Special Request

I'm proud to announce that for the first time since Hold My Beer (or Try Again Tomorrow, if you're only counting feature-length scripts), I've completed the first draft of a screenplay!

It's called Special Request, and it's actually an expansion of a 5-minute short I wrote back in 2020 as an exercise for a screenwriting workshop conducted by Jonathan Stark and Tracy Newman, creators of According to Jim.

The short was a fictionalized account of the time when my son Torin asked me to write him a book (which was the genesis of the Joel Suzuki series). The funny thing is, I had previously submitted the original version of Hold My Beer for Jonathan and Tracy and the rest of the writers in the workshop to review, but after we did this exercise (which was meant to get us to write a new script from scratch), they actually liked it better than Hold My Beer.

Despite that, I never did anything with Special Request until just recently when I decided to expand it into a feature-length script, mostly just as a way to keep up my writing chops. As it turned out, since it's semi-autobiographical, it was fun and easy (and somewhat cathartic) to write, and in a couple of weeks, I had a 100-page draft. It's still fiction, but it's based on real-life people and events, telling the story of what led up to Torin asking me to write him a book and what happened after.

Will it be turned into a film one day? Who knows. But if it is, the big question will be: who will play "me"? Let me know your suggestions!

(I've always thought it funny that Brad Pitt played Billy Beane in Moneyball. It's like, "Hey Billy, we're making a movie out of this. Who do you want to play you?" and he says, "Brad Pitt, of course!" and everyone has a good laugh but then it actually happens.)

Why Are Anime Theme Songs So Good?

If you're a fan of anime like me - or even if you're not - you may have noticed that anime theme songs totally rock. Or "slap," as the kids say. Do they still say that? Or is that a Millenial term, supplanted by another word that Gen Z uses? (to an old Gen Xer like me, Millenials and Gen Z are all lumped together in the "kids" category.) 

Tonikaku ("anyway"), what was I saying? Oh yeah, anime theme songs: SO GOOD. I enjoy them so much, often playing YouTube mixes of them while I do chores, that at one point I decided to try to figure out why they are so good. This reverse-engineering process led me to a couple of interesting discoveries:

1. A lot of anime theme songs (and just J-Pop/Rock songs in general) tend to use a similar structure that goes something like this:

- Instrumental or vocal introduction

- First verse

- Pre-chorus that increases the tension

- HUGE CHORUS

- Instrumental or vocal break (usually 1/2 of the original intro)

- Second verse, usually with an additional element that differentiates it from the first verse

- Pre-chorus

- HUGE CHORUS

- Instrumental solo

- Bridge

- HUGE CHORUS

- Outro (usually a reprise of the intro)

Two songs that are good examples of this structure (and are personal favorites of mine) are "Shunkan Sentimental" by Scandal (from Full Metal Alchemist) and "Zankyou Sanka" by Aimer (from Demon Slayer).

2. Anime theme songs tend to have vocal melodies that "tell a story" in the chorus, as opposed to a lot of western-hemisphere songs that rely on the "repeat the same line 4 or 8 times" method. A classic example of the "tell a story" melody is the "Happy Birthday" song (sing it to yourself and you'll see what I mean):

- Happy birthday to you (introduction, like you're setting out on a journey)

- Happy birthday to you (rising action)

- Happy birthday, dear Brian (climax)

- Happy birthday to you (resolution)

A couple of good examples of this are "Blue Bird" by Ikimono-Gakari (from Naruto: Shippuden) and "Gurenge" by LiSA (also from Demon Slayer). These songs also utilize variations of the song structure I went over in point #1 above.

In addition to making them rock/slap/whatever, utilizing these techniques allows these songs to be shortened down without diluting their effectiveness into the one-minute-or-so range that animes will use over their intro or closing credits. So keep them in mind if you want to write a song that would make a good theme for an anime (and optionally, maybe also consider learning Japanese)!

Our Mr. Matsura

This past Sunday I had the privilege of attending a screening of Our Mr. Matsura, the latest documentary from my friend and filmmaker extraordinaire Beth Harrington at the Kiggins Theatre in beautiful downtown Vancouver, Washington.

Readers of this blog may remember a little over two years ago when I was a production assistant on Beth's set during a three-day shoot in Seattle, getting a crash course in filmmaking prior to starting production on Hold My Beer. It was really cool to see the finished product, which was both amazing and inspirational. To recap: it's about a photographer named Frank Matsura who traveled from his native Japan to Washington state in the early 1900s, making friends, touching lives, and uniting communities along the way. If you're a fan of historical documentaries and/or just great human interest stories, I highly recommend trying to track it down if it comes to a festival or screening near you!