Screenwriting

I finishing reading Making a good script great by Linda Seger, now it's off to Hero with a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell (again). The last time I read Campbell it was for story structure and character psychology; this time it's for application to some of the surreal moments I write.

I also finished Getting things done by David Allen, and I've started to apply some of his thinking to how I write (you can find some of my favorite GTD-related links here).

For example, one of the general principles in GTD in keeping cleanly defined lists in order to stay organized. I decided to apply this somehow to my notes, which are always a rat's nest. After rereading my notes, I discovered that I write four different types of entries in my notebook:

1. Questions - "why does character x do this?"
2. Ideas - "maybe character x does this because of reason x"
3. Research Notes - either relating to craft or a topic
4. Next Actions - "debug outline" (next actions is a GTD term/concept)

I then rewrote my notes, giving each type of entry it's own page. The "Next Action" page is key, because it keep me focus on making progess. I'm also using this classification when I'm dictating into my microcasette recorder on the road because it makes transcribing my notes much easier.

screenwriting
GTD

Cash


Check out Cash and other paintings at Sonic Nova’s myspace page.

painting

Stuff I dig: the Amazing Screw-On Head

I've decided not to go back to the toolbox entries for a while because I don't really have the time and I'm trying to keep my thinking/style flexible for the next cartoon...so for now this blog will just be about stuff I dig.

I caught the half-hour pilot of the Amazing Screw-on Head on Sci-Fi this week; it's worth checking out. An adaptation of a Dark Horse comic by Mike Mignola, it has a Lovecraft/Gorey sensibility. The color palette for the cartoon is just right, and they animated the shadows on the characters, so it doesn't look like Mignola's inking style is static. The pilot is available for viewing online.

animation

Now playing: Norma & Margie!

...After a year of toiling on weeknights and through weekends, Norma & Margie is finished and online. The past few weeks were spent polishing the cartoon on a couple of different machines to measure performance. Special thanks go to Khoi Pham, Jeff Godek, Gordon Barber, Tim Tran, Kevin Grant, Charlie Chu, and Andy Khouri, who were kind enough to download dev versions of N&M and let me know how it performed on their systems. I probably have a few more grey hairs in my goatee now from the overall experience, but it was worth it.

I created a myspace page for N&M, but can't upload the QT version to the page at the moment ("transmission error"), so a link to the flash version will have to do for now. I'll also be posting the cartoon to you tube, google video, etc.


animation

ON SCREENWRITING

Well, the toolbox stuff came to a halt because of the focus on Norma & Margie and the screenwriting. That said, two books that have helped me out alot recently are King's book on writing and Linda Seger's book Making a good script great. Also, here are links to a few helpful screenwriting sites.

screenwriting

Archetypes

Archetypes

I had a hard time with this entry, not because of the source material, but in terms of where to analyze. The concept of Archetypes is easy enough to follow in Jung and Campbell…and I live in LA, so I know all about the Hero’s Journey.

But in terms of looking at the archetypes in my own work, I wasn’t making much progress. I thought about characters like Thea but it was hard to look at them in an archetypal sense, because I spent so much time making those characters real and distinct to me. But I made a connection through Campbell’s work. A Myth is a symbolic representation of an event of initiation in one’s life. Based on that principal, I should be able to examine people who were involved in these sorts of events in my life and find archetypal value in them.

The person in my past that came to mind was a former love from college the year that I lived in the dorms and started forming some of my working theories. She had the ability to pick up parts of you and absorb them into her own personality – body language, speech patters, the whole nine yards. Needless to say, when you’re confronted with yourself like that, it has an effect. For me, it helped me decide to refine my direction. If my life had been a myth, she would be an archetype that affects supernatural aid, in particular a shapeshifter.

This conclusion resulted in the module relationship below, which may be useful in developing more effective characters.


Technorati Tag Archetypes

The Toolbox

The Toolbox

The following is a list of elements in a modular methodology.
In no particular order:

Archetype
Color
Sequence
Output/Future Forms
Synethesia
Hacking
Schematics
Semantics
Semiotics
Iconography
Tempo/Cadence
Spells
Harmonics
Triads