what is story?

it's hard - I don't have a story to tell.

Story telling has never been something i find interesting, more the reason why I've spent 20 years of my life without creative writing, except once.

There isn't anything I connected to - and then I remembered there is one thing that won me a round of praises back at GCSE creative writing - divorce.

It is strange to say, one can portray the term in so many different ways it is almost like untouched diamond ore, all it needs is polish over and over.

Who knows? It's something I did want to expand on when writing the story.

I have no experience in script writing or story development (and I'm not going to start pretending I do) so to aid the objective I'm currently reading this book called Developing Story Ideas by Michael Rabiger.

(I found this book when researching about his other book - Directing - film techniques and anesthetics.)

The book is useful and guides me every step of the way as to how I could get that imaginative brain of mine to start working magic.

I found myself asking the same question from day one

what is story?

here's the perfect answer I found

'"Art", said the French realist writer Émile Zola, "is a corner of nature seen through a temperament." By deliberately seeing through your own vivid and particular intelligence, you give us the causes effects, injustices, and beauty of a world that nobody else has seen in quite your way...' (page 17 - Developing Story Ideas by Michael Rabiger - accessed on 23rd Dec 08)

reassuring - I'm starting to get excited about this, it feels like an untouched mine - so many unforeseen opportunities, each and every one of them unique.

lovely orange production

the final product of the 4 minute documentary

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EKCG0ZZ5mkE

little end of term review

right, another term gone, time to do a little review so I dont forget where to look when I need to reference.

Mainstream lectures and seminars
all lectures and seminars this term had been based around the project - 4 minute non-fiction documentary production. I found all the lectures and seminars really helpful as it reassured me that I was on track doing the right thing, and to be fair, not much chance of going off track and going wrong at all!

Voluntary group meetings to aid project production
those were fun - it helped put into perspective what it is like working as part of a team - especially from a producers' point of view. Prior to this term I had little knowledge of what the role of a producer is. Sure I knew what they do, but I didn't know know what they do if you get me.
I had always thought it was pretty easy but turns out it was a demanding role - so much so I felt I was smack in between the directors' orders and the rest of the team who're disagreeing to the director.

External amatuer jobs
for PhoenixPlus.co.uk - two videos this term for them - however I will no long be violating music copyrights as all videos for next term will use music from a different source.
I felt I have benefitted from the external amatuer experience - though it may not be the real deal, it is still practice and improvments happens with practice and reflection.
this will be an on-going battle

Books I've read to aid study

1/The Technique of Documentary Film Production by W.Hugh Baddeley
a useful book for me as it put into perspective how a production of a documentary is managed. Though some details are slightly out of date(such as sycning audio with visual) the basics are evergreen and fundamentally they will never change.

I thank god for this book - this was my Bible for the term - this was the book that kept me a step ahead of the game and kept me organised, whilst raising questions that otherwise nobody else would've ever thought about. Key to my sucess this term I think.

2/Lighting for Digital Video & Television by John Jackman
an extremely technical book explaining all the physics I once aced in back at college but have forgotten. Volts, Watts, basic Physics theories like the Kevin scale (which to be honest I have never thought about prior to encountering the chapter in the book). Real useful technical background stuff that just fills all the gap in your knowledge and all that I've ever wondered about lighting and the science attached to it.

In the duration of reading this book, I had many 'ahhh I see now' moments.

3/Making Short Films by Clifford Thurlow
Lots of useful resources, plenty of 'reflection' sections at end of each chapter and in between to aid self learning - such as '10 things you should ask yourself when writing a script'.

Personally I found it a pretty general book of how it's done, but there is not much on how to do it.

I've just started out on a new book too
In the Blink of an Eye - A perspective on Film Editing by Walter Murch
awesomely interesting - made me realise things I never thoght about before, bringing me a brand new perspective of how to look at it. So far so good. A full review will be included at the end of all this definately.



Pretty good term i think. Productively fun and actively enjoyable.

Writing for Screen Media

Lecture by Jools

Recognizing the versatility of script, difficulty of creative interpretation and speaking to the audience.

BUBBLES
transitory - energetic - beautiful - collaborative - engineered

The development process involves three key stages -
ideation/idea development
story development
story editing

all of which essential and needs to be repeated and repeated and repeated to gain perfection.

It is suggested that we should download and read scripts - something new i have never done apart from for theatre productions. It comes to me like a stranger, an interesting stranger. Something I want to find out about.

imsdb.com / scriptorama.com / www.celtx.com

"and the end of Romantic Modernist notions"

Lecture by Simon Perkins

Summarizing the lecture, I have walked away with the following:
truly original=if nobody else understands it i.e. they can't relate to it as it is brand new

I think that is an essential, lost gem of the true meaning of 'originality'.
People over-exploite the word 'original' nowadays - it's been so commercialize in such a way 'originality' has become the spokesman of 'old school'. Well it aint.

Modernism is about the truth, and post-modernism is all about lies and arguments. Theres logic in trying to find the truth, but its mainly about the process of getting there.

to take things out of context, see problems from a different perspective - its an idealistic opportunity served to you on a gold plate - and it can't get any better than that. By strategically coming up with a solution, it means an advantage, in blatent terms sucess.

Once again, we visit our old friend Schön - the all time great theorist of the reflective learning.

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htm

The book, Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice by Jennifer A. Moon, is once again useful. Now i understand why the book is useful.
However, I have yet to finish the book since I've started last year, still.

a b s t r a c t

abstract?

I had no idea what it is - so I researched it.
Most of what I found was similarly irrelevant
They were all teaching you how to write a businese abstract - and I saw nothing in common between all of them.

then I did find something -
http://research.berkeley.edu/UCDay/abstract.html

so I based my networking essay on this format.

It sums up the idea of an abstract into 4 main points
1/ Motivation/Problem stated
2/ Method/Procedure/Approach
3/Results/Findings/Products
4/ Conclusion/Implications

using the four points I above from my research, I was then able to expand and go on to summarising what the 'paper' is about. Pretty useful stuff.

this is the end

wrap everything up day today, its not as hard as could be - seeing as we've been quite organised with things since day one.
We've also had to do a self evaluation - I found it really helpful as it helped me pin-point exactly what I found difficult and what coul dbe done better next time round.