Stephen Colbert Creates a Different Lie

We all know Stephen Colbert as the guy who pretended to be a Republican pundit on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. Some of us, of the more liberal persuasion, were comforted by the warmth of the satire. But that security blanket is gone and the honest persona has entered the scene, the real Stephen Colbert as brought about by The Late Show With Stephen Colber. However I think we were lucky to find that he's still funny and personable, I know I was excited to watch this new Stephen. But, to mimic the dramatic affect of Colbert's former character, we're still being lied to.

Back in August, Glamour magazine ran an article, written by Colbert and some of his writers, promising to make his new show a place where women would have a presence. It was called "Stephen Colbert Shares Why He Thinks Women Should Be in Charge of Everything". Colbert wrote impassioned about his quest to make sure The Late Show would be a feminist creative space, one that late night television specifically was lacking. Here are some choice sections I'll share:

"While there are many talented female comedians out there, right now the world of late-night is a bit of a sausagefest."

"To be honest, sometimes I wonder whether the world would be a better place if women were in charge. It would be pretty easy to make that happen. Simply tell the men of the world that you're trying to start a campfire. While we're all arguing with one another about proper kindling placement and whether using lighter fluid is cheating,* women can just quietly start getting stuff done."

"Point is, I'm here for you, and that means I'm going to do my best to create a Late Show that not only appeals to women but also celebrates their voices."

Women everywhere, including myself, rejoiced! "Yes" I thought, "Stephen Colbert has follow through, this will be the first late night show that gets ahead of that criticism and we'll see a balance in late night comedy"

Lol.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert has exactly 2 female writers. There are 17 male writers. And then an additional 0 women. Stephen Colbert has yet again feigned sincerity to bring attention to an issue. Except this time instead of playing a trick old evil Republican old white dudes he's fooling women everywhere, especially female comedians. And just like the members of the GOP, I feel let down to realize he's not actually on our side.

 

Every Tuesday is PLL Day

Every Tuesday I scramble to my TV to watch my favorite series, Pretty Little Liars. The story focuses on four teenage girls, Aria Montgomery, Spencer Hastings, Emily Fields, and Hanna Marin and their daily struggle of getting blackmailed by an anonymous harasser.

The plot started the night that their so called friend, Alison Dilaurentis went missing. From there on out they have received various texts, threats, and have almost gotten killed a numerous amount of times. The mystery of the show is to find out who "A" is, but it never seems to go in their favor. When they think they have finally discovered the true person hiding behind "A's" black hoodie, another twist is thrown at them. Filled with drama, intense love stories, and relatable characters, Pretty Little Liars excels at being an amazing teen television show. Though I absolutely love this show, I sometimes ask the question, "when is it too much?" The plot of this show takes many twists and turns that sometimes are even confusing to the viewers. Pretty Little Liars has been approved for seven seasons, while currently being in their fifth. However, I can't see where they are going to take this show for two more seasons after they reveal who head "A" is at the end of season five.

There just comes a point in a show, where the writing becomes too complicated. There are so many side plots and characters that appear for such a short amount of time, that you don't know what is important anymore. Pretty Little Liars has made a significant impact on the expectations of a teen drama, and I think that they need to get back on the right track that they started on in the beginning of the series. This show is amazing and doesn't get enough credit for what it's worth. I think if they tightened up the plot,and focused on what was important, the show would be appealing to all audiences and not just the teenage realm. But don't get me wrong, I love my girls. 

4 Tips for Writing Directing and Producing a Short Film

Writing a great script for a short film is hard. Most people feel like you have to lengthen the script to create an in depth story, which isn't true. To make the most of your limited pages and minutes use these ideas:

1. Create complex characters. 
Before or during writing, ask yourself some questions about your characters. Asking questions like "What was the worst moment in your characters life?" might seem silly, but it could lead you to some very interesting conflicts and plot points in your story. If anything questions like this will help you to make a world around your character it makes sense for them to exist in.  Here are some character questionnaires to start with.

2. Don't neglect your set. 
Though most of us are just happy to get a location to shoot in, remember that the location of your film can be a goldmine for planting character information and foreshadowing. Avoid exposition through dialogue by leaving a characters room a mess with clothes and make up before a date, or show the room as immaculate if your character is very controlling.

3. Make dialogue that sounds real. 
People in the real world don't talk in full sentences, they sometimes stutter, pause, misspeak, use contractions. Read your dialogue out loud while writing. Do you believe someone would actually say it? Don't waste time with lengthy dialogue when you could convey the same idea visually.

4. Be confident.
Throughout this process realize that this is your vision and you are going to have to work hard to bring it out to the world. Be your own best advocate. Be confident that your idea is great and that it can impact something, and people will be willing to help. No one wants to work on a film that even the creator isn't excited about.

New Comedy

Writing comedy for today's youth has become more of an art than a science. Some genres of television can be written by following a basic template and will not stray much from the norm, but comedy can't. Successful comedies like Workaholics and It's Always Sunny... have found success in chaos. These shows are unpredictable and sometimes incoherent. They will tae the smallest comedic idea or story and build an entire episode around it. This episode to Workaholics shows this perfectly.

In this episode the take the one prank of wrapping a dollar in poop and leaving on the street for bystanders to grab and draw it out into a whole episode. This in-cohesive and random seeming writing style is the new type of comedy. It takes less formal skill to write and allows many actor and actresses to break into the business by writing and starring in these types of shows and sketches.

A Simple Story

Craig, Mike and myself are working together as the team "The Purple Cobras" for this assignment to develop a short film around a story about a teen who was struck with kindness of strangers when a man offered him a well paying job.  This man had heard about the teen's struggles to support his brothers and sisters after their mother passed away and how the teen had trouble getting a job.  This sounds like a good ol' heart warming story that can be turned into a film?  But can it really?  Does it have a 3 act arch and does it have character development?  We had to find some ways to creatively tell our story and still make it appealing as a film.

We have decided that the story it's self will remain the same, but will be the middle chuck of our film.  We still need a solid beginning and end.  Without these our project might as well be useless.  Without the beginning we wouldn't be able to get into the characters situation and learn about his life and the hardships he goes through.  We need a reason to root for this character and learn a little back story about him and his family before we can develop the plot.  On the opposite spectrum we also need to wrap up the ending with closure.  We can't just leave the audience wondering what happened because we ended our film in the middle of the story.  We have to show the effect and reactions to what happens in the plot and how everything turns out.

I love writing but this should be an exciting challenge for me as I write the script.  My writing excels in scriptwriting for television.  I love how the characters have room to grow and develop over a broader sense of time and how intimate you can make certain situations that would be cut from a film.  I'm very lucky to have such hard working and brilliant team members to help me develop the story and change/add things to the script.  I look forward to writing it this weekend.  But it will not come as easy to me as if I were writing an episode of TV.  We have to tell an entire story in a very short amount of time and still develop strong connections to the characters and produce a heartwarming story.  It will be a good challenge for me and I hope I can do this story justice.

Novels vs. Screenplays

I love reading books. All kinds of books. I have had this passion for since I was probably 9 or 10, but it wasn't until tenth grade that I discovered a passion for creative writing. One of my closest friends in High School did a lot of fan fiction and wrote her own short stories, and because I love to read, I was her captivated audience whenever she wrote something new. It was during this time that I thought, "Hey! I should try to do this!" And so I did... only I wasn't as successful at first. I think I have around five or six stories that I started writing or have notes on that I just never finished. I guess I just never realized how much went in to telling a story: Characters have to be discovered and developed, the plot should twist and turn in ways that are both unexpected, yet make sense, research has to be done in period pieces, etc. This is true for novels, non-fiction, screenplays, and theatrical pieces. 

I tried to write my first mini-script for the stage just before my sophomore year in high school. Let's just say it wasn't the best piece of writing I have ever done, and I didn't really enjoy it. I have taken several creative writing classes in both high school and college that I have absolutely loved. Right now I am even working on a novel that I started in a class that I took last fall. It will probably be a long time until it is finished, because the more I write the more I find out that I need to still do more research. Since I was so unsuccessful in playwriting, and I loved creative writing for novels, I thought that was the only writing I would or could ever do. Hence why I was so nervous for the course Developing Story Narratives that I took last semester. 

It seemed a little rocky in the beginning of the semester. The first couple practice scripts seemed to be going okay; they weren't great, but at least they were ten times better than the "play" I tried to write when I was a part of the Hanger Theatre summer camp. For the course we had three major scripts to write: a story based around an important event in our own lives, a story based on a character that we create, and a story centered around a theme. The first one was okay. I based it on the events that took place during and after my grandfather's death. The second one, I fell in love with. It is a story based on an orphan named Henry who is, in many ways, searching for a place where he belongs. I won't go into too many details, but this piece turned out fairly well, to the point where I would LOVE to film this here at Ithaca College. I want to do it right though, and the first step is making sure the script makes sense. Currently, I'm in the process of changing around a couple of scenes because the events that occur don't quite fit. The interesting thing about writing a script versus a novel is that you have to keep in mind that you are writing for a visual medium. Every emotion or internal dilemma has to be able to be seen in some way. It would be easier for a writer if subtext could scroll across the bottom of the screen, but then it wouldn't be much fun for the audience. Besides, sometimes there aren't words for certain emotions. On top of all this, the character has to move or flow from one point to another in a way that makes common sense. This means looking internally into the character to decide what is exactly going on there, so that the actions don't seem forced. 

Details, details, details. They are so important in creative writing for novels. Not so much, or at least not in the same way, for screenwriting. My professor said that you have to imagine each line as a shot in the film. That is a lot harder than it sounds. Well, I will keep plugging away at it and hopefully I will find the best way to tell Henry's story. 

~Amber Capogrossi

Writer's Block

If any of you has an interest in writing, then I'm sure at some point in time you've all gotten a case of writer's block, it basically happens to everyone. For me it really hit me this semester, I really didn't have a lot of creativity for anything. However that changed when I stumbled across this book on Amazon called, The Writer's Block by Jason Rekulak. It's this awesome little book that's literally in the shape of a block and it's sole purpose is to get your creative juices flowing.

This is a little book that I would highly recommend picking up if you have even a slight interest in writing. You just open to any page and there's an idea that will get your creativity flowing. It touches on topics that are personal, funny, strange and so on. It's under $10 on Amazon and I would highly recommend picking it up, you won't be disappointed.


Here's the link for it: http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Block-Jump-Start-Imagination/dp/0762409487/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350070226&sr=8-1&keywords=writer%27s+block

Writing from Experience: True Fiction

This past year I have been working on many scripts and screenplays and I have begun to notice that by far my best works have been those based off of true events or personal experiences.  When I look at my life as a whole I think to myself, what a bland and average story I have.  I have never been shipwrecked, I've never had any superpowers, I've never even been in a gun fight or in a Jackie Chan style brawl.  However, in my opinion, I have found that you can tell the best stories from the details only you have.  My life has had ups-and-downs, as everyone has had, but the ups-and-downs I've had are unique to me.  My experience is my own and no one else's…that is unless I share it with them.

I recently become a finalist for a film award after submitting a script about a man struggling with addiction.  The story of a man coping with a drug addiction and the effects it has on his family is not a "new" story or ground-breaking idea, however it is the first hand detail through my own perspective and my own re-telling that gives the story its strength.

I feel if I gave the outline of one of my films to anyone they would see nothing special about the idea, but if you give them a script and they see a real conversation that was had, they hear your character's voice, accent, and inflection as you heard it.  They can see the details of a room you stood in.  They can share your experience.  To write a "fiction film" is not always necessarily about making a work of fiction; through my experience to write the best "fiction" films is to take a nonfiction story (or the guise of nonfiction) and present it to the audience so they may share in a personal story they could have never experienced over wise.

The Hidden Magic: Music

Over the last week, my health has gotten worse. I hate to say it, but I think I am one of the lucky ones who caught the viral infection that is sneaking its way across campus. The wonderful thing about being sick though, is that my time for watching movies and TV shows has almost doubled. Inevitably, during my many viewings I would start to dose off. I may have been half conscious, but I could always tell what was going on in the films and shows, not based on what I could see, but on what I could hear.

I don't only mean the dialogue or the recorded sound effects, although those are obviously very important. No, I'm talking about the power of music. Think about your favorite movie, or your favorite scene. Now try to imagine that scene without the background music. Isn't that a strange thought? It is something that is almost always overlooked, yet without it, the context of the movie doesn't seem quite complete. 

Now, I danced for about nine years and I played piano for about five years. I love music. I think everyone does, but what I loved about music was how, when I was dancing or even playing piano, I was able to feel the music inside me and move me in a way that let me express the heart of the song. Something about music hits us in our core and allows us to feel emotions. Who would have thought that combining sounds, raising or lowering the levels, and tempo would allow us to feel so much? With music, we are giving almost a sixth sense, or a 4D quality to our visual or movie experience. I believe it is because we can relate to what is happening through the notes. We all have some kind of device that we use to listen to music. When do you listen to music? In the car? In the morning as you are getting ready? Walking to class? When you are doing homework? Music has become such a part of our lives that it is easily overlooked. Sometimes we even hear soundtracks to our own lives. So, if music is such a huge part of our everyday life, it only makes sense that it should also be present in the movies and shows we watch. 

Last week I wrote about Lord of the Rings, and I will use it as an example again. The music in that film is astounding. It was written in such a way that it literally brings you into Middle Earth and traps you there with its interweaving melodies and harmonies. Other movies like Avatar, Narnia, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games have similar qualities. Movies and shows that take place in our world and our times have more modern music performed by modern artists that fits the film genre. This extends even to books. I have read several commentaries from modern authors about the music that inspired their stories. When I sit down to write my own story I'm always playing some kind of celtic or other instrumental music that helps me to see or create the story that I am writing. 

Music is a part of the world, from the birds in the trees to the notes playing through your headphones. The next time you watch a movie or show, listen for the underlying music or film score. Sometimes that music can tell a story all on its own. 

~ Amber Capogrossi

Scriptwriting?

Last night, I went to bed around 9 PM.

Today, I woke up at approximately 3 PM.

18 hours of sleep, and I think I'm finally starting to feel healthy again.

I'd like to thank the makers of NyQuil for this; you simultaneously helped me feel better and shot any hopes I had of catching up on work today in the face, and that's not an easy thing to do.

I should know better than to take the stuff the night before I need to get things done by this point in life, but for the relief it provided short term, I can't complain much.  Nevertheless, the sleep it knocked me into actually brought a fuzzy dream that I think might've just influenced my path in TVR, and is taking me in the direction of a scriptwriting minor.  At first, I thought it was absurd; so I dreamed that I wrote a really amazing script and loved it, big deal.  It isn't like it was a prophetic vision of lottery numbers or anything (I wish), right? 

That was my mindset, until I realized I needed to sit down and write a script for a class and would have no other time during the weekend to do it.  So, I scrawled out a rough draft, and, what do you know, it wasn't half bad.  And...I enjoyed writing it?!  Hm.  Interesting.

I shared it with another member of my class for some feedback since I'd missed the day of the assignment in my class, and he really liked it.  He mentioned several points that I could fix up or work on, but was otherwise quite impressed at my "shitty first draft" (shout out to the Developing Story Narratives class and that reading, it's good to know everyone has a rough time in the beginning).

Now, as I'm brushing it up and still enjoying doing it, I'm considering adopting a scriptwriting minor as of next semester.  I used to like doing creative writing back in high school, even submitting to and being the editor in chief of our literary magazine for two years.  I've always thought that within TVR I wanted to go towards things like field production or doing animation, but I think another avenue just opened up.  This is definitely something I'm considering pursuing, because it's never going to hurt to be a bit more well-rounded in the field, and I could someday benefit hugely from knowing both how to produce and edit in the field or a studio as well as how to write for TV.

I'm curious if being in Fiction Field will impact my desire to do scriptwriting at all.  I hope that there are opportunities within this course to create some sort of epic script and storyline, because it'd be good to test the waters before diving in head-first to another commitment in Park.  Also, I think I'd want to sharpen up my writing academically, because it just took me three tries to spell "commitment" correctly.

I guess you've got to start somewhere.

Late Night with Conan O'Brien writers

Late Night with Conan O'Brien is my favorite late night show ever ( conan's new shows haven't been as good as late night). Anyway one of the things I find interesting about the show is the writers and how they make bits for the show. Most of the bits are shown after the monolog and before or in between the guess and are only a few minutes long. What is cool about them is that once a writer has an idea in a full script format s/he is in charge of making the bit, so they take on the role of producers, directors , writers and some times actors. I guess this is kind of like what we do in class but they do it in one day. Not all of the bits are great, and in class most of our's aren't going to be movie quality but its like the writers say "It's a volume business" and the important thing is to make as much as you can so that you can get your style down. Heres a link to some of the writers talking about some of their failures.

FIRST OFF I'D LIKE TO BRAG THAT I GOT THE 700TH POST

So yeah about that: Ha.

Also upon typing in the URL to the blog in the address bar I had to remind myself: "Oh yeah! It's not a Tumblr! Will, you're silly. The Fiction Field blog isn't on Tumblr. Ha ha ha. Ha ha haaaaAAAOHH GOD I'M ADDICTED, SOMEONE HELP ME-HEE-HEEEEEEEEEEEE"

But I digress. Let's move on.

I've been watching 3rd Rock From The Sun a lot recently. Let's go beyond the fact that the show was made in the nineties when TV was better and blah blah freakin' blah. It's well written in general. The idea of aliens landing on Earth and taking the bodies of humans seems so blasé and cliché and everything else with an "é" at the end; and yet the final product is charming, with every episode forcing you to laugh whether you like it or not. One scene with John Lithgow and Wayne Knight tap dancing with Jane Curtin almost killed me. This was due to me eating Nutella at the time. We all know the consistency of Nutella. (But it's so damn good. I mean seriously, if you go shopping again this semester, get Nutella. It's hazelnutty chocolatey goodness formed into a spread that you can eat anything with. ANYTHING. GO GET IT. NOW.)

Also I'm still plowing through Doctor Who. I'm on David Tennant's tenure as the Doctor right now. My mind blows every time he appears on screen. As much as I loved Chris Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, David blows him out of the water. This stresses the importance of good casting; if your actor doesn't fit the part, the character is going to suck. Big time. Can you imagine Gilbert Gottfried as the Doctor? I can, and it's not a pretty picture.

Anyhow, I'm going to pretend to watch this color correction presentation. Peace out.

TV Tropes

Don't forget this exists. It actually really helps with writing if you know how to make the different elements they mention work.

Need Names?

So I figure as we're writing scripts, it's going to be hard to come up with some good names. If you're stuck for ideas on what to name that spunky alt chick character who kills serial killers and likes Captain Crunch, check this site out:
NAMES

You can pick gender, countries of ancestry (such as English, African, Turkish, etc.,) and even time period. There's also options for different categories of beings and behaviors. There's an option to make hippie names. This generator doesn't screw around; you're going to get some pretty kick-butt results.

Next time you're stuck, I suggest you guys give this a whirl.

~Will

PS: Forget elevator pitches; I'm doing escalator pitches.

Writing

In this article on “Of Writing Machines and Scholar-Gipsies” Christopher Keep comments on the teaching of humanities in universities with increasing presence of technology and machines. It is an interesting essay and does pose a few questions that should be considered. The first thought that I have is essentially in seeing the machines as tools in which the humanities (specifically literature) can be brought to life. I do not see that automatons or any other machine creation is a threat to the humanities or to human-kind as is possibly eluded to in this essay because the automaton is still an expression of the work of the humanities. The literature is an expression of the ideas of the authors of their age and the use of blogs, VR, video games or comic books in our age does not discredit the fact that they are still expressions of the authors’ thoughts. In fact, many of the ideas of literary works can be brought to life in “new” ways by the new media. The author essentially says this argument is not new because as works were translated into English the same debate was had of the appropriateness of translating these literary works as it would take away from what they represent. I suppose in many ways the same conclusions have been drawn as we create libraries and recreations of literary works within Second Life. The other main theme of the essay that I find humorous is that as humans we have created machine and then have used these creations to try to differentiate why we are different from them. The main way in which we are different is that we have created and have tried to express ourselves. In that way, are automatons, virtual realities, or games any different from literature?