An Open Letter to The Hadidas, Roger Avary Regarding Silent Hill 2

Gentleman. Congratulations on moving forward with a sequel to Silent Hill, a labor which produced perhaps the most faithful video game adaptation to date. I can't say that I agree with all of the creative choices made for the film, namely restricting the main character's need to kill in order to survive. But you probably don't care what I think, after all- who the hell am I? Well it doesn't matter who I am, that's argument ad hominem. We aren't talking about me, don't change the subject! We're talking about Silent Hill. Most importantly, the upcoming sequel being written by you, Roger Avary and produced by you, one or both of the Hadidas.

In 2006, immediately after seeing Silent Hill in theaters, stuck in an hallucinatory state brought on by flu, torn between what was right with the film and what was folly, I sat down and in six days produced a first draft of Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams. After a second revision it's still admittedly a bit rough around the edges. Some of the dialogue is rocky, there's far too many parentheticals and ellipses, it sometimes relies too heavily on the details of ammunition count or status... You get the picture. But it also contains some real gems- original action sequences motivated by character and location, creative use of lore to tie together films one, two, and three, and most importantly- a few really affecting scenes that are straight out of a Lynch nightmare. Of course having one of the most cinematic game stories ever told to build upon was a big help.

I contacted the CAA in 2006 to see if they would put me in touch with you. As I expected, they sent me a nice big middle finger disguised as industry lingo. I have enough experience to understand the screenwriting business, and why I'll probably never be a contributing professional on the industry's terms. That's why I'm self-employed, setting my own terms, animating my third film with my bare hands and making sure no punches are pulled. Regardless of you, your status, your skills, our industry, our economy, I am here to kick ass. I am here to produce things that push boundaries, challenge the mind, and I will no longer stand for tepid tripe stuffed with fake, forced universality.

It is evident through what you attempted with your adaptation of Konami's first Silent Hill title that you have this fire in you as well. I want the sequel to be great- hell, we all want it to be better than great, and we all want to see it smash [video game adaptation] box office records with a great opening weekend and a long, smoldering wide release that brings steady ticket sales. I don't want to hear most of the crowd booing or japing about how they want their money back as they did after the first Silent Hill at the UA Court Street Stadium 12 in downtown Brooklyn. So I want to offer some additional fuel for your fire. There is good stuff here, and it's stuff you don't have. How do I know you haven't got it? That's easily answered: because I'm currently the only person on the planet that does.

I know you don't need this per se- that's why you're here, Avary. A Hollywood staple and proven screenwriter, WGA member (presumably) and all-around industry workhorse. I don't presume to stick my foot in your door like a vacuum salesman. I certainly don't want to undermine this process or in any way replace anyone. But I do presume to know when I'm sitting on art because I'm an artist. Classically trained, time-tested, industry-approved. And, sirs! Gentlemen! There is art in this script. It's not ready for shooting. Hell, it would need another revision or two to stand on its own. I wanted to do this but in 2007 I put the spec down because there's just no way for me to get it into hands that give a shit. That is the travesty of this broken industry- collaboration is squashed, new talent is crushed, original ideas are squandered for no good reason. None of that matters for your purposes, though. I understand this.

So make your sequel! If you do it without any of the scenes or sequences in my script (US Library of Congress Copyright dated 2006,) then you are missing an opportunity to imbibe some really inspiring Silent Hill material. I daresay your film will be poorer for it, but then I don't know exactly where you're headed after the first one so don't take that as hubris.

If you are even slightly interested in these fresh ideas, I would be happy to put inexpensive exclusivity on the table. I'm not unreasonable, but I know enough about the industry to know that I shouldn't be the one offering any deals as of yet. Just know that I require hardly anything at all from you if it means making a better Silent Hill experience possible. I know something like this is outside of the industry standard but so long as it doesn't violate union rules I fail to see the harm in something unorthodox if it promises to be mutually beneficial. After all, nearly any deal can be made provided the proper documents be drawn. In any case, you've probably got paperwork or scheduling to do. I've got an original animated short to get back to. All the best.

Cheers,
-j-
Jeff Martell

Edit

In light of Roger Avary pleading guilty to drunken driving leading to the death of one and the severe injury of another (his wife) it looks like this will most likely suffer a delay.

I may not be in the immediate position to screw up another Silent Hill feature, but at least I'm not in jail for vehicular manslaughter.

Of Macs and Men Pt. II

So there I was. Staring straight at my monitor in disbelief, unmoving. Like a parent approaching a new but not entirely unexpected situation with a problem child: Not angry, just disappointed.

My G5 suffered catastrophic system failure last week for the 5th time. For the third time in 5 years, OSX suffered a fatal crash that permanently dismounted the system drive. While 5 years seems like a good run, let me explain something: This HD was brand new, installed in January of this year. I'm beginning to think that it was simply a dud from Seagate, but then it was also a root user restore, which means any existing permissions problems would have carried over. Of course I back up often but that's not the point. And certainly I prefer it to the previous issues with this machine: constant Kernel Panics due to a faulty Logic Board (which has been replaced twice and still doesn't want to recognize DV firewire signals from the tower ports. Yes, the firewire bus is tested and working.)

It's pretty well known that Macs have the hardware issues, PC's have the software issues, and Linux users laugh at everyone. But this Mac- my Mac- is from a batch of bad Apples (heh) from 2004. Second gen, first issue liquid cooled G5's that were rushed out the door to fill orders for the first gen machines. (I ordered a first gen machine, not in time to avoid being screwed.) These are the G5's from hell. Before they went out the door, they gave Steve Jobs cancer. They were christened with the blood of sacrificed goats, washed clean with the bile of Hedonism demons, and delivered to the doorstep of unsuspecting professionals everywhere.

In any case, yes, 5 years is a good run and most PC users would say it's about time for a new machine because, DUDE, yer hardware is like SO out of date. But the simple fact is that it's not. I built a monster 5 years ago and it's still up to the task of some of the most advanced compositing and animation tasks you can throw at it. It's just never been stable hardware, and that's entirely Apple's fault.

Sure, it's a PPC chipset that can't run most of the latest and greatest upgrades, but 1)it runs the last generation- CS2, CS3, Final Cut Studio 2- just fine and 2)the latest and greatest will likely have its own issues for a year or two, not to mention a modicum of superficial upgrades that I don't need. I'm fine running what I do, it gets the job done. When it works.

Will my next computer be a mac? Yes. Am I going to rush into a new chipset and order an early generation build before all the kinks are worked out? Absolutely not. Never. Again.

So this time, I'm running an internal scratch drive and installing only the software I need to use immediately. Regular permissions repairs with advanced third party disk utility software should keep this puppy rolling for another year or two, which is all I need.

But yeah. No posts recently because there's not been any work recently. Tech's a bitch.

A History of Violence

Almost finished with thumbs for the opening segment of Project M, which crams about 200 years of history into less than a minute. Basically the challenge is to explain the circumstances leading up to the Rwandan genocide simply and without post-colonial skew. I think I've got this wrapped up so that I can move on to locking down the meat of the film and getting some style frames done. The latter has been set back by this system drive malfunction, but I eagerly await the replacement. Did you know you can get an internal Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 1TB drive for just over a hundred bucks? Freakin' A data is cheap these days.

Meantime I've received a commission from an old friend to do a series of 9 small paintings and this will be a welcome return to traditional media, which never crashes or needs repair.

Of Macs and Men

So I animated a walk cycle, planning to use it as a base for a few style frames and test shots, and suddenly my workhorse computer Escher decided to eat my system drive and stop booting up completely. Again. Thankfully I performed a root user backup a couple of weeks ago so applications, email, all that's safe. However, I am most likely going to lose some important layers on a particularly large piece of concept art. Bollocks.

I love macs to death but these prevailing hardware issues are killing me. From what I understand second-gen G5's -the first of the "liquid cooled" generation of 04- are just quirky machines. Evidently Escher's quirks are occasionally dropping firewire bus recognition and transforming into an expensive paperweight once every 2 years.

Thankfully I have ole reliable here, a graphite G4 known lovingly as Bertha.

h4x0red!?!

Some nefarious blackhat has been attempting to infiltrate one of my sites! My web host was kind enough to warn me. Who would do such a thing? An acquaintance scorned? A stalker? A porn monger looking for free hosting? Whatever the case, if the attempts continue these cocksuckers will soon find themselves staring down the barrel of "We just fucked with exactly the wrong sort of person."

That out of the way, welcome to my production blog. I will update it regularly with goings-on in my work as well as my experiences in the entertainment industry, which aside from a few friendly acquaintances in indie film and the arts, has proven to be a broken-down rancid pit of absolute grade-A American bullshit. Enjoy your stay and hey! Come on back anytime now.

My next film is gearing up. Its conception and birth will be chronicled here. I will be spending considerably more effort on the animation this go round.

Peace.