Clowns and Swords

A Clown Holding Swords

Not quite what I had in mind. From

In my last semester at the University of Tennessee, I took a course in screenwriting. It was one of the best classes I took, mainly because the professor pushed students to do an insane amount of work. You know, it was a constructively pressure-filled atmosphere, if that makes sense.

Part of the insane amount of work was the requirement of churning out a scene (read, about a page’s worth of material–any more than that and Dr. Larsen would go apeshit and scream, “No, no, no!”) three times a week and turning it in, so that he could go over it about six times with six different colored pens. Yes, I know, this makes him seem completely insane, but it was a great, great way to learn about writing screenplays. Nothing like abject terror and multiple colors of ink to push you to excel.

One of the assignments was to create a scene that used a montage. I have no idea how I came up with Clowns With Swords as a premise, but, hey, caffeine does amazing things to my brain.

And, as with everything tossed into the Scripts and Simontek Studios category, if I ever had the opportunity to film it (and direct it, since in the words of an agent at the place I’m interning at, “screenwriters get shit on”), I’d be all over it.

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The Art Syllabus

If you’ve been in university in the United States, or know anyone who has been, then you’re probably aware of some of the absurd requirements presented on course syllabi. This goes double if anyone you know was in an art class.

The Setbacks Comic Creative Team, five years after the fact and arranged by height.

For example, Brad Whitaker, one of my best friends and, a long time ago, my co-conspirator on a comic we called Setbacks (don’t look for it, it’s been swallowed by the Internet), spent a long time in art classes at MTSU. Whenever I complained about having to read, I don’t know, some obscure American author from the 19th century, he would retaliate by showing me the required items for his classes. And, of course, I drank too much coffee and created a (slightly) exaggerated version of an arts class syllabus.

I didn’t expect it to appear accurate in any way, but, according to Brad–the guy in the middle in the picture to the right–it’s not too far off. And no, I’m not certain why all of the villains in my stuff happen to have German names.

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Bullet Reviews

A friend of mine, Jonathan David Lim, runs a website called Bullet Reviews. It’s a multimedia sort of thing, reviewing books, movies, music, and, soon, all sorts of gaming. About a month ago, I managed to wheedle my way into becoming the head book editor, and I’ve made it my goal to update the Books section at least once a week. This, of course, means a lot of reading and scribbling in the margins, but it gives me a reason to rant, and any time I get that, I’m happy.

Go around the site, though. It’s a good time, and it’ll continue to grow.