09-14-98

So how come my head is spinning?

Working on Kingpin's scheme tonight. To refresh your memory....the Kingpin is like Marlon Brando's character in The Godfather---he never lets anyone know what he's thinking. But he is thinking--plotting--scheming; all the time. Kingpin is like a great strategist. Always manipulating the pawns in a game only he can fully comprehend.

So I was working on his character and the best way to do that is get into the character's head; become that character. So here I am, playing the Kingpin, trying to attempt to figure out what "he" makes of the various events that occur in the script and realized something. While it's important for the audience to have the upper hand (omnipotent POV) over the characters in the story, I discovered that in order for me, that is...the Kingpin, to maintain this lofty understanding, the audience can't have access to more knowledge than him. He must have the advantage otherwise his role as the puppeteer would fail. Hopefully, his "explanation' of things in the end does not come off like: "...well what really happened is."

There's a sequences of events that unfold where the reader/audience will believe in one thing and it may appear the K-Pin is leaning in the same way but then reverses his decision. Then he reverses it again. I can't go into specifics without compromising certain twists in the plot but one thing I can say is that the K-Pin's success is to pit his enemies against one another. If A and B do battle, then the victor (whoever that may be) will then have to battle C. No matter what outcome there is: A, B, or C as the final victor---the K-Pin wins. Like I said, my head is spinning (and I know the storyline). I can imagine what it's like reading this w/o knowledge of the script.

As these last weeks of September grind down, moving closer to "fade-in day," I'm starting to look at more specifics of each scene. Some will only be vague ideas until I actually start writing while others will be more concrete. I do believe though (at this time) that the final battle between DD and Bullseye will have elements of Bulls believing he's in...let's call it "the bizarro world of It's A Wonderful Life where everything is reversed (see journal #15). I will also use the theme from Miller's DD #169 where Bulls thinks everyone's a "daredevil."

DD #169? A great story. Cool cover. I scanned it here to view if you have never seen it.


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