Short: In God We Trust
Penguin February 29th, 2008
This is a short film by Jason Reitman before he did Thank You For Smoking and Juno. He’s come a long way.
- Penguin
Related postsArchive for February, 2008
Feedburner
Penguin February 29th, 2008
Finally switched to Feedburner to manage our RSS feed. You shouldn’t have to change any of your URLs, but just in case, here are the new feeds:
Blog: http://feeds.feedburner.com/NinjaVsPenguin
Comments: http://feeds.feedburner.com/CommentsForNinjaVsPenguin
-Penguin
Related posts- Uncategorized
- Comments
Sanguine tutorial
Playing with sanguine
Ninja February 29th, 2008
Oy, ok, I think I finally got this post up. I apologize in advance if you see 3 more of the exact same post!
I thought it’d be fun to play with sanguine. Too bad I don’t have the real stuff or fancy metal holders/brushes. I went to the local art store and bought some cheap, sanguine-colored compressed sticks. Eventually, I’ll give it a proper go.
I normally go all out with the hair, but this time I wanted to focus more on the face. I left the hair area alone so that the whiteness and texture of the paper would show through. Also, the flatness of the hair framed the face nicely.
Happy drawing,
Ninja
Wordpress Upgraded
Penguin February 29th, 2008
Took this opportunity to upgrade Wordpress. Please leave a comment or email me if there are any problems.
-Penguin
Related postsThe Naked Screenplay: Why Should I Care?
Penguin February 29th, 2008
Table of contents for The Naked Screenplay
- The Naked Screenplay: Introduction
- The Naked Screenplay: What is Screenwriting?
- The Naked Screenplay: Inspiration
- The Naked Screenplay: Perspiration
- The Naked Screenplay: Research
- The Naked Screenplay: The Audience is Smart
- The Naked Screenplay: Where’s Your Story?
- The Naked Screenplay: Why Should I Care?
- The Naked Screenplay: Who is Driving the Story?
- The Naked Screenplay: Who is the Hero?
Of the 3 questions: Who’s the hero? What does he want? Why should I care? This last one is the most important.
Why is it important? First, you need to understand why people go to the movies. Sure, they want to be educated, to be entertained, to laugh. But the major reason is to share emotions and experiences. There is an unspoken contract between the audience and the filmmaker: “I am coming to have these experiences, therefore, you must provide a vehicle for those experiences.” The gateway for those experiences is your hero or protagonist.
Your hero doesn’t have to be sympathetic or even likable. But your hero has to have enough interesting qualities that the audience will agree to follow his story. The audience needs to care what happens to your hero, otherwise, it’s going to be boring. Boredom is the greatest sin of all writing.
Whittled down to its essence, movies are all about values. The values of your hero, the values that you bring as a writer. As a writer, your duty is to reveal your values to the audience. Your values are revealed through your hero. If you have nothing to say, then the audience doesn’t care.
I said before that your hero doesn’t have to be likable, but he does have to be the “center of good”. Now, that’s not to say he has to be a good person. He just needs to be better than the world around him.
Your hero also has to have a wound. We talked about this a bit in research. Your hero needs an area where he can grow, whether physically, morally, or psychologically. It’s this wound that will hook the audience for the ride.
So, we finally get to the question: “Why should I care?” How do we answer that? With empathy. Our hero is the hook for the audience. Our hero is the vehicle for our values. How do we get them to ride along with the film? How do get the audience to care about the hero? Through empathy.
The audience needs to care about your hero. They need to be able to empathize with him. They need to relate to him.
Here’s some common ways to build empathy:
- Make your hero the victim of outrageous misfortune.
- Place your hero in danger.
- Look for empathetic traits to build into your hero: funny, good at what they do, nice
Along with those techniques, every reversal, every mishap, every obstacle that gets in the way of your hero’s progress, builds empathy.
Without empathy, you have no audience. Film is about hitting the emotions of your audience so they can experience something. If you hit the emotions, you can do whatever you like.
-Penguin
Related postsThank you for visiting
Ninja February 29th, 2008
Hallo to all our wonderful NvP readers out there! I had no idea there were so many of you!! Penguin informed me that we have about 2000 readers. Haha, it took a server crash to make me notice you. I apologize for for not greeting you earlier!
If you’re just joining us, welcome! And if you’ve been hanging out with us for a while, thanks again for visiting!! We like your company. ^__^ Drop by again soon, ya hear.
Much love,
Ninja
Server’s back up
Penguin February 29th, 2008
Deepest apologies from both Ninja and I, but you guys love us too much and we exceeded our bandwidth limit for February. 
Now we’re back, and we’ll be sure to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.
We return you to your regularly scheduled program.
-Penguin
Related postsThe Naked Screenplay: Where’s Your Story?
Penguin February 28th, 2008
Table of contents for The Naked Screenplay
- The Naked Screenplay: Introduction
- The Naked Screenplay: What is Screenwriting?
- The Naked Screenplay: Inspiration
- The Naked Screenplay: Perspiration
- The Naked Screenplay: Research
- The Naked Screenplay: The Audience is Smart
- The Naked Screenplay: Where’s Your Story?
- The Naked Screenplay: Why Should I Care?
- The Naked Screenplay: Who is Driving the Story?
- The Naked Screenplay: Who is the Hero?
Every screenplay has a set of commonalities. They all have scene descriptions. They all have character descriptions. They all have dialogue. They’re all formatted. They all have interesting ideas or premises. But most screenplays, 98% of them, from the pros down to the noob, have the same problem. They don’t have a story or empathy.
When you’re writing, ask yourself 3 questions
Who’s story is this? Who’s the hero? Who’s driving the story forward?
What does he want? What is the compelling drive that forces the story to move forward? Why is the hero doing what he’s doing?
Why should I care?
There’s a place for dialogue, scene and character descriptions, but that’s at the end of your script. Not literally, but after the structure for your film works. Without that core structure, the frame, the architecture, your story will collapse. All the other stuff is just paneling. This isn’t to say that you can’t write any of that stuff. It just means they’re not as important as the structure.
If you listen to little kids tell stories, they’re full of exquisite details about everything. But they’re boring. Because they’re linear. Everything is, then and then and then. They tell you everything. Good stories are told on the cut. The go from high to low, positive to negative, good to bad, progress to reversal (or setback). Good stories leave out all the chaff.
-Penguin
Related postsBittersweet show
Ninja February 27th, 2008
Here’s a preview of some of the lovely creations from Kathie Olivas’s upcoming gallery show, Bittersweet. Bittersweet will open at G1988: SF on February 29. Cute and kind of creepy-looking all at the same time. And see the wonderful characters from her paintings realized in three-dimensional form, as she paints oil on epoxy resin sculptures.
Related links
+ Visit Kathie Olivas’s website
+ See the rest of the Bittersweet preview here
