Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Lesser of two Cliched Evils

While I may have failed in having my motivation sparked in blogging every day (here anyways), I come with the excuse that life has unfortunately gotten in the way via equestrian activities, and the impending doom (ha ha, not really...I love the company I will be working for, I just wish I was still working for them back in Vancouver and on set instead of in the office) of starting up work again. The one thing that I am pleased to have regained my motivation for is working and actually finishing a script idea. 

It would seem, for the moment, that committing to the ambition of actually entering my work in a contest or two...or three possibly has coerced my muse to come back home and alleviate me of the pain and longing she causes when she skips town for horrifically lengthy periods of time. I'm currently still in the R & D phase of things but I have given myself the deadline of June first to actually start laying fingers to keyboard and as such I will still have a month and a half to write and a month and a half to perfect; possibly even later if I consider some different contests but I've honed in on the ones that are focused strictly towards horror as after all,  I have a strong, deep seeded, almost pathological desire to make and watch nothing but horror films; the more gore, the better is what I always say, I don't care how bad the plot is...I love gore flicks for the jaw dropping, teeth clenching, squeal inducing disgusting delights just the same as I love actual honest to goodness films that indeed frighten me (Rec. anyone?); I just love horror. 

As being in the throes of R & D purgatory, I have hit several agonizing rough patches. One of these will effect nothing of my script in the long run and is more or less just ridiculously frustrating to myself personally as I gear up to actually writing the thing, but the other is more or less a question of cliche. 

I know that there is literally no original creation left under the sun and there are cliches abound in just about every film in the sun, but I must admit it annoys me slightly to have to decide between the lesser of two evils. Where as one has been done to death, it would ultimately make for a scarier end product (if not scarier, definitely creepier), the other would smack less of cliched and somewhat predictable plot device, but may not lend itself quite as well to the scare/creep out factor. 

Which is the factor to sacrifice? Do I relent a little on the creative aspect and keep the scares or do I relent on the scares and keep the creativity?

Perhaps I should just venture down the route not yet mentioned and find some other initiating incident that would work. When I consider this, though, I think of all the ways the initiating incident I have already planned out snaps into place with minute details of plot and the fact that it does is what at present is making me so excited about this idea.

Decisions, decisions. 

I find myself at an impasse for the night, and will more than likely drive myself nuts going over the pros and cons of using either of these things that are pretty predictable. When it boils down to it I'm of the mind that the rest of the script will make up for a cliche here and there; at least I hope it will, I personally think it's  a down right genius idea that I have yet to discover has been done, similar films made...possibly but not similar enough to warrant me scrapping it all and coming up with a new and less "done to death" idea; I don't think anyways...though if it comes down to that I guess it will just come down to a matter of superior writing and dialogue; not to toot my own horn so to speak but when motivated I can write dialogue pretty damn well if I do say so myself.

One last musing when considering cliches...

Is there such a thing as a good cliche? Is there a difference between a "good" cliche and a "bad" cliche?

If answered with yes, what makes a cliche "good"? What makes one "bad"?

In regards to a "bad" cliche...what makes it so bad? What is bad about a bad cliche?

Oy. Too many questions for one night. 

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