SO FAR

Last weeks scriptwriting workshop was great. I really needed that. Like a lot! As soon as we got in to everything, I realized how much I'd actually forgotten or cast aside in my bid to write-the-perfect-script-without-following-the-rules. IT DIDN'T WORK.

Monday was the hardest day as I found myself going all drama queen on my mom later that night like, 'IM NEVER GOING TO BE A WRITER....' However, in reality all i needed was a little reminder of what went on before R jetted off and left us.

• THREE ACT STRUCTURE, THREE ACT STRUCTURE, THREE ACT STRUCTURE. Thank god the message has (hopefully) finally went in before I make the mistake of letting my script write itself again. This is bad.
• FIVE ACT STRUCTURE, FIVE ACT STRUCTURE, FIVE ACT STRUCTURE. Last week's tutorial with John Yorke was short, and sweet. I found it really interesting and exciting to be getting some good advice from someone in the business. I find the idea of a five act structure very useful, because I always seem to get lost in the middle. The beginning, I can deal. The end? No prob. But for some reason THE MIDDLE? Oh, lost in space. But now, thanks to my new bank of knowledge courtesy of John Yorke, breaking a story up in to 5 acts seems a little less daunting.
• THEME. Oh dear. The dreaded word! I'm glad we went over this, but to be honest I think I could go over this every day of my puff and still suck at identifying the themes to a T. Im just like 'oh...its about emm...love!! yeah, thats it..' But really its not. So me and my notes from Richard and Save The Cat will be hiding out on trains and in corners revising all the themes there could possibly be EVER until they come out of my ears. But I'm happy I understand what the theme is exactly whereas before I kind of disregarded it.
• IF YOU HAVE YOUR CHARACTER SAVE A CAT - THE AUDIENCE WILL LIKE THEM. I'll need to try this out on all my serial killers.

MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED:

Elephant

Last week i watched Elephant, the movie based on the Columbine school shootings. How awful! My overall opinion of the film is a mixed review really.

• I liked the way they had the school kids talking about everyday things rather than making it really obvious they are in a film, because I think this made them seem more real, made the event seem more real.
• I also liked the way the camera looked like it was taken with a handheld, heightening the feeling that you were actually one of the students in the film.
• However - I felt the movie was very slow, 3/4s of the way through and i was still waiting for it to start. I know this is probably the nature of the story, but I think i was just waiting for the shootings to begin impatiently, as morbid as it sounds! I actually googled the story and it was so upsetting, I hated seeing the girls all talking about going shopping later on, completely unaware that hours later they are going to be massacred. I think that Gus Van Sant done a good job at conveying how ignorant the students were to there approaching deaths, however I think this could just be because of the nature of the story, being true and all definitely heightens the sense of remorse.

City Lights

I think its official - I'm robsessed with Charlie Chaplin. So long Twilight, until I'm hungover/sad/or generally ill again....Its been fun.

I really love Charlie Chaplin - City Lights was such a lovely film, I am so happy to have seen it. Firstly, Chaplin really appeals to my sense of humor. Not the slapstick comedy as such, just his general facial expressions. It sounds really strange of me to say, but I didn't think people could be as funny as that, you know...'back then.' He really was such an amazing actor!

Another thing that contributed in my opinion is that I'm so glad he didn't use proper sound in City Lights - It would only have ruined it. However the little sound he did use tied in very well. He really did know what he was doing!

When he is about to go in the boxing ring, well, I was actually embarrassed at how much I laughed at it! You would never even have guessed that it was made so many years ago, I followed it perfectly well and it was very well made.

The ending was great - it was the sweetest because you didn't have to see what happened next, you just got a glimpse of a lovely moment between the Little Tramp and the Blind girl.

Overall, I'm really impressed by Charlie Chaplin and his work, and I'm even impressed at myself for enjoying it. The thought of Charlie Chaplin this time last year would have probably gained a shrug and an eye-brow raise. Now I'm like, MORE MORE MORE!