Quad Blogs

SCREENPLAY OF THE DAY

Today marks the sixth year anniversary of the LOST series premiere. The diehard fans actually commemorate this day. I count myself among the diehards and I celebrated the 5th year anniversary of the premiere last September 22 in a post that featured the greatest scenes in LOST. I think half of the scenes I used have been deleted by YouTube but search the archives to find a post that definitely takes the longest to load.

I haven’t actively searched for a show to replace LOST like many fans. I read critics and fans speculate about what the next LOST will be. Well, in my opinion, there will never be another LOST. LOST was just a uniquely, awesome show and I’ll never have as much fun watching other scripted television as I had watching LOST. I don’t need another LOST either because I own the entire series on television. I don’t actively search for the next Buffy or ANGEL or Firefly. No other shows could be those shows, if you know what I mean.

I miss those early season one days because the kind of fan nonsense and hate that dominated the majority of message boards during the majority of season six didn’t exist nor did the post-LOST animosity. In those days, fans simply went head over heels for the show after Walkabout ended. But oh well. I don’t care if people were pissed off by the ending. I loved it.

There’s no finer time to give the LOST pilot the Screenplay of the Day. J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof wrote it. LOST had a very unique writing style. The intensity of the episodes began in the scripts. There are F bombs all over the pages. I love reading the LOST scripts. Hopefully, one day, every script is available to read.

LOST–”Pilot Parts 1 &2″–Written By J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Lost/Lost_1x01_-_Pilot.pdf

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK

BEYOND SURVIVAL

In the latest episode of Beyond Survival with Les Stroud, Les visits the Hewa tribe of Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific to witness first-hand the Cumoutin ceremony. The ceremony was banned by missionaries and many people defined the Hewa people as cannibals because of the ceremony. Unlike the other episodes, the focus isn’t on recording and preserving the culture of the Hewa’s because the Hewas their culture and way of life is in no danger.

The central focus of the episode is the Cumoutin ceremony. Despite the narration from Les about the ghoulish atmosphere of the ceremony, the Coumoutin is very spiritual. Les defines the ceremony as a celebration of life and avoids comparing it to a wake or a funeral. The funeral comparison is apt though. The Hewas want to release the spirit of the deceased into the heavens through the ceremony. Death itself doesn’t release the spirit. The Hewas mourn the deceased like family and friends mourn the deceased at a funeral. The camera caught shots of the people with tears in their eyes and heads bowed. The Cumoutin lets the Hewas say their final goodbye. The episode closes with the ceremony and Les even departs early so they can continue as they wish. The beginning and end of the episode focuses on the Cumoutin.

The rest of the episode is spent hunting and gathering with the Hewas. It was a very simple episode. Les Stroud didn’t overdramatize like he tends to do in his narrations. Their hunts take a long time. The Hewas use a hunting dog to sniff out game. Once the game is found, they create small holes for the smaller Hewas to enter in attempts to capture the game. The dog found a small rat. Several hours were spent working to catch the rat but the work didn’t end with a catch. The hunting dog got stuck inside of the hole and the Hewas worked as fast as they could before the wet mud collapsed and kill the dog. The dogs yelps were heartbreaking. Luckily, the Hewas freed him and the dog immediately wanted to continue the hunt.

In the forty-some minutes of the episode, I learned very little about the Hewas besides the Cumoutin. In previous episodes, I had a good amount of knowledge about the cultures, the way their society worked, gender roles, etc. For whatever reason Les spent much less time teaching the viewers about the Hewas. Les takes about a minute, at night, to talk about how he’s gotten used to the constant stares when he’s in a completely new environment and among new people. Les complains about the jungle treks a few times and notes that he can’t keep up with the Hewas. Mostly, Les focuses on Les’ experience rather than the Hewas.

Les should never return to Papua New Guinea because he hated it in the series finale of Survivorman and the hatred hasn’t disappeared.

Besides the filming of the Cumoutin ceremony, this episode completely ignored the premise of the series. It’s safe to call this episode the worst episode of the series.

Credit: lesstroud.ca

Beyond Survival with Les Stroud remains a work in progress through three episodes. In last week’s episode, Les struggled to put his personal stamp on the episode. I assume Les wants his own personal stamp on an episode because such a stamp exists in this episode. With the Sea Gypsies, he was a bystander because he lacked a translator. The communication lines were non-existent. The episode struggled for an identity outside of the premise for the show.

The third episode aired on Discovery is a much better effort from Les Stroud and his crew. In Malaysia, he lived with a large village. In Africa, specifically Namibia, Les lives among the San Bushmen–the oldest tribe in Africa and considered the first people of South Africa. The San Bushmen Les lives with for a week reside in the Kalahari desert. Their way of life is threatened by a number of factors: loss of land, lack of interest by the younger generation in learning survival skills, and the overall threat of assimilation that the modern world presents.

Unlike the previous two episodes, when the show drops the viewers immediately into the culture and the environment, the first ten minutes follow Les’ journey to the village. The dunes of Namibia are beautiful. Les spends a few minutes walking the dunes as all sorts of cameras film the dunes–angles from the helicopter, from faraway, close-up. Les follows a very ancient path to the village. The markings on the sides of rocks inform him the direction of water or a village. It takes Les and the crew a full two days to arrive in the village. They travel along flat dirt roads or flat smooth surfaces or grassy trails. Namibia is a flat place.

The most improved aspect of this episode compared to last week’s was the focus. Les spent the majority of the episode with a small group of San hunters on a hunt. The extended time with the San allowed for a story to develop naturally rather than a story concocted in post-production through narration.

While the San are in the process of extracting honey from a beehive, using the same method the Veddas used, a San tells Les that his son and brothers do not know how to hunt or extract honey. The hunters are a small group. Besides the threat of the modern world, one wonders how the tribe will continue to live as they want when these males one day pass away. The skills aren’t being passed from generation-to-generation like they were long ago. The San Bushmen are a patriarchal bunch so much so that the roles of women were never clearly defined by Les because the San wouldn’t speak much about the women in the village. Once the honey was collected, the men ate the honey immediately. The honey extraction happens once a year because of the cycle of bee life; however, each year, the men never return with honey to the village. The honey isn’t for women and children. Les doesn’t know why.

Following the consumption of honey, Les joins the men for a hunt to find the village food. Before the hunt begins, a poison is created from varying ingredients with elements that aren’t toxic until mixed together. The process can be long. The San Bushmen must be careful because an antidote to the poison doesn’t exist. The San Bushmen credit their knowledge of the ingredients and the concoction to the ancients they can communicate with during the trans-dance. The tribe uses poisonous arrows to kill large game. The poison kills red bloods, decreasing the level of oxygen in the body until the animal dies from asphyxiation. San Bushmen will track their prey for over 70 miles until the prey succumbs to the poison in their body.

The hunt is an arduous process. Hours are spent walking the lands, surveying the lands, evaluating the tracks in the ground. The hunters then follow the tracks and the trail until they find the place where their desired prey lives. There are an abundance of holes in the desert. Leopards hide in the holes and will leap and attack someone who crosses in front of the hole. Black mambas and other poisonous snakes live in holes as well as very large spiders. Large porcupines live in holes. The porcupines are the target.

Two porcupines can feed the village for a number of days. The village, often, eats only once a day–usually, small portions of rice that neighboring villages offer. Two porcupines are big catches. A member of the San Bushmen will dig into the hole to scare the porcupines into leaving from the other side of their hole where other members await with small spears. The hunt succeeds without anyone being harmed. The men eat small portions of the porcupine to restore their energy because their hikes are long. Water is scare, obviously, so they have to get creative to find clean water. The search for water isn’t shown in this episode though.

The San Bushmen believe in the power of the spiritual world. Communication with the spiritual world occurs through the trans-dance. The trans-dance is a long dance that sends its dancers into a trance state of being in which the ancients communicate with them about survival. Les wants to communicate with the spiritual world; however, despite dancing uncomfortably in front of the camera, Les isn’t strong enough to enter the state of being required to communicate with the ancients. The shamans dance for over ten hours. A man with no arm, because he injected himself with poison after feeling shame for beating up another male in the village, enters into a trance for the first time in his life after years and years of seeking that spiritual world. The experience makes him a Shaman.

Overall, the third episode of the series is the best yet. Visually, the cameras captured some amazing shots of Namibian twilight, starlit sky and dawk. I’ve never seen so many stars in my life.

THE SCREENPLAY OF THE DAY

In this economy, seeing many movies isn’t cheap. If you’re like me, you have no problem reading screenplays rather than watching the actual completed film. If you prefer the visual experience, you probably don’t enjoy reading screenplays. I hadn’t seen Insomnia so I simply read the script last week. Good times. Today, I have TWO screenplays to recommend:

1. \”Crush\” By David Fury

This is a television screenplay. TV scripts have different structures, are broken up into acts. If you’re an aspiring television writer, TV scripts are great pieces to study in preparation for a spec. Buffy, The Vampire Slayer scripts are great to read because the writing is so good, especially this one from David Fury.

2. Inception by Christopher Nolan

Many people have seen the movie, discussed the movie, theorized about its meaning. NOW read the actual screenplay.

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK

Every so often, a television series produces an episode that knocks it out of the park. I mean, an episode that has fans and critics buzzing about it for the next few days. Last night’s Mad Men episode is the best episode of the series thus far. Matthew Weiner delivered an episode that is an early candidate to win Mad Men its fourth Emmy in a row for Outstanding Drama Series as well as an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama. Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss should win Emmys for their performances in “The Suitcase.” Hamm’s by far the best actor working in television right now. If the last three seasons of Mad Man didn’t convince you, last night’s episode will. For a thorough review and discussion of the episode, read Alan Sepinwall’s take on the episode here:

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/mad-men-the-suitcase-get-her-to-the-greek

When an episode of television is as good as last night’s Mad Men then I will always take a break from the regular scheduled program in the blog. Now, onto a review/recap of the second episode of Beyond Survival w/Les Stroud.

img.poptower.com

For the second straight week, the show opened with a sense of danger and intrigue. Les was in Malaysia, on the Saba Islands, living amongst the Sea Bajow (or Sea Gypsies). It was dusk and the threat of pirates was strong. Stroud told the camera about a female tourist who was just shot by pirates in the stomach earlier in the day. The threat is serious; however, don’t expect pirates to bother the Sea Bajow or Les Stroud because a military boat is nearby to keep Les Stroud safe. It wouldn’t be a Les Stroud show without the illusion of danger.

The Sea Bajow are a group of indigenous people who live on the water. They settled on the Saba Island seas 200 years ago. They’re a people without a country and without rights. Surprisingly, the government doesn’t interfere with the Sea Bajows as often as one would think; however, restrictions are growing and will continue to grow. The Saba Islands are inhabitated by 32 indigenous cultures and over 50 dialects are spoken. Their main source of livelihood comes from fishing. Some Sea Bajows interact with the fishing markets while others fish for themselves, their families and their communities. Fresh water and materials are available on small islands. The Sea Bajow children usually eat one meal a day and the adults rely on flotsam and trash from the seas to fortify their boats and repair broken engines. Les Stroud, like all Westerners would, struggles at times to maintain the Sea Bajow’s style of life.

Les spends the first half of the episode with a family who never leaves their boats except for fresh water and materials. He helps chop firewood and fish. The Sea Bajows use spears to fish. In this family, the father dives into the water to catch fish for his family and the community. Stroud tells us that the father spends as much time in the water as he does on the water. They catch a couple of Bluffer fish (you know, the ones with tremendous poisons in them). The wife of the family prepares their meal of Bluffer and rice. Once ready, Les digs in unsure about whether the Bluffer was cut right. He has no translator aboard and relies on effective sign language to communicate. Thus, he has no idea but he eats regardless.

Later, the family joins a fleet of boats to drop their nets in hopes of catching large fish like sharks; however, they only catch large sea turtles. Sea turtles are an endangered species and the Sea Bajows respect the attempt to preserve the turtle species so once the turtles are cut from the nets, they go back into the water. Long hours are spent with the nets without catching large fish. While the population of waterlife has increased the last few years, the shark population has decreased.

In the downtime, Les plays his harmonica but doesn’t impress the family. The father and one of his sons plays the harmonica about as well as Stroud does.

In the second half of the episode, Les bids farewell to his first family because he is going to live among the Sea Bajows in the water village. This community interacts with the fishing market as well as the government. The government takes advantage of the Sea Bajows though. Members of the community are employed for little cash to do compression dives for lost items in the sea during the night.

Compression diving is extremely dangerous. Divers plunge deep into the water for over ninety minutes. They can be killed if the air runs out or while swimming to the surface or while descending too quickly. But the fishermen have no choice because they need the fish. Les reminds us that survival is dangerous.

Since Les has adopted their lifestyle for the duration of filming, he compression dives. Nothing fatal happens to him. He catches a few sea cucumbers and surfaces.

Monsoons and tsunamis could easily wipe out the Sea Bajow community. The people venture onto an island to collect palm tree leaves to protect their huts that stand on the water. Les even helps them insert wooden beams below. Everyone in the community helps because they want to survive. The children have the job of killing the cockroaches that came with the materials.

Les tells us the threat of modernization looms over the future of the Sea Bajows. The islands they use are privately owned but they aren’t off-limited to the Bajows yet. Man’s destruction of the sea (Les’ words) are a threat to their lifestyle.

The Sea Bajows have great respect for the spirit world. At the end of the episode, Les tells us that theorists and scientists speculate life began on earth because of the behavior of the water. Each day, the people offer the water their thanks through a sacrifice because the sea is their survival.

Overall, the second episode wasn’t as strong as the first. I look forward to next week’s episode with the San Bushmen in Africa where it looks like Les Stroud actually gets close to two elephants.

In other news, this week is going to be action-packed especially the final three days of the week. TV Reviews begin Wednesday which means I’ll be posting at night as well. It’s going to be fun in The Foot, folks.

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK

Beyond Survival with Les Stroud opens with the camera in night vision mode. Les walks through the jungle, talking quietly because the Vedda people instructed him to keep silent. The Elephants are near. The elephants are the biggest concern and danger for the Veddas in central Sri Lanka; however, Les tells the audience that they must be aware of leopards, jaguars and sloth bears in the jungle. The entire trek ends without incident. Yes, the exciting illusion of danger returns to a Les Stroud show.

Beyond Survival is a show about surviving in the jungle in more ways than one. The show focuses on the preservation of the dying cultures of the tribes Les Stroud visits. What happens when modern civilization encroaches on a culture like the Veddas in Sri Lanka? The Vedda people and culture walked the earth 10,000 years before civilization began in Ancient Egypt. The effect of modern civilization is harsh for the Veddas because they’ve lost land through the years. Modern Sri Lanka advertises Aboriginal adventures even though the Veddas want to continue living as they always have. History has told this story for centuries. The natives are usually pushed out of their lands by a conqueror (Amazingly, the bulk of my studies as an English major included post-colonial studies or multi-culturalism and diversity as a whole…I digress). As they lose their lands, hunting and gathering becomes tougher as the wild game diminishes with each loss of land. The Veddas are one of the oldest hunter-gatherer groups in the world. Not only are the Vedda trying to maintain their way of life despite outside forces but they must rely on the youth of their people and their youth is not following in their elders’ footsteps.

Les Stroud also visits the Sinhalese fishermen on the coast on Sri Lanka. The fishermen are modern. The survival of their way life was damaged and put in danger after the Tsunami in 2004. Many of the elder fishermen died and the young Sinhalese aren’t anxious to follow in the footsteps of those who came before. The fishermen used to catch over 300,000 tons of fish a year and the numbers have decreased dramatically.

Besides the focus on the question: can these cultures continue to live the way they’ve always lived? A decent portion of the episode is devoted to the idea of demons and devils.

The Veddas were once considered to be half-human half-demon and they worship a select group of demons that can help them succeed while the Sinhalese believe there are no good demons. They want to rid themselves of demons because they believe the demons cause disease and bad luck among others. The way to please or ward off demons is through dancing–”devil dancing.”

The Sinhalese are a very patriarchal society. They believe the demons are attracted to various vices. Chief among the vices are women. I think the Sinhalese associate women with lust, and lust is the chief vice. Les Stroud wasn’t clear. The Sinhalese dress up in women clothing to entice the demons so they can be destroyed i.e. exorcised. While fishing, the Sinhalese prefer company because an isolated fisherman is an easy target for demon possession. Their devil dancing is intense and long–twelve hours exactly. The Sinhalese wished to exorcise the demons from Stroud which is why the dance takes twelve hours. It’s a dizzying display of noise, color, fire.

The Veddas dance as a form of worship to the demons they deem good. There are no costumes or excessive displays.

As for the actual hunting methods the Veddas use, allow me to write about some highlights:

-The middle portion of the episode is devoted to an elaborate concoction to create poison so fishing is easier. At first, they warned Les not to get the poisonous liquid in his eye and then they asked him to get in the water that now had the poison in it. Les said his body went numb eventually.

-A few times on Survivorman, Les Stroud got high from a natural opiate. In this episode, he ate a betel nut with some tobacco leaves. Whenever Les Stroud trips out with a camera watching, it’s funny because he seems like he has no clue what just hit him.

-The Vedda slingshots delighted Les. While high from the betel nut, he acted like he’d hit one of the Vedda tribesman with the rock before laughing.

-The Vedda tribesmen own dogs that they use to help on the hunt. In fact, when they arrived home, the dogs greeted the tribesmen excitedly.

-The tribesmen and Les procured honey from a bees nest without the bees going insane. The Veddas take great care when invading the bees’ hive. After they gathered the honey, the tribesmen made sure the bees would re-build by re-building the part of the tree they removed for hive access.

Beyond Survival with Les Stroud is worth your time. DVR it or watch it live should you be home on a Friday night at 10pm. Where else can someone get a glimpse of another culture like this? Les Stroud continues to be a great host; however, no matter how many times he talks about the dangerous animals, you’ll never actually see one.

Tomorrow will launch the beginning of the look at returning television shows on network television. If you any network you’d like me to begin with, tell me in the comments. If not, expect an ABC preview tomorrow.

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK