Jan. 21 Writer in Residence: The new Edmonton Public Library Writer in Residence Omar Mouallem read
the first 20 pages of my Rain script. He said what a lot of
other writer in residences said about my script. I need to work on the
dialogue, it was predictable at times, etc.
I then scanned the 43 pages of Rain
again. I need to take some time and break from it. I can also use these notes and think about my The Vertex Fighter script.
Jan. 23: I was taking a break from The Vertex Fighter since
2011. It was a 2 yr break. A couple of weeks ago, I did get an email
from a producer saying that I can send the script in to them as long as I
sign a submission release form.
I was biding my time as I waited for Omar to send me Rain feedback. I was also watching the TV movie Borealis. I read an article about it in the Edmonton Journal and it had a pic of a cage fight. As soon as I saw that pic: "I have to read it, I have to watch it." It's research for my Fighter script.
Borealis:
This was an average TV movie. I expected it to be a MMA movie, but it
only had a cage fight at the end. The article did say it was more of a
sci-fi movie set
in 2045, but I still expected some fighting.
There were a few fist fights here and there. It was more about the
environment, and how in the future we're going to run out of resources and
fight each other.
I felt the story was kind of busy with a little
too many characters, but at least they were all utilized. There was
lots of ethnic diversity like Aboriginal, Asian, Latino, and East
Indian.
There's a murder mystery, a little action.
It's very Canadian with the cast and where it was filmed. In the International Free Zone, Taq (Patrick Gallagher from Glee)
is driving an ATV as the news anchor talks about the free zone. Taq
finds a dead body in this winter land that looks like the Northwest
Territories. It had good exposition with the voice over about how
everybody is fighting for gas, oil, and minerals.
Vic (Ty Olsson) is the lead character. He is a manager at this bar. Bettina (Cristina Rosato) is a prostitute and they're
walking around the bar as they argue about who she brings into the bar. Taq shows the dead body to Vic, no ID.
Alison
(Michelle Harrison) is a environmental scientist and she points gun at
these Russian poachers who killed one of her polar
bears. Now the bad guys are set up in the story. Alison shoots one of
the Russians, and he hits her. Vic steps in and hits them. One of the
first fist fights here. Anton (Paulino Nunes) is the Russian leader.
Vic: I'm a customs officer.
Hoshi (Mayko Nguyen from Rookie Blue)
calls Vic through a TV telephone. It seems she's the supervisor to
him. The biologist meets Dan (Greyson Holt) who is a professor
searching for 18th century in-habitation.
Roger (Terry Chen) is a
doctor and examines the dead body. He finds a 6 inch spike that the
body was holding. Raminder (Karan Oberoi) is a military chief and tells
Vic: "You found a body on Canadian land, potential murder. It's my
business." He investigates a little bit.
Vic watches a video of
himself in his last MMA fight where he gets kicked in the head. Clive
(Bryan Dick) finds out the body is a
Norwegian archeologist. Vic gets the prostitute Bettina to steal the
spike that Lt. Raminder had taken from Vic because it was evidence in
the dead body.
Vic talks to the Russians about the dead body, and they tell him that the pilot committed suicide. Yeah, right.
The
biologist Allison puts a up a video blog about the dead body and the
Russians are mad. Vic tells Allison: "Now you started a war." The other
biologist Dan tells Allison about the spike, and that it was stolen
from a museum. The plot thickens.
Clive is beaten up to a pulp
and he's floating in a room with no gravity. Cool special effects. Vic
confronts the Russians about it.
Allison finds another dead polar bear and a dead body.
Bettina: Did you kill a man when you were an MMA fighter?
Vic: No.
Bettina: You have the money, citizenship to go anywhere, but why do you stay?
He doesn't answer.
Allison shows dead body to Vic, and the head is gone.
Cut
to later, a ATV is driving by the Russians. The Russians think that
person is stealing it, so they chase after it. It's really a holograph
without a head.
Taq blows up the Russian's dig site. Now that's some good action.
Svetlana (Christine Horne) is the League of Nations liason pays a visit to them. Vic meets with her.
Bettina
sees Russians try to break into the bar, and she yells at them to
stop. A soldier named Mason comes over and hits one of the Russians.
Finally, another fist fight.
Lt. Raminder steps in. The Russian
leader Anton says: " Instead of filing a complaint to the military,
let's settle this in a cage fight. Mason will fight one of their guys.
A Man is hurting himself, so Vic stops him. It turns out he was on a drug called "Ghost Man."
Anton
has hired another Russian
henchman Sergei (Darren Shahlavi) to work for him. The Mongolian guy
who was on the drug, wakes up and is mad from the drug. He runs and
Sergei gives one kick to him, and he's dead.
Vic: The League of Nations is about to sell the only piece of oil left on my land.
Hoshi researches Sergei for Vic.
Hoshi: He was in the military. He killed a Norwegian man, and now a Mongolian man.
Vic (to Lt. Raminder): The liaison wants to make us look bad, so she can pretend to fix it.
The
stakes are raised. The soldier Mason won't back down from the fight. 2
guys have signed a waiver form to fight. We all know Mason is going to
be killed if he fights.
Allison tells the Liaison that the Arctic fox died from a bullet shell, and not from natural causes.
Russian (to Vic): If you give me back my spikes that you stole from my site, there is a chance that Mason will still be
alive.
So Vic breaks Mason's arm so he can't fight Sergei. Vic did a good thing to save Mason's life.
Mason is now safe, but now Vic isn't.
Taq: He's younger, stronger, and more skilled. What if you don't survive?
The biologist Dan visits.
Dan: I want to talk about the "package."
Vic: We'll talk after the fight.
Dan: But what if-?
Vic: After the fight.
The
cage fight scene was brutal. Vic gets hurt. It was hard to watch him
get hurt. Sergei is scary looking and he was built. Vic wins the fight
when Sergei taps out.
Vic walks away, but then Sergei runs from
behind him. Vic then kicks him down. A Russian guy runs over to Sergei
and feels his neck. He looks at the leader Anton and shakes his head.
He's dead.
Vic (to Anton): You are never going to get these
spikes.
Me: Yeah!
Vic: First Russians get all the water, then the oil, then the food.
This
was a different kind of movie. This wasn't really a MMA/ fight movie,
but there was a different reason given to why there is a cage fight.
Jan. 26 Article: Here's the excerpts from the article by Eric Volmers on Jan. 10, 2013.
Ty
Olsson (lead actor): It's 2 people, no weapons, hand-to-hand. We were
there every take. The fight sequence itself as really energetic. You
had to commit to it. You're not hitting, but you're putting the same
effort into it. Then we'd stop and change lenses or camera angles and I
would skip rope, do pushups, do (tae kwondo).
So literally for
7 hrs I didn't stop. It was the only time at a wrap party that I
showed up, crawled into a corner and sipped my beer. My body was
shutting down. I could barely
walk.
Andrew Wreggit (co-creator): It was the notion of
competing for the last great oilfield. It's based on the idea that just
because we are running out, doesn't mean we don't want it anymore.
We'll use it up until it's actually gone before we figure something else
out. It's based on that idea. There's more than just oil and gas up
there.
There's more than just oil and gas up there. Down the
road, we're looking at the Arctic as potentially becoming a temperate
climate. When other parts of the world lose the ability to grow crops
for example, all of that stuff will start moving
North.
Me: The show hasn't been picked up as a series, but there is some info about it.
Wreggit:
What format it takes, we're not sure at this moment. We're definitely
looking toward the future for this. It was too much fun to give up on.
I've written some more episodes. We didn't get too far down the road,
but it definitely had a sense of where we would go in a full season.
There were definitely things I was laying in that I hope to follow up
on.
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