The Genesis of Wise Intelligence
The characters of Wise Intelligence are very dear to me. As WI was the first screenplay I ever wrote, I grew very attached to the four fictional fraternity brothers and their day in the life I wrote about back in 1997. I went on to do rewrite after rewrite, honing in on each character and trying to bring them more to life. While agencies looked and passed on the screenplay back in 98, I never again tried to send the screenplay out again. I just continued to write new screenplays while keeping Wise Intelligence always in the back of my mind.
I began writing Wise Intelligence back in 1997 after I got writer's block on another screenplay I was writing, this one a fictional account of my adventures in the Middle East the previous year. I wanted to write about some events I saw around me and do so in a comedic yet independent light. There were three underlying events that I wanted to bring forth in the screenplay.
One was people getting hitched so quickly. I had a fraternity brother who had this girlfriend and they would fight. Alot. All the time. At parties. In the student center. Walking around campus I'd see them off to the side fighting. Sure they had their great times too, isn't the best part of fighting the making up? One day they walked into the student center (where us fraternity boys hung out) and showed off the ring on her finger. Engaged. Weren't they just fighting and breaking up just yesterday? Today their engaged? What happens when they fight tomorrow, will he buy her a yacht?
1997 was the year that married teacher was sleeping with that 13 year-old. Having the kid's baby. Professed her undying love for the lad. A 13 year-old. Here was a woman who was married with kids and was boning her student. Shit like that never happened to me and THANK GOD. My teachers when I was 13 were fucking bone ugly. 165 years old. I could never imagine that, "Ryan come here baby. My dentures are soaking and I sooooo want to give you a gumjob."
The other was the date rape drug. That Spring Break was when it really made a big wave, when you'd see on the news all these girls were waking up on the beaches not remembering where they were and how they got there. All they knew was that they had been violated and left to rot on the beach. I never understood guys who had to rape a girl...I'd rather never have sex again then force someone to do something.
So I wanted to show these events in my screenplay for better or for worse. I wanted them to seem real and not really have a major impact on the four guys in my screenplay. It was more of a 'shit happens and here it is' sort of thing. In the end you sort of think that one character, JK, has learned his lesson when his ex gets drugged and raped. Of course by then it is too late, but you think you see a glimpse of hope in the lad. Then I wrote something after the credits that just continued to make him a bastard hopeless fuck of a man.
As those who buy the comic will read, the four guys in the comic (being Servo, Whorfin, JK, and Dean) all belong to a fraternity called 'Delta Rho Gamma' AKA 'The Dragons'. This actually stemmed from a stupid idea me and my friends had freshman year. While sitting around watching Bruce Lee movies one day (as we usually did every day), I thought that since us first semester freshman couldn't join fraternities until our second semester, we'd form our own. Nothing official or anything, it would just be an in-joke amongst me and my friends.
Because we watched Bruce Lee all the time, I took the name 'Dragon' for out fraternity (if you don't get the reference, you don't watch enough Bruce Lee). Snatched the DRG out of Dragon and that became the greek letters Delta Rho Gamma. We went to the guy who came to the student center and sold fraternity shirts and hats and got our own Delta Rho Gamma hats made. It was pretty retarded and those in real fraternities had no clue about us. They would come up and ask if we were new and we acted very hush-hush. Tell you and have to kill you sort of thing.
Soon enough word got around and soon we had people actually wanting to join our fraternity for real. Not knowing what to do to pledge these people, we took a cue from the flick 'Weird Science'. You see another favorite of ours was Eddie Murphy's 'Golden Child', so new pledges would wear underwear on their heads while watching the Golden Child. We'd leave the door open while this happened so whoever was roaming the hallways of the dorm would look in and laugh. 90 minutes later, you were in the fraternity. Welcome aboard. The whole thing died after most of us joined real fraternities, but we always had that common DRG bond. When it was time to write my ode to 'fratboy' life, of course they would be a part of the Delta Rho Gamma fraternity.
Of course the entire screenplay is nothing but cursing and arrogant fraternity boys, but it was fun to write. It's even more fun watching these characters come to life in a comic book, watching as the artists bring these characters to life. We'll see more of these characters here and in my Newsarama column in weeks to come.
Hoping my babble makes some sort of sense,
Ryan McLelland
I began writing Wise Intelligence back in 1997 after I got writer's block on another screenplay I was writing, this one a fictional account of my adventures in the Middle East the previous year. I wanted to write about some events I saw around me and do so in a comedic yet independent light. There were three underlying events that I wanted to bring forth in the screenplay.
One was people getting hitched so quickly. I had a fraternity brother who had this girlfriend and they would fight. Alot. All the time. At parties. In the student center. Walking around campus I'd see them off to the side fighting. Sure they had their great times too, isn't the best part of fighting the making up? One day they walked into the student center (where us fraternity boys hung out) and showed off the ring on her finger. Engaged. Weren't they just fighting and breaking up just yesterday? Today their engaged? What happens when they fight tomorrow, will he buy her a yacht?
1997 was the year that married teacher was sleeping with that 13 year-old. Having the kid's baby. Professed her undying love for the lad. A 13 year-old. Here was a woman who was married with kids and was boning her student. Shit like that never happened to me and THANK GOD. My teachers when I was 13 were fucking bone ugly. 165 years old. I could never imagine that, "Ryan come here baby. My dentures are soaking and I sooooo want to give you a gumjob."
The other was the date rape drug. That Spring Break was when it really made a big wave, when you'd see on the news all these girls were waking up on the beaches not remembering where they were and how they got there. All they knew was that they had been violated and left to rot on the beach. I never understood guys who had to rape a girl...I'd rather never have sex again then force someone to do something.
So I wanted to show these events in my screenplay for better or for worse. I wanted them to seem real and not really have a major impact on the four guys in my screenplay. It was more of a 'shit happens and here it is' sort of thing. In the end you sort of think that one character, JK, has learned his lesson when his ex gets drugged and raped. Of course by then it is too late, but you think you see a glimpse of hope in the lad. Then I wrote something after the credits that just continued to make him a bastard hopeless fuck of a man.
As those who buy the comic will read, the four guys in the comic (being Servo, Whorfin, JK, and Dean) all belong to a fraternity called 'Delta Rho Gamma' AKA 'The Dragons'. This actually stemmed from a stupid idea me and my friends had freshman year. While sitting around watching Bruce Lee movies one day (as we usually did every day), I thought that since us first semester freshman couldn't join fraternities until our second semester, we'd form our own. Nothing official or anything, it would just be an in-joke amongst me and my friends.
Because we watched Bruce Lee all the time, I took the name 'Dragon' for out fraternity (if you don't get the reference, you don't watch enough Bruce Lee). Snatched the DRG out of Dragon and that became the greek letters Delta Rho Gamma. We went to the guy who came to the student center and sold fraternity shirts and hats and got our own Delta Rho Gamma hats made. It was pretty retarded and those in real fraternities had no clue about us. They would come up and ask if we were new and we acted very hush-hush. Tell you and have to kill you sort of thing.
Soon enough word got around and soon we had people actually wanting to join our fraternity for real. Not knowing what to do to pledge these people, we took a cue from the flick 'Weird Science'. You see another favorite of ours was Eddie Murphy's 'Golden Child', so new pledges would wear underwear on their heads while watching the Golden Child. We'd leave the door open while this happened so whoever was roaming the hallways of the dorm would look in and laugh. 90 minutes later, you were in the fraternity. Welcome aboard. The whole thing died after most of us joined real fraternities, but we always had that common DRG bond. When it was time to write my ode to 'fratboy' life, of course they would be a part of the Delta Rho Gamma fraternity.
Of course the entire screenplay is nothing but cursing and arrogant fraternity boys, but it was fun to write. It's even more fun watching these characters come to life in a comic book, watching as the artists bring these characters to life. We'll see more of these characters here and in my Newsarama column in weeks to come.
Hoping my babble makes some sort of sense,
Ryan McLelland
posted by Ryan McLelland at 7:06 PM
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