Connor's Film Blog

The author points out three key points of: make sure the pacing is correct, find people that actually want to do the table read, and to take notes/recording of the read. The table read is a great time to make sure that the pacing is correct for your script, because you are having actors perform your script, giving you an understanding of how certain scenes would play out. If you get actors that want to read your script for the table read, then you will get a better understanding of how actors would perform the script in front of the camera. Good actors that enjoy what they're doing are also more likely to have experience and give feedback. The table read has a reason for why you are doing it: you want your script to improve/know what parts of the script are actually good. There is no way that you would be able to mentally note every note you have, so actually writing down your notes and having a recording to go back and listen, will help a lot when you get into the revision stage...

At beginning of each scene, you need a slugline. A slugline will show the reader what the setting is and where the scene is taking place. You need to include if it is an interior or exterior location, the time of day, and where exactly the location is. The slugline is always in all caps. After the slugline, you write the action, description of what is going on in the scene. Always write the action in the present tense. When writing the action, you may capitalize characters in the scene, or important characteristics of what is going on. The action should give a good explanation of what is visible in the scene-no backstories or anything like that. There should always be at least one sentence of action in between dialogue and slugline. Dialogue consists of three things in a screenplay, the character, parentheticals, and the dialogue itself. The character is pretty straight forward, it is in all caps, in the center of the page, and is the character who is talking. A parenthetical is used ...

Ira's advise relates to what we are going through in the class, because it is talking about how your first creative works are not going to be amazing, just like our films in class. The key points he mentioned are: don't be discouraged by your first works if they aren't that good, and set a deadline for you to follow and keep up with what you're doing in order to improve yourself. They can be applied to me, because my first films weren't that great, and we have deadlines to be followed, or else we would get docked down points. I think his advice on constantly making work is very useful, because it is what is needed if you want to eventually make good work.

Kurosawa heavily influenced George Lucas. When George Lucas went to film school and saw one of Kurosawa's films ( The Seven Samurai) he was instantly inspired, because it resembled the old western films that he used to watch, yet it was vastly different. Lucas incorporated many aspects of the samurai film into star wars, such as: naming the Jedi after the type of film jidai-geki, the "Star Wars wipe" comes from The Seven Samurai, he resembled the stormtroopers and Darth Vader after  samurai in the film, and he made the two peasants in  The Seven Samurai into R2D2 and C3PO. The most interesting things I learned about in this film is where "Jedi" came from, and how George Lucas wanted to be a race car driver at first, but a car crash made him change his mind.

The easiest archetype to write seems to be the hero's journey, it seems to be the easiest because it has a straight forward concept: the hero is followed on their journey and the audience has to relate/feel for the character. The hardest to write archetype appears to be the shapeshifter, because you have to write about something that doesn't exist and is not directly expressed. Conveying something unsaid and unseen sounds very difficult. I don't understand the shadow, it seems like a weird, confusing concept to me, because I am unclear on what exactly is meant to be conveyed.

The two most interesting laws that I read about are pretend that everyone has ADD and to write economically. These help create an engaging visual because story because it will help create an interesting story, that won't be impossible. If you can't keep the audience's attention, then the story has failed. If you can't make the story because it is too expensive, then you have failed, so you need to keep these rules in mind.

Two plot types that interest me are "Comedy" and "Rebirth". Comedy is when there is a humor throughout a story and its conflicts, bringing a comedic effect to the plot. Rebirth is when the main character goes through an experience that would make them have to change the way that they are and become a different person. I find these both interesting because comedy's are really appealing to watch when well done. Rebirth plots give an interesting situation for the main character to be in, making the plot interesting. I think two plot lines I would probably use for future video projects are: "Overcoming the Monster" and "The Quest" because they seem possible to do on a low budget and with few actors.

Genres put films into categories and make it easier for the audience to choose what movies they want to watch. It helps keep a variety and a similarity in the film industry. Genres will also sometimes convey similar themes across their films. For example, war movies may be propaganda-like, while westerns are likely to be showing how the manifest destiny was okay.

The top three genre of films that I tend to gravitate to the most when picking films to watch are: comedy, action, and drama. I believe I like to watch comedies because it helps me relax at the end of a long day and appeals to my funny side that I don't always get to use. With action movies, I believe that it shows how I like to be active and extreme activities. With drama movies, it appeals to how I like a good story and that I believe that a good story is everything (only for certain drama movies, no romances).

The hot seat technique is when you have an actor sit down and acts as the character they're playing, and you then ask them questions about their character's backstory. The questions that you ask won't necessarily appear in the final product, but it would make the character more well-rounded and complete. I can apply this to the next script I write by really pretending to get in the mind of the character I am writing and make sure I know all of the ins and outs of the character. This will help with all of the details of the character, and will get you more familiar with what you are writing.

Desire is the key to creating empathy. Everyone desires something, making the audience relate to a character that is desiring. Even if they have evil motives, one can still empathize. As an audience, we want to see characters be successful, however, we want to see them try more. If we see them really try for what they want, then we will empathize with them. If the characters succeed, then it'll make us feel good because of how we feel for them, and how we have seen their entire journey.

Good storytelling is being able to keep a listener or audience engaged in a story and will listen/watch/read your story. Three important elements of telling a good story is keeping the audience engaged, have a dynamic story, and to make the story unique. Making the audience care and be engaged about the story will make it so that they will pay attention to your story and will actually want to know what will happen next. Having a dynamic story will switch up the story and make it not go in one boring, straight line, and it will shock an audience and make them intrigued. Having a unique story will make it so that the viewer will not be bored and won't be hearing the same story as before. Even if you use different characters and settings, the story may still be very boring and unoriginal.

I learned why sound is so essential to a movie and how it makes a movie make sense, I learned about the mic pickup patterns, and how to operate sound recording devices such as a boom, lav, and recorder. I learned that sound in the movies is absolutely essential, it sets the tone of the movie with it's melody, harmony, and rhythm. The melody of the music is the thematic return, when the hero comes back. It appeals to the memory. The harmony of the music is what tells the emotional story of the music. It makes you feel a certain type of way. The rhythm corresponds to the fight or flight instinct in the human body. Mic pickup patterns are very useful to know, because you will be able to pickup the sound you want if you know the correct pattern. If you want to pick up all sound, use an omnidirectional microphone. If you want a very narrow, directional pickup pattern though, you can go with an ultra cardioid pattern. If you don't know how to operate your equipment, you won't be...

The theme of theme of this music video is: it's hard to lose someone close to you. The singer in the music video is going back in time because he wants to try to rewrite the past. The singer at the beginning of the video was definitely more distressed than how he was at the end of the video, showing how he was degrading over time after he lost his friend/significant other.

Loudness normalization makes the volume for multiple videos to a set level. This will make your videos have similar sounding audio. If you don't have this, your audience will need to change their volume from video to video. This can be a nuisance and is unwanted, making loudness normalization. This helps set a standard for audio in video.

The filmmakers create a relaxed and kind of humorous mood in this music video. They show the group just hanging out together (some would say they are, "kicking it") and enjoying themselves to communicate to the viewer to have a good time with them. They use time remapping and weird sets to give off the humorous effect. The group would move sporadically and fast in the high angle shot looking down on them, giving them weird, yet funny characteristics. The set with the large "it" and the high angle shot with the footsteps made the music video funny rather than serious.

The filmmakers create an overly intense and comedic emotion with this music video. They used a lot of wide lenses shots combined with intense zooms and shaky handheld shots to make the video seem way more intense than how it needed to be. With the comedic actions that they were doing in the video, this created the mood and cemented it.