Exciting news! As part of my course, I wrote a short radio monologue under the topic of "Voices From Another World". My little piece, called The Foghorn, centres around a lonely lighthouse worker who attempts to fix a broken foghorn while a ship approaches on the foggy seas. Meanwhile, his mind is occupied by a tumultuous relationship he can't get over.
Now, the fruit of my labour has been recorded by my university's Sound Arts students, and it will be broadcast on Resonance FM on 28 May at 2pm (you can listen to it online anywhere in the world and a podcast should be available later). It will also be played through The Exponential Horn, the UK's largest loudspeaker, at the Science Museum, but I don't have the exact details on that yet.
My first professional credit – brilliant! I haven't heard the actual recording yet, but I have faith in the students.
Tuesday, 6 May 2014
Thursday, 27 February 2014
The Importance of a Good Structure
Concept sentence, action-idea, premise, tagline... It sounds really easy – somebody wants something for a specific reason but it is impossible because of a specific obstacle. And that should be the core of the screenplay where all of the events and actions stem from. So basically 'nail down the premise and build your film from there'.
SIGH. More of then than once, I have heard the term 'development hell'. Getting caught in a limbo of honing this, changing that, amending this, correcting that. Bringing a secondary character forward as the protagonist, making the antagonist the protagonist, cutting characters and merging storylines. Cutting useless plot dimensions and focusing on the main storyline sounds simple but it is harder than it appears. The temptation to add complications and twists is a hard one to resist.
During the past few months, I have been focusing on nailing down the basics of the film. This has consisted of writing the premise, moving onto a 2-page outline and finally working out a 5-10 page treatment of the film. With each step I've taken, I have received valuable feedback that has been really, really useful. Workshopping with my fellow students has led me to notice a lot of inconsistencies and ways in which I should hone the focus of the story. For me personally, this has meant changing the themes of my piece and eliminating useless plot twists. It is safe to say that I have learned far more during the past two months than I did last year.
In terms of my film project, I feel like I am in a relatively good place. Next up, I need to do a bit of re-writing on that, take a few ganders at my secondary TV project and finish work on a small extracurricular project, which sees me write a five-minute radio monologue that will be broadcast on Resonance FM. It is a really exciting opportunity and collaborating with the sound arts students, who will be taking care of the practicalities of the sound world, has been really enlightening and refreshing. Stay tuned for updates on this one - my first real production credit! :-)
I also got promoted at work, which makes me a very happy bunny indeed. It is not a major change, but it is nice to feel appreciated. My employer has been really good to me in terms of allowing me to work four-days-a-week due to my studies and even giving me a promotion while on that limited schedule.
Also – in the beginning of February, I finally moved to a nicer home and so far, I'm loving it. After all, an aspiring writer not only needs to write a good structure for her feature films, but also needs to establish a 'good structure' for her life as well – a nice bed to sleep on, a quiet environment to write in and good transport links wherever her quill might take her.
Overall, I am really happy about everything right now – I wish that life could always be this rewarding, thrilling and exciting! :-)
SIGH. More of then than once, I have heard the term 'development hell'. Getting caught in a limbo of honing this, changing that, amending this, correcting that. Bringing a secondary character forward as the protagonist, making the antagonist the protagonist, cutting characters and merging storylines. Cutting useless plot dimensions and focusing on the main storyline sounds simple but it is harder than it appears. The temptation to add complications and twists is a hard one to resist.
During the past few months, I have been focusing on nailing down the basics of the film. This has consisted of writing the premise, moving onto a 2-page outline and finally working out a 5-10 page treatment of the film. With each step I've taken, I have received valuable feedback that has been really, really useful. Workshopping with my fellow students has led me to notice a lot of inconsistencies and ways in which I should hone the focus of the story. For me personally, this has meant changing the themes of my piece and eliminating useless plot twists. It is safe to say that I have learned far more during the past two months than I did last year.
In terms of my film project, I feel like I am in a relatively good place. Next up, I need to do a bit of re-writing on that, take a few ganders at my secondary TV project and finish work on a small extracurricular project, which sees me write a five-minute radio monologue that will be broadcast on Resonance FM. It is a really exciting opportunity and collaborating with the sound arts students, who will be taking care of the practicalities of the sound world, has been really enlightening and refreshing. Stay tuned for updates on this one - my first real production credit! :-)
I also got promoted at work, which makes me a very happy bunny indeed. It is not a major change, but it is nice to feel appreciated. My employer has been really good to me in terms of allowing me to work four-days-a-week due to my studies and even giving me a promotion while on that limited schedule.
Also – in the beginning of February, I finally moved to a nicer home and so far, I'm loving it. After all, an aspiring writer not only needs to write a good structure for her feature films, but also needs to establish a 'good structure' for her life as well – a nice bed to sleep on, a quiet environment to write in and good transport links wherever her quill might take her.
Overall, I am really happy about everything right now – I wish that life could always be this rewarding, thrilling and exciting! :-)
Saturday, 11 January 2014
Bang - it's 2014!
The new year has begun with a bang: during the first week and a half, I already finished an essay and a two-page project outline for university. On top of that, I returned to my job in the office and begun to pack up my things, as I am moving to a new place at the end of the month. However, I have to admit that I quite like being a busy bee.
I spent an amazing Christmas in the English countryside with my boyfriend's family. It was my second Christmas without my family, so I felt very homesick, especially on Christmas Eve. However, Christmas Day was amazing! Everyone made me feel very welcome and loved so I ended up having a really nice, relaxing time. Having time off from everything was really good as well. I allowed myself to do nothing for a good five days, and then slowly returned to work-mode by picking up university work. And on Monday, I returned to work in the office.
Writing-wise, I have just begun work on my final university project, due in December 2014. We were asked to choose between writing a 90-page feature film or 60 pages of original TV, and I really struggled with my decision. While I've always wanted to write television and create my own show, I was under the impression that most production companies, even when their work focuses on TV, ask to see a film script instead of TV script. According to my understanding, this is mainly due to the fact that film tends to tell a complete story with a distinct beginning, middle and end, illustrating the writer's ability to keep a story together.
Fortunately, we were told that while we were to choose one or the other as our main project, we could pursue the other as a minor project. I felt relieved that we could do both, but the dilemma persisted. Which one should I choose as my main one?
After careful consideration, I finally decided to focus on a feature and pursue TV as a second project, aspiring to write a script for that, too. Now I don't want to say too much about my two projects, but I do have distinct ideas for both, but they might still change considerably. The feature is a science fiction thriller set in space while the TV project is a dark drama set in post-WWI London.
So yeah, that's it for now. Blog-wise, I've changed the layout - do like the new background? I made it myself from illustrations of Charles Dana Gibson. A romantic writer girl at work...
I spent an amazing Christmas in the English countryside with my boyfriend's family. It was my second Christmas without my family, so I felt very homesick, especially on Christmas Eve. However, Christmas Day was amazing! Everyone made me feel very welcome and loved so I ended up having a really nice, relaxing time. Having time off from everything was really good as well. I allowed myself to do nothing for a good five days, and then slowly returned to work-mode by picking up university work. And on Monday, I returned to work in the office.
Writing-wise, I have just begun work on my final university project, due in December 2014. We were asked to choose between writing a 90-page feature film or 60 pages of original TV, and I really struggled with my decision. While I've always wanted to write television and create my own show, I was under the impression that most production companies, even when their work focuses on TV, ask to see a film script instead of TV script. According to my understanding, this is mainly due to the fact that film tends to tell a complete story with a distinct beginning, middle and end, illustrating the writer's ability to keep a story together.
Fortunately, we were told that while we were to choose one or the other as our main project, we could pursue the other as a minor project. I felt relieved that we could do both, but the dilemma persisted. Which one should I choose as my main one?
After careful consideration, I finally decided to focus on a feature and pursue TV as a second project, aspiring to write a script for that, too. Now I don't want to say too much about my two projects, but I do have distinct ideas for both, but they might still change considerably. The feature is a science fiction thriller set in space while the TV project is a dark drama set in post-WWI London.
So yeah, that's it for now. Blog-wise, I've changed the layout - do like the new background? I made it myself from illustrations of Charles Dana Gibson. A romantic writer girl at work...
Saturday, 19 October 2013
Screen talk with my acting idol, Ralph Fiennes
Last night, I had the great privilege to hear the acting guru of my adolescence, Ralph Fiennes, speak at a talk organised as part of the BFI London Film Festival. Interviewed by Francine Stock, Fiennes shed light on his career and his upcoming, second directorial feature, The Invisible Woman, in which he plays the lead as the classic author Charles Dickens. In the following, I will share some of the most interesting aspects of the talk from my own personal point of view.
The talk began by tracking down Fiennes's beginnings: how a student of painting would become interested in theatre design, and how the same boy, now enrolled on a foundation course, would come to realise that he actually wanted to be "in the set", rather than designing it. This lead to studies at the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Art, and ultimately, roles in theatre, television, and film.
Fiennes attributes his third film appearance, the role of Heathcliff in a film adaptation of Wuthering Heights (1992), as the role that caught Steven Spielberg's attention. Spielberg invited the young actor to audition for the role of the SS-officer Amon Goeth for his film, Schindler's List (1994), and the pair met face-to-face in Acton, "out of all places", Ralph adds.
The audience is shown a clip from the film, where Goeth pardons a young boy who has failed to clean his bath tub, but then shoots him in the back as he's walking away. The clip is followed by applause, and silence from the man himself.
"I hadn't seen that in a long time. I don't know what to say," Fiennes comments following the powerful, haunting extract.
Stock then directs the conversation to Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996), and the different directing styles of Spielberg and Minghella. Fiennes reminisces that while Spielberg was quite vocal and focused on "very specific things, physicality and gestures", Minghella's spoke "gently" and was quite precise. He goes on to suggest that in his opinion, "directors should be like very good teachers, sensitive to actors", after which a yet another clip illustrating Fiennes's brilliance as an actor is shown. Almasy, played by Fiennes, joins a dinner party and acts inappropriately, causing disapproval among his fellow diners.
Talk turns to Coriolanus (2011), Fiennes's directorial debut based on a play by William Shakespeare. Fiennes says than he and the screenwriter John Logan edited the the text and cut about 70 per cent of the original material in order to make it cinematic. It is evident Fiennes feels great pride about the writing, as he labels the work "brilliant" and expresses his hopes that Logan's screenplay could someday be published.
"A screenwriter should convey the film to the reader in a way you can see the film," he suggests. "It should be an edited text but accessible to people."
And so it was that during the post-production of Coriolanus, Fiennes was presented with another screenplay that "jumped off the page". Abi Morgan's screenplay for The Invisible Woman, based on a novel by Claire Tomalin, convinced Fiennes to pursue the drama, which presented its own challenges. He relates that he was forced to research and "embrace the feeling of the Dickensian period" while finding "the humanity inside the characters". He would study Victorian photo albums, witnessing the ageing of specific families by tracing their manners, habits and wrinkles through the photographs, with the ultimate goal of "getting over the period" finding "the beating heart within".
Two clips of The Invisible Woman are shown, after which the audience is given permission to ask the maestro some questions. The first question regards his future - Fiennes reveals that he has just finished filming two films, and is now enjoying a period of reading and not knowing what to do next.
I raise my hand and the microphone is given to me. I ask my childhood idol if he has thought of writing his own material, as he has tried out both acting and directing in the past. He looks me in the eyes (the adolescent girl within me, obsessed with Healthcliff and Lenny Nero, is about to swoon) and answers that he has "thought of it and would like to try it". Furthermore, the collaboration with Morgan has given him "enough confidence to make him feel he might like to try it".
The next question is about tips he might give for your actors auditioning for roles. The respected actor tells the questioner not to give up and to have an audition piece that is both true and meaningful to himself. The actor's own soul "has to come through it". He also warns that there is "much bullshit, flattery and pretense in the business", and that an actor should find interior strength for the life in front of him.
With that, Fiennes departs. My heart is still racing after the opportunity to ask him a question. I feel uplifted, inspired and giddy. Did that just happen? I rush home, full of energy to write and to hone my screenwriting skills. The talk has been truly inspiring and encouraging. I just hope that someday, I might have a career as brilliant and successful as he has had...
 |
| Ralph Fiennes (left) interviewed by Francine Stock at BFI Southbank, 18 October 2013. |
Fiennes attributes his third film appearance, the role of Heathcliff in a film adaptation of Wuthering Heights (1992), as the role that caught Steven Spielberg's attention. Spielberg invited the young actor to audition for the role of the SS-officer Amon Goeth for his film, Schindler's List (1994), and the pair met face-to-face in Acton, "out of all places", Ralph adds.
The audience is shown a clip from the film, where Goeth pardons a young boy who has failed to clean his bath tub, but then shoots him in the back as he's walking away. The clip is followed by applause, and silence from the man himself.
"I hadn't seen that in a long time. I don't know what to say," Fiennes comments following the powerful, haunting extract.
Stock then directs the conversation to Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996), and the different directing styles of Spielberg and Minghella. Fiennes reminisces that while Spielberg was quite vocal and focused on "very specific things, physicality and gestures", Minghella's spoke "gently" and was quite precise. He goes on to suggest that in his opinion, "directors should be like very good teachers, sensitive to actors", after which a yet another clip illustrating Fiennes's brilliance as an actor is shown. Almasy, played by Fiennes, joins a dinner party and acts inappropriately, causing disapproval among his fellow diners.
Talk turns to Coriolanus (2011), Fiennes's directorial debut based on a play by William Shakespeare. Fiennes says than he and the screenwriter John Logan edited the the text and cut about 70 per cent of the original material in order to make it cinematic. It is evident Fiennes feels great pride about the writing, as he labels the work "brilliant" and expresses his hopes that Logan's screenplay could someday be published.
"A screenwriter should convey the film to the reader in a way you can see the film," he suggests. "It should be an edited text but accessible to people."
And so it was that during the post-production of Coriolanus, Fiennes was presented with another screenplay that "jumped off the page". Abi Morgan's screenplay for The Invisible Woman, based on a novel by Claire Tomalin, convinced Fiennes to pursue the drama, which presented its own challenges. He relates that he was forced to research and "embrace the feeling of the Dickensian period" while finding "the humanity inside the characters". He would study Victorian photo albums, witnessing the ageing of specific families by tracing their manners, habits and wrinkles through the photographs, with the ultimate goal of "getting over the period" finding "the beating heart within".
Two clips of The Invisible Woman are shown, after which the audience is given permission to ask the maestro some questions. The first question regards his future - Fiennes reveals that he has just finished filming two films, and is now enjoying a period of reading and not knowing what to do next.
I raise my hand and the microphone is given to me. I ask my childhood idol if he has thought of writing his own material, as he has tried out both acting and directing in the past. He looks me in the eyes (the adolescent girl within me, obsessed with Healthcliff and Lenny Nero, is about to swoon) and answers that he has "thought of it and would like to try it". Furthermore, the collaboration with Morgan has given him "enough confidence to make him feel he might like to try it".
The next question is about tips he might give for your actors auditioning for roles. The respected actor tells the questioner not to give up and to have an audition piece that is both true and meaningful to himself. The actor's own soul "has to come through it". He also warns that there is "much bullshit, flattery and pretense in the business", and that an actor should find interior strength for the life in front of him.
With that, Fiennes departs. My heart is still racing after the opportunity to ask him a question. I feel uplifted, inspired and giddy. Did that just happen? I rush home, full of energy to write and to hone my screenwriting skills. The talk has been truly inspiring and encouraging. I just hope that someday, I might have a career as brilliant and successful as he has had...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)