#51 - "I Sincerely Hope That This Is The Last Time That I Find Myself Here"
Hello hello,
February is really whipping by. 2020 is such a fun year to say, I had rather hoped it wouldn't flash past but time seems insistent as ever. This week has mostly been taken up by recovering from my trip to LA and a few meetings to catch up with where I'm at with various projects. Generally, I'm in a good place! I think?
I'm glad these newsletters are finishing soon so you won't be able to follow up with me on that sentiment. I have been thinking about finales this week though...
SENSE OF AN ENDING
It all began when I realised that, though I saw it weeks ago now, I couldn't get the ending of The Leftovers out of my head. It's an old show now but I don't want to ruin it too much if you've not seen it yet but...oof. It encapsulates how faith begins with one person buying into the emotional truth of another - the perfect articulation of everything the show has been exploring, in all different forms. (Side note: Watching The Leftovers has finally made me realise where the music from Every Single Directing Showreel comes from). It's so hard to pull this off. One of my all-time fav series sign offs, All Good Things... from Star Trek: The Next Generation manages it too. (I talked a little about that way, way back in my third newsletter when talking about writing process but I didn't expand too much.) Picard making the case for care and curiosity and camaraderie across three different time lines? With the expectation of change at the end? Love it. (The quotation in this newsletter heading is from that episode).
As a way of trying to dispel the ending of other TV shows from my head, I found myself writing the ending of one of mine. A few hours of work and I had a montage, set to a particular song - which I will never get the rights - that will the be the moments that close out episode eight of series one. To be clear, I haven't even finished writing episode one. I mean, I'm late with rewriting the bible for the series as a whole. What the hell was I doing playing around with the ending?
Well, I suppose it's because satisfying endings are hard to find. I'm always grateful when a suggestion of one looms in my imagination because it gives me a destination to try and aim for. In the case of this series, the images for that montage are all end points for various story strands that I've been monkeying around with in my brain. All of them feel satisfying and cohesive and like they speak to each other and what I'm trying to get at...while also giving a bit of a tease as to what the second season is going to bring. Compared to coming up with that, the job of getting there is relatively easy. More a mechanical task than an imaginative one, although there will of course be plenty of discoveries yet to make. Another demonstration of how multifaceted this job is. Sometimes it's dreaming, sometimes it's digging, sometimes it's laying the road.
Can't get too ahead of myself. That bible needs finishing. But I'm grateful to have that end now as beacon for plotting, character and tone. Time to refine my ideas to suit it...just as soon as I'm done with this newsletter.
KITTY KORNER
I've been away quite a lot since the start of the year and I'm excited that I get a good run of time with the cats. It feels criminal that I was in my 30s before I got to experience the all-encompassing happiness that comes from waking up in the morning to find yourself wedged in on the bed by two zonked out felines, each claiming one of your limbs with one of theirs. This morning I lost a clean hour to this situation - not wanting to move, for fear of disturbing this cosy tableau. Seeing Pretty in this state is especially heartening. He's a nervous boy and I don't think I'll ever get to the true depths of his trauma (although I think having two quite feisty, fighty brothers is part of it) but seeing him snuggled up and safe will make you believe that there's good in this world.
There was another topic related to endings and storytelling that I started to discuss but it was starting to get pretty massive so I've saved it for next week. It means I'm bringing this newsletter in slightly short but hey it's the weekend and you've got better things to read/do, right?
Since I've mentioned Star Trek: The Next Generation, maybe I can briefly give you a run down of how I've found Picard so far? In short, it's fine. It feels a little bit like a video game and all of the characters who aren't Picard are far more interesting than he is which is both inevitable and unfortunate. Having just seen the last episode, I found myself slightly aghast watching the most famous figures in the galaxy sending themselves on an undercover mission...with an eye-patch and a bad French accent. No, I'm not joking.
That episode also left me with the feeling that I sort of just would like to see whatever Seven of Nine is up because she has definitely been On A Journey and the emotional core of her story feels more tangible. It would also mean not hearing one of the other characters call Picard 'JL' all the time which I find incredibly annoying for a reason I can't quite pinpoint. But I'm going to stick it out cause it's got some tasty mystery and you never know. I'm a sucker for the promise of a good ending.
Hey look at that. A thousands words.
Vin x
If you're new to Patelograms and like what you've read, you can subscribe by clicking here.
If you're an old hand, thanks as ever for taking the time.
February is really whipping by. 2020 is such a fun year to say, I had rather hoped it wouldn't flash past but time seems insistent as ever. This week has mostly been taken up by recovering from my trip to LA and a few meetings to catch up with where I'm at with various projects. Generally, I'm in a good place! I think?
I'm glad these newsletters are finishing soon so you won't be able to follow up with me on that sentiment. I have been thinking about finales this week though...
SENSE OF AN ENDING
It all began when I realised that, though I saw it weeks ago now, I couldn't get the ending of The Leftovers out of my head. It's an old show now but I don't want to ruin it too much if you've not seen it yet but...oof. It encapsulates how faith begins with one person buying into the emotional truth of another - the perfect articulation of everything the show has been exploring, in all different forms. (Side note: Watching The Leftovers has finally made me realise where the music from Every Single Directing Showreel comes from). It's so hard to pull this off. One of my all-time fav series sign offs, All Good Things... from Star Trek: The Next Generation manages it too. (I talked a little about that way, way back in my third newsletter when talking about writing process but I didn't expand too much.) Picard making the case for care and curiosity and camaraderie across three different time lines? With the expectation of change at the end? Love it. (The quotation in this newsletter heading is from that episode).
As a way of trying to dispel the ending of other TV shows from my head, I found myself writing the ending of one of mine. A few hours of work and I had a montage, set to a particular song - which I will never get the rights - that will the be the moments that close out episode eight of series one. To be clear, I haven't even finished writing episode one. I mean, I'm late with rewriting the bible for the series as a whole. What the hell was I doing playing around with the ending?
Well, I suppose it's because satisfying endings are hard to find. I'm always grateful when a suggestion of one looms in my imagination because it gives me a destination to try and aim for. In the case of this series, the images for that montage are all end points for various story strands that I've been monkeying around with in my brain. All of them feel satisfying and cohesive and like they speak to each other and what I'm trying to get at...while also giving a bit of a tease as to what the second season is going to bring. Compared to coming up with that, the job of getting there is relatively easy. More a mechanical task than an imaginative one, although there will of course be plenty of discoveries yet to make. Another demonstration of how multifaceted this job is. Sometimes it's dreaming, sometimes it's digging, sometimes it's laying the road.
Can't get too ahead of myself. That bible needs finishing. But I'm grateful to have that end now as beacon for plotting, character and tone. Time to refine my ideas to suit it...just as soon as I'm done with this newsletter.
KITTY KORNER
I've been away quite a lot since the start of the year and I'm excited that I get a good run of time with the cats. It feels criminal that I was in my 30s before I got to experience the all-encompassing happiness that comes from waking up in the morning to find yourself wedged in on the bed by two zonked out felines, each claiming one of your limbs with one of theirs. This morning I lost a clean hour to this situation - not wanting to move, for fear of disturbing this cosy tableau. Seeing Pretty in this state is especially heartening. He's a nervous boy and I don't think I'll ever get to the true depths of his trauma (although I think having two quite feisty, fighty brothers is part of it) but seeing him snuggled up and safe will make you believe that there's good in this world.
There was another topic related to endings and storytelling that I started to discuss but it was starting to get pretty massive so I've saved it for next week. It means I'm bringing this newsletter in slightly short but hey it's the weekend and you've got better things to read/do, right?
Since I've mentioned Star Trek: The Next Generation, maybe I can briefly give you a run down of how I've found Picard so far? In short, it's fine. It feels a little bit like a video game and all of the characters who aren't Picard are far more interesting than he is which is both inevitable and unfortunate. Having just seen the last episode, I found myself slightly aghast watching the most famous figures in the galaxy sending themselves on an undercover mission...with an eye-patch and a bad French accent. No, I'm not joking.
That episode also left me with the feeling that I sort of just would like to see whatever Seven of Nine is up because she has definitely been On A Journey and the emotional core of her story feels more tangible. It would also mean not hearing one of the other characters call Picard 'JL' all the time which I find incredibly annoying for a reason I can't quite pinpoint. But I'm going to stick it out cause it's got some tasty mystery and you never know. I'm a sucker for the promise of a good ending.
Hey look at that. A thousands words.
Vin x
If you're new to Patelograms and like what you've read, you can subscribe by clicking here.
If you're an old hand, thanks as ever for taking the time.
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