lecture notes

How do we impact the audience in a personal way ?

• Phrases like “i am sad” or “i am lonely” can be emotionles, as the audience does not know how exactly you feel
• Describe the process and situation
• Try to connect with the audience in a personal way , by explaining the scenario
• The setting also plays a important role by stating what you did and what led you to feel this way (angry, sad , anguish)
• Relate to what you say

Screen writer = storyteller
We have to figure out what the audience wants and connect that and tell it to them .
The cinematic experience is not just made up of words you might put on paper, but the audiences emotional reaction to that information.
The writer’s job is only to connect: take something and connect it to the audience.
- Story
- Emotions
- Themselves
- Their unique vision
- The material
- The drama
- Others

Audience want to be transported by a screenplay.
What we are aiming to connect to the audience in an emotional way
Inside yourself:
- Everything you learn about other people is already in you.
- Now you need to figure out how you are going to connect with your audience.

What do you look for in a story?

• something that you as the audience can identify .
• good stories are born in the heart and not in the head .

EXPERIENCE

• All people have fragments of stories
• These potential ideas prompt your desire to know more
• We need to respond emotionally and intellectually to what you heard
• Good stories are born in the heart, no to the head
• Put yourself in the role of the audience and provide what you like in the movies to the audience you are relating you.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————
hide and seek- imogen heap

If you do not like Imogen Heap , you dont deserve to have ears

Week 5 Lecture notes

Character

Heart, soul and nervous system of your screen
It is though your characters that viewers experience emotions
Emotional impact on your film it must connect with your audience

THE CHARACTERLESS CHAIN EFFECT

Without character, you have no action
When there is no action, there are no conflicts
Without conflict, you have no story
Without story, you have no screenplay.

When developing a character ask yourself
- Who is my character?
- What does he want?
- What is her quest?
- What drives him to the resolution of the story?

Memory
(Things that happen to you in the past and the things that are happening to you now can be a good tool to s story telling)

• Your memory is a wonderful cabinet of past incidents which you have experienced or been told
• These memories are points of references to your past experiences.o Write what you don’t know
• Memory play an influence to the film
• write about what you dont know

• Use certain elements of your memory to expand on

CHARACTERS SHOULD HAVE A THREE DIMENSIONAL STRUCTURE:
1. PHYSIOLOGY
2. SOCIOLOGY
3. PSYCHOLOGY

1. PHYSIOLOGY (how they exterior appearence)

• gender
• age
• appearence
• skin colour

2. SOCIOLOGY (how they interacts with the social surroundings)

• Class : lower, middle, upper
• Occupation: type of work, hours of work, income, condition of work, attitude towards organization, suitability for work
• Education: amount, kind of schools, marks, favourite subjects, poorest subjects, aptitudes
• Home Life: parents living, earning power, orphan, parents separated / divorced, parents’ habits, parents’ mental development, parents’ vices, neglect, character’s marital status
• Religion
• Race, Nationality
3. PSYCHOLOGY (how the character thinks)

• Personality: extrovert, introvert
• Abilities: languages, talents
• Qualities: imagination, judgement, taste, poise
• I.Q

Interior and Exterior

Interior

whatever happens before the film starts. the elements that make the character who he is.

• How old is he when the story begins?
• Where does he live?
• Does he have siblings?
• What kind of childhood did he have?
• What was his relationship to his parents?
• What kind of child was he?
• Is he married, single, widowed, separated or divorced?

Exterior

It is a process that reveals character from the beinin of the film to the end.

The main plot of the story.

• Who are they and what do they do?
• Are they sad or happy with their life?
• Do they wish their life was different, with another job, another wife?
Taxi driver (Robert Deniro)

SOCIOLOGY (How characters interact with their enviornment)

• Class : lower
• Occupation: Taxi drver, 12 hour a week ,6-7 days earning less than 400 a week suffers from insomia. and take sleeping pills to get res, visits the cinema sometimes to watch porn , and writes about his poesonal life most of the time.

• Education: very litle, hardly even
• Home life: single, spends most of his time working , driving his cab around.
• Religion : none
• Race, Nationality : American, was onec a soilder
• Place in the Communit: taxi driver who does not have much friens, or even hardly.
• Political Affiliations:none
• Amusements: reading magazines and writing about his personal life in his diary /journal

Week 4 was a mix of physical education and intro to film. I am serious, we spent an hour waiting, running around, getting settled just to watch a movie less than 2 hours. Honestly, it was pretty fun!:D

Election.

And I am not talking about the victory of the democrats in the recent senate election, in which my dad isn’t too happy about. He’s a republican you know?

Election ,the movie. The not so indie film, staring the adorable, petite, Oscar winning Rees witherspoon and Matthew boderick and directed by the talented Alexander Payne. Having watched “sideways” and “about Schmidt” before, I knew that election was not going to be your usual chick flick, romance comedy. True enough, it is a modern day Greek tragedy.

Now then, what is a Greek tragedy? Greek tragedy refers primarily to tragic drama: a literary composition written to be performed by actors in which a central character called a tragic protagonist or hero suffers some serious misfortune which is not accidental and therefore meaningless, but is significant in that the misfortune is logically connected with the hero’s actions. Pretty sad huh? Hence the word tragedy. Drama with a catastrophic ending.
Well in this movie the hero happens to be Jim McAllister played by Matthew Broderick, is a high school teacher who seems to be living the typical American dream. However he seems to have many doubts about himself and is slightly intimidated by Tracy flick (Reese witherspoon’s character). Tracy flick is a driven student (I sure do remember those people back in secondary school) who he feels is callous and blames for his best friend being fired for falling in love with her. In search of revenge, Jim convinces the popular high school jock Chris Klein, to campaign for the election as well. In hopes that the vapid jock will win the election eventually and not Tracy.
Further away from the revenge whirlpool but still important to unfolding events is Paul’s adapted sister Tammy, a young, under-achieving woman confused about her sexual orientation. A close girlfriend who she loves but does not respond in kind, and in fact is very unkind severely emotionally hurts Tammy. Downright mean, actually. The girlfriend is not lesbian and in an effort to reaffirm her own sexuality and hurt Tammy, she begins to date Paul. Tammy, in an effort to hurt her and Paul, decides to run for student body president. All of this comes as a surprise to Tracy Flick, who expected to run unopposed.

The obsession of ruining Tracy flick’s life was the core of his downfall. Through the movie, viewers could tell that Jim had issues. The affair with his wife’s best friend got him into the mess he started. He then spun himself into a larger mess when he tampered with the votes of Tracy flick, forcing him to resign. And is left in a pathetic state.
Jim is the hero in this tragedy; he suffers the misfortune of his own downfall. Therefore this movie depicts a Greek tragedy somehow. Jim was the cause of his tragedy; he was obsessed with ruining Tracy’s life as a student body president, and had a twisted affair with his wife’s best friend, knowing that it would destroy his marriage.Jim was simply a messed up man, trying to find his true identity.

the movie was enjoyable,dark and reall hilarious. reese witherspoon did a good job! she is still very much like elle woods in legaly blonde to me.

Sorry for being all cranky here, special thanks to be friend who made me lose the bet. The punishment? A whole hour of Paris Hilton songs in your system. PURE TORTURE!
Anyhow, the most prominent thing I could remember from last weeks lesson was that we all stank up the entire classroom. Thanks to the sewage water that was sprinkled on us in the fire drill. Aristotle was also another unforgettable thing I took back after the knowledge.

WEEK3 REFLECTIONS

SOME OLD GUY CALLED ARISTOTLE
Born: 384 BC
Death: March 7, 322 BC
School/tradition: Gave rise to Aristotelianism and the Peripatetic school
Main interests: Politics, Metaphysics, Science, Logic
Notable ideas: The Golden mean, Reason, Passion
Influences: Plato
Influenced: Almost all of western philosophy and science afterward

Definition of tragedy: it is an imitation of an action that is serious complete and a certain magnitude in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, in the form of action not narrative; just with incidents arousing pity and fear, where with to accomplish its kartharsis of such emotions
Greek Tragedy: hero dies in a tragic and unfortunately way.
6 parts of the tragedy: plot
Actions is the most important and not the character, without action there cannot be a tragedy
-Character
- thought
- songs
- spectical(costumes, sets and props)
chain : an event that will happen, one leads to another
tragedy- creates cause and effect chain that clearly reveals what may happen
-arouse not only pity but also fear, because members of the sudience can imahine themseves within the cause and effect chain
unity of action – time
-place
- action
action – tiny hints an clues to keep the story’s continunity
- they are unified and combined as a whole
PLOT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE OF TRAGEDY.
PLOT – “soul of the tragedy”
- the arrangement of incident in the story
- Plot is not the storlyline
- it is the structure of the play, the communication of how the audience gets enganged
- 3 act structure( begining. middle. end)
- begining: introduction of the characters
- Middle: climax, it must be caused by the earlier incidents
- End: resolution , must be caused by the preceding events but nit lead to other incidents
the end should resolve all the problems created during the incitive moment
Eposidic: plot that expands over a period of time
no unity no logical like that confuses the audience
a episodic ploy never connects a single cause and effect chain(characters are kinda like an extra)
2 different type if stories
- simple
- complex

simple plot
- one and contineous
- sudden change in fortune occurs vice vasa

Complex plot
-reversal of intention
- the sudden realisation that dawns on the main character
- ultimately te main character has caused the problem himself , and accept the punishment.

Play Structure:

1. Exposition

2. Rising Action

3. Climax

4. Falling Action

5. Denouement/Resolution

Aristotle’s Six Elements of Drama

1. Plot (the incidents or story line)

2. Character (physical, social, psychological, moral–people represented in the play)

3. Thought/Theme (insights into humanity and life

4. Music (all sound)

5. Spectacle (scenery and other visual elements)

6. Diction/language (the dialogue and poetry)

Credibility: terms of events must be believable
a character cannot appear out of the blue and all the problems are solved! BAD STORY!!