tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80254402024-03-14T06:24:14.081+08:00Rage Against The PageNo personal blog crapola. Just one guy's quest to unlock the mysterious art of storytelling on screen.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-4383440146582381112014-04-18T11:57:00.003+08:002014-04-18T11:57:39.866+08:00Writing Hates YouWriting is death.
Writing robs you of life. It literally sucks the life from you. It's a fat, slurping, pulsing leech hooked into your jugular day and night. Every hour spent hunched on a chair at the keyboard shortens your lifespan. Studies prove it. Sitting for long periods wrecks your circulation, raises cholesterol, and shortens your lifespan. Five years, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-45489753075620823912014-02-01T22:54:00.004+08:002014-02-01T22:56:48.994+08:00TEDxConejo 2012 - Lindsay Doran - Saving The World vs Kissing The Girl
"Audiences don't care about accomplishments. What they care about is the moment afterwards when the accomplishment is shared with the person the hero loves."
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-24529699073908213812013-10-26T14:26:00.000+08:002013-10-26T22:06:31.701+08:00CARRIE meets IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE... that's the story I'm working on right now.
I'd read much about Capra's beloved IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, but I hadn't seen it. Before I remedied that, I grabbed a copy of the script (transcribed; if you have a scanned copy, please email me!) — written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, and Jo Swerling — and did a page breakdown.
I work in four acts, being your traditional Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-52617206321270501092013-02-12T00:31:00.001+08:002013-02-13T18:09:01.000+08:00Relationships Create EmotionFor a long time I held aloft, above all others, Michael Hauge's one-word answer to the question: What makes a screenplay work?
EMOTION.
On the first page of Writing Screenplays That Sell, Michael explains:
People do not go to the movies so they can see the characters on the screen laugh, cry, get frightened, or get turned on. They go to have those experiences themselves.The Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-70858895810099694332012-10-16T23:15:00.000+08:002013-02-13T18:09:27.992+08:00Ask Why
In every step of the production of your animation, the story, the design, the staging, the animation, the editing, the lighting, the sound, etc., ask yourself why? Why is this here? Does it further the story? Does it support the whole? To create successful animation, you must understand why an object moves before you can figure out how it should move. Character animation isn’t the fact that an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-19246365714575889142012-03-13T01:38:00.000+08:002012-03-15T01:13:18.712+08:00Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great storyINTRODUCTION: In February 2012, Andrew Stanton presented his now familiar story talk at the TED Conferences forum. Once again, Andrew drives home the keystones of great storytelling. This time we learn about a deeply personal story connection between Andrew's birth and Finding Nemo.
READABILITY TIP: For easier reading and to prevent eye strain, narrow the width of your browser tab to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-34687030843121638412011-11-27T11:25:00.001+08:002011-11-27T13:00:22.819+08:00Four-Act Theory of Everything
I need a roadmap. I'm not disciplined enough to stick to a simple, clean through-line when I'm storycrafting. I need an unflappable navigation system to steer me true north. So over the years I've refined a master mindmap charting the gotta-haves and put-it-heres.
Storytelling is structure. Screenwriting is structure. There's your secret to success. If Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-5910619839152110132011-11-27T10:44:00.001+08:002011-11-27T13:00:36.049+08:00The Harmonious One
This concern with external beauty that you reproach me for is a method for me. When I discover a disagreeable assonance or a repetition in one of my sentences, I can be sure that I'm floundering around in something false. By dint of searching, I find the right expression, which was the only one all along, and at the same time the harmonious one. The word is never lacking when one is in Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-53641877181690180432011-10-08T10:36:00.000+08:002011-11-27T12:59:39.320+08:00The Old Man and the Scene: Cat in the Rain
It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain.
Let's scriptify Hemmingway.
Beach - Day
RAIN. Dripping from the palm trees. Water stands in pools on the gravel paths. The sea breaks in a long line in the rain and slipsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-3538170798647659572011-07-21T19:10:00.012+08:002013-02-13T18:10:22.708+08:00"What Fuels Story" -- The Comment They Couldn't StopSo apparently Blogger only allows 4,096 characters in a comment on a post. Fair enough. "Nobody will ever need more than 4K for a comment" shall not thwart the ravings of a story guy. Here's my comment to Go Into The Story's "What Fuels Story" article. Any comments, please add them to the Go Into The Story article instead of here. Thanks.
@James -- You can have Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-45419340563611492792011-05-02T18:23:00.011+08:002011-11-27T13:02:01.603+08:00Michael Arndt Sprinkles Some Pixar Storycrafting Magic
Michael Arndt
Stephen Hoover took notes at the Austin Film Festival when Michael Arndt spoke about cooking up Toy Story 3. This is manna from story heaven -- not a new recipe for most structuralists out there, I expect, but tasty nonetheless. Reading once isn't enough. Rest, digest, then return for seconds. Thank you, Stephen, and thank you, Michael.
The Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-29740120468694537842011-02-26T13:05:00.002+08:002011-11-27T13:00:53.454+08:00Four Act Story Structure ModelArchiving. It's still available at archive.org, all but gone from the web otherwise.
Field calls it the "pinch". Vogler calls it the "second major
threshold". What they both refer to is the middle of the
traditional second act of the three-act structure.
For God's sake, gentlemen, LET'S CALL A SPADE A SPADE! It's been
there all along, yet no story structuralist wants to go against the
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-23016077154675605592010-12-23T15:23:00.008+08:002011-02-09T23:44:11.511+08:00Joe Eszterhas - The Abridged Version: Basically It StinksJoe Eszterhas is an asshole.
Exhibit A: Burn Hollywood Burn. Watch it.
But not just any asshole.
Exhibit B: Hollywood Animal. Read it.
Joe Eszterhas destroys everything he loves.
Joe Eszterhas destroys everything he hates.
Joe Eszterhas destroys everything else. Including Joe Eszterhas.
Exhibit C: Joe Eszterhas.
Yes, Joe Eszterhas is quite the asshole.
Not just any Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-12012271598986856622010-05-12T19:07:00.000+08:002010-05-12T19:07:37.730+08:00How to start gmail without the chat featureHow to start gmail without chat...
https://mail.google.com/?chat=0
with chat...
https://mail.google.com/?chat=1
Nothing to do with storytelling or screenwriting, sure. But it solves an annoyance I've lived with for years.
Oh. And Josh Olsen, if you're reading... I will not join your fucking chat.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-87746187426892468662009-02-18T17:05:00.004+09:002011-05-15T01:44:15.863+08:00How to write your screenplay: three suggestions* images courtesy of Google LIFE
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-38095373110731298122008-12-19T00:45:00.035+09:002014-02-01T23:14:37.051+08:00Andrew Stanton (PIXAR) - transcript - Keynote, Screenwriting Expo 5 (2006), Understanding Story: or My Journey of Pain
UPDATE, March 2012:
New TED 2012 Talk by Andrew Stanton, covering much of the same material recorded here.
READABILITY TIP: For easier reading and to prevent eye strain, narrow the width of your browser tab to reflow the text into shorter lines. I recommend a words-per-line count of 12 to 15.
As soon as I found it on Google Video, I knew I would have to transcribe it.
Here is Unknownnoreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-88377975822050646072008-12-14T13:03:00.005+09:002010-11-02T09:33:12.893+08:00Mommy, make the bad editors stop!I can't take it any more. I just can't.
Quantum of Solace was the last straw.
It's the latest 'blender-cam' action film to confuse rapid cutting with excitement. Fast editing does not equal excitement. Oh, it does... sometimes, when used sparingly the way a surgeon uses special-purpose forceps or when a flutist uses a particular breathing technique.
Over the last decade, when it comes to the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-25021087199778942062008-11-23T23:54:00.000+09:002008-11-23T23:54:47.149+09:00"We'll have no lynchin' while I'm Sheriff" - Writing the PhotoplayCinema hasn't been around all that long.What are we talking? A hundred years and change? Close enough.At the turn of the century in 1900, not long before Captain Nemo piloted his steampunk submarine through the perilously narrow underwater corridors beneath Venice (work with me, people), motion pictures first bumped into the concept of 'continuity' -- that individual shots could be strung Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-60538168325158191362008-09-29T00:32:00.000+08:002008-09-29T00:45:06.069+08:00Structure is KingYou are using the sequencing method as I understand it to plot out your scripts first? Can you let people know what the sequence method is for those who have never worked with it? And can you talk about how it helps you plan what to write? Sequencing is gold. I hesitate to even talk about it, lest all of your readers go out and become overnight successes and put me out of work. I jest, but this Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-3005237020340686752008-08-28T21:05:00.005+08:002008-09-14T23:35:13.784+08:00Inglourious Basterds, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Grammar and Love the StoryWhenceforth Comes This Shabby Creature Of The Night?Fake. Had to be.The grammatical horrors waiting between the covers were solid proof of a novice writer at the keyboard. Surely.I read the first 10 pages: the linguistic horrors multiplied and then multiplied some more.Ask anyone: screenplays this unpolished don't escape unscathed when crossing a Studio Reader's desk. Screenplays this unpolished Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-26313262596787311742008-08-16T22:34:00.001+08:002011-01-18T08:47:44.801+08:00Two fun examples of dialogue-less storytellingAny day is a good day for zombies.
The best day for zombies will be when Left 4 Dead hits the PC. On that day I will be transported to Zombie Heaven.
Ironically, Zombie Heaven is right here on Earth: the Land of the Living. Where the warm-fleshed, juicy-brains-carrying humans are abundant and conveniently packaged into cramped apartment blocks with no exit strategies. Where humans fear the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-26784149900472363482008-07-27T01:07:00.003+08:002008-07-29T00:20:46.581+08:00Blackwater hit car with kids to avoid trafficThis post title appeared on digg.com:US official: Blackwater hit car with kids to avoid trafficIt hit a car with kids? Impressive. But why resort to hurling children at the enemy?What we have here is another case of failure to communicate. More murderous grammar.This is the story:The kids in the back seat looked back in horror, mouths agape at the sight of the heavily armored Suburbans driven by Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-38124935307679451962008-01-05T02:33:00.001+09:002008-01-05T02:44:57.817+09:00253 free, legal, full-length movies from Bittorrent.comGot harddrive space? Download classic thriller, adventure, horror, and sci-fi movies. FREE. Heaps of Hitchcock. Coppola's directorial debut! And much more. Want to see the 1936 film of Sweeney Todd? Go grab it. You owe it to yourself to browse throught the 253 free torrent downloads and fill in the gaps in your classic movie collection.I was delighted to discover a personal treasure: Michael Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-60755322529634799632007-08-19T18:14:00.001+08:002011-11-27T13:01:11.816+08:004-Act Story Diamond v2This model represents the Hero's Journey in four acts. It supplements my old story diamond. Click the image for a larger view.
Discussion about the eight plot points is here.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025440.post-13703079485067781032007-07-25T21:22:00.000+08:002007-07-30T01:27:29.725+08:00Jeremy Slater - Rapebear, The MovieJeremy Slater just sold his horror screenplay Pet to MGM.Is this the same hilarious (former) neophyte screenwriter and veteran malfeasant Jeremy Slater who dreamed up Rapebear over at How To Write Screenplays, Badly ? I think so. I hope so. Go visit HTWSB and spend an hour trawling the archives. You will laugh lots while learning some lesser-known do-nots of screenwriting.Sadly, it's unlikely Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0