Author Archive
Nov
27
2011
 
Emotional Structure (Part 3)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“The story is the journey for truth. The plot is the road is takes to get there.” Peter Dunne I have yet to find a nice neat, concise definition of emotional structure—but I think I can unpack it a little and give you a few solid examples. Yesterday, I read my first Kindle book—and it [...]
Nov
26
2011
Emotional Structure (Part 2)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“A.J. Appleyard, in a study of the various stages of reading through which we go as readers, insists that the major source of literary experience is emotional. Without an affective dimension, without investing feelings, reading fictional texts would hold no interest. Reading is always ‘emotional.’ To deny this fact of life is to supress a [...]
Nov
25
2011
Emotional Structure (Part 1)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“Without understanding Emotional Structure, the beginning, the middle, and the end of your script have a 100 percent chance of becoming the beginning, the muddle, and the end. Because emotions rule the central, most misunderstood and most feared element of a screenplay: that of the story’s underlying meaning. And only by understanding Emotional Structure can [...]
Nov
24
2011
“Who’s got it better than us?”Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaHappy Thanksgiving from Iowa. I have two stories from Iowa that tie into not only Thanksgiving, but into the theme of emotions that I’ve been writing about a chunk of this month. Jim and John Harbaugh are not just the only two brothers to ever be head coaches in the NFL, but tonight they will [...] “Aesthetics is for the artist as Ornithology is for the birds.” Barnett Newman “Aestheticism is a search after the signs of the beautiful. It is the science of the beautiful through which men seek the correlation of the arts. It is, to speak more exactly, the search after the secret of life.” Oscar Wilde I’m not sure [...] “There was certain quality of melanchloy that Connie (Conrad Hall) carried with him that he was very in touch and you feel it in the films.” Director Glenn Gordon Caron Melancholy can be defined as a pensive mood or depressing spirit. If you read many bios of artists across the board (painters, writers, musicians, etc.) [...]
Nov
21
2011
“A Gymnasium for the Senses”Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaFor just over two weeks I’ve been writing about the role of emotions in filmmaking and screenwriting and somehow I missed that Richard Walter has a whole chapter in his book Essentials of Screenwriting simply titled Emotion. Here is part of what the Professor of Screenwriting at UCLA’s MFA program wrote: Film is for feeling. [...] The following quote from the Oscar-nominated director of Crossfire (and more than 50 other films including The Cain Mutiny) seems like a fitting quote to follow yesterday’s post Emotional Manipulation; “Today, many film-makers are afraid to deal with sentiment, dismissing it as sentimentality. But the ability to properly handle sentiment and its underlying emotion, to get the most out [...] “Isn’t the whole point of making a trip to the movie theater that you’re actually hoping to be emotionally manipulated? Because you want someone to tell you a story that will then make you laugh or cry? Jim Hill “Our results suggest that film-makers manipulate sounds to create non-linear analogues to manipulate our emotional responses.”ABC Science, Movies [...]
Nov
18
2011
No Emotions? “Your Screenplay Sucks!”Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“Give the reader an emotional experience or you’re wasting your time. It doesn’t matter what emotion it is, but make damn sure he or she feels something. “ William M. Akers Your Screenplay Sucks! 100 ways to make it better One of those 100 Ways to make your script better in William M. Akers’ book [...] |
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