storytelling & structure:
- watched a short clip from 'We Need To Talk About Kevin.' From the beginning of the film. Like 'The Usual Suspects' or 'Memento,' it jumps around in time. Doesn't rely on traditional 3 act structure. Narrative structure mirrors the emotions of the character. Reflective, nostalgic, etc.
- unreliable narrator means the PoV is subjective.
- should the audience have more, less, or the same amount of knowledge as the protagonist?
-in 'The Shawshank Redemption' the narrator is not the protagonist.
- watched a short called 'Crossbow' which has an interesting narrative device.
- watched a short called 'Robbie' which is made completely of archival footage from NASA with an acted voice-over. Plot point 1: Robbie is sent to space. Plot point 2: Either when he gets left bu himself, or else when we find out his battery is dying.
Story: set of all events in a narrative (presented or not)
Plot: what is shown to the audience
Opening: raises expectations, perhaps foreshadowing the ending?
Patterns of Development: goal oriented plot / search quest. Temporal patterns (flashbacks etc). Spatial plot patterns (single locale).
15 Min rule: if a feature doesn't engage within the first 1/4 hour, the audience becomes uninterested.
Our 10 min script needs an understanding and application of a classical structure. Don't diverge!
- looked at diagrams of paradigms, compared shorts and films to it.
- watched a video with Dustin Lance Black. He talks about his research project as he writes historical films. He likes to make his characters specific and real. He writes notecards with ideas so he can mix and match them - colour coded. Within weeks or months he orders the story properly, cutting as he goes, 90% of his research and writing he never uses. He likes exploring new ideas. After figuring out the order, he then writes the first 'vomit' draft which he hones and refines to perfection.
- good to do 'off the page' writing, Don't start in final draft. Explore character descriptions, scene mapping, note taking and brainstorming.
- be aware of when you work best, whether its a certain time of day or place.
- talked about our ideas and how they fit into the paradigm as a class group.
- talked about 'The Inciting Incident' (McKee reading).
- some characters are great but don't fit int he story you're trying to tell, so they need to be transposed to a different context.
