from unexpected places - kate fichard

I've mentioned this before, and I'm doing it again because I
think it's a fun exercise....  If your character had to be
represented through a series of objects, what would they be?
These photos by Fichard are fun examples of the exercise -
a person represented by things.

SUZY
This is my record player.  It works with batteries.  Actually,
it belongs to my little brother Lionel.  I left him a note.  Do
you like music?..  This is my favorite record album.  My
godmother gave it to me for my birthday.  She lives in France.
These are my books.  I like stories with magic powers in them.
either in kingdoms on earth or on foreign planets.  Also, time
travel, if they make it realistic.  Usually, I prefer a girl hero,
but not always.  I couldn't bring all of them because it got too
heavy.  You can borrow any you want.  I also brought my
lefty scissors because I'm left-handed, my toothbrush, some
rubber bands, extra batteries, and my binoculars, as you know.
I forgot my comb.

SAM
That's it?  No mess kit?  no flashlight?  No canteen?

- Moonrise Kingdom, Screenplay by Wes Anderson

from the screen - total recall

MATTHIAS: What is it you want?

HAUSER: I want to help you.

MATTHIAS: That isn't the only reason you are here.

HAUSER: I want to remember.

MATTHIAS: Why?

HAUSER: So i can be myself, be who i was.

MATTHIAS: It is each man's quest to find who he truly is,
but the answer to that lies in the present, not in the past. 

HAUSER: But the past tells us who we've become.

MATTHIAS: The past is a construct of the mind.  It blinds us,
it fools us into believing it.  But the heart wants to live in the
present.  Look there - you'll find your answer.

- Screenplay by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback

Via Sony

on writing - joss whedon

Whedon's 10 screenwriting tips - authors have given similar 
advice, so I'm posting it here, where we can all learn from it.

1. Finish it
Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You 
may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have 
written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about 
three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, 
and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you 
know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You 
have to have a little closure.

2. Structure
Structure means knowing where you’re going ; making sure you 
don’t meander about.  I’m a structure nut. I actually make charts. 
Where are the jokes ? The thrills ? The romance ? Who knows 
what, and when ? You need these things to happen at the right 
times, and that’s what you build your structure around : the way 
you want your audience to feel. Charts, graphs, colored pens, 
anything that means you don’t go in blind is useful.

By Manuele Fior

 

from the screen - the iron lady

Watch your thoughts for they become your words.
Watch your words for they become your actions.
Watch your actions for they become habits.
Watch your habits for they become your character.
And watch your character for it becomes your destiny.

- Abi Morgan, The Iron Lady (film)

The Weinstein Company

from the screen - looper

Thank you to Looper (and writer Rian Johnson) for a sci-fi film that
takes itself seriously.  And takes its audience's intelligence seriously.
The screenwriting, acting, themes, and more were absolutely amazing.

Quotes from Rian:
One thing all my favorite sci-fi has in common is that it always uses the
sci-fi elements to amplify very human emotions, themes and characters,
and not the other way around. Ray Bradbury was the first sci-fi author I
was ever exposed to as a kid, and is still for me the most masterful example
of using outlandish sci-fi concepts that have nothing to do with our real
lives to get at stuff that strikes right to the heart of our lives. Characters are
hugely important to me when I'm writing, so that naturally ends up being
what leads the whole process.

When I’m writing I’m big into structure and outlining, so I’ll spend the
first 80 percent of the process working in notebooks and working out the
big picture in a space where I can see it. I love connections, I love seeding
stuff in that’s going to pay off later, and figuring out ways to do that in
ways that make sense and feel organic. All that stuff, including the smoking
thing with Emily, was baked into the script. But obviously it’s all got to
serve the character, showing that she had a past she’s given up, that she
misses and thinks about.  (Via Writers Guild of America)

Endgame Entertainment

from the screen - shadows and fog

KLEINMAN
I can't make the leap of faith necessary to believe in my own existence.

PROSTITUTE
If I thought that there was nothing except this, I'd kill myself.

STUDENT JACK
I've thought about it.  Believe me there have been many times when my brain
has said, "Why not?"  I mean there's no point to anything.  But somehow my
blood always said, "Live, live."  And I always listen to my blood.

- Shadows & Fog (1991), written by Woody Allen

from the screen - beginners

ANNA
There is a tree, and cars, another building like this one.  People in the building like us.
Half of them believe this will never work out.
The other half believe in magic.  It's like war between them.

OLIVER
How do you know so much about people?

- screenplay by Mike Mills

Via Olympus Pictures

from the screen - the sensation of sight

DEANNA
You have to swallow life, and you're too intelligent of a man not to.  Swallow, not deciper.

FINN
That boy is dead, Dianna.  Pointlessly now absent.  I think a pause in my life is warranted.

DEANNA
It wasn't your responsibility.

FINN
Deanna, I love words.  I work in words.  Perhaps I could have found one word.

Via either/or Films

from the screen - snow white and the huntsman

It's always interesting to read an early version of a film script, and then go to the movie and
see what was changed.

By Nicoletta Ceccoli

Here are just a few changes I noticed from Snow White and the Huntsman,
screenplay by Evan Daugherty:

Script - The Huntsman and Snow have a whole montage where he teaches her how to fight and survive in the dark forest.
Screen -The Huntsman only shows Snow one move, the move that she uses to kill the queen in the end.  Otherwise, we have no explanation for Snow's skills.

Script - The prince is presented as wimpy, whiny, and over protective.
Screen - The prince is a rebel, good with arrows, and loves Snow from afar.

Script - The Huntsman has a long back story about a white wolf (owned by the Queen) killing his wife.  The queen offers the Huntsman revenge on the wolf if he gathers Snow from the dark forest.
Screen - The Huntsman's wife was youth-stolen by the Queen.  The Queen offers to bring her back to life if he gathers Snow, which is an easily exposed lie (exposed too soon if you ask me).

Script - Snow kills the Queen with a shard from the hall of mirrors that the Queen shattered to form her temporary glass army.
Screen - Snow kills the Queen with a knife.  And the fair blood in her veins, I guess.

Some changes were good, some maybe not so good, but finding the differences is always an interesting exercise in critical thinking in storytelling.

from the screen - john logan

Hugo: I think he's waiting.
Isobel:  To do what?
Hugo:  To work again.  To do what he's supposed to do.

- John Logan, an adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

from the screen - buffy the vampire slayer

Tara to Buffy, as the first slayer:
I have no speech, no name. I live in the action of death. The blood cry,
the penetrating wound. I am destruction, absolute, alone.
You think you know... what's to come... what you are. You haven't even begun.

- Written by Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Restless"

from the screen - legend of the guardians

A gem of excellent screenwriting from an animated family film called
Legend of the Guardians...

Lies of Keel: Fancy it must be hard to meet your hero and find that he's
real and not a myth.

and later in the scene...

Lies of Keel: Battle... This is what it looks like when you've actually
fought in battle. It's not glorious. It's not beautiful. And it's not even heroic.
It's merely doing what is right. And doing it again and again until one day
you look like this.