Screenwriting

According to BARRY PEARSON, A WRITER/PRODUCER IN THE FILM AND TELEVISION INDUSTRY, in a nutshell:

The NOVEL. Its CONDUIT is the written word.
Its DOMINANT STORYTELLING MODE is the printed page.
Its MOST POWERFUL CREATOR is the author
The STAGE PLAY.Its CONDUIT is the live theater production.
Its DOMINANT STORYTELLING MODE is the spoken word.
Its MOST POWERFUL CREATOR is the playwright.
The SCREENPLAY.Its CONDUIT is the movie production.
Its DOMINANT STORYTELLING MODE is directions and actor dialogue.
Its MOST POWERFUL CREATOR (Screenwriter is not the creator of the finished work. He or she is the creator of the plan for the other creators).
The MOVIE.Its CONDUIT is the movie theater screen.
Its DOMINANT STORYTELLING MODE is the projected image.
Its MOST POWERFUL CREATOR is the director.

Screenwriting in Context

A screenplay is the script or the blueprint exclusive for producing visual arts as film and television. Screenwriting is the process of writing a screenplay.
Screenplays are dominated by images. Screenwriting divides the story into scenes while playwright breaks it down into acts.
Script writing is the process of writing dialogue which can be used in talk shows, news programs, sports broadcasts and infotainment(magazine style) programs. Script writing doesn't involve discussing the visuals of a TV show or a movie. This is a more specific type of script writing which is called screenwriting.
Screenwriting is also a process of writing a script, but this is only used for filmmaking.Screenwriting provides the visuals that complement what the characters are doing and saying. 

Writting your Screenplay

Keep in mind that a screenplay is visual and your characters' actions move the story forward from scene to scene. Actions show the audience what it needs to know. Seeing a character do something is far more powerful than having him or her talk about it.
A scene is a unit of action. In each scene, define who (character or characters), what (situation), when (time of day), where (place of action), and why (purpose of the action).

Scene Headings: Each time your characters move to a different setting, a new scene heading is required.

Scene headings are typed on one line with some words abbreviated and all words capitalized.

Example: A scene set inside a hospital emergency room at night would have the following heading:

INT. HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT

Interior is always abbreviated INT. and exterior is abbreviated EXT. A small dash (hyphen on your keyboard) separates the location of the scene from the time of day. Leave a two-line space following the scene heading before writing your scene description. Names of characters are displayed in all capital letters the first time they are used in a description, and these names always use all capital letters in a dialogue heading. Example: CATHY sits at the end of the first row of plastic chairs. Her head is bent over, and she stares intently at the floor. The names of characters who have no dialogue are not capitalized when mentioned in scene descriptions. Example: A man moans softly as he presses a bloody gauze pad against his forehead. A woman cradles a listless infant in her arms. Sounds the audience will hear are capitalized (eg: STORM ROAR or CAR WHISTLE). Sounds made by characters are not considered sound cues and do not require capitalization." Dialogue is centered on the page under the character's name, which is always in all capital letters when used as a dialogue heading. If you describe the way a character looks or speaks before the dialogue begins or as it begins, this is typed below the character's name in parentheses. Example: DOCTOR (apologetically) We did everything possible.

Here is an example of a complete scene in the screenplay format:

INT. HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT

A crowded hospital emergency waiting room. Clean but cheerless.

Sick and injured people sit in plastic chairs lined up in rows. A TV mounted near the ceiling BLARES a sitcom. No one is watching.

A man moans softly as he presses a bloody gauze pad against his forehead. A woman cradles a listless infant in her arms.

CATHY sits at the end of the first row of plastic chairs. Her head is bent over, and she stares intently at the floor.

She raises her head slowly, brushes her long, silky hair away from her face.

We see fear in her eyes as they focus on a clock that hangs above the front desk. She twists a tissue between her fingers and is unaware that bits of it are falling on the floor.

The door to the emergency treatment room opens, and a middle-aged DOCTOR dressed in hospital green walks through the door toward Cathy, who bolts out of the chair and hurries toward him.

DOCTOR (apologetically) We did everything possible.

CATHY (gasps) What are you saying?

DOCTOR I'm sorry…

CATHY (screaming) No!

All eyes in the waiting room are riveted on Cathy and the Doctor. Cathy lunges at the Doctor, beating her fists against his chest.

CATHY (CONT'D) (shouting) You killed him!

Our scene ends here with Cathy's last words, but it could continue with more dialogue and action. Note that (CONT'D), the abbreviation for continued, is added in parentheses next to Cathy's name above. CONT'D is added here because Cathy has just spoken and is continuing to speak. Her dialogue was interrupted by a description of other actions, not by another character's dialogue.

Video Art

Introduction
The genre known as video art, is a new type of contemporary art, and a medium of expression commonly seen in Installations, but also as a stand-alone art form. Initiated by such experimental artists as Andy Warhol, Wolf Vostell, and Nam June Paik, recent advances in digital computer and video technology, enabling artists to edit and manipulate film sequences, have opened up a range of creative opportunities and drawn numerous artists into the genre. Indeed, the Turner Prize - a key indicator of excellence in the postmodernist art world - was awarded to video artists in 1996/1997/1999. See also Turner Prize Winners. The theory and practice of video art is now taught as a Minor degree subject in many of the best art schools in America.

Characteristics
Video art typically appears in two basic varieties: single-channel and installation. In single-channel works, a video is screened, projected or shown as a single series of images. Installations typically comprise either an environment made up of several distinct pieces of video screened simultaneously, or a combination of video with Assemblage, or Performance art. At present, Installation video is the most common form of video art, being part of the multi-media fashion for combining architecture, design, sculpture, electronic and digital art. Latest developments include the use of the Internet and computer art to manipulate film imagery and to control videos from the world wide web or remote locations. To keep up to date with the video art world, see Art News Headlines.

Video Artists
Early video artists tended to be those involved with conceptual and performance art, and experimental film. These include Americans Vito Acconci,  Zeinabu Irene Davis,John Baldessari, Peter Campus, Doris Totten Chase, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman and others. Others, like Steina Vasulka (born Steinunn Briem Bjarnadottir) and Woody Vasulka, explored the video genre itself, utilizing synthesizers to produce abstract works. Later exponents included Americans Sadie Benning, Paul Chan, Gary Hill, Miranda July, Mary Lucier, Paul Pfeiffer and Eve Sussman; the Canadians Colin Campbell, Stan Douglas, Lisa Steele, Bill Viola and Rodney Werden. European video artists include the Germans Agricola de Cologne, Dieter Froese, and Wolf Kahlen; the Poles Wojciech Bruszewski and Miroslaw Rogala; the Britons Douglas Gordon, David Hall and Gillian, the Italian Stefano Cagol, the Austrian Martin Arnold, the Swiss Pipilotti Rist, and the Spaniard Domingo Sarrey.

Avant-Garde Films

L.H.O.O.Q., Marcel Duchamp (1919)

Avant-garde
in French means front guard, advance guard, or vanguard. The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm within definitions of art/culture/reality. 
I suppose all artists are avant-garde at some time in their work because they have to push boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status-quo.

Jean Cocteau
Jonas Mekas
Man Ray






History: Top 10 Avant-Garde Filmmakers

Current: Short Avant-Garde films on Vimeo

Welcome to the Film & Video Class

Week of 8-26-2013

• Enrollment packets
• Parent consent forms
• Class discussion on personal connections to film
• Summer assignment -Stop Motion

1st six weeks over view:

• Stop Motion
• Blog
• Vimeo
• Avant Garde or Video Art
• Self- Portrait
• Original Music Video

Making a short Documentary

Documentaries are meant to be eye-openers! Three adjectives underline any documentary ““ insightful, informative and illuminating. 
Crucial content and purpose are to the power and appeal of documentaries. When other films help us escape the world, these films return us to it with 
clarity and passion. 

To start your Doc. keep in mind:

• You will need Access to your subject
• A good Pitch line (thesis statement)
• Don't drag it out. Get it done!
• Have lots of  B-Roll
• Audio has to be great

Below is some idea example:

• Find someone that can do something amazing, like play a concerto, or sculpt a beautiful animal, or sing like a bird, or something you think is great, and then give them an image that completely doesn’t fit that great gift, at all. Have that person in several situations where they are socially criticized. Show that you should never ever judge a book by it’s cover by filming them doing their thing– after they are put down or hurt, or judged by a group. 

• We, as a society, are embracing technology without fully understanding the long-term ramifications of this decision. Analyse the society we live in today, and conclude, if we are heading the right way, or jeopardising our future generations.

• Pick a local eatery yo have access to and show how they make the food and how it effects the community.

Watch all the examples below. Note how effective each is even though they are very short.




UP THERE from Jon on Vimeo.

Nilo's Story from Omar Khalifa on Vimeo.

Re-inventing the Cupcake: Kumquat Cupcakery *food curated* from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

Stella's Voice from Cooke Pictures on Vimeo.

"A Life In The Day" from John Mayer on Vimeo.

The Lift from guyphenix on Vimeo.
Cafe Lago from Katharine Rea Mundo on Vimeo.

Screen Acting

Acting for the Camera!

Film acting and stage acting are identical in that the creative impulse remains unchanged.

Yes, there are technical differences: There are things like hitting marks and matching action, but the main difference between acting for the stage and acting for the camera is really just one of logistics.

In Theatre, you go out on stage and for the next two hours or so you do your job. And if you act well, or you act poorly, you’re done at the end of the play. You have to live with your performance as does the audience who has just seen it.

In Film, there is a lot of waiting around and doing little snippets, sometimes miniscule snippets of your performance, snippets which will be edited into the final product – a feature film. So while the process of acting is largely the same, you are doing it with sometimes hours of waiting in between, and often out of sequence, meaning that you are not portraying events in the order in which they happen in the story. Also, there is something else in film, which is called “take two”. Meaning that if your director doesn’t like what you did for whatever reason, and it is often not your fault, you go again with your snippet of acting, until he is satisfied, which could mean in some cases, many, many takes.
Moreover, on camera actor's character thought process needs to be even closer to authentic life than in theater, because the audience (the camera) is right in front of the actor, and can see any flinch or moment of uncertainty. When your face is blown up 100 times it’s normal size on screen, the microscopic expressions of the muscles in your face are huge, whereas on stage – only the first few rows can see the very hint of them.

A final word of advice by Eugene Buica acting coach from University of Pennsylvania:

Acting is acting, so spend your time learning to do it well, on or off camera, because the rest is just icing on the cake!