A man bought a dozen live blue crabs and brought them home.
He showed the crabs to his two children. Eleven crabs were dropped into a steamer and one was left in the kitchen sink to satisfy kids' curiosity.
The older son tested crab's clasp reflexes by waving wet paper in front of the creature. The younger one lightly poked it with a wooden spoon. Both boys had much fun, but the crab was agonizing against attacks of two human monsters and looked terrified. The man asked kids to be gentle.
Meanwhile, the eleven crabs were red-ready. Appetizing sea-salty scent from the steamer filled the kitchen.
Initially, the man was hungry for seafood, but by now he had lost his appetite. The red shells and claws in the steamer now looked to him like eleven murdered brothers and sisters of the multi-legged pet in the kitchen sink.
Moral:
Do not play with something you are about to kill. You may fall in love with it. Kill quickly. Do not waste lives.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Titles
In Brent Monahan's class that I've just finished, he talked about catchy story titles. here's one I came up with:
My funeral was a great party.
My funeral was a great party.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Today's class
Some ideas about today's discussion in class:
Roles
The roles of actor, director and writer in film production may be thought in terms of their respective skill sets.
Actor has a skill to not resist influence of the director. Director helps actor arrive to a certain emotional state appropriate for a particular scene in a film. In other words, a director "makes" an actor feel a certain way: angry, sad, excited, worried, confused, etc. An actor knows how not to resist director's influence. Actor's action: actor needs to trust the director on what emotion he/she should exhibit in each scene. Actor's job is to feel this way while saying and acting out what's in the script.
Director knows how to influence actor's emotional state. Also, a director is good at judging what an actor feels at any given moment. He knows weather the actor is pretending, or truly experiencing the emotion that needs to be expressed by the character. Director's action: Director is not to come up with interesting ideas for film, but to clearly communicate in moving images what's already written by a writer.
Writer notices unusual and interesting situations in life or creates them from his imagination. He is clearly recording these situations on paper and explaining why they are interesting. He is usually good at working solo. Writer's action: for example, a writer may notice some injustice in government. Usually, the writer's goal is not to attack this injustice directly, but to merely record what he noticed and let others take actions. Typically, the only action that a writer takes is the act of writing itself. Sometimes, he is also involved in distribution (publishing, for example) or somehow sharing his writings with people.
How much detail is too much in a script?
(1) Script / story is like a comic strip. There should be just enough detail to convey the point, any excessive detail is simply destructive to the reader. For example:
We don't need to know what exactly the agenda items are, or what's the mug (coffee / tea) on the table. These details don't add to the story: some people scan agendas for items not relevant to them and zone out.
Roles
The roles of actor, director and writer in film production may be thought in terms of their respective skill sets.
Actor has a skill to not resist influence of the director. Director helps actor arrive to a certain emotional state appropriate for a particular scene in a film. In other words, a director "makes" an actor feel a certain way: angry, sad, excited, worried, confused, etc. An actor knows how not to resist director's influence. Actor's action: actor needs to trust the director on what emotion he/she should exhibit in each scene. Actor's job is to feel this way while saying and acting out what's in the script.
Director knows how to influence actor's emotional state. Also, a director is good at judging what an actor feels at any given moment. He knows weather the actor is pretending, or truly experiencing the emotion that needs to be expressed by the character. Director's action: Director is not to come up with interesting ideas for film, but to clearly communicate in moving images what's already written by a writer.
Writer notices unusual and interesting situations in life or creates them from his imagination. He is clearly recording these situations on paper and explaining why they are interesting. He is usually good at working solo. Writer's action: for example, a writer may notice some injustice in government. Usually, the writer's goal is not to attack this injustice directly, but to merely record what he noticed and let others take actions. Typically, the only action that a writer takes is the act of writing itself. Sometimes, he is also involved in distribution (publishing, for example) or somehow sharing his writings with people.
How much detail is too much in a script?
(1) Script / story is like a comic strip. There should be just enough detail to convey the point, any excessive detail is simply destructive to the reader. For example:
We don't need to know what exactly the agenda items are, or what's the mug (coffee / tea) on the table. These details don't add to the story: some people scan agendas for items not relevant to them and zone out.
Monday, March 30, 2009
A fable: a night crawler and a runner.
One evening, after a heavy downpour, a nigh crawler came out to a small road in a park.
He saw a familiar man doing his routine evening run. The night crawler thought: there is no reason to get out of the trail -- the runner is big and smart, he will avoid stepping on me, as he always did in the past.
That evening, the runner's mind was preoccupied by that day's announcement from his Big Boss at work. The runner suspected he could loose his job soon due to layoffs. The worry for uncertainty was filling runner's mind. In order to take his mind off work and focus on his run, the runner began to run backwards only occasionally glancing at the road ahead. Without knowledge, stepped on and squeezed the life out the night crawler.
Moral: it is the job of the night crawler to find a safe spot away from when runner, especially, when there have been recent changes in the runner's routine.
He saw a familiar man doing his routine evening run. The night crawler thought: there is no reason to get out of the trail -- the runner is big and smart, he will avoid stepping on me, as he always did in the past.
That evening, the runner's mind was preoccupied by that day's announcement from his Big Boss at work. The runner suspected he could loose his job soon due to layoffs. The worry for uncertainty was filling runner's mind. In order to take his mind off work and focus on his run, the runner began to run backwards only occasionally glancing at the road ahead. Without knowledge, stepped on and squeezed the life out the night crawler.
Moral: it is the job of the night crawler to find a safe spot away from when runner, especially, when there have been recent changes in the runner's routine.
Monday, March 2, 2009
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