NiGHTiNGaLE

For today’s lesson well, we had a watched some show called the taxi driver, and well, we learnt how to “encourage” a audience to attribute and deduce information about the character

from slight minimilistic hint about a war(you get it that he’s a war veteran)

his jacket insigna(Shows his part of the marines in the vietnam war, and you’ll recognise it if you played enough of the online game of Battlefield Vietnam),

about his thoughts( allows you to understand more about the character.).

I also learnt that more about noticing people, and deducing information and what and how visual elements can be used to communicate visual information extremely quickly and subconsciously to the audience.

Like say for an example, a guy walking with a slight linp in his right leg, wearing a army jacket. Audiences will immediately pick up this image as the guy, is probably an ex army veteran, who had recieved a leg injury in the course of serving his country.

Ah well, i’m off to go gawk at passerbys now… i’ll see if i can save you a picture or two…

Character
(They have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts,)

A story always starts with character,because the character can bring about change to the scenario presented through his choices and reactions to the events.(there are always may be exceptions tho!) He also is the heart and soul, and also what ryan calls the Nervous system of the story.Basically you dont have a story if you dont have any players to bring about change or to express it.Through your characters, your audience literally “step” into the shoes of the story, and feel for them emotionally, be it touching them to tears, or making them smile at the amusing quality of the character of the absurdity of his thoughts

Hence
Like a Reverse Domino effect,
No character= no action = no conflicts =no story = no screenplay = zilch, a big goose egg…

To bring a character to life, we must ask ourselves these questions..
Who is he(or she)? > lawyer? pimp? Lunatic?
What does he desire? >Money? sex? drugs? satisfaction?
What is his quest? > How’s he gonna do it?
What drives him to the resolution of the story? >Curiosity? revenge?

We also must see three things about any character,
-Physiology(Physical appearance, the way he walks, talks, dresses,etc)
-Sociology( the way he interacts with society)
-Psychology( the way he thinks about events around him, prejudices, etc)

There are two types on information in the film about the character
-Interior( his history, etc, we usually get a hint or two in conversations or flashbacks for establishments.)

-Exterior( its more of the present story that we would see in the passing of the story, his present reactions, feelings, situations etc, its more of what the story will present usually, unless its a flashback,dream,or recount type)

Characters must be related to others or events in some way, and thus
-there will be conflict of interest in the attempts to achieve their dramatic end.
-will require interaction of some kind to others.
-also interact with their own and others emotions

Memory(all alone in the moonlight… ok nevermind)

Wonderful big box of past incidents that you have experienced, or heard about from friends.
They are sorta “bookmarks” to these experiences,opinions and feelings

Hence,
Writing what you know makes it easier for you to communicate emotions and visual information in a more realistic way.

However writing what you Don’t know also has as advantage, as it doesn’t limit you down to what you have experienced and thus you can embellish it slightly more, and even bend the rules of reality, or add the surprising twist to it.

Watching the film “The Election”, there were many diverse characters,however it seemed that most of the focus was on the protagonist, Mr Mc.Allister who seemed to see the student, the Flick girl, to be an incarnate of evil that had to be stopped before she went on to create more pain for others. I also can relate parts of my lfe to the different characters, and strangely enough, because of that, there are points of the show where I feel rather unconclusive in terms of feelings.

Like there were points i agreed with the Tracy Flick’s stand of that in order to climb to the top, there are sacrifices to be made, heads to be stepped on, and i was like that in school in the past, playing it all nice and chummy with the teachers so i could then manipulate the “real power” to make decisions and enjoy privilges that the others didn’t quite get, although in the classroom i got pushed around alot, because of these privileges and got into quite a few tight spots of doing favours once. So i thought then, so long as it looks good on paper so what? my likfe could be as screwed up there and then for all i cared, i was going to have a better future than the miscreants around me, and all that high positions in school like CCA vice presidentships and class chairman was only going to help to pave the way, making it easier.

Or parts of the lesbian girl’s desire to experience her feelings freely,( and no… IM NOT GAY) i felt that anyone should have the right to have feelings for anyone else, and we are in no position to critisize or judge, because we have never been in their shoes, we only have been in SIMILAR positions. I felt this way because i once had feelings for a girl when i was primary one, and well tongues just kept wagging… irritating.

and especially parts of the protaganist, where all he did was try to make things right from his point of view.. thats something most of us can relate too i guess.. trying to make things right, yet in the end, all it looks like is that its all your fault that everything happened in the first place.

However as we the audiences stand from an omniscient point of view, and we also can see the other characters motivation, that don’t seem very evil after all, such as the Flick girl’s ambition drive, that makes her to go all lengths just to achieve what she wants. (We may attribute her ambition drive to perhaps her mother’s station in society, which she could have used as a benchmark to overcome, as we always try to outdo our parents.) And the rugby guy who broke his leg, all he had was good intentions, having such innocence, (and questionable intelligence level). And his sister, who was a lesbian, and all she wanted was the freedom to experience her feelings.

I think the film just wanted us to show that until we understand the reasons and motivations for what others do, we will never comprehend their reasons for their actions.

Yet as as happy as the protaginist may seem, we from the audience point of view can see that his choices had ultimately led him to suffer a “Greek Tragedy”, where the hero, who had good intentions in the beginning, had in the end succumbed to his own lack of knowledge and carelessness.

Subject 1: Old man, wearing yellow polo tee, beige shorts and what would appear to be normal cut sneakers. Chinese, Bald, and wears a pair of shades. Walks slowly carrying what appears to be his grocery shopping.would figure him out to be the average Singaporean aged retiree.His relaxed gait also shows his freestyle carefree life.

Subject 2: Sitting at the bus stop in grey long pants white t-shirt, brown shoes of either leather or PVC make. carrying a grey haversack type of bag. Appears to be fiddling with his pda o2 type of phone. Probably a soon-to retiree cos of his age…. Would estimate it to be say around 30-40 range, yet has fast receding hairlines but still black. Also wearing spectacles. As he can afford a pda phone, must be quirte well to do.

Watching people Without them noticing can be hard, so I sorta cheated a bit. I took a picture of them from a far, and then remembered the rest of their details… like the way they walked , the way they moved, stuff like that. So i would try to remember what I had seen, then try to link it up with with whatever I had deduced.
>

Aristotle>>>Famous philosopher

Aristotle’s Poetics_ was a response of his intellect towards Plato, his teacher, and famous in his own right in the field of philosophy.
#Plato argues that poetry was simply a mere representation of appearences, and is thus misleading and (morally suspect?)

Greek Tragedy.. What is it?
Tragedy, an imitation a action that is serious, complete, and to a certain magnititude, in language that is serious complete and of a certain magnitudein language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its katharsis of such emotions
A tragedy must have 6 parts to determine its quality
-Plot
-Character
-Diction
-Thought
-Spectacle
-Melody

Actually i did most of the notes already on paper in preparation for the Test, so i’ll just include them here.

o erm if u guys wanna check out the story i did using one of Gdine’s openers, then click on this link.. hope it works..
http://gorgeousgdine.wordpress.com/openers/

Ah well… guess we don’t have class for this week ( well as in week two although im writing this in week 3!), and a holiday is always welcome, to a born last-minute slacker. but sadly,unfortunately, and miserably, if we don’t have class on one day, it means two things. one can be that we get alotta’ homework…..
OR
Replacement class…
OR worse
Both.
LOL anyway, homework at home was interesting, because everytime i started to write a story, i would have to keep kicking at my mind to force it back onto the active,3rd person present tense road, while it tried to run away and continue down the road of a narrative, past tense and passive voice kinda story…
everytime i think of a story, i would get this image of what a story teller would look like, an old man with lots of life experiences and fables and who usually would embellish or even twist them into half truths(experiences) to give the audience a much more interesting story to visualise, and satisfy both their need for entertainment and sense of melodrama.
So usually it would come across as a “long long time ago…” so immediately it sets off this expectation that the story would be the recollection of the old man, which automatically allows past tense, sometimes 3rd person depending on the way the story is told and definitely the active voice is used most of the time, in order to engage the audience, whether its told at the street, using the malay dalang shadow puppet… ah well.. here’s me signing off to do the 5 stories!

12liners(openers)
1.Morals are like snowflakes in the sun, which melt in the face of heat and time.
2.In the eyes of a vulture, another corporate roadkill just adds to the menu.
3.Lying is a fine art, you just have to keep it simple.
4.Jeremiah gaps at the enormous figure coming out of the shadows.
5.If 4/5 of the world goes insane, would the rest of the 1/5 be consider themselves mad?
6.Honor and coolness have one thing in common; self-image.
7.We fight about a lot of things, for only one reason: Pride.
8.Susanna half-heartedly watches herself pick up the phone and dial the number.
9.Rufus pounds at the door again and again with cries of blood-thirst, as the candle slowly dims to a flicker, then goes out.
10. Driven to eternal labor in prison clothes of black and white, slave to a lifestyle obsession Jack doesnt’ even realise or even knows how to stop.
11. A woman is marries herself to either career, or to love.
12. Curiousity may kill her cat, but the neighbour’s dog will die under her shovel.

Ah first the notes from the tutorial..

Well the present writing format that we are gonna use would be in
-Present tense
-The 3rd person
-Active voice

Screenplays usually use the format to make the material feel more fresh, imeediate and urgent.

The Active voice versus the Passive.

The Active voice uses strong verbs, illustrates the action in the reader’s mind, uses the immediate sentence structure and hence conveys the story in a lively manner.

The Passive voice uses weak verbs,tells the information in a more factual manner and hence distances the reader from the story.

Also engaging in a emotional related action is more visually powerful and fufilling than just describing the feeling the character is feeling.

Tips for writing….. hmmm ill shortform it a bit here i guess

-An idea in mind? Or stuck. Keep going till you’re done

-Sleeping on a problem ain’t gonna work, so keep hacking at it till u get it solved.

-If your stuck on how to get started on a project, just writing some stuff could help, but u still need something tiny to get kick off.

-It doesn’t matter what or how you write, as your thinking and moving at your own pace would begin anyway.