I just found out this morning, Robert Jordan the author of the "Wheel of Time"-Series passed away 16. September.
My deepest condolences to his family and friends. He will always be remembered.
More information is on his Blog.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Stealing back Looks, Style and Ambition?
I just read the post Time to steal back by John August. Interesting, 3 sentences which got me thinking.
What follows implies that stealing back into movie scripts is the meaning of said 3 sentences.
Looks: Looks, like in surroundings, won't provide much leeway. There is a fixed number of locations on this planet, other planets are out of question due to the costs. Granted, some productions travel wide and far to save some money, but an extraterrestrial location will blow the budget. Being confined to this planet means a lot of "been there, done that" locations, that's all. Even alien planets aren't prone to that. Which brings us to style.
Style: Style, as in looks, is still a field which has room for improvement. Provided the test-audience isn't to irritated, that is. Just compare the "Directors Cut" of Blade Runner and the version which has been shown in movie theaters and you get my drift. IMHO: The intended style of the movie was to make the spectators think, the released version released the spectators from thinking (pun intended), and don't get me started about the ending of the theatrical version, seriously.
Ambition: Ambition is an interesting thought, though. The ambition of a TV-Series like "Lost", "Rome", or "E-Ring" is—among other things—change. Gradual change which happens over a "period" of several episodes, something that's hard to achieve in 90 to 120 minutes. Especially since the latter is frowned at by the owners of movie theaters because it kind of ruins the schedule.
I might sound a lot more grumpy than I really am, but think about the fact, that "doing" a movie involves a lot of people these days, and some of them aren't willing to experiment, are they? Most writers know about the differences of the final cut and what happened to be in the script. Don't get me wrong here, though. The ones with the final say have to protect themselves from failures, but the result of this behavior is visible at a theater near you. ;-)
Technorati Tags: scriptwriting, movie, movie theater
What follows implies that stealing back into movie scripts is the meaning of said 3 sentences.
Looks: Looks, like in surroundings, won't provide much leeway. There is a fixed number of locations on this planet, other planets are out of question due to the costs. Granted, some productions travel wide and far to save some money, but an extraterrestrial location will blow the budget. Being confined to this planet means a lot of "been there, done that" locations, that's all. Even alien planets aren't prone to that. Which brings us to style.
Style: Style, as in looks, is still a field which has room for improvement. Provided the test-audience isn't to irritated, that is. Just compare the "Directors Cut" of Blade Runner and the version which has been shown in movie theaters and you get my drift. IMHO: The intended style of the movie was to make the spectators think, the released version released the spectators from thinking (pun intended), and don't get me started about the ending of the theatrical version, seriously.
Ambition: Ambition is an interesting thought, though. The ambition of a TV-Series like "Lost", "Rome", or "E-Ring" is—among other things—change. Gradual change which happens over a "period" of several episodes, something that's hard to achieve in 90 to 120 minutes. Especially since the latter is frowned at by the owners of movie theaters because it kind of ruins the schedule.
I might sound a lot more grumpy than I really am, but think about the fact, that "doing" a movie involves a lot of people these days, and some of them aren't willing to experiment, are they? Most writers know about the differences of the final cut and what happened to be in the script. Don't get me wrong here, though. The ones with the final say have to protect themselves from failures, but the result of this behavior is visible at a theater near you. ;-)
Technorati Tags: scriptwriting, movie, movie theater
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Writing: Organizing Ideas
I recently discussed the various ways of organizing Ideas with a fellow writer. He told me, that he sticks to the legal pad to index card to storage paradigm. I changed my approach to Notebook only a couple of years ago. The discussion got me thinking (pondering?) about the merits of the different ways one stores ideas.
The index card to storage worked for me, at least in the past. After I switched to notebook, I never looked back, though. Sure, index cards neatly stored in some kind of cabinet are easy to search, don't get lost that easy (usually), and are to be found in one place. Especially the latter cannot be said about notebooks, that one's for sure. So why do I like the notebook-approach so much?
Context. I don't know about you, but as ideas age they tend to become somewhat cryptic. Did you ever try to make sense of a short note you scribbled years ago? A quick glance at the card usually refreshes our memory and we remember, but (you saw this one coming, didn't you?) sometimes the note either does not sound that interesting or does not make sense at all. Why? Because it is read out of context. This means, it lacks the surroundings that sparked the idea in the first place. There are two ways to overcome this situation:
Option 1 is a little demanding because it either interrupts your workflow or requires time to be set aside for adding all the context-related numbers. Option 2 didn't work for me, if it works for you, congratulations.
Enter my notebook-system, everything is in context provided I did not rip out pages for whatever reason. The notebooks are archived, means they are marked with the timespan I used them and put into a shelf in my office. Context-related information? It is already there, I just have to flip through the pages and thus be able to put every single word or seemingly cryptic scribbling into context again. It works for me, your mileage may vary.
How do you deal with idea-storage?
The index card to storage worked for me, at least in the past. After I switched to notebook, I never looked back, though. Sure, index cards neatly stored in some kind of cabinet are easy to search, don't get lost that easy (usually), and are to be found in one place. Especially the latter cannot be said about notebooks, that one's for sure. So why do I like the notebook-approach so much?
Context. I don't know about you, but as ideas age they tend to become somewhat cryptic. Did you ever try to make sense of a short note you scribbled years ago? A quick glance at the card usually refreshes our memory and we remember, but (you saw this one coming, didn't you?) sometimes the note either does not sound that interesting or does not make sense at all. Why? Because it is read out of context. This means, it lacks the surroundings that sparked the idea in the first place. There are two ways to overcome this situation:
- Create some system to put the idea into context again. Say, number all cards and put the relevant numbers on every card to establish the context later.
- Rely on your memory to put the idea into the original context.
Option 1 is a little demanding because it either interrupts your workflow or requires time to be set aside for adding all the context-related numbers. Option 2 didn't work for me, if it works for you, congratulations.
Enter my notebook-system, everything is in context provided I did not rip out pages for whatever reason. The notebooks are archived, means they are marked with the timespan I used them and put into a shelf in my office. Context-related information? It is already there, I just have to flip through the pages and thus be able to put every single word or seemingly cryptic scribbling into context again. It works for me, your mileage may vary.
How do you deal with idea-storage?
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