Stephanie
3rd Level
Icon by Dollsome @ LJ
Posts: 564
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Post by Stephanie on Jan 24, 2006 13:42:23 GMT -5
Two days ago I was watching this episode to get into the mood of writing my script. Just for fun I wrote down all the lines from the part where Maddie comes back into the office and David wants her to tell him what's wrong. I used something like it in my script (not the same ) but the peeps I'm making the film with didn't get it. They didn't get why some guy was asking some woman to tell him what was going on and then suddenly he didn't want to hear about it. They thought the character was mean, and shouldn't deserve an apology. I was like OMG!! And then there was this part in it where the two leads of the film had a discussion (well, discussion, more like Yes! No! YES! NO!) and one girl (who knows I like Moonlighting) said, now that's something I do like, THAT is something like Moonlighting. And I was again like OMG!!! That does look like it?! And the other scene doesn't?! tsssss, my teacher didn't get it... oh well, we had to cut a lot of it out because it appeared my script was too long And the girl wants to cut the best scenes!! Now I know what Glenn must have felt like... (I was able to talk her out of it most of the time, so we still have parts of the best scenes.) boo...I'm gonna make an individual film in about a month, so then I'll use my point of view on things (btw, it's not like I'm trying to make something like Moonlighting, I just wanted a good fight with a bit of comedy in it since the whole (5 min) film is like a comedy (while it was supposed to be a drama) that's something the other girl caused because she wanted a seacucumber collector in it...) anyways, sorry it turned out to be a venting post lol
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Post by queensgirl on Jan 24, 2006 16:00:20 GMT -5
I can't see why they wouldn't get the gist of it: based on the original, the man in question couldn't stand the thought of the woman being reckless, which makes him afraid for her; graphic about her desires, which shocks him because he thinks of her as 'pure'; and looking for somebody else, which makes him jealous.
She can talk about her feelings. He invited her to be open with him, which is getting close to similar honesty, but he can't quite bring himself to say why he "doesn't want to hear this."
On the show they had almost three years of context to make it clear, whereas you may be working within the space of a few pages. So I can understand your frustration, it's tougher to carry off than it looks (getting the audience to follow all the undercurrents, that is). Making people read between the lines is quite a trick. Don't count yourself out if they missed it the first time.
I know what you mean. I've done plenty of writing myself, including scripts, and nothing's worse than some of the things that are bound to happen to you--having to cut out things you wanted to keep in, first, and then, even more of an indignity, having people completely miss the point.
I wrote a script where a young woman who goes to her family reunion is disappointed over her lack of career progress and generally doesn't get along with the rest of the folks. She says to a friend at one point, in a flashback to an earlier problem, "And then my father hit me. It was my nineteenth birthday."
I meant for people to be shocked, as that's a pretty bad thing to do. They thought it was a punchline, and it got a big laugh.
Should I be complimented that at least I got a laugh, or frustrated that they utterly messed up the meaning of the scene?
I left it in there, by the way, and I think I still got an A for the project.
Good luck on yours. ;D
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Stephanie
3rd Level
Icon by Dollsome @ LJ
Posts: 564
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Post by Stephanie on Jan 24, 2006 17:09:43 GMT -5
yeah, thanks, I see what you mean. Of course, I have to deal with a 5 minute film, which (according to the girl) is 5 pages of script. I don't agree with it tho, I mean, Moonlighting had way more for 5 minutes because they talked really fast, and Once Upon a Time in the West probably had a lot less because they had a lot of long shots with hardly any conversation in it. + Most of the things I wrote down where things that where happening during the talk. Anyways, I had written 13 pages (I was on a roll still tried to keep it short. I typed till 3 o clock in the morning) so I know that's a bit too long. But I do think it works, I'll just whipe a few sentences to make it shorter. To make it easyer: The story is about 3 men in an office with a woman as boss. Two of those men try to seduce her in a really weird way (according to the voice over, this wasn't the first time they did this) and usually she is fine with it, but this time she gets really mad. The third person (which I called Nick) notices this and steps into her office to talk about it. She doesn't want to talk about it because she doesn't think a boss should talk about private things with an employee. But at one point Nick gets her this far to talk and then she tells him something so private he doesn't want to hear it and she walks out. They don't even let me try him to stop her, I mean, how crazy is that? To let the love of your life just get away, without saying anything?!...ok one sentence, "don't do anything stupid, okay?" But let the sea cucumber scene in it... Anyways, later that evening we see Nick putting a rose down on her desk, and suddenly she stands at the door. He apologises for what happened, she has been crying, they hug THE END.... (Now I still have to write this...I had another ending, but it was too long) Glenn, wanna hire me so I can write longer stories? I promise I'll be good
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Post by queensgirl on Jan 24, 2006 17:42:53 GMT -5
Maybe they didn't want the love story to be the focus, but the comedy. That's part of the shame of things these days--people can't seem to handle a combination of themes as was so common on ML. It's harder to get people to appreciate a message with many different elements. People get confused, they want one thing at a time. Maybe they're figuring how do you rook the average person to come down to the movie house; never thinking that the best thing to do from the standpoint of quality is, actually, to challenge your audience. No, they're looking for the lowest common denominator these days, and watch during the next two or three revisions for them to recommend that you put some kids or robots or stuff blowing up in it...
It is absolutely nuts to let the most important person in your life walk off without putting up a fight. That's what puts the heart in the story. As for the idea that romantic stories and dramatism can't go together, with comedy as well--hey, Shakespeare would have been pretty surprised.
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Stephanie
3rd Level
Icon by Dollsome @ LJ
Posts: 564
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Post by Stephanie on Jan 24, 2006 17:59:37 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't get that. I think the best stories are stories with more than one "genre". Oh well, it isn't my carreer yet. We're still learning the do's and don't's of the bussiness. Heck! The teacher even said Voice Over couldn't be done! But I wrote it and he didn't have anything to say about it! Just that it was a good script! Now that says somethin'
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