Week 9 - Welcome to November

I don't have a single new picture for you guys this week. I was busy with classes and I had cold so when I wasn't in class I was at home in bed. Tuesday night I came straight home from school and slept 13 hours straight until I had to get up for my next class. I did feel better after that :)

Since I don't have pictures I guess this week I will talk a bit about what I am actually doing in class. Last two weeks I have been working on my 30 minute script, writing 2 drafts of it as well as treatments for my feature film. The treatment is a summary of my story, for class it was 1-2 pages.

My 30 minute script is called Level Up, its about a ten year old boy named Cody who wants to play his video games but needs to learn to take care of his younger brother Tobias (age 4). I had gotten bored with my story back in the treatment stage so I haven't been super enthusiastic while writing these drafts. This has just been work. I came up with the idea originally so that I would have something that is set in the real world but I get bored easily with the real world. In talking about my drafts of the script with my classmates and teachers I have gotten a little more interested in my story, but I'll be glad when I'm done with this one. My final draft is due Nov. 11^th.

My feedback for this script is mostly that I tend to have the children speak like adults and that the tension in the story plateaus about halfway through, both of which I can agree with. One of the teachers really liked my script and saw it as being a sorta dark commentary that yes, Cody helps his brother but nothing is solved so the message is that Tobias will always be in danger. I think my script would be much more interesting with the dark tone that this teacher sees, but I have a hard time seeing it myself so its difficult to write this last draft to reflect it. We'll see what happens.

My feature film is currently titled Golden Years of a Dragon. Feature film means movie length so an hour and half to two hours, somewhere around there. I see this as being an animated family film. It's about an elderly dragon named Ed who wants to be an admired dragon with heaps of gold but needs to realize that there is more to life than gold. Now that I've written several version of summary treatment my next step with this is to write a scene-by-scene breakdown of everything that I know is going to happen in the movie. This is due Nov. 20^th. I haven't started this yet, but I'll have to get it done way before the deadline since I'm going to Rome right before its due and I don't want to think about homework while I'm there. I am much more excited about this story and I think I will actually enjoy figuring out what I want to happen scene by scene. I would never have thought about breaking it down before writing but I am sure this will be really helpful for when I do start writing the actual script. When will I be doing that? I'll be writing the first Act (first quarter of the film) over Christmas break. I think it'll be fun.

Other than these two assignments, over the next two weeks I am also going to be writing a two-page review of what I’ve thought of my classes up to this point (due Nov. 13^th) and I am doing a breakdown of the movie Nightmare Before Christmas with two of my classmates which we will present to the class on Nov. 21^st. My group is just about done with the paperwork part of our presentation so at least this assignment is nearly complete. It’s everything else that still need work.

Don’t worry, it sounds like a lot but over the next two weeks it’s not all work. As I mentioned I will be taking a trip to Rome as well as a weekend in Lapland to see the northern lights and hopefully some reindeer. Hopefully next Monday I will have some Lapland pictures to share with you!