I recently watched the 1940’s classic ‘Casablanca’ starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Seeing as many including the Writers Guild of America have voted this as having the best screen play of all time, and the studio I’m in happens to have a lot of screen play writing in it, I figured I’d give it a watch. Coincidentally it was the film we had to watch this week for Popular Cinema… Anyway, its interesting to see the development of character within this script. You’ve got Rick, cool with a tough exterior but ultimately sentimental deep down. You’ve got Sam. Cool piano player, cool dude with loyalty and integrity to his pal Rick. You’ve got Ilsa, she’s cool too. My point is that, as all these characters collaborate, it flows. You believe their story a little more than you tend to believe others, the character each one plays is flawed yet have integral qualities. Casablanca was one of the biggest movies in its year, winning Best picture, tripling its larger than usual 1942 budget of $950,000 domestically. It has some of the most memorable characters and lines in film history.

Now, some of the most memorable movie characters like Luke, Han and Leia, Indiana Jones, Marty McFly, Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf to name a few from my childhood, all are complex, fun and characters with integral qualities which make a movie click, just like in Casablanca. These are all from the last 40 years within cinema (more if you count the books.) But more modern, we’ve had different movies with characters who are cool on different kinds of levels.

We’ve got Katniss, who is cool based on her being a tragic survivor, one who’s been through a lot but keeps on going for what’s right. We’ve got Captain America, and Thor, and to be honest a lot of the superheroes who are constantly on the screens, who have been through a lot but keep on going and doing the right thing and being superheroes. You’ve got Elsa and Anna who aren’t you’re everyday princesses, Woody and Buzz who aren’t your everyday Toys. You’ve got Shrek, who’s not your everyday, villainous ogre. The cool thing about today, is that kids have got a broad range of characters to watch, many of which are cool and memorable. Making good characters within a film is important for everybody watching them, not just kids.

And perhaps this is something I want to do. In the best movies I’ve seen its been a lot about the characters, as well as the way the film has been made, how it’s music is etc and of course the story. But again, seeing as this course is about being creative in writing a script and adapting that to film, I’ll focus on whats written for now. I think it’d be something I’d like to have is write about and film cool characters. I realise its not the main focus for this course, as it probably would be for the character studio, but I think its important to think about the elements of the script which people will be experience the movie with. The characters. And watching a movie like Casablanca, where they are written to a high quality, its some inspiration to try to make a better script thus a better movie. Using creative decisions above this, like camera angles, editing and music all elevate this, but I figured it’s good to focus on the basics too and helping audiences enjoy through characters.

REFERENCES:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv

Aim one: flattery. Aim two, something else.

I think this course has a lot of potential for me to grow in my creative skill sets. I think within this course I’ll be able to get a good perspective of the process of script to actually filming and working on preproduction and such. Within high school, I found that a lot of the time I would get impatient with it’s elements, especially storyboarding. Seeing as this course is literally doing all stages of production, I’d like to be able to get some more skills adapting a script to becoming an enjoyable.

I’d also like to get some experience of script writing. I’ve already dabbled in writing a scene, and I have found that fun. I think its an interesting experience forming characters and mannerisms in my mind and trying to adapt that to paper. I think I’d like to learn a lot more about incorporating more filmy techniques into the script. I’ve already found a lot of the shots can be planned, but on the day that can change. I suppose adaptability (I think that could be a word…) is key here. But I’m looking forward to trying to incorporate creative ways to make scripts enjoyable.

Finally, I really would like to get my technical expertise up. Apart from industry jargon, which I’m sure I’ll pick up on by listening to other, more savvy people as they do their thing, I’d like to be able to fine tune my editing ability, my handling of a camera and so on. Basically I’d like to be able to look like I know what I’m doing with equipment. It’s a little thing, but some expertise would go down pretty well in a future job of some sort, whether it be directly related to this or not.

Anyway, I suppose we’ll see how things go.

I know what you’re thinking. And no, we didn’t get to film Antonio Banderas today. OR DID WE?

Anyway, today we got together with some creative writing students and stepped out of our comfort zones of Room 10, Level 3, Building 9 and filmed in a new and exciting location. Which happened to be on Level 3, Building 9. I found it a fascinating experience, we went through almost all of the pre-production and production within 2 and a half hours, filming both a single shot of our Antonius Script (we chose Arthur’s whose had a well flowing script) and shooting to edit.

After we made makeshift props, I found the process of filming within the constraint of a single shot valuable. Firstly we all realised how to stage and block the shot to create a sense of depth within the scene. For instance, seeing as we didn’t have a steady cam to use at our own desire, we had to make do, so we instead of focusing on a lot of camera movement, Arthur thought it would be best to leave the camera relatively still so this wouldn’t cause distraction, and because of this, hopefully anyway, the pacing should be set by the movement of the actors.

I found the framing of the single shot pretty interesting to do, and I feel like the scripts vision was followed through this constraint. After that, we did the shooting to be edited, and that too allowed for a bit more freedom. Personally though I feel like the single shots simplicity was pretty interesting, and its that which contributed to more learning for me anyway. I probably spent a bit too much time on the sidelines instead of being in the action, but that too meant I got to learn some new and cool things so… yeah. AND FINALLY, I know you can’t take it anymore. You need to know if we shot with Antonio Banderas today.

And the answer is still no. That would be ridiculous.

We meet again.

In the first Media class for ‘Screenwriting for film and filming for screen,’ we were all educated with the crash course screen writing formula. Basically you can write anything and put it in a script format. Then it will look like a script. Now you have a script. Anyway, after some exercises testing our ability to write from prompts, we were all assigned with the task of stretching out our brains to breaking point, and write pro’s from prompts given to us. And I have to say that this exercise really pushes you, as its hard to find a compelling story about a sculptor who has a headache and affairs whilst he’s training for a marathon.

Luckily, we were all put into groups and we chose the best one out of the four of us. Thankfully mine wasn’t the winner. I’ve found that the ideas other people contribute to their stories create a pretty creative environment to think in, and the group system did help to find some valuable ideas to put into the eventual script.

The script writing was something that is really new to me, I know what they look like, and I’ve read a few scenes but I hadn’t really worked to create one of my own. I have to say it was kinda fun, imagining a movie in your head and writing it out. But anyway, the process of creating a simple and completely random story to creating a script for a scene was pretty cool, and it’ll be something I think will be fun to explore.

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