Melancholy Baby

Now that my daughter is eighteen and making movies of her own, I’m anticipating having more time for my own filmmaking. To get an idea of the style and content of the movies I plan to make, check out this short that I wrote and directed, Melancholy Baby.

There are elements of The Weird and The Eerie, as well as the use of subjective sound that I plan to use in a feature project I’m writing, Birth Mother.

Just click PLAY and watch!

Writing The Short Film

Here is a one-hour webinar on writing the short film. I hope you find it both useful and amusing.

Drawing on 20 years of experience as a screenwriter in Hollywood, and 10 years of experience as a professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Sean Hood (that’s me) gives you tips and insights about writing short films. For experts, film students, and beginners alike.

Me in my “shed” where I sit with my dog, Luna, and imagine preposterous ideas for feature films.

More on short screenplays

If you liked the webinar, you can review many of the concepts I teach at USC School of Cinematic Arts on my previous blog, Genre Hacks:

Writing the Short Script: Week One

Writing the Short Script: Week Two

Writing the Short Script: Week Three

Writing the Short Script: Week Four (and Five)

What is an Undergrid?

An UNDERGRID is mesh of human relationships that defines, supports and sometimes entraps an individual.

Meaning Emerges from undergrids

Unlike a culture, subculture, or community, or family an undergrid is determined, curated, and maintained by an individual at its center. It is a pattern of regular encounters, conversations, and intimacies from which emerges an individual’s sense of meaning. Just as thoughts emerge from the electricity of interconnected neurons, meaning emerges from the interpersonal electricity of undergrids.

Your Tribal Undergrid

We each have deep relationships with roughly one hundred people. This mesh of connections is a tribal undergrid.

your Core Undergrid

An artist is responsible to their tribal undergrid for inventing new patterns of meaning and experience, as well as illuminating patterns that already exist. An artist needs a core group within the tribe, who inspire, challenge, and collaborate. This creative circle of three to ten connections is a core undergrid.

The Blog “Undergrids”

A human being thrives by cultivating and curating undergrids, especially face to face. Creative work thrives when it serves and enriches the core undergrid first, the tribal undergrid next, and the wider public last.

This blog is about tending undergrids. So, you are reading this sentence because you belong to mine.