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Sunday, March 20, 2011

Pipe Maniac Title Card

Several years ago, Jeff Shyluk and I (abetted by Ron Briscoe and Susan Neumann) wrote a screenplay called Toilet Chase. We followed up with a sequel, Pipe Maniac, which sadly never progressed further than the first handful of scenes.

Today I ran across a photo I took back in 2002, the manhole pictured above. I'm not sure why I took it, but I love the texture, and I immediately imagined it as a still frame of our never-to-be-completed thriller movie. Jeff says that my designs need less yin and more yang (or do I have that backwards?), so this design features a lot of circles and curves, right down to the font choice. The splash of red for the crosshairs is a clue, of course, that this will be a story of suspense and violence in the Hitchcockian or Fincherian vein. Perhaps.

4 comments:

Your amazing brother said...

What if you added a faded picture of Jeff under the crosshair?

Too much?

Earl J. Woods said...

Well, he's the maniac in question in the story...although he's also a victim...hmmmmm.

"And The Children Shall Jeff" said...

"Starring Jeff Shyluk" is not much of a selling point. It's more of a run away screaming point, or possibly a let's form an angry mob with fiery torches and pitchforks point. "Written and Directed by Earl J. Woods" would be a lot better as a selling point. You are a professional writer, after all.

I don't remember much about Pipe Maniac. I thought that killing Jeff off in the first act of Toilet Chase would prevent him from showing up in any sequel(s).

I do have my copy of the Tolet Chase script. I read it every now and then. It's absolutely amazing how Toilet Chase manages to capture the ethos of the Bleak House Of Blahs while at the same time resisting all of my efforts to improve it in any way.

I am still churning out concepts for the Toilet Chase Board Game. I'm trying to figure out a way of keeping the area control dynamic, the narrative arc, and the character interaction without having to design a million unique cards and pieces.

Earl J. Woods said...

In the grand tradition of Z-grade production values, the character "Jeff Shyluk" died in Toilet Chase, but actor Jeff Shyluk returns as the protagonist of the sequel. Or at least that was the plan...

Jeff, I think the Toilet Chase board game calls for a creative summit of some kind.