his ideas it truly makes sense.

A whole lot of thinking goes onto writing when you come right down to it… You have so many plates spinning in the air at once and I find it diffiuclt to service them all. But I am learning.

Am I going to become a full time writer? Heck, I don’t know… if I can I suppose I’d love to do it but it’s a difficult thing to master and as my father says I think you either have the gift for it or you don’t. I’m not quite sure yet if I do.

I guess we’ll see won’t we? :-)