Screenplay Writing

Image from Powtoon

Stories have always captured my attention. Fiction has been the sweetest, most precious gift in my childhood. So naturally, I went around making up stories in my head all the time- some of them heavily influenced by what I read, and some of them just plain original born from the grey cells of my brain. But, it has mostly been novels. When I tried writing my own stories, they were also in a novel-type format, with conversations and long drawn detailed descriptions, and I loved it.

Several years back, my dad sent a link to an article on No Film School which talks about (Big Spaceship) Victor Pineiro’s crash course on how to write a screenplay. And, since that day, that one article has constantly been on my bookmarks bar. And, I’ve looked at it every time only to want to try it out.

So, during the December holidays in 2019, I started trying it out, and it’s pretty cool. Here is why the crash course is brilliant.

1. Gives insights. It beautifully gives you a way to structure the idea that wafts around in your head. It gives you a way to tame your wild imagination in order to actually write it out, especially if you are writing a screenplay. 

2. Insights are actionable. I hate people who advice in an abstract manner when something needs a concrete solution. So, when giving insights on how to write a screenplay, Pineiro sticks to insights that are actionable, and step-wise follow worthy advice. I loved them. 

3. Page-line(like timeline). One of the most important things is to introduce characters at the right time, and bring right events at the right time. You own your story and how you want to say it, but the rough page-line, as I'd like to call it, just gives you an absolutely sensible perspective. 

4. Words with meanings. Plot, theme, logline, story, scene, sequence, acts: there are so, so many words that we use when we think of the components of a story. But, do we clearly and exactly know what they are? The crash course gives you that, and personally I really liked that. 

5. Examples. It doesn't just explain things, and give you an insight. The slides give examples that we know, and can easily relate to and understand. 

Nothing is set in stone. You can bend rules, you can make rules, and you can own your style. I myself experiment a lot with story writing in different styles and perspectives. All said, I still loved the universality of this crash course that fits almost every story. 

Do check it out! Also, I hope soon you'll get to read a completed screenplay from me!

31 Days To Build A Better Blog

Title: 31 Days To Build A Better Blog (Second Edition)

Author: Darren Rowse

Hit the writers’ block? Here’s a book that’s actually helpful for both new bloggers and struggling bloggers. ‘31 Days to Build A Better Blog’ by Darren Rowse gives you a sound head start on types of posts that you can put up, how to come up with ideas for posts, how to write a list post, analyse another blog, promote a blog post, find a blog buddy, write a review and so on. Covering wide aspects of blogging from writing to promotions to monitoring statistics and increasing earnings, it is a well-rounded guide for all those who want to jump start their blog back to life. 

As the preface to the book puts it, the book is for those who want to improve their blog, but have been putting it in the “one day” basket. Written in a simple, comprehensible and coherent workbook-style format, every chapter comes with interesting examples, actionable notes and tasks, and also links and material for further reading. 

While the workbook has been designed to be worked through over 31 days, it is best to proceed through it at one’s own pace. You might tackle a couple of tasks in a single day, or take your time with them and do just one or two a week. It’s totally up to you, and just as effective. 

What I liked about the book is that it gives certain not-so-regular but functional tips to boost your blog such as emailing and connecting with readers, updating key pages on your blog, and answering to comments regularly. Such small acts that may seem insignificant in the short run actually creates a better reach for the blog. When I began recouping my lost blogging practice, this was one of the books I pulled out to help me get a direction, even though I’ve blogged for several years before. 

So, check out this awesome book, and just like my #DayOne started again, I hope yours does too! It’s never too late to bounce back, buddies.

The Laws Of Perspective

I started with the course “Lectures On Digital Photography” by Marc Levoy. It is a course which was initially taught at Stanford for interested on-campus students, and then later at Google. Now all the lectures are available for free completely on Google Sites. Here’s the link: https://sites.google.com/site/marclevoylectures/home

Fifteen minutes into the first lecture, Mr. Levoy talks about one of the most important aspects of art- perspective. He talks about perspective in a scientific way. When you capture an image of a real object on a plane, be it as a painting, one of the earliest forms, or photography, which came much later, there are two important ways to look at it.

One was the natural perspective that Euclid explained in his book on Optics. The natural perspective discusses the distance between the eye and the object, and the angle the object subtends to the eye.

In simple terms, the natural perspective tells you that farther objects subtend smaller angles.

The other type is the linear perspective theory created by Filippo Brunelleschi. This basically tells you that closer objects are projected larger on a picture plane.

Using this simple mathematics as derived from the linear perspective theory, the approximate size of the projection on the plane as compared to the actual size of the object can be determined. In the above picture: y is the height of the projection; h is the height of the object; x is the distance of object from the eye; and z is the distance of the picture plane from the eye.

This was of key importance in the paintings during the Renaissance as the painters attempted to produce or showcase depth on a plane sheet. It was generally concluded from the linear perspective theory that all objects away from the painter must converge at a farther point.

So, how is this theory of perspective related to photography? Well, for photographers to choose an optimum focal length for the right aperture that would capture the scene, the way they envision, it is necessary that they have a general sense of perspective. It is not required, and is not possible, to do mathematics every time. But it is necessary to rather have a ‘feel’ of the right perspective that they need for a particular shot.

There is a tamil saying that translates into “Your hand doesn’t measure what your eye doesn’t”, which sums up the the topic of discussion here: perspective.

Critical Thinking #11 and #12

source: http://bit.ly/ySESJK

In the eleventh class of the critical thinking course, we saw the movie “Witness For The Prosecution”. It is actually a play written by Agatha Christie. This movie was showed to us so that we understand about evidence. It was good.

The twelfth class was the last day of the course. We took pictures together. We tried solving a few problems. Here are those problems for you to attempt...

The first one is well-known and quite easy.

Q1. Sruti, Keerthanya and Sandhya eat at a eatery. The waiter says the bill is Rs 30 and each of them give Rs 10. When he takes the money to the cashier, the cashier returns Rs 5 as the bill is only 25. The waiter wonders how to distribute 5 between three and being intelligent, decides to keep 2 and return one to each. So each of them paid 9 a total of 27 and the kept 2 so total is 29 whereas they originally paid 30. What happened to the missing rupee?

Q2. At the Secret Convention of Logicians, the Master Logician placed a band on each attendee's head, such that everyone else could see it but the person themselves could not. There were many, many different colors of band. The Logicians all sat in a circle, and the Master instructed them that a bell was to be rung in the forest at regular intervals: at the moment when a Logician knew the color on his own forehead, he was to leave at the next bell. Anyone who left at the wrong bell was clearly not a true Logician but an evil infiltrator and would be thrown out of the Convention post haste; but the Master reassures the group by stating that the puzzle would not be impossible for anybody present. How did they do it?

Q3. The King called the three wisest men in the country to his court to decide who would become his new advisor. He placed a hat on each of their heads, such that each wise man could see all of the other hats, but none of them could see their own. Each hat was either white or blue. The king gave his word to the wise men that at least one of them was wearing a blue hat - in other words, there could be one, two, or three blue hats, but not zero. The king also announced that the contest would be fair to all three men. The wise men were also forbidden to speak to each other. The king declared that whichever man stood up first and announced the color of his own hat would become his new advisor. The wise men sat for a very long time before one stood up and correctly announced the answer. What did he say, and how did he work it out?

Do share your anwers.

Critical thinking #10

In the 10^th class of the course, we moved on to the final part of the course – evaluating arguments, looking at its strength and weaknesses, its success and failure.

The first step is to see in which area the argument lies in the table given below:

	Valid	Invalid
Sound	A	B
Unsound	C	D

If the argument lies in the region ‘A’ then it is a strong argument as it is both valid and sound. 

It is a waste to argue if the reasons are in region 'D' as it is both invalid and unsound.

We learnt that circumstantial evidence is rarely conclusive by itself.

The most reliable evidence from witnesses is a first hand account. Hearsay evidence is not as reliable.

The witness’s credentials(qualification or reputation) are important, but do not guarantee that their evidence is reliable.

Critical Thinking #9

On the 9^th day of the course, we saw the movie “Twelve Angry Men”. I loved the movie. It's about a jury which tries to decide whether a man had committed murder. The first time they vote to check their unanimity, eleven members are convinced that the person in the trial IS guilty and only one is convinced that he MIGHT NOT be guilty. It becomes a eleven-to-one majority. Slowly, the one man convinces all the others with his effective, reasonable, valid and sound counter-arguments. The movie is all about arguments and counter-arguments.

It is a beautiful movie. It is a must watch category.

Critical Thinking #8

In the 8^th class of the critical thinking course we learnt about evidence. We learnt that  stronger the evidence, more confident the conclusion. There are two types of evidence.

 PRIMARY EVIDENCE – what people see (eye witness), hear (ear witness), etc. They give first hand information.

SECONDARY EVIDENCE – hearsay.

We also saw what circumstancial evidence is. Circumstantial evidence consists of facts, or circumstances.

We got to know the important part played by corroboration.

Corroboration means agreement. It helps in evaluating evidence.

We also took a look at the credibility, plausibility and reasonable doubt of an evidence.

Critical Thinking #7

English: inductive and deductive reasoning (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We discussed about the types of logic in the seventh class of the course. Our teacher said that there are two types of logic– inductive logic and deductive logic.

Deductive logic is always valid. It can either be sound or unsound.

Example for a valid but unsound deductive argument :

R1 : All birds can fly.R2 : Penguin is a bird.C : Peguins can fly.

Example for valid and sound deductive logic:

Nothing that is cheap is good.Therefore, nothing that is good is cheap.

Maths is full of deductive logic. In deductive logic one can be always sure that there is 100% validity.

Inductive logic is stating examples and then generalizing it.

Example for inductive logic:

R1: Satellite picture show a cold front moving eastwards across the Canadian coastline 

R2: It moves with a trough of low pressure along its leading edge. 

R3: It will meet up with a large mass of rotaing wind moving across the Atlantic to scooping down from the easterly-winds sweeping down from the artic.

C: Consequently violent stroms can be expected to develop in the north Atlantic in next 24 hours.

Here, we are stating examples and then concluding. We do not know if its 100% valid in inductive logic, though it may be sound.

We learnt the difference between the two.