Story Pitch Cont., peer/self evaluation

Agenda:

1. Form Groups
2. Select Story Pitch to use
3. Plot your story in the way Vince Gilligan's writers team would do it (completed and checked off by end of period)
4. Analyze your plot in terms of Truby's Seven Keys below (google doc, upload in the Story Pitch Folder on the Google Drive, end of period)
5. Fill in team chart on google drive linked here
6. Open your google drive-locate the Google App called Smartsheet and add it to your Google Drive Create options
7. Scripts must be complete when you return from Spring Break. You will upload final scripts the Monday you return from break. On Monday we will learn Smartsheet and you will create a schedule for film development from production through post production, and preparation for Smash'n!
8. Ample time will be given in class for planning and editing. The assumption is that most shooting will be done outside of class time. When you return I will have a schedule posted for days you will use class time for making your movie. Between now and the end of the year you will also be watching movies, analyzing story, production, post-production technique. You will also be learning project management skills you can apply to future projects in all classes. 
9. No Cel Phones, no working on homework. 

Let's take a look at Script Structure by looking at this informative website

You will fill out a story board, such as Vince Gilligan's writers use for Breaking Bad. This board will provide a structure for your story and act as a visual outline. Remember this is a written board (this is not a drawn storyboard). You will begin with teaser or hook, include 3 acts, inciting incident that starts the main conflict, escalate conflict, resolution, descending conflict. Remember as you are plotting your story, how do we get the character's backstory? How do we come to identify and empathize with your character? When do we feel concern for your character? When do we first meet the obstacle or antagonist? Once you have your structure, you can focus on making scenes that are memorable, full of impact. You can also dive into your character's motivations, external and internal, exposing them scene by scene through the story arc.

Truby's Seven Key as analyzed in House by Mark McBride:

1. Weakness and need: a hero with a weakness (think of TV’s House…his bum leg, his arrogance, his social dysfunction) and a need (House needs to know he can love and be loved) 2. Desire: the backbone of the story that drives the hero (House must solve the case and prove his intellect)…notice that the desire, the want, isn’t the same as the “need”
3. Opponent: this character, often the antagonist, must go against the protagonist by wanting the same thing (House has a lot of different opponents–Foreman, the hospital rules, the patient who lies, even the disease)
4. Plan: heroes who want something need a plan of action (House figuring out how to beat the disease)
5. Battle: when the story boils to a crisis (House arguing with the other doctors, the patient almost dying….cut to commercial!!!)
6. Self-revelation: here the hero realizes what he wanted wasn’t what he needed…..I want to say this again, The hero wants something (with House, e.g., to prove reason trumps love) but he realizes that what he wanted wasn’t what he needs (cue alone time with dramatic music, House looking somber)
7. New equilibrium: with the new knowledge the world changes for the character (House sometimes doesn’t change, but he has,–e.g., he stops taking vicodin or reaches out to Wilson in an act of friendship)

(from: The Seven Key Steps of Story Structure)


Resources:
Syd Field
Blake Snyder-Save the Cat (Awesome site about screenplays, scriptwriting)
Peter Dunne-Emotional Structure
Drew Yanno-Constructing the ending

(Completed):

1. Pitch stories
2. Peer review of 4 pitches using document comments, use the 5 prompts below for each review. You will review each person at your table and one other script you find interesting or great that you want to give input to. You must peer review those at your table + 1
• Does the logline give you enough information about the story in terms of who the hero is, the hero's goal, and finally an overview or understanding of the conflict? (More than yes / no - if it does, describe your understanding of the conflict)
• Do you connect with the protagonist in terms of the kind of character proposed, the internal and external motivation, other? Why?
• Is the conflict presented universal in nature? Do you think you will be able to empathize with the emotions presented in the film as a result of the conflict? Will you care, or not? If not, why?
• Is the history presented at this point with clarity-do we know time and location? Site the time/location of the story?
• Is there any book, movie, television show, or short that has gone before with success that has influenced or inspired this work? Does it remind you of anything?
3. Nominate 3 stories to fund as you act as a producer - give votes to Mrs. L. We will discuss the qualities seen in the 3 top voted for pitches.
4. Write reflectively about the strength of your story- what are your next steps? Do you find a team to help you envision it? Do you scrap it and start over? Do you see modifications you should make? Please download the linked sheet and then upload back to the Story Pitch Folder.

Story Pitch & Character

Please upload all pitches here

Please answer the blog response question below:

With regards to character motivation and goals, there are the character's internal goals that may be included in the plot backstory. But the character also has an external goal.  In the case of breaking bad, the character's internal goals are driven by the fact that he has cancer, is cash-poor and needs a quick way to provide for the long term financial security of his family. His external every day goal however is much different. These goals transform this character from a standup guy with morals and values to compromising his values for the sake of his family.

Select a character from a book, play, movie or tv show and describe the internal and external goals that drive the main character. Do these goals transform the character over time?


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Story Pitch Feedback:
1. Clear logline that includes hero (protagonist), goal and obstacle.
2. Backstory gives the audience an idea of the hero's life up until the beginning of the conflict.
3. Character is well presented, we understand hero's internal and external goals and how these goals may transform the character as the character faces challenges within the overall plot.
4. Conflict is presented with clarity.

Loglines, Pitch

Please download this file to read and follow in class today.

Please download this file to write loglines today

Planning for last project

1. What do you think it takes to make a good movie?

2. How do you think you will write your script? Watch

2. How important is it that the final movie reflects the original idea or plan? Watch

3. How can you prepare best for your movie, once you have a script? Watch 

3. The writing process and previsualization Watch (or read)

4. What do you think you can do to best direct your movie? Watch 

Private reflection/exit ticket:

1. What is your goal for the final map project of the year? (Ex. could include, 'I want to make a keeper movie for my portfolio', 'I have a certain story that I want to tell', 'I want to find a story to tell and create it', 'I want to win at SmashN', 'I want to prove something to myself, and that is...', 'I want to use this project as a prelude to making a movie for college entrance, as a way to practice making a good movie that turns out as I expect'

Please write your response and hand in to Mrs. L

NOTE: Please bring the camera you plan to use for production tomorrow to class for practice and time to gain mastery of production skills. If you need to get a camera from the library please do so, or bring your camera from home. You will be given time to gain more mastery over your production process.

Film School Application Movies (Students accepted, USC or NYU)
NYU Tisch/USC
USC
Chapman
Chapman
Chapman
Chapman 
Chapman
Chapman (rejected)
Chapman (rejected)

Chapman: Visual Storytelling Assignment
Look at Chapman FTV 130; Intro to Visual Storytelling

Gump Reflections

As students of media, language and history, please reflect on the following questions in a google doc and share with me at shsmap2013@gmail.com.

This should be at least a 2 page response.

1. What can you learn from Forrest Gump about the relationship between history and story in this stellar movie?
2. This movie has some interesting symbolism? What might the box of chocolates represent, or the feather, or the people sitting with him at the bus stop? Can you think of other symbolism in the movie?
3. What do you think the production crew responsible for filming the movie had to take into consideration during the shoot in particular for the scenes involving Lt. Dan without legs, Forrest meeting Pres. Kennedy, and Forrest on the Dick Cavett show with John Lennon?
4. What can you learn about camera movement, angle and depth of field from the movie?
5. What challenges would you have if you had to shoot an actor over green screen to composite into historical footage for use in your movie? What might be the steps? (take an educated guess).
6. What are the emotional highs and lows of the movie?  (name at least 3). 
7. Do you think this movie script followed a 3 act structure, or does the script break the 3 act structure? If it breaks the rule, what then is the structure of the script?
8. Why does the audience stay with this movie? What about it hooks the viewer and keeps the viewer tuned in wanting more?

Monday-DSLR, and camera settings

Please watch this movie and look at the camera note link below. Watch the movie, and answer the camera notes at the same time, the questions in the notes follow the movie. About half way through the camera notes, you will be asked to look at the camera you will use to identify ways to make the best possible video in terms of quality and style.

Camera notes-click here

Practice shooting:

Demonstrate a good shallow/narrow depth of field by:

1. Place the subject or actor against an interesting background, but one that you intend to defocus (or blur out- blur can go from slightly blurred or defocused to achieving a Bokeh look which produces magical looking almost soft bubbles in the background - very desirable, not always possible to achieve)
2. On your camera go into aperture priority mode (A), or Portrait mode if your camera has a portrait setting
3. Chose a large aperture for your aperture setting (remember, the small number is the larger opening, so F1.4-F3.5, these are letting lots of light into your camera, opening the lens). With so much light though, you risk over exposure-so we'll discuss that next. You also may experience more out of focus shots, so it is advisable to stablize your camera on a tripod, or something stable, rest against a tree, etc. If you shake just a little, you risk an out of focus image.
4. The exposure triad include aperture, shutter and ISO. Now we'll look at ISO. As aperture controls the amount of light the lens allows onto the sensor, the shutter controls the speed at which the shutter is released. Shutter speed also is a great way to achieve certain effects, such as motion and zoom blurs and the like. Shutter at high speed is also used to freeze things such as drops of water from a fountain, etc. So first, set your ISO to about 100. Remember, you can always increase ISO, but for now take it down.
5. Now Shutter-start with setting shutter to twice your frame rate as instructed in your video. If you are shooting at 24fps, then set shutter to 48, and so forth.
6. Now back up from your actor, further away (don't go over a cliff), and now zoom your lens into desirable compositional framing. Have your actor display some kind of emotion. 
7. NOW - without any mic attached to your dslr, have your actor say something (4 score and 20 years ago, for the lack of anything better). Now move up 1/2 distance to your actor, and again, record with audio. Finally, move up within a couple feet of your actor-record audio. This can be used to test the audio on your camera and see what issues you will run into with audio. For those of you with DSLRs, identify the sound input options. Can you use a boom mic if desired?

Deliverable:
Log and Transfer your series of tests
1. Depth of field shot trying to achieve cinematic film quality (24fps), with shallow depth of field (20-30 sec in length, 1080p) Simple shot, talking head is fine
2. Same shot, but with 3 different audio takes demonstrating audio quality at various distances from actor.
3. 1 experiment you have performed on this video to better understand the color correction filters in either FCE, FCP, Premiere. Be experimental, see what they do, what improvements would you like to make?
4. Taking the most inaudible of your files, using the editor of your choice, increase the volume while monitoring for introduction of noise. Increase gain, normalize and let's also look at hum reduction. This is a good time to play with those audio filters.

Upload for to the videostorage server by Thursday, end of class so we can share results.

DSLR vs. Camcorder

1. DSLR-audio. What are the audio consideration when using a DSLR. Are there advantages for audio in using a DSLR? Are there disadvantages to audio with a DSLR?
2. Pick 3 leading DLSR or HD-SLR cameras and describe the storage capability for video at HD and 1080p. Make a comparison with the storage on the Canon Vixia HG20 as example camcorder. Describe any concerns a producer might find with heat interrupting the record process.
3. What is the exposure triad and how might the aspects of exposure lead to better cinematic quality, or allow the project to achieve a more 'filmatic' look. And, finally, what is a 'filmatic' look, how would you describe it?
4. Describe the resolution and frame rate available with 3 leading DSLRs and compare that to the HG20 Canon Vixia.
5. Describe the issues a photographer/cinematographer may run into when using a DSLR in terms of focus, live view and image stabilization. Compare a DSLR to the Canon Camcorder in terms of these factors.
6. What are the benefits of using a DSLR over a camcorder such as the Canon HG20, Vixia, as used in class. What does a DSLR provide that is better? See if you can provide an example of video output that appears like film to make your point.

Final Project Preparation

Please take the time-management quiz linked here.
Score yourself. Analyze the results. What did you learn? Share your learning with a neighbor.

Please download and complete the attached paper.-completed



Resources:

Techhive-excellent overview article - focus on using DSLR cameras for video
Nikon Cinema-another excellent article, focus on Nikon HD-SLR
Recommended Cameras (DLSR) for video
Digital Camera World-Good article, also points to the challenges of using a DSLR in terms of focus, audio and more