Story Coverage

Hello everyone and Happy Wednesday. I figured the 27th anniversary of my introduction to this world would be an event grand enough to spurn my writing again. On a wednesday, my designated writing day, no less.

So to help familiarize people with different aspects of my job, one of the many things I get to do is write coverage for scripts that are submitted for clients. Other duties might include talking to producers, talking to casting directors to try to get auditions for actors, setting up general meetings with directors, dealing with publicity and ADR for projects, fixing air conditioners, getting drinks with and for people, dumpster diving, and organizing travel. But we're here to talk about coverage.

On a daily basis, scripts and projects are submitted to our clients here to read and consider, in case they find a movie they would like to be in. Its my job to read the scripts that come in for a select few clients, and then write a short synopsis on the script, and give my thoughts on it as well. Sporadically, i will provide brief descriptions of the characters involved in the project as well.

Because of the clients that my boss deals with, sometimes we get sent projects that ultimately are made into studio released movies. So sometimes you'll get to see coverage on movies you might be seeing trailers for.

To start, I figured I would start with one of my favourite scripts. SHOULDERPADS is a musical set back in the early 60s, and about the working woman getting ahead in a world of glass ceilings. Oh yeah, except by "favourite" I mean that this was probably one of the worst scripts I have ever read. So enjoy!

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SHOULDERPADS

Synopsis: The year is 1963. This is the era where women are just starting make an appearance in the workplace. Fading away is the conception of women as the ideal housewives, there to cook, clean, and keep their husband happy - drink in his hand when he comes through the door. Enter HOPE, the Vasser valedictorian, who has just graduated, and refuses to be the ideal housewife. She wants to enter into the workplace, and she winds up with a job at a some beauty advertising agency, where she will be working as a secretary to ROWENA MARX - one woman at the firm who is everything that Hope wants to be. Powerful, smart, and driven - she doesn’t take shit from anyone else at the company, and it shows. The kind of boss who would be an agent at UTA or something. Hope makes friends with the two other secretaries, GRACE and JUDY - their bosses are the stereotypical. Judy’s Boss, RICHARD is a shovenest pig who is in his 50s, and just greasy and gross, thinks he still has it, but we know he doesn’t. Grace’s Boss CHAS. He is a younger version of Richard, except he actually does have it. And by “it” I mean “a torrid office romance with his secretary, Grace. Of course he’s using her.

In mid-song and dance number, Marx talks to Hope and describes to her their current project - to find the perfect woman for their new feminie product, SUMMER SNOW - shampoo, conditioner, vaginal perfume, and diuretic all in one. Oh yeah. Now all they need is the poster child for the product. In the midst of the song, we get to watch Richard and Chas use their secretaries for their own sexual gain, and then kick them to the curb.

Hope begins flirting with BILLY, who works in the mailroom (gasp! its totally off limits to be interested in someone lower on the totem pole than you.) He’s all apparently the perfect man - grows flowers, cooks like a god, and is super super nice and considerate.

The the girls continue to bond, and in their musical number telling us this is what is happening, “the girls become a jazzy girl group ala the Lennon Sisters.” It is revealed that whichever of the 3 bosses finds the perfect model to represent Summer Snow will be promoted, and the the other two are going to get the axe. Marx begins to reveal that behind all her bravado, she’s quite lonely, and vulnerable. But only for a moment.

The girls hatch a plan to seduce the other two guys and figure out what their respective plans are to do for the campaign. Grace gets hit by a truck singing about how much she loves her boss (who has no feeling for her at all.) Hope falls for Billy. We find out that Richard got Judy preggers, and she gets an abortion. More singing. Marx is ultimately fired, and as she leaves Hope with a choice - pursue her job, or pursue love (Billy.) Then she leaves to go to Tuscon to be with her long lost love, leaving Hope in charge of her part of the campaign. Getting lost in the midst of her work, she alienates Billy from her. Ultimately, Hope pulls the campaign off spectacularly, and gives a presentation using all of the women in the office, saying that the real face of Summer Snow is everyone. She gets promoted, gets a corner office, the men are axed, and Hope apologizes to Billy, gets him back, and marries him - in the last song she can be leaving the house while Billy waves good bye, holding twins and cooking. Fin.

OVERVIEW: Remember my original coverage? With the batman doll video? I maintain my stance. The lyrics are terrible, the message is stupid, the characters are stupid and flat, the friends are no good, and everything is far far far too predictable. Even the lines in between the songs are stupid. Some people are a little too perfect, and its just.... really goddamed lame. I mean, seriously. I don’t like any one of these characters. And the Summer Snow product? PLEASE. Mamma Mia was good cause it used Abba songs and had international pull because of it. THIS HAS NONE OF THAT. I mean, if you want to take all the work that went into Letters to Juliet, Im.Mortal, and Red Riding hood, and flush it down the toilet, after taking a crap on it, then go for it. I don’t care if Scorcese was attached to this project, its terrible. Shit, Marty would be smart enough to know that this is bad. I think someone put syphillis on the paper of these scripts so you actually go insane when you read it, and that’s why people keep saying “they’re crazy about it.”

But I digress. PASS.

okay my last 2010 post

I know these are late. I know I already did a new year post. I know it is now January. BUT IT'S ONLY THE 6th so for my last post of "the year", (hopefully my fellow Grapefruit logic compatriots will give there own send offs to the fine year that brought us this blog) I will be giving you two beautiful movie compilations celebrating 2010.

2010 Salute to Cinema from Ben Zuk on Vimeo.

Welcome to the future

Happy NEW YEAR!!!!! it's 2011 and grapefruit logic's new years resolution is TO POST MORE OFTEN. (we apologize for our lack of posting as of late, we got lazy/busy you can decide which one is more excusable)

now being that it's 2011 and the technical beginning of the new decade, I'm gonna start it off with a top six list of WHY WE ARE IN THE FUTURE. Now for a little history (har har) for most of the 20th century many sci-fi films where set in the time period that we currently reside in (between 2000-2060.) Many of these films/tv-shows are the standard that we hold the future to. Back to the Future part 2 (2015), The Jetsons (2060), Blade Runner (2019), Star Wars (a long time ago) and many more depict society in the distant to not so distant future. They have gifted us with many imaginative things from hover boards, to flying cars, and many of these things have arrived IN THE REAL WORLD. So here it goes; the top six reasons we are in the future.

6) xbox 360 Kinect

Yes it has yet to be seen how good of a product this will be. But I got one for Christmas and this is what I have to say about it.

1) Nothing is cooler then controlling my TV like Tom Cruise controls computers in Minority Report, (NO HANDS MA!!)

2) IT KNOWS MY FACE. seriously i signed in as my avatar, and when i was on the screen my avatar was playing. Then I left letting my friends take a crack at it for about a half an hour. (when i left the screen my avatar left with me and the xbox assigned random characters to the people playing) When I finally returned BAM my avatar is back. (IT'S WATCHING ME HELP!!!!)

5) Music

If you look at the larger music festivals in the United States right now, many of them will be in the music genre Electronica. (Better known as Techno) Beyond that many music on the top 40 lists are, or have, techno influences. David Guetta, Tiesto, Dead Mau5, Daft Punk, techno is shaping up to be the next big music genre. And you know who else listens to techno... ROBOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats right, the music genre forever held high by the mechanical limbs of our robot overlor-I mean friends is beginning to blossom.

4) Holograms

With the release of James Cameron's "Avatar," which grossed more then a whopping $2 billion, we have now cemented 3D in the American society. Slowly 3D televisions are being sold on a daily basis, and soon Nintendo will be releasing a 3D handheld system that doesn't even require 3D glasses; the Nintendo 3DS. Now while these are not the holograms that one would expect, it is a step in the JAWS 10/"Letting the Wookie Win" direction. Along with this companies product a real hologram projector WE ARE ON OUR WAY.

3)Mobile Television

From Phones, to tablets most people cary at least one, if not two ways to watch tv or movies instantly on their person at any given moment. Most of this is due to a combination effort

between Google and Apple. This was every childs dream when growing up.(or at least mine) "what?!?! I can watch my cartoons in class as long as i hide it from the teacher. SOLD" (*warning* the men and women at Grapefruit Logic do not in any way support watching cartoons during school, all children who do watch television in class and have there phones taken away by angry over reacting teachers as a consequence are not responsibilities of this website/blog or any of our affiliates.)

2)Video chat

Almost all versions of the future had video chat, and though to a certain extent we have been able to video chat since the 90s. It was to expensive and only really adopted in the last 5 years. This one being mostly to blame on apple computers(thank you Steve Jobs and whomever makes your turtle neck sweaters), and Skype. Many corporations use it daily, and love struck high-school sweethearts separated by "college long distance relationships" use it hourly. Plus now with most new smart phones being released with front facing cameras, video chat is being taken on the road. Congratulations, you too can now be using video chat, just to give the finger in live full color to that asshole down the block that keeps taking up two spaces with his truck anywhere you please.

1) Sadly number one is not hover boards, teleportation, moon/mars bases, space elevators, faster then light travel, or flying cars. But they are cars.

From Gearlog.com

Google has, in fact, created a self-driving car--not only that, the company took it on a test drive down the coast of California, from its Mountain View campus to its office in Santa Monica.Then, naturally, they cruised the thing down Hollywood Boulevard.And this isn't the first time Google has taken the car out into the wild. Past exertions have included Lombard Street (the world famous "crookedest street"), the Golden Gate, the Pacific Coast Highway, and the circumference of Lake Tahoe. The car has driven some 140,000 miles--with trained operators on-board, naturally.The goal of the vehicle is "to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people's time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use," according to the company. The cars (yes, cars plural) utilize video cameras, radar sensors, and lasers (that's how you know it's from the future) to spot other traffic. Built-in maps, meanwhile, help the vehicles navigate the road.The car is in constant contact with Google's data centers, which process all of the information gathered by the vehicles.In all, Google seems confident of the potential of its crazy future car, "We're also confident that self-driving cars will transform car sharing, significantly reducing car usage, as well as help create the new 'highway trains of tomorrow

DID YOU READ THAT, IT HAS HAPPENED, WE HAVE SELF DRIVING CARS. Which for all of us alchohol consumers, this means you DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT DRIVING DRUNK. Mind you these probably won't be released for a while. but still.

The second part to this whole thing is the TESLA/PRIUS/EV1 and EV2 Electric cars are becoming a natural and normal thing. AND SOON THEY WILL DRIVE THEMSELVES.

(on second thought, FUCK ROBOTS ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD DAMN YOU TERMINATOR AND THE MATRIX FOR GIVING THEM THE IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE.)