Max Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell

This beautiful piece of animation is 88 years old and is still amazing to watch today as it was back then! It was made by Max Fleischer and implemented his innovative animation technique known as rotoscope to make the animation movements more "realistic". And this technique is still used today. This was also made a whole decade before Disney!




Music: Adrain Belew - Addidas In Heat

Hollywood Screenwriting Masterclass

Today has been very productive for me. I gave a presentation for my Simulated Project, which went quite okay. Then I attended the 'Hollywood Screenwriting - Jumping The First Hurdle-A Masterclass' by industry expert James T Bartlett at Broadway Cinema. I was surprised and disappointed not too see many others from my course, especially as I know how relative it is to them.
Still I decided it could be a worthwhile (and cheap!) class to professionalise my writing. Here are some of my notes from the three hour seminar...

• EM Media - FUNDING! Does your idea have commercial success? Because that's what they want/look for.
• Execs are always looking for reasons to say 'no' because they have so many other scripts to go through.
• They will look for 'dirty fingernails' and 'chewing gum' like they will during interviews. So here are 13 tips to get it right - whether you are sending your script to UK or USA...

1. Number the pages - USA standard is top-right hand corner - Easier to read.
2. Spelling and Punctuation - Right it the way you know best; not with Americanisms as this will miss guide the reader. Frequent spell checks. Read it backwards - it uses another side of the brain, doesn't make sense in context but will show any spelling or punctuation mistakes.
3. Formatting - Length should be: UK - 90-100 words, USA 110-120 words for a feature length. Think of it as almost one page per minute on screen. Font should be: UK - Curier New 12, USA - Curier 12. Send an e-mail if that's what is asked of you, but also print and post a hard copy.
4. Sluglines - Every new location has to have this. Interior or exterior, place, day or night. Very brief description of where, when and what is happening. Every new character the appears has to be written in capitols, but only the first time, every other time is normal eg. JOHN (20s).
5. Camera Angles and direction to actors - Don't put directory things into the script. Leave camera set ups out. Leave out character motives and emotions. Don't number the scenes.
6. Songs, Poems and Quotes - Don't list specific artist, track or band names; keep it generic. Keep in mind they won't know the songs and they might be expensive to get the license. Don't quote poems; again licenses are expensive and unnecessary. It's easier to use dead people rather than people who are alive. No famous living people. UK - 75 years of an authors death. USA - 90 years of an authors death.
7. Literary Description - Avoid the flowery description; being like a novel. Think about what the audience can see! Do not describe how the character feels.
8. Describing Emotions and Characteristics - Examples: She fears that... he knows... he wonders... she thinks... ALL BAD. Enigmatic, moody, troubled... ALL BAD. Blue eyes, rugged handsome etc... ALL BAD! How do the characters get in trouble?
9. Smells, Time, Temperature and Taste - It's novelistic and unnecessary.
10. Transitions - Think of interesting alternatives to just fades such as: A dog to a cat, a tap to someone drinking water, raining then sunny, ceiling fan to helicopter propellers (Apocalypse Now), a bone to a spaceship (2001: A Space Odyssey).
11. Referencing other films, Books or Actors/Characters - Just don't do it. Keep the idea unique so that it doesn't sound like anything else or is made comparable to anything else.
12. Nudges, Prompts and Jokes - It's showing off! Like you know the business of films, but it has no business in the script. There is no "we" in a script eg. "we see the car coming..." should be -> "the car comes towards the screen".
13. Presentation - Don't underline or make bold. Don't use coloured paper, only white with black text. Don't give it any pre-conceived notions such as writing 'First Draft' on title page. Title page contains contact details. Three wholes in paper connected with Brad clips.

Extra things noted:

Watch: City of Ember, The Wire, The Shield, Sideways, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

Read: Smoking In Bed.

The profit margin on popcorn is huge. It's the biggest money maker in the whole cinema industry!

Winnie The Pooh makes more money for Disney than any other one of their character franchises.

Music: Santana - Samba de Sausalito

Business Card

A few things over the past couple of weeks have prompted me to materialise my business cards. Firstly Rob has made some really good cards. Then at Game City I was given lots of cards, but didn't have anything to give out. And tomorrow I'm going to the Flip Animation Festival Launch Party so it's an ideal time to have cards at the ready.

After a couple of hours designing here is the final one.

Front


Back


Please let me know what you think of these as it's quite important for me.


Music: Tom Waits - A Little

Behind: Where The Wild Things Are

From motherboard.tv...

You’ve heard of this film Where the Wild Things Are by now, maybe? Well, back during the making of movie, Motherboard’s own Shane Smith headed over to London and caught up with the film’s director, Spike Jonze, and his legion of masterminds as they toiled away at the digital artistry that would ultimately breathe life into the creatures known as the Wild Things. It was the painstaking work of 300 artists and tech-wielding specialists, who, in the process of tweaking every frame and every miniscule detail of every image, undertook to create an entirely new way of animating—an ingenius blend of the artistry of traditional, film-based movie-making and the wizardry of newfangled technologies. In the end, Jonze and Co. created some of the most compelling monster-beings in history.

Music: Tom Waits - Time

Game City Summary

From 26 - 31 October (last week) I worked at the games festival here in Nottingham called Game City. I have seen it every year for the past two years that i've lived and studied here, but never really paid much interest to it. This year however, I received an e-mail about working there as a steward, applied (in a drunken haze at 4am) and swiftly got the job!

It was very well organised, but most of the time I had no idea what was going on or what I was supposed to be doing.

I started work on the eve of Tuesday the 27th at the Launch Party. It was such a great and memorable evening! I helped set up the drinks table on which there was champagne, soft drinks and red wine. I was stationed at the champagne table handing out A LOT of free bubbly to lecturers and professionals in the industry.
It was a great opportunity for me to meet people and I had a great time listening and sharing stories about the creative and games industry. I also got a free bottle of red wine :-)

Wednesday I went snowboarding with Trent Snowsports so I didn't work that day... but it was well worth it!

Thursday I worked on another late shift from 17.00 - 23.00 inside the Exchange Arcade where I helped to set up the Flower installment. Flower is a game on the PS3 where you play... a flower. It's not a game a particularly like but it was cool to set up the four sided projector and get a fan from uni which was going to be used to blow dried fragrant petal leaves over the audience below.

Friday began EARLY at 8am and I was working in HMV. I set up and ran a Lego Rockband audition. We were briefed to find people who were really good at the game and to ask them to come back on Saturday to play live in the tent on stage. I had loads of goes and it was a fun morning.

Saturday was the day of Brickstock; he Lego Rockband concert on Market Square in the big tent. Here I managed to have a go as some players were without a drummer...


Thanks to Rob for taking this photo.

Everything came to an end after Brickstock and there was ALOT of clearing away to do. Rob and I were both totally exhausted after a long week of Game City and Uni work. Fortunately there were free things handed out to us and they let us go a little bit early. Afterwards, I went home and my friend from Hungary was on his way to visit. This being Halowe'en n all and his first time in Nottingham I wanted to find something really good to go to. After much deliberation I decided the best thing would be to attend the Game City After Party, because I figured there would be free alcohol and games to play. Sufficed to say, it was a good decision =D I spoke to more people from the industry. Met the man who made Canabalt! Played Left 4 Dead live and Street Fighter live!

It was a really great week. Worthwhile participating and I'd do it again. Only if I didn't have so much work at Uni to do as well though!


Music: Joe Zwaniul - Good Day