Bonus Character Profile : Neeter.

Said I'd be out, but here I am again. Maybe it's because I like talking about these things, maybe it's because the guilt is high when Kyle talks about working on "Trendsetter" all day. Hard to say. But I thought of something I wanted to post.

The thing I'm looking at for a friend is still very much on the table, just taking me a little longer than I expected. Still, it's the number one thing on my mind right now.

Save for this.

Earlier in the week I posted about reusing characters, and my penchant for working in my own little universe. Now, a wealth of the characters in "Trendsetter" are originals -- ones I came up with to fit with the idea Kyle gave me -- but there is one other familiar face, who I wanted to talk about today because Kyle just mentioned having someone in mind for casting him.

Neeter.

Well, "Joseph Neets" is his full name, while the nickname "Neeter" either came from his friends [if he has any], or it's his internet handle. The character itself is an older one -- he started out as a possible love interest in "The Living Dead," was labeled too nerdy to be dateable, and that wound up shaping a great deal of his personality. I forgot about him for awhile, but eventually resurrected him for my first full-length screenplay, "Beatnik Grunge," during "Advanced Screenwriting" at Bennington.

Now, "Beatnik Grunge" was a god-awful failure, so bad that even I'm not willing to offer it up here for anyone to [ever] look at. I will say it was probably a pretty good comic book idea, but extending it and trying to set it up as a movie made me do many, many things wrong. Neeter, however, was one of the few things I think I got right.

In BG, he's a nerdy, reclusive loner, who spies on his lesbian neighbors, much to the chagrin of one them [my protagonist]. Despite being a voyeur, he's really not such a bad guy -- lonely maybe [the reason I decided to give him a little nod in "Trendsetter"], but essentially good at heart. He lives with and takes care of his elderly grandmother [like I divined something there], and by the end of the movie his constant spying allows him to save one of the girls from an attacker with a well-placed swing of a nine iron. There's a nice visual at the end where he's with the two girls, sort of accepted by them for his heroism, and this real feeling he might come out of his shell.

And one day, you'll probably see me use a lot of that again. But "Beatnik Grunge?" It sucks.

Neeter cuts a nice description out for himself in it, though, and it's something I've tried to stick with -- flannel shirt, coke-bottle glasses, long and messy hair, and he's pretty short. And though he never gets called by name, he has two nice little parts in "Trendsetter," and one subtle appearance that I've wound up really liking a lot. Of course, by now, he'd be older, living on his own... probably something of a hikikomori... though maybe not that reclusive, but in general still a lonely guy. And if you've read it, you might notice he manages to get just a little bit of his creepy in "Trendsetter," too.

Still, the kid's all right.

Some other notes. Ally texted me while I was dozing this morning, I think she's finished my script, and I'm hoping to catch her for her thoughts sometime today.

It's also my second favorite holiday behind Christmas today -- so Happy Royal Rumble everyone! Watching will put me largely out of commission this evening, but that's fine. It only comes but once a year.