My Academy Awards 2013 Part II

Last week I posted about my reasons for never having watched the Oscars before, as well as my reasons for watching them this year. Thanks to my friends, I was able to watch the whole ceremony without missing out on sleep or work. It was a great evening, and the Oscars definitely worth watching. Thank you, Lindsey and Chris, for making it possible.

Most of my predictions were spectacular fails, but being wrong was seldom so much fun. And I did get three of them right. Here's the tally:

Best Motion Picture: Lincoln --> fail. Argo
Best Leading Actor: Denzel Washington --> fail. Daniel Day Lewis
Best Leading Actress: Quvenzhané Wallis --> fail. Jennifer Lawrence
Best Supporting Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman --> fail. Christopher Waltz
Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway --> WIN
Best Direcotr: Ang Lee --> WIN
Best Screenplay (directly for screen): Zero Dark Thirty --> fail. Django Unchained
Best Screenplay (based on previously published material): Silver Linings --> fail. Argo
Best Foreign Language Film: Amour --> WIN

I love, love, love that Jennifer Lawrence won the Oscar for Best Leading Actress in Silver Linings Playbook. She was my secret favorite, because I think she's an awesome actress and person. But I really thought nine-year old Quvenzhané Wallis would steal it this year - also deserved, her acting blew me away, just from what I saw in the previews. I want to watch Beasts of the Southern Wilds just for her performance in it.

Anyway, I don't think many people expected J. Law. to win, least of all herself. She was so wonderfully flustered, and then tripped on the steps up to the stage... which made her all the more likeable. This adorable interview makes her even more so, IMO.

Also, I now want to see Les Misérables more than ever. When it came out, I wasn't sure if I did, because it seems soooo dark and depressing. The previews made me doubt a happy ending, which is more or less mandatory in a movie for me, or any story for that matter. But now, after the actors' performance at the ceremony, which raised goosebumps all over my body, I don't even care whether it has a happy ending or not - I just have to see it.

Next year, I want to watch not only the Academy Awards, but also the Golden Globe Awards, the BAFTA Awards, and the Berlinale. Yup, over the past year or two, I've slowly turned into a movie- and TV-buff. It's luuuuuurve. And maybe, someday, I'll get to be a part of that world.

Until then: back to word.

February Writing Tally

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to compile a tally of my writing achievements at the end of every month; what I worked on and how much I wrote. This way, I hope to monitor myself a little and see the progress I make:

Here's the January Writing Tally
- 19.657 words total
- including 32 pages of script


February Tally

- Five blog posts, which total at 1.887 words.

- Three chapters of The Chamaeleon Chronicles, which total at 5.479 words.

- My Screenwriting Studies took a step back this month. I only read through the material and didn't hand in any assignments, mostly because I was focusing on...

- ... the first draft of the pilot episode for my TV-series. My goal was to finish it by the end of February and - I did it! I wrote "End of Pilot" at the bottom of the script on the 28th, at exactly 11pm. Which means I wrote fifty pages in February (8.425 words). Which also means that the script, at 82 pages, is at least fifteen pages too long. Actually, more like twenty.

Ergo:
- 15.781 words total
- including 50 pages of script

My goals for March are, in order of importance:
- Hand in two assignments for my Screenwriting Studies
- Revise the pilot episode
- Write and post at least three new ChamChron chapters
- Outline episode two, so I can start writing it in April at the latest
- Continue my UF novel

But today I'm going to kick back and celebrate the completion of a first draft.