Starting off...sorry for the long delay in posting the meeting minutes on the website.
Screenwriting:
Usually we do a quick tutorial of celtx, but this semester I figured we could try and do something different so I had the very wonderful Jessica Esteves, of Algorithm fame, head a discussion on some of the many things to keep in mind while screenwriting.
We brushed through fleshing out characters. Jessica's tip for this is to write out a short paragraph on the
character. Nothing too formal, maybe some adjectives, some descriptive declarations. Here's the
example she provided for a character description:
Character Description:
Moral. Leader. Athletic. Brave. Ariella Cohen is the captain of the cheerleading squad and Matt Richmond's best friend. She always tries to do the right thing despite the repercussions....
*Ariella mean "Lion of God".
And you can see that it's very short, very basic, and she even gives her characters names (something I
generally haven't gotten that used to doing. I still use scripts with characters named “dude one,” “girl,”
etc). We didn't go over this much because she implied that writing characters too fully and becoming
attached to their characteristics can cause problems in the future (issues I'll mention later).
Jessica's next, and ultimately biggest, advice of the night was to watch short films. We discussed that a
lot of people don't watch short films simply because Television and Feature Length movie formats are
more readily distributed, and for this reason when we try to make short films as a club a lot of the
pitches, scripts and/or finished products end up being too long, and it's the fault of the nature of the
story itself. Short films are a different kind of animal, and as a result the kinds of stories that are told in
this medium are different than what you might be used to.
So here are some short films Jessica recommends you watch:
The Desk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_kIyihNd-A
Long Distance Relationship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQgdxLRk6eY
To Claire From Sonny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rKW-VRFczA
Faeight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoWIJa-2U4g
Tune for Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MYw8HjN21bk
Forever's Not So Long: http://vimeo.com/3568757
I Love You Will Smith: http://vimeo.com/30926719
Camera & Lighting:
We got a little hand on experience with both cameras we have with the club: the Canon HD Vixia HF S100 & Canon HV40. If you missed the meeting, we have a tutorial about each camera in our Tutorials Section. If you want some real hand on experience with it, come over to our office hours in Room 0208E at the Student Involvement Suite in Stamp Union.
Lighting is important since it can make a huge difference on the tone of the scene.
Editing:
We were in the WAM lab at CSS. We found out that night all the labs on campus have upgraded their Macs, including Final Cut Pro. With the same viewpoint as other professionals in the film business, we don't have high regards to the newest version of Final Cut Pro. We advise all members to please be careful with this program. It is known to not save your project properly. Also if you are accustomed to older versions of Final Cut, it is arranged differently. We advise that everyone edit with Adobe Premiere Pro. All the Macs on campus (include the office mac) has this program.
Screenwriting:
Usually we do a quick tutorial of celtx, but this semester I figured we could try and do something different so I had the very wonderful Jessica Esteves, of Algorithm fame, head a discussion on some of the many things to keep in mind while screenwriting.
We brushed through fleshing out characters. Jessica's tip for this is to write out a short paragraph on the
character. Nothing too formal, maybe some adjectives, some descriptive declarations. Here's the
example she provided for a character description:
Character Description:
Moral. Leader. Athletic. Brave. Ariella Cohen is the captain of the cheerleading squad and Matt Richmond's best friend. She always tries to do the right thing despite the repercussions....
*Ariella mean "Lion of God".
And you can see that it's very short, very basic, and she even gives her characters names (something I
generally haven't gotten that used to doing. I still use scripts with characters named “dude one,” “girl,”
etc). We didn't go over this much because she implied that writing characters too fully and becoming
attached to their characteristics can cause problems in the future (issues I'll mention later).
Jessica's next, and ultimately biggest, advice of the night was to watch short films. We discussed that a
lot of people don't watch short films simply because Television and Feature Length movie formats are
more readily distributed, and for this reason when we try to make short films as a club a lot of the
pitches, scripts and/or finished products end up being too long, and it's the fault of the nature of the
story itself. Short films are a different kind of animal, and as a result the kinds of stories that are told in
this medium are different than what you might be used to.
So here are some short films Jessica recommends you watch:
The Desk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_kIyihNd-A
Long Distance Relationship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQgdxLRk6eY
To Claire From Sonny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rKW-VRFczA
Faeight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoWIJa-2U4g
Tune for Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MYw8HjN21bk
Forever's Not So Long: http://vimeo.com/3568757
I Love You Will Smith: http://vimeo.com/30926719
Camera & Lighting:
We got a little hand on experience with both cameras we have with the club: the Canon HD Vixia HF S100 & Canon HV40. If you missed the meeting, we have a tutorial about each camera in our Tutorials Section. If you want some real hand on experience with it, come over to our office hours in Room 0208E at the Student Involvement Suite in Stamp Union.
Lighting is important since it can make a huge difference on the tone of the scene.
Editing:
We were in the WAM lab at CSS. We found out that night all the labs on campus have upgraded their Macs, including Final Cut Pro. With the same viewpoint as other professionals in the film business, we don't have high regards to the newest version of Final Cut Pro. We advise all members to please be careful with this program. It is known to not save your project properly. Also if you are accustomed to older versions of Final Cut, it is arranged differently. We advise that everyone edit with Adobe Premiere Pro. All the Macs on campus (include the office mac) has this program.