Scriptwriting and storyboards

I googled for Hollywood movie scripts and as usual received bunch of offered web resources considering my search. I found this page Movie Scripts and Screenplays where you can find many scripts for famous Hollywood movies. I like it because the variety of scripts is far better then on other pages that I found and its completely free. Writing a good script requires a good idea and understanding of exactly what the viewer wanna see on the screen.When writing it, format is the key to it being read or considered by agents or production companies. Anyway after creating few scripts the rules become familiar and easy to remember. Such kind of writing has to be as short as possible but still able to bring the idea to a viewer. For example word "IS" should be eliminated from script and instead of "Joe is mowing the lawn" you better write "Joe mows the lawn". Genre is also one of the most important stages of the filmmaking. One phrase can be said with different intonation followed by the different music which is crucial in the perception of the film. Scripts cannot be overemphasized. This link can guide you to a better scriptwriting Movie Scripts Guidelines. And this page here --> Script Format tells about different abbreviations what is used for explaining the time of the scene, place, actors' dialogs, POV and many more to ease the work.

I laughed when I read a list of situations that occur in almost every movie)))) Here it is - "Rules" of Scriptwriting and it is true :)

Later in the class we supposed to choose one movie script and compare it with its film version. I chose Ace Ventura. Pet Detective .

Running briefly through the script and viewing the same episode turned into a film I found it not quite the same. What is done in the script sometimes not even appears on the screen but instead gives cinematographer chance to improvise and add some better stuff while filming. Still the main idea of episode remains.


Sketching a storyboard based on script is also a basis for every film. It makes cinematographer to know exactly how to shoot an entire scene and saves a lot of time. I looked for some videos about storyboard and found this one Storyboarding and this one Zero Budget Storyboard which both have very good explanation of what exactly is a Storyboard. From a good storyboard depends the quality of filmed material that's why it became an important factor in filmmaking industry.

At last I´m off to writing final lines about all this film stuff. I realize that being a good director, cinematographer, producer or so, will not help you to create a peace of art called a "movie". But working as a team and only as a team, these professionals can realize into life hundreds of good scripts.

Filmmaking industry

        Hi there. Today is our next assignment named "Filmmaking and script writing". So what is the filmmaking? It is simply the process of making a film. Sounds pretty simple but beyond every film product lays a work of many specialists who represent different branches of filmmaking industry. Among them are directors, producers, cinematographers, sound designers, managers, art directors... Of course there are many more who works on creating the final film product but we wan´t going to enumerate them. 

          Every film requires a scenario but to make it is not that easy. There are many criterias that film companies put for those who wants to jump into this industry. First of all you need to start with a basic idea of what are you going to show in the movie and what is it about. My best friend GOOGLE showed me some websites about filmmaking and I like this one that gives an idea of what is a good filmmaker --> Top 10 of A Great Filmmaker. 

The film production occurs in five main stages:
a) Development - writing a script

b) Pre-production - preparation for the shoot, crew is hired, places are chosen etc.

c) Production - recording of the film

d) Post-production - film is edited, music tracks are composed, titles and effects created etc.

e) Sales and distribution - basically the sale of the product.

Then I looked for more info considering filmmaking. Although Google offers many different links, it is still hard to find the right webpage which can give you a comprehensive answer of what you are looking for. I accidentally clicked on the link to BBC page where I subsequently found a good info about my main topic.

Here is the link --> BBC Filmmaking Guide. There I found everything about filmmaking from A to Z so everyone who is interested in being a successful filmmaker welcome here :) 

The good idea and a strong script are the basis of a great shot. There are no certain rules about scriptwriting but it clearly has to appear who is the main character, the atmosphere, logical endings of the scenes etc. This link here Writing a Script can direct you on the right way and gives you some rough idea of scriptwriting. The topic can be whatever you want it to be, from the grasshoppers to the aliens' invasion of the barber shop on 3rd avenue near McDonalds)). 

Here is one more link to inspire you --> How to Write a Screenplay 

Everyone can create, but the recognition of the work depends from its content and professionalism. Do not make it to stop you if you have an idea of movie making and perhaps one day the fortune will smile to you :)))

Googling Short Stories

Today is the next day of my English classes and hopefully I´m a step closer to finish it with a positive mark :). Our assignment for today is to surf in Google and write about Short stories, their definition and and so on. I would reeealy love to finish this exercise but my super slow Internet connection decided to protest :S. Anyway after many tries I finally got into Google and found some ... perhaps the word "some" doesn't fit with my search, instead I would say I found MILLIONS of web-sites about short stories. It is quite hard to pick the right page because you cannot know what is inside so I just read few lines beneath the main link and opened some of them...

3 minutes later.....

...my Internet connection is still fighting against me and I´m still waiting for my pages to be opened. Irritating..Considering that I guess it can be a good topic for the short story. I would call it "The nightmare on Skolavorduholt street. Journey into the unknown" with the Internet as a main character :)))

So what is the definition of short stories? According to Wikipedia we may define the Short Story as - "a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format". Often it is a short text that has an average length of 8.000-10.000 words, but the main target of it is to grab you attention. Anyway it is very varies from the author.  Here is more detailed description of it - Short Story. I visited few web-pages and found a lot of information about such stories. Here are the links:

www.americanlitarature.com

www.classicshorts.com

www.theshortstory.org.uk

www.netsaga.is <==== WOW  even Icelandic))

but my favorite is http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories, where you can find any story you like.

The next step in interpreting the world of short stories is to read some of them. I chose "David's Haircut" by Ken Elkes and "The Wanderer" by Graham Green.

"David's Haircut" is very short story about a boy named David and his father who took him to a barbershop. They goes there often and at this time they notice that David is growing up and very soon he can sit in the stool without the board under his bum. On the way back home David finds his own lock of his own hair in dad's palm.

"The Wanderer" is another story I´ve just read. This is a REALLY short one. It´s about a man who travels around the world to forget people he met every day. He hopes to find someone who remains in his memory but it hasn´t happened yet. Once he met an old woman who asked him to marry her daughter with a man who died a year ago. Then the Wanderer finds a young lady who was dead under the cover. The old woman disappeared. He understood that couple is now together forever.

So what is the base of a good short story? Here are some instructions I found on Google: Short Story Writing

By the end of my writing I stumbled on one interesting video. It is about short stories in general and I found it very cognitive and in some way enigmatic. Here is the video Britannica Classic: What Is a Short Story? I suggest to take a look at this video, especially those who are interested in short stories.

DONE :) :) :)

TED.com

Today we watched two videos on TED.com. After that we supposed to write our opinion on our blogs.

First video was about education and teaching in the remote areas of the world.The basic theme of it was the education in the areas where the teachers wouldn't go to teach. So how to solve this problem? How to make children more educated in such areas? Sugata Mitra, professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, worked on this project and offered very smart system (as for me) of how to educate children. He made an experiment by putting an Internet-connected computer in a slum in New Delhi and named the experiment "The Hole In The Wall". The experiment shows that children with no education at all and no English language skills can learn at least something only by methods of tries and searches on the global network. It proofs the idea that children are learning the things they are interested in. But even in such cases they need teachers. Unfortunately some remote countries where the poverty level far beyond the minimum limit, do not attract teachers. And that is BAD. High percentage of children in such areas haven´t even been to school in their life so the question is how to rise an entire  population without even knowing how to read or write? In my opinion the very first party who should take care about it is government. But with a global corruption and willing to have more, have bigger and better and of cause dozens of other factors, some people (very few) become very very reach but others, like those families and their children in Indian slums can't even afford to go to school and get the basic knowledge of what is going on in this world.

Second video was a bit confusing for me. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist from USA impart the experience of her Stroke Of Insight from 1996, told about how it affects the body.  Well, apart from that one side of my brain understood the idea of this presentation and some important points at issue, the second part of MY brain said to me: "Hey there is a lot of scientific stuff in it and I´m getting a hard time of melting the information, why don't you also go to La La Land?" :) Anyway, I found it very cognitive and made me plunged deep in thoughts. A human being can take some drugs and feel the Nirvana or even visit a well known La La Land, but experiencing a stroke with a quite similar side-effects can lead you to unfortunate results. I would recommend this video to others in hope that something will changes in perception of the world.

Essay writing

Writing an essay might be challanging. Sounds strange but its true. "I have no clue what to write about" or "How should I start?", - such typical students' answers are common when you ask them to write an essay but do not specify a topic. So why is that? Cruising on the web-page The Nuts And Bolts that tells us about every single step in essay writing, I found that writing an essay is not that easy for many students as I thought. First of all is a lack of writing experiance. Those students who don´t write much in their daily life, for example blogging or posting daily phrases in facebook or else where, have problems with choosing the right topic for upcoming writings.
Let´s say we've got a topic. What is next? The major problem is how to start your essay and what arguments to point. We might know many things but to state them on paper is not always easy. If you have a difficulty with writing an essay there are plenty of information on the web that can help you choosing the right way. But the basic structure is quite similar. I decided to take a SPIRAL as an example of the essay structure.

As you can see the begining of it tells us basicly what the essay is about. Here we can add the basic knowladge of what we know about the subject..(and I mean what we realy know). Then is nessesary to bring the results of your reseach of the topic and the arguments that proof the idea and...well.. actually proofs your own knowladge as well:). There are no essays without conclusion so collect the strongest statements and put a fat dot on it!!))

Well, DO NOT hesitate and instead of sitting and thinking what to write about, just grab a pan and start practice. I´m sure the result will not make you wait for long;)