Hi, my name is Victoria Jones, and...

...I like nefarious corporations that seize control of hapless consumers with mind control, don't you? I also love how corporations try to use us to get them more money without us actually knowing. You think that burger you're chewing is so innocent and tasty? Think again, simpletons. It's a conspiracy brought to you by the FDA, Medical Institution and the Fast Food Industry. Nobody's out to help you or make you feel better. It's all an insidious ploy to take you for all you've got, and when your pockets are dry, they'll toss you aside like yesterday's meatloaf. Never operate under the delusion that corporate society actually cares about you. You'll wake up one day and smear the ketchup off your face and believe me, you won't like what you realize.

It's interesting how the public seem to earn money for everyone but themselves...our jobs are being outsourced so Chinese people can work for pennies in shitty conditions so our bosses won't have to pay us spit. Yet we The People of The Empty Wallet are supposed to rush to the mall when the next IPhone comes out. Silly! You can give away your spleen for free but the minute you need an operation, it'll cost you 5 large. Absurd! It's like the System wasn't even built for us, it was built for...THEM.

And the funny thing is, when the rare event occurs that we actually find ourselves getting paid anything tangible...it's for all the wrong reasons. You're a mobster. You're a junkie pushing drugs. You're illegally trafficking organs. You're killing people for a faceless corporation. You're fuckin' rich, that's what you are. It seems as if the only way to make it in this dumb society is to work for them...and eventually become them. Corrupt. Immoral. Something Other.

Loss of identity. Is that really what it takes to survive in this world?

Eleven Fifty One, coming soon to a blog near you...

Musings: Remakes and The Industry

Quantity vs Quality. I think we know where Hollywood stands on this. Tinsel Town: The land of the mass produced, excessively advertised, star riddled abominations to the creative arts.

I keep forgetting that this isn't the 50ies anymore, not that the 50ies in Hollywood were terribly different. Stars were just paid less and not nearly as hassled as our modern starlets are. And the movies were either bad, good or avant garde. I keep imagining if a moviegoer from the 20ies or 50ies were to step into a 21st Century theater, what would her impression be? Shock? Awe? Horror? If Saw or Gladiator were showing, she might swoon on the spot. But it's interesting to contrast between the grainy, concept obsessed ye olde days of cinema and the drive through, "how much will this make us?" attitude of modern filmmakers.

Not to say all filmmakers are so very inept. But what else could it be about besides money? With such a slew of remakes such as The Pink Panther, The Stepford Wives, Rear Window (aka Disturbia), Psycho and now The Women and The Day The Earth Stood Still looming upon us, what can be said about the people who've seen fit to remake these classic favorites? It cannot simply be for the thrill of giving a working concept a shiny new veneer. It cannot simply be that no one in Hollywood has any more ideas of original, interesting, thought-provoking characters in wonderful, exciting new environments.

Could it?

I was asked a question by some young filmmakers once during an impromptu street interview, why did I want to go into video production? At the time, I didn't know quite how to answer (it was a pretty spur of the moment thing and I'm terrible with on-the-spot questionnaires) but as I thought more about it, it came to me. I'm SICK of seeing bad movies. I'm SICK of seeing my favorite actors portraying rubbish characters in rubbish stories. I'm sick and tired to death of crap being rolled out on the conveyor belt, and even more horrified to watch the helpless general public paying money to see it. I hate seeing people visit crappy movies, wasting precious dollars that they should be saving for the upcoming Depression, and coming out of the theater dumber than when they went in!

Stories were intended to entertain and educate. In the fashion of Aesop, they were meant to teach morals. The modern purpose of movies have been to either educate, thrill and always, entertain. Movies take our minds off things, or make us feel better about things, or make us ponder things. Movies have the potential to be extremely powerful. Like our history books, they can fabricate the truth, or rectify it. In the age of visual media, they will become more important than ever as a pulpit for political propaganda, as a forum for analysis of social issues and as visual codeine to alieve the pain at the pump, or at home or anywhere else.

A friend of mine once made me question my decision to go into film, because as he put it, I was too good for it. I should and have the capacity to be something greater, like a doctor, someone who heals people. I thought about it for a long time because I was worried that he was right. Maybe filmmaking was worthless and useless in the long run. I would be helping society much better as a medical practitioner, someone with strong ethics and a love for humanity.

I've come to wonder if filmmakers and doctors aren't so different. They both start out young, excited and wanting to change the world. And out of both groups, some become twisted and jaded, losing their creativity and love for originality in favor of money....or losing their humanity and love of helping people in favor of money...

- Marian

Refresher Course and PRT 1: Citizens of the World - An Overview and Teaser

Goodness, the last time I posted in this was quite the longest time ago, wasn't it? I had a lot to say back then, but I didn't seem to know quite HOW to say it. It's interesting to see younger versions of oneself online...the internet is a bit of a time-machine in that aspect. If you've been on it long enough, you can practically chronicle your life. My e-mail address itself starts it all out for me. I was 9 when I first got it, and I remember exactly where and exactly when.

I can't really remember how I first got into screen writing, though I remember why I did and where I did. I also remember one of the first screenplays I wrote. The Man In The Mirror was inspired by my obsession with dopplegangers (that has now progressed to an obsession with alternate realities) and was actually pretty good for a starter script. Another script I wrote which I never completed was a story about a young man with a mysterious (and possible supernatural) mental problem and a love-hate relationship with his desperate mother and persistent psychiatrist. I think I had a lot of good ideas back then now that I think about it...they still come intermittently now-a-days, and I take the time to scrawl them in one of my many notebooks, but my attention span has shortened. I have a lot of "works-in-progress". I'm now more eager to step behind the camera and film them than simply sit and write them.

Something new I've been working which I will now naively tell everyone and his brother surfing the internet about is a series called Citizens of the World about two accused terrorists, a secret government agency and a dangerous computer algorithm. Already I've said too much, but with any luck, whether I create/produce/direct it or not, it will soon be a TV show airing at 8:30-9:00 PM Fridays on NBC. My dear mother would waggle her finger at me for this post, for she is mortified at the thought that a television concept concocted by me should be stolen by a fat billionaire producer who will not credit me for the idea, and proceed to turn the concept into a hit that bleeds money that should rightfully be mine. Do I care? A little, I guess...but somehow, whether I am credited or not, I would surely prefer to see something interesting and thought provoking on TV, which is steadily becoming clogged with a detritus of mind-numbingly banal reality shows, and what's most horrible about it all is that it's fake reality and not real reality. Anyway, it all depends on who gets his/her hands on it in the end, doesn't it? Hmm. Maybe I should go indie.

As you can see I live in somewhat of a dreamworld when it comes to my writing career...but what writer doesn't? Here I digress...

Citizens of the World was originally designed to be the star-making show for a young, cool, hip female lead and an older male actor who'd been around the acting block a few times. It is based in a futuristic setting where society and government are flawless after decades of mistakes and economical sabotage. Our characters find themselves suddenly swept up in a massive conspiracy that should not be. An algorithm that should not exist is created, quickly threatening the balance of power in the government, particularly between a branch of the CIA and another, more sinister, secret branch that nobody outside of a small group of tight-nit CIA agents know about. Besides all this, our lead characters who, stranded helplessly together by fate, and initially cannot stand one another, discover something surprising about each other, which changes things completely...whether for the better or the worse is yet to be found out.

I will end this post with a small excerpt from the pilot episode of this series, which is in it's second draft and will soon be posted online via Simply Scripts for all to see at some point. I hope to make many more revisions to tighten it up, but until then, I will plot out where this series will go some more. It's looking to be quite exciting already, I can say that with no vanity whatsoever. It's sort of my personal project that I have no fear of sharing with whoever will stumble upon this blog. And if someone who is interested in the concept should be interested in bringing it to life, that will be very interesting, for me personally.

-------------------------------------------------------

James drives. Long silence. He checks his wound. Blood is seeping through his shirt. It’s bad. He hides it. Goes for the touch-screen dashboard and turns on the radio. Crooning Country.

Gabi’s face, still aimed out of the window, scrunches. Not her cup of tea.

THEN --

RADIO
-- we interrupt this broadcast to briefly bring you some breaking news out of West Virginia. Fugitives are on the lam today after what appears to be a botched attempted terror attack on a South County Hilton. Sources say that a middle aged caucasian male was seen running through the halls of the ninth floor of the hotel moments after gunshots rang from one of the suites on the level. A series of highly-concentrated explosives were later found by investigators in the suite, along with the bodies of --

James frowns at the bouncing wavelength line signifying the radio on the dashboard screen...

JAMES
(incredulously)
-- explosives?!

RADIO
-- one civilian and several police officers who had been shot to death with projectile weaponry. The suspect proceeded to survive a desperate jump from a nineth floor window of the Hilton.

JAMES
-- fuckin’ crazy --

RADIO
A getaway car driven by a unidentified female then led authorities on a high speed chase through Virginia District Fourty Four. The pair managed to lose pursuing police, and have disappeared somewhere in Middletown County. The ditched getaway vehicle was discovered last night at a car garage, and recently, an Orson Brother’s Carpet Cleaning van has been reported missing from the same garage. If you see or have seen this vehicle, please take caution, and report it to the local police department immediately. Authorities have revealed the fugitives to be armed and extremely dangerous.

And that jams it. You can almost feel hearts sink. Red Foley resuming singing Peace In The Valley.

Gabrielle -- just staring right at him, ever since “bodies”. James feels the stare -- doesn’t respond to it.

EXT. FREEWAY - TRACKING ON THE VAN - DAY

The cleaning van cruises down the freeway. Passes by an expensive looking BLACK SEDAN.

I/E. BLACK SEDAN/FREEWAY - DAY

The driver, an insurance agent named FRED, drives on -- also listening to his radio...

TALK-RADIO HOST #1
...nine, seven, zero -- once again, that is a white Orson Brother’s Carpet Cleaning Van, plate number 6-B-J-9-7-0. If you have seen this van, please contact...

-- Fred notices something that looks familiar -- that white van cruising up ahead. He looks back at his (incredibly high-tech looking) dashboard radio, as if for instructions --

TALK-RADIO HOST #2
...the subjects are armed and dangerous. Do not -- this is very important -- do NOT attempt to apprehend them yourself, please call local enforcement or if you’re on the road, which I’m sure a lot of our listeners are, please call RED HOTline, R-E-D, HOTline, that number is seven-three-eight-four-six-eight.

TALK-RADIO HOST #1
I think we should make it clear that we’re not encouraging anybody to be a hero...

TALK-RADIO HOST #2
Of course not Stan --

-- Fred digs out his cell. Dials and drives.

TALK-RADIO HOST #1
-- we want to make it very clear that it is extremely important not to approach these people, they are terrorists -- extremely -- extremely dangerous...

FRED
Hello? Is this the Roadside Emergency District HOTline? I think I’ve got those fugitives out on the road. Southwest of I-657. Yeah, that’s the van.

I/E. CARPET CLEANING VAN/ROAD - DAY

James peers into the rear view mirror, eyeing the traffic behind them.

JAMES
Fuck, our plates are in the open. Someone’ll have spotted us...

Meanwhile, Gabrielle, sick of country, switches the radio channel and finds some nice banal political talk radio.

TALK-RADIO HOST #2
...real fungus among us, Stan. And -- I was remembering something Dwight Thompson was saying earlier this week in the Times that...in this day and age -- we’ve come so far from things like Vietnam and Iraq and Iran. 20 or 30 thirty years ago, people wouldn’t have been at all surprised to hear of somebody losing it and blowing themselves up a federal building --

TALK-RADIO HOST #1
Not at all.

TALK-RADIO HOST #2
They would have gone on with their lives, let the government handle it. Which it admittedly rarely did well...

TALK-RADIO HOST #1
Well government reaction time isn’t really the issue Glenn --

TALK-RADIO HOST #2
-- yeah -- but that’s not my point though, what I’m saying is today, twenty-one-oh-five, we as a country cannot -- WILL NOT tolerate these kinds of things happening. We have advanced to a point where these sorts of, risks to society, we cannot do it anymore, we grinned and bore it for over 10 fucking decades, we went through god knows how many presidents, only one who finally realized that if we want to be safe as a people -- as a nation, we need to make order the norm instead of fear and pessimism and paranoia. The atmosphere must be clear of that kind of negativity, the government must operate for the people instead of against the people, the corporate machine must work for the people instead of themselves, society must be perfect --

James switches the radio off. Gabrielle looks at him questioningly.

JAMES
Spare the rod, spoil the nation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's it. Blog ya later.

- Maryam

Things On The Little Grey Cells

On mind:

New series.

New movie.

Series: Action. Intrigue. Something different that's never been done before. Ever. Sparse diologe. Action should be the quotable. No one character. No one veiw point.

Movie: A world forced to the edge of peril. Children confined to the streets, desending into a dark, sacrificial religion based on the teachings of thier ancestors - who are really their parents...work with that one.

Movie: A story about a personal assistant in hollywood. An ingenue who gets hired by some selfish movie star who ends up marrying her for a her good common sense.

What? It's the decade of re-makes. I dunno, maybe maybe not. I'm more of a sci fi person. Besides, who'll they find to replace the extraordinary Audrey Hepburn? *sigh*

SIP(Story In Progress)

I'm starting a story in progress which will be a first person study of a hypochondriac and Aireophobe (that's fear of open spaces I believe - I hope... oh, here's an interesting site with an extensive list of phobias which I didn't even know existed. Good Lord, I didn't some of the stupid stuff people are afraid of. Looks like half the world needs a shrink of some type or another...unless they have a Shrinkophobia.)

It's nearly impossible to actually want to check your mail nowadays. If you do decide you want to, you've usually put on shoes, walked to the elevator, got in, waited to sail down 11 flights, got out, marched through a cold lobby, fumbled for your key, put it in, use good energy turning it, and finally opened your mailbox for nothing. What a waste of time. They should have mial chutes like luandry chutes for buildings more than 2 stories tall. Some of us don't like to waste time checking mail only to be welcomed by a big fat bill or overdue notice or plain old junkmail or worse - someone else's bills, over due notices or junkmail. It's pesky, annoying and just plain mean. How do these post-men get away with it? Putting the wrong mail in someone's box? Don't they screen these guys before they're assigned a mail-truck? Seems like any Joe can man one of those babies now-a-days. Well, it's not a perfect world. In a perfect world, people won't have to interact with people on a daily basis. All our food will be served to us by automated response machines, our clothes will be shipped cheap via suber fast air mail and dropped through chutes in our ceilings and hung on racks by auto-bots, our houses will be fully maintenanced by Artifical Intelligence who only speak when spoken to. And all cars come with drivers that helpfully ensure one's interaction with the outside world is kept to a minimum. Wouldn't that be great. Still, I'm living in a dream world for now.

Commont alle vouz?

If it's misspelled...sue me. So, a lots happened over the weeks and I havn't used this blog very often. I more of a thinker than a write down what I'm thinkin' thinker. That's why I forget stuff a lot. :P Recently, as certain readers may know, I've gotten involved with a virtual series project called Stargate:Horizon, which is a virtual spinoff of Stargate, duh. I've signed on as a writer and I'm working on an episode which...I can't spoiler-ize so, I'm not saying anything yet. :D Ah, what fun. Secrets are the spice of life. I'm working with a friendly and compatible crew, which I've always dreamed on. It's good, I think, that we all have something in common in this thing. It makes thinsg easier, us being sci fi buffs and all. The characters for the show are very appealing and since we just got a huger audience via gateworld, business has been - needless to say - booming. Over what was it last, 12000 hits on the scripts? 18000? Heck, I lost track. All I can say to the readers is, keep at it guys. And speak out, let us know what you think. Honesty is the best policy.

Now, on to other aspects of my boring life, I'm working on several screenplays but GW keeps distracting me. Curses! This one script has me up at night, it's working title is Children of the River which I believe i spoke of in great detail in a previous blog. I have the character and he's fleshing himself out but I need peace and quiet in order to write. There's also a series idea in my head, it's coming...it's coming... I've been seeing a male protagonist all this time but maybe he's female now? I dunno...we'll have to see. It's a trip coming up with something original and everytime I lok at Yahoo Movies and check out what's going on or WGA and see who's selling what or Simply Scripts to see who's writing what, I'm always shocked at the lack of originality in the stories out there. Is it just me? Am I just a story snob? I dunno. But It helps looking at that stuff and saying "Lord, I can write something better than that!"

There's few movies I evern bother to see in the theatre anymore. I was going to see Mr and Mrs. Smith, which mom swear came from my idea called Mr and Mrs Jane and John Doe (I know it's cheesy, shut up and stop snickering) which was about the same thing only A.J's leg wasn't planned to be up in the screen every five minutes and Brad Pitt was nowhere to be seen. Ugh. Not that I don't like the guy but...he bores me. Even in Se7en, he bored me. But the beard was pretty anyway. So, I missed that flick - I remember A.J said on actors studio that it's a movie about marriage - I think about my similar idea...was it about marriage?...It could have been. A movie like that could be a symbol for the tumoltous idea of marriage...but I was thinking something between James Bond, 1984 and The Bourne Identity. Anyway...

There's The Island which is coming out soon. S. Johansonn ain't my favorite actress. She creeps me out for some reason. I heard she wanted to do a topless scene when the flick is PG 13. what a doofus. My god, talent and originality has been reduced to how many nekkid scenes one does or how many times one says f***. I HATE the F word. It's crass, stupid, and despite what some writers seem to think it does NOT brand one as a sophisticated connisouer of literature. What is F***? A crass word - that Q. Tarantino apparantly loves. If someone says F***, am I supposed to bow and say, "All hail the writer."? Heck no! It's actually embarrasing to me - and If I've EVER said it, I swear, i wasn't in my right mind. I especialy hate it when writers say it because they seem to think it maks them cool or something. Blaaah.

Speaking of Tarantino, Kill The Bride. When? Why wait for the kid to grow up? get another actress. He'd better not blow it either. I'll speculate on "Kill The Bride" tomorrow because I'm tired and this laptop screen is killing me. In the meantime, I'll buzz GW and check up on SGH, gotta read the scripts, get to know the characters. I know Chase pretty well since...well, he's on SG1, lol. Grant...I've never seen 24 unfortuntly. I'll have to watch it one day when mom's not looking or something...yeah, or something..*sneaky smile* Sivea...is that the girl from Batgirl or whatever that show was called? It was on for like five minutes, but I could swear that's her. I'll check on the others later, I'm so beat. Nite all. I'll part tonight with my fav line from Midsummer Nights Dream.

"If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:if you pardon, we will mend:

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call;

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends."

Brainstorming...

Wow, last post in april. That's pathetic. Anyway, this blog won't be used very much except to wrote down little idea here and there.

So I was talking to my self in chat - Mer, Marty, JS and the gang were all in bed - as I should be too, but I digress, I was talking to myself about this thing I'm writing. It's sad how I, a writer with Final Draft at her finger tips can only open up MS Word and jot down a few ideas, but then, that's what brainstorming's all about, ideas.

So what I have so far is a story about parenting ... I don't think I quite understand my story, I'll have to get it put in perspective by my grandmom or mom and see what they think, but what I have so far is this:

Ethan - the protaginist - after a series of adventures, finds' himself on an island with his true father, the one who orchestrated all the events leading up to this one moment. See, Xander - Ethans' stepbrother - was meant as an attractant for Ethan, so that Ethan's true father could finally have both his sons together and join with him, spiritually and physically. But Ethan despised the fact that his father was a man who would do anything to get what he wanted - which was basically, his two boys.

Ethan, being biased and close minded to what his father was rejects his father for a number of reasons. Killing his mother in his conception, killing his father's mistress, killing all those people on the jet just so that he could awaken Ethan's stepfather's child which was still in the belly of his dead mistress, killing his father, and now - the last straw- asking him to give up his human life for what Ethan considers to be no true life at all.

I continue here myself with the father's grief over his sons rejection and sics his brother on Ethan. There is a fight - quite Oidepal, I guess, perhaps not Oeidipal, probably more just the Osiris/Seth tryst, the battle between brothers, and Xander is more his father's son than Ethan. Ethan in attempting to kill Xander - or rather defend himself, stabs instead, his father. They collapse together onto the beach as Ethan, suddenly overcome with guilt tries to comfort his father who says with a weak smile, "Son, this is all I ever wanted all along." And Ethan looks at his gands, realizing his father's blood is all over them, so he says, "What does this mean? What does this mean, you bastard??" There he turns instantly vicious as he knows something's horribly wrong then Xander comes up behind him and takes him in a violent bear hug. They both turn into water and flush down into the beach and ...now I'm stuck - is this the end? Does the son become the father? Should there be some turn of luck and Ethan somehow defeats Xander/Father and returns to his normal being? What? I'll think it up later...anyway, It's time for Golden Girls.

Dear Aspiring

John Irving said "The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything."

That's what I intend to be; a writer. Writing is an escape for me - when I'm down or when I'm bored, or simply when I want my hand to do something. But that's not all. It's a spiritual action - especially depending on what one is writing. If I'm writing poetry, chances are, my mood is at it's most spiritual - afterwards I get into my religious book and say my prayers, etc.

I come from a familey of writers. My parents are writers - my father - although I don't know him - seems too to be one. I suppose it's the gene, the literary force behind the act of one reading that seeps into the genes and causes the children to want to do the same. My mother said that when I was a baby, she used to bring home giant books for me to read and I'd flip through the huge pages as If I was actually reading them. It's to my parents - as well as God, that I give thanks for helping me to understand the craft of writing. I can only hope I have "The Gift" for it.

My hope is to, as soon as I get into college, get into film school, see how I like working behind the camera. I'd even try my hand at directing - though I think you have to be kind of outgoing for that and I am a bit shy. Film has recently in this stage of my life captivated me, made me wonder. Ever since the first time I saw Suddenly Last Summer, when I was caught up in the action of Mission Impossible, when I discovered the "Truth" of the X-files. Although I find Hollywood itself to be a very worldly and godless place, I feel that that act of creating the film itself is rewarding spiritually - especially if what you are writing and filming about has a message within it. People go to the movies for one of four reasons: To be uplifted, to be scared, to be entertained and to learn. Upliftion, entertainment and learning I believe to be the most important of these. Horror is nothing; It's mindless fluff; but even horror can have a message - if it's pulled off well. Rosemary's baby is one of these, and few others I can't recall at the moment. As a screenwriter, you create a mood, a time, a place, and characters for the mood, time and place and you send them on a journey. That journey can be hopeless, spiritual, bogus, terrifying or completly pointless. As a filmmaker, you bring that world from paper to life, to the big screen, to the people who then gleen what they gleen from it, (often in humourously condescending articles.) I think that is very - for lack of a more sophisticated sounding word - Cool.

This blog is mostly for me - for me to post a poem I might wrote - a song I hum to myself one day - a prayer - or to write. This is one of my free minutes. I hoep to have many, many more.

This really doesn't have much to do with this thing I've written but it always makes me feel better somehow to read this poem. The Cloud, By Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of my favorites. It's wet and lonsesome, wild and quiet, thoughtful and quick. It also happens to be what my second middle name means. This is the last part of the poem:
__________________________________________________________________

I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.