dpOctober 6, 2008 6:04 am
Chisholm Media Awards
LOOP bar and art space, 23 Myers Place, Melbourne
Wednesday 5th November, 2008, 6-9 pm
dpJuly 13, 2008 2:22 am
read this article, nominate YOUR favorite film ending(it doesn’t have to be on this list), and justify your selection.
DUE: Monday July 21, 2008
dp 2:16 am
read this article and post your opinion of where you place yourself in the digital domain. Do you disagree with O’Briens contention that digital natives suffer from " internet-induced attention deficit disorder?"
Do you have a better analogy for the technology/learning paradigm? i.e rather than Marc Prensky’s terms of digital immigrant or digital native, do you have another way of contextualising the digital have’s and have not’s?
NECCESSITY: What (if any) are the digital tools you can’t live without?
DESIRE:What currently non-existant or emergent technology would top your technology wish list?
POST DUE:21 July 2008
dpJune 17, 2008 2:51 am
Treatment, synopsis, loglines.
Using the Rosellini example discussed last week , develop a concept for 3 x 90 sec short films. They must be episodically linked. Nominate three key attributes for legth, theme and genre: eg short, environmental, comedic. Develop an animatic storyboard using still images as part of your development work. Put together a call sheet for your team, and nominate three team members to direct one of the three episodes.
Write a treatment, logline and synopsis as outlined below.
Treatment: a very thorough summary of the project (i.e. a long synopsis), in present tense prose, and without dialogue. Spec treatments for features normally run three to four pages, and are not NOT scene by scene summaries. see definition
Synopsis: usually one or two page story summaries that describe the situation, main characters and important action. see definition
Loglines: one or two enticing concept sentences, about 25-35 words total, to convince someone to request the script. It answers the question: what is your story about? see definition
For further detail refer to the brief.
dp 2:08 am
dpJune 9, 2008 11:03 pm
By now you should have completed:
1. seven step outline of your favorite film
2. Premise and treatment for three shot montage and storyboards, completed clip uploaded to blog and transferred to storage folder
3. Premise and treatment for green screen 6 line clip, completed clip uploaded to blog and transferred to storage folder
10 blog posts
Four best posts will be graded and represent 20% of your final mark
eg
post one: storyboards of your montage see link
post two: seven step outline of fav film see link
post three: video clip of montage with your analysis of the outcome and how it could be improved how to link
post four: detailed analysis of your favorite media website
Blog Posts should cross-reference other student posts and mediate/remediate their content see link
dpMay 6, 2008 4:32 am
dpApril 22, 2008 3:18 am
wk 9- Post on Character Psychology
review the link from week seven of Georges Polti’s " 36 Dramatic Situations".
Which one most closely fits you major project?
Review Slavoj Zizek’s documentary on Character Psychology, The Perverts Guide to Cinema(2006). Nominate an aspect of character that he discusses and post a blog with reference to your WIP character biography.
dpApril 15, 2008 5:25 am
ok midway through first semester.
By now you should be considering your major project for second semester. You should be re-writing your seven step outline for this on a weekly basis, tying it into the premise and major themes you wish the short film to reflect. Protagonist and supporting biographies should be well on their way. You should also have started your journal for this project- a collection of ideas, concepts, observations, anecdotes, visual puns, clippings, reflections on life…. anything that might be of use in developing the four P’s: Premise, Protagonist, Plot, central dramatic Problem.
This is a DAILY commitment to WRITING. Do IT! …write….comment.. typos dont matr!!
Bring your development work for assignment three next week: premise, protagonist, plot, problem, storyboards, 6 line script…and be starting to identify who in the class might be useful in assisting you in realising YOUR project…. BUILD YOUR TEAM ….NOW!!!
..and write about the PROCESS of how your project evolves on your blog… AS IT HAPPENS…!!
dp 5:24 am
Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations
"Georges Polti was a 19th century French writer described 36 situations that may be found in many stories, based on the list identified by Goethe who said it was originated by Italian Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806). Perhaps some of the themes and examples do betray a bias towards the stories of the day, yet they are still very useful stimuli and provide interesting examples of enduring and real human dilemmas."
source: www.changing minds.org
Consider your seven-step outline in the context of the 36 Dramatic Situations. Which best suits your current outline?
dpMarch 9, 2008 2:54 am
after being approched on Tuesday by a local screenwriter, Beverley, for help in developing a team to shoot a short for the 1515 Film Festival, a team was assembled from first year Multmedia: Nik Murphy, Anna, Nathan, and Mark. Five days later it is Sunday and a fifteen minute film has been shot, edited and submitted. Thats some turnaround! Am looking forward to hearing about the collaboration and seeing the final product…. and to the screening in May…
Festival Director Amadeo Marquez-Perez explains a bit about the 1515 Film Festival.
dpFebruary 29, 2008 2:54 am
wk 3: The Blogosphere- YOU’RE NOT ALONE!!
We are in the communication industry, and blogging has emerged as the principal global publishing mechanism of the 21C.
Take a look at some of the online communities of screen and visual arts:
Using the Boolean search techniques you’ve ben shown, you’ll be able to hook into an international network of screen creatives. There’s more to the web than YouTube!
By now your blog should be established and operational and the link forwarded to me by email… if not get it done NOW!!
Helpful sites if you are new to blogging:
dp 2:41 am
wk 2 Montage and Production Process
Its important to grasp the workflow of a story idea from conceptualisation to finsihed product.
Here’s Pixar’s Production Process for Monsters Inc, Toy Story
- Script, Conceptual Design and Storyboard. In Animation, these three activities happen simultaneously. Unlike in live action film where you need to have a script before you can start storyboarding, with animation the storyboarding and conceptual design happen alongside script development as equal parts of the story creation process.
- Animatic. Once the storyboards begin to give shape to scenes, the Editorial Department begins to put them together in a story reel, or Animatic.
- Modeling. After the story has evolved to the point where the company feels committed to actually making it into a movie, the modeling department begins creating all the characters and sets that have been developed by the Art Department in the conceptual designs.
- Voice. Voice actors are cast and the voice lines are recorded
- Set Dressing. The Set Dressing Department is responsible for taking all the props and putting them together to form the sets in which each scene takes place
- Layout The is the stage at which each shot that was planned in the storyboards is finally put together in the 3D world with the characters and sets provided by the modeling department.
- Animation
- Lighting
- Rendering
- FX
1) the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated shots or scenes which, when combined, achieve meaning (as in, shot A and shot B together give rise to an third idea, which is then supported by shot C, and so on), or 2) a series of related shots which lead the viewer to a desired conclusion (as in, shot A leads to shot B leads to shot C… leads to shot X; shot X being the outcome of the sequence).
Shot 1: MASTER of young woman drying the dishes
Shot 2: CU of the phone ringing as she picks it up
Shot 3: MS of floor as plate comes crashing down
In isolation, each of these shots has limited meaning, but when assembled in montage a new meaning is created, generating an emotional response from the audience.
This is VISUAL NARRATIVE.
dpFebruary 19, 2008 3:12 am
OK, so you’ve got a story to tell. Whether you’re into animation, motion graphics, compositing, new media or video production the foundation of SCREEN is storytelling. So that is where we’ll start, with the conventions of storytelling. If you are able to apply yourself to the reading you will be given each week and extend it with your own research, then apply your understanding into each project, you will be able to look back on this year and recognise the importance of the foundations delivered in this program. Even if you have no intention of ever being a writer for screen, a storyboard artist, a cinematographer or a director, it is essential that you understand how each of these roles depend upon each other.
This blog is, like the projects you’ll be working on this year, a dynamic evolving site.
You are expected to check in every few days to keep up-to-date with the site’s content and read messages relating to the program.
Apart from notes specific to upcoming classes, there will be resources, exhibitions and events, and postings of recent student work (completed or in progress). There’s a lot of ground to cover, so lets get going…
Animation Production Houses
Animal Logic, AUST & USA
Studio Ghibli, JAPAN: Hayao Miyazaki
Film of the week
No Country for Old Men
Animators
Lorenzo Fonda
Research
The PreProduction Pipeline: Animatic
Stop Motion Animation Handbook
Compositor
For Next Week
Bring the outline of your story/animation project to class for discussion.
• You should have at least three potential characters
– 1 x protagonist
– 2 X Key Support (e.g. an antagonist and a love interest)
• a brief character biography of the protagonist
• a Seven Step outline:
1.The Setup (of P and their world)- who they are, what they do, needs, goals, problems.
2. iniciting incident: how P responds when challenged by an event that shifts the course of action/affects their goal or need by presenting a central problem/conflict.
3. act One Turning Point: describe P’s response to a further complication that adds to the conflict.
4. Mid-point: describe P’s response when they hit the bottom- i.e. central problem threatens to overcome them.
5. act Two TP: P’s response to a key conflict thar is a result of central problem. Steer drama to act 3.
6. act Three TP: describe P’s response when all key elements of problem come into conflict at once.
7. Resolution or denouement: how P resolves or deals with the outcome of all this. Tie up the key storylines.
from Writing Your Screenplay by Lisa Dethridge, p 191-192
links:
