“The Barrier” Progress Report 2013 April 28

Progress

I finished another four scenes and started on a fifth for “The Barrier” this week. They run about seven minutes, which is about what I did the week before. I rejigged several of the earlier scenes. Total run time is about 18 minutes now. There is some overlap between scenes, so it will end up a bit shorter. The average scene length was 1:48.

The new scenes were all for the second sequence. I took the first two scenes from “The Glencoe Project”. I needed to create the next two scenes to tie them into the story line from “The Gladstone Barrier”.

Challenges

When I decided to combine the two stories, I knew I would have some trouble when I combined the hero’s boss character. I had two different characters play that role in the two stories. This week I ran onto some scenes where the character from one story does something that the character from the other story wouldn’t. I haven’t really carved the characters in stone yet, so maybe I can use the contradictions to build a more complicated character.

I find that some of my characters develop more complexity as I work on the story. I think that when I work in Xtranormal that it is easier for me to develop the characters when I write.

I worry that some of the later scenes aren’t as visually interesting as the earlier ones. Maybe that will come later. I think that part of the issue is that I’ve had more time to think about the earlier scenes before I started on this project. I haven’t thought as much about the later scenes. I haven’t read the stories for a while and I realised that I don’t remember them as well as I thought I did. I think I had better reread them.

I’d like to tie the two stories together a bit better. “The Glencoe Project” is about the transportation study for a new development, while “The Gladstone Barrier” is about transportation project priority study. Some of the same characters showed up in the two stories. I originally thought the two stories were at different points in the hero’s career. Now I have them happen at the same time. In one story, the hero is inexperience, while in the other he is more experienced.

Xtranormal Tricks

I picked up some new tricks with Xtranormal this week. I used the ability to change character’s posture used very effectively in one of the scenes I did this week. Xtranormal has two different sitting postures, a sit up straight, and a lean forward. In the scene, my character talks about how discouraged he feels. I combined the lean forward with a look at a target on the floor to create a body language to express this emotion.

I learned how to make sitting characters stand up and used that in a couple of scenes. I tried to get a character to sit down. That worked in a test I did, but I couldn’t get it to work in the scene where I wanted to use it. I redid the dialogue to explain why he doesn’t sit down.

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First Sequence Done on Transportation Movie

I made more progress on my transportation movie this week. I did four scenes this week and edited them together with the two scenes I did last week. It came in at just under 10 minutes.

I finished the scene I gave up on last week. It is the scene where the boss, Brandon, assigns the hero, Arthur Macdonald, to do a development impact study. Most of it came from a scene in “The Glencoe Project”. It turned out to be trickier than I expected to combine it with the previous scene.

Two of the new scenes are directly from “The Glencoe Project”. In the first scene, Arthur asks the model guy, Dennis, for help. In the second, Dennis gives his advice. I did have to change the location of one scene so I wouldn’t need to buy another set. I also added some material to the dialogue. I’ll need to add some more, because when I watched the compilation, I realized that Ralph asks for something in one scene, but in the next, Dennis doesn’t answer the original question.

I added the last scene to provide a break between the two scenes with Dennis. In it, Arthur talks to his mentor, Ling. I used some dialogue that I had to cut out of an earlier scene because I had eliminated one of the characters. That didn’t make for much of a scene, so I added some more material that tells us more about Ling.

I changed my mind about the voices I wanted to use for the characters. I gave the boss, Brandon, the voice I’d originally used for Arthur because it seemed too authoritative for Arthur  I gave Arthur a meeker voice, which I hadn’t used before. I didn’t like the voice I gave Brandon originally. I found it hard to understand.

Finally, I used Premiere Pro to combine all six scenes together in a sequence. Most of the scenes run about a minute and a half, although one dies run over two minutes. Altogether the sequence runs for just under 10 minutes. I watched it through several times. I thought it went fairly well. I am too close to it to really judge it. I worry that other people will find it boring. I did notice some continuity errors I need to fix.

I had a nice transition between the first and second scenes that can symbolize one of the main conflicts in the story. It wasn’t something I had planned in advance. Now that I see how it works, I can go back and enhance the effect.

Over the next week I plan to work on the next sequence. I think the bulk of that sequence will be taken up by a single scene. I find that scenes of one and a half to two minutes are easier to do than the longer scenes. I may want to find a way to break up the scene. In this sequence, Ralph has a major set back, but then an opportunity opens up for him.

As I do each scene, I find I have started to develop better ways to create a scene. Initially I did the dialogue, camera setups, movements, and gestures as I went along. Now I start with just the dialogue, with a single camera set up that shows all the action. Most of my scenes start with some character movement, so I usually do that at the same time. Once I am happy with the dialogue, I go back and do the camera setups. I find the camera setups very frustrating to do. I add the gestures last. Of course, once I have the whole scene done, I go back and tweak it, again and again and again.

So far I have just called it my transportation movie. Initially I planned to call it “The Gladstone Barrier”. Since I used that title for one of my short stories, I wanted something different for the movie. My current inclination is to call it “The Barrier”. I think it give a broader interpretation of the story, since there is both a real barrier and a metaphorical barrier in the story.

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Transportation Movie on Xtranormal Started

I started to develop a new video on Xtranormal this week. I would like to end up with a feature length movie, but we’ll see how it develops.

I planned to cannibalize my two stories “The Gladstone Barrier” and “The Glencoe Project” for the project. I’ve only taken some of the ideas from the stories so far. I haven’t used any material directly. Partly because I have some characters in different roles in each story, so I have to do some mixing and matching to make them work together.

The approach I’ve taken is to put together individual scenes, then later combine them into the whole movie. I’ve worked on three scenes so far, and I consider one of them finished. It is a new scene that has no counterpart in either of the stories. It does set up some new conflicts for the rest of the movie.

I’m mostly done the second, but think I can develop it a bit more. It replaces a scene in the original story that I couldn’t do in Xtranormal. Instead of showing the action, I have the characters talk about it. It isn’t as good that way, but I have to work with the limitations of the program.

The third is a continuation of the second scene, except that I bring in a new character and one of the others leaves. I haven’t been very successful with that one. I’ve scrapped what I’ve done so far and will start over. It is one of the scenes where I needed to change one of characters from the story. I can use most of the material from the story for this scene. 

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Putting “Sweat Box” on the Back Burner

I’ve been stuck on my story “Sweat Box” for several months now. I’ve found that when I pick one top priority, then I tend to neglect everything else. Focus is a good thing, but sometimes it just gets in the way.

For the past couple months my top priority has been my wife’s health. While I’ve focussed on my wife’s health, I know that I need to take a break and take care of myself. Unfortunately, my top writing priority, “Sweat Box” takes a lot out of me.

I’ve grown frustrated with the project and can’t move forward with it. That isn’t what I need now. I don’t really like to drop projects, but I know I have to put “Sweat Box” off to the side for now. Aside from some concerns about the story itself, I just don’t feel excited by the story now. Maybe after I’ve left for a while I can come back to it with renewed vigour.

I have several other projects that I want to work on. I have ideas about how to finish off “My Most Difficult Case”. I want to try more short and long films with Xtranormal. I’ll have to pick one that gets me excited though. Maybe I should just go with the first impulse I have when I get up tomorrow.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Do I Have The Personality To Be A Successful Filmmaker/Writer?

Much of what I read about filmmaking and writing focuses on how to sell your work. While I see the necessity of this, I don’t think I am good at it, and I certainly don’t enjoy it. I’ve always thought of selling your work in negative terms, which I think of as “self-promotion”. In the end, I go back to the belief that if my work is good enough, then it will sell itself.

The Art of Asking

Recently I watched a TED talk by Amanda Palmer: “The Art of Asking” that got me to re think how I promote my own work.

In some ways, her talk didn’t have anything new to me, but it did open my eyes a little to a different view of what was involved. Whereas I thought in terms of self-promoters, I’d describe her as a connector. Her approach is more like the way you make friends than selling yourself. She describes it as trusting people. I think her approach works very well with her type of personality.

Her approach doesn’t seem as crass or self-serving as what I’d heard before. It does seem to be a nicer approach to making your way as an artist. For myself though, I still can’t see that I can take this approach. I just don’t feel comfortable when I ask people to support me.

I can’t really change my personality in any major, or even minor, way. I supposed I could train myself to behave otherwise, but it would seem artificial and come off as phoney. That would be worse than if I’d not tried at all.

Let the Art Sell Itself

As I noted above, in the past I’ve tried to rely on the inherent interest of my work to gain an audience. That only works with special ideas, and not all of my ideas are special. It isn’t always possible to recognize if your own idea is special or not.

The success I had with some of my ideas made me a little spoiled. Both the Hundred Dollar Film Festival and “Line of Taxis” were projects that quickly found supporters. I didn’t really need to push them; they took on a life of their own. That is something I can’t always count on.

There is also a good argument that if your work can’t sell itself, then it just isn’t worth your while to make it. I have abandoned many ideas that didn’t catch other people’s interest. Some ideas are harder to give up than others are. Maybe those ideas would catch on if I developed them further.

Involve Others

Another approach I could use is to involve people in my projects that do have the desirable personality traits that I just don’t have. Most commercial films are like this. They usually leave the promotion to the actors and not the writer or director. The exceptions are notable for their rarity.

I haven’t really tried this approach and I’m not sure how well it would work. The closest I came was when Keith Humphrey attended the screening of “Line of Taxis” at a festival. That wasn’t really a case where I tried to promote the film though.

Other Approaches

I am sure I haven’t exhausted all the ways that I could promote my work. However, I am not sure what other approaches might work for me. 

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

The Difficulties of Autobiography in Fiction

Some parts of my new story "Sweat" are autobiographical. I find those are the hardest parts to write. I’ve tried to understand why.

Most, if not all, writers draw from their personal experiences in their work. I often find it difficult to do. I based one scene in “Sweat” on an actual conversation I had. This has become a difficult challenge for me, and I have thought about why these autobiographical elements of my stories are so hard for me.

I have identified three barriers when I have trouble when I try to incorporate events from my life into my fiction work.

1.      Many events were important in both life and the lives of others. I don’t want to trivialize these events in my fiction. This is especially a concern with other people’s involvement.

2.      Many events I want to use were unpleasant for me. When I want to incorporate them, it revives the feelings I had at the time. It is painful to revisit these old wounds and bad memories. Although these feelings can provide fodder for the story, they can also put me off writing.

3.      Many events involved conflict with other people. Although I have managed to exclude them from my current life, these people are still around. I fear that if I use those events as the basis for my fiction, they will reopen the old conflict.

I have developed a couple of strategies to deal with these barriers.

1.      I try to create a distance between my experience and myself. The main technique I’ve used is to transpose the events to a different situation. This allows me to change the specifics of the event and the nature of the people involved.

2.      I try to draw on emotions from the event and envision other situations that can bring out similar emotions.

I used both of these strategies in my film “Line of Taxis”. They did help, but there were several periods on that film where I ran into the same barriers. I’ve used both approaches in my story “Sweat”.

I suppose that in the end, it is just a matter of “getting over it”. None the less, I would like to find other techniques to help me overcome these barriers. I would gratefully accept any advice.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to Listen - Part 2

I first began to be more aware of listening as a skill when I learned about a technique known as Active Listening. I have found this technique useful, but it does have its dangers.

Over the years, many people have developed techniques to help them listen better. One technique I learned at work is Active Listening. For me it was a revelation, since I’d never thought of listening as a skill before. Active Listening is intended for situations where another person comes to you with a problem. It may not be appropriate in other situations

The Technique of Active Listening

Active listening involves three stages.

·         The first step is to hear what the other person says. In this stage, you need to pay attention to what the person says. In addition, it is important to be aware of the way it is said and non-verbal clues that add to the meaning of what is said. While the objective is to understand what they have said, it is not necessary at this stage to fully accomplish that.

·         The second is to interpret and understand what they said. In this stage you take what you learned from what they said and in your own mind determine what is the message they want you to hear. That message may not be direct or clear. It may not be what the speaker consciously means to say. Again, it is not necessary at this stage to completely understand what the person says.

·         The third, and most important, step is to respond to what the person said. The purpose of your response is two fold. First, you want to confirm that you understand what the other person said. You do this by repeating what they said in your own words and asking them is that is what they meant. This reinforces your understanding and helps you remember what they said. The second purpose is to demonstrate to the other person that you heard what they said and that you understand it. This will make them more comfortable and thus more open in what they say.

Dangers of Active Listening

Active listening is a skill and you must practice it to do it well. Done improperly, it can hamper rather than aid communication.

One fault I had was to slip into a formulaic response. It is an easy mistake to make. In my experience, a formulaic response can turn people off. It can make the other person suspect that you are not paying attention. They may shut down and withdraw.

Another mistake is to express your response as advice or your opinion. It may be that the person wants your advice or opinion. The danger is that if you fail to listen you will give the wrong advice because you don’t understand the question well enough. Premature advice may also discourage the speaker from talking.

Don’t be too quick to decide what the problem is. It is not unusual for people avoid asking directly about their problem. They may want to get advice without admitting they have a problem. They may not be clear in their own minds what their problem is.

Another danger of premature advice is that many times people want a sympathetic ear rather than advice.

If you have an opinion about what the person says, there is a danger that your response can become judgemental. When you listen, your objective is to understand what the other person has to say. To do so, you must avoid any judgement of what they say. This is not the same as agreeing to what they say. You can express your disagreement later.

Since you often restate what the speaker said, there is a danger that they can take what you said as agreement or support. When they find out later that you don’t agree they may feel betrayed.

Active Listening in Stories

I built my story The Crying Woman around a conversation where one of the characters uses active listening. One of the reasons I wrote the story was to take advantage of my experience with the technique. I don’t consider it a complete success. I haven’t needed to use it much lately and my skills got rusty.

To add some conflict, I had the listener make some mistakes, which he then had to correct. In part that was because he has something he wants to talk about too. He tries to practice the adage of listen first, and then talk. That proves to be difficult for him to do.

Active listening would not be appropriate for every story. One character must have a problem and feel that the other character will help. The other character must be willing to listen and if need be, help.

The technique could be useful in exposition. The danger of exposition is a dialogue is to bore people with a long character monologue, or a “As you know Bob …” speech.

In one of the stories I have in the works, I have a character named Bob, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to have another character start a conversation with “As you know Bob …”.

With a technique like active listening, the monologue can be broken out into a dialogue where an active listener draws out the exposition from a reluctant speaker. The revelation can become a small story in itself.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog