my pick

for my movie, I picked American History X. I think that the first act turning point is when Derek is sent to jail for killing the black guys who tried to take his truck. I think it really sets off all of the events in the movie from this point.

Carissa's Post

I watched Knight's Tale last night! The first major conflict begins when a peasant William Thatcher finds out his master died of his wounds during a jousting tournament. In a last minute decision he decides to finish his dead master's tournament. William wins the tourney and he is trying to convince his other squire friends to let him continue jousting. If he continues winning they will become rich and famous. Willaim and his friends combine their tourney winnings and decide to keep competing. There is a montage when he trains in the woods to get ready for the next major jousting tournament. The first act ends after this funny montage. The second act offically begins in a scene where the trio starts their journey to their first offical tourney. The climax really picks up then. Will he win any more tournaments? Will people find out that he isn't royalty? This is such a good movie!!!

Okay. I am going to pick Titanic. I love that movie.
I would say that the end of the first act would be when Jack saves Rose from jumping off the back of the ship. This is the moment when they first meet. After this, Rose and Jack start to grow closer, and Rose seems to be more free-spirited around him.

Omaha Film Festival

The Omaha Film Festival is coming up, it runs February 16-24. You can go on the site and click on the Films tab to check out the films in the festival. My short film, Hump, will be in it. It's screening as part of the Nebraska Shorts block.

This year, they are having a Filmmaking/Screenwriting Conference that will be at Creighton University Hixson-Lied Science Building on February 16 & 17. They will be screening "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" on February 17, at 7:30pm which will be held at the Omaha Community Playhouse. Writer/Director Shane Black (other screenwriting credits include Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout) will be in attendance and will do a Q&A after the screening.

February 18-24 are the film screenings at the Westwood Cinema. I will probably write another blog post reminder, but mark your calendars now.

Also, if you're interested, they are accepting volunteers.

Multiple named characters

Pat and Matthew (and anyone else who may have multiple names for characters), you should read this.

Standing offer

10 points of extra credit for anyone who goes to see a movie at Film Streams. Just bring in your movie stub.

They have an upcoming Hitchcock series, starting February 8th and playing a variety of Hitchcock films through March 27th. Playing now is The Savages, which I thought was great. It's tragically and depressingly realistic and features great performances by Laura Linney and Philip Seymour-Hoffman as well as a great score by Stephen Trask. Tamara Jenkins was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Linney was nominated as well for her role.

Other upcoming award nominated films include The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (opening January 25th) and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (opening March 14th). They are also showing the 2007 Academy Award nominated short films from February 15-21. Those films are pretty hard to see unless you live in L.A. or N.Y., so take advantage.

Also, in case you haven't heard yet, the Oscar nominations were announced. Look forward to a class Oscar pool. The ceremony is broadcast February 24th.

Writing Workshop tomorrow

Just a reminder to bring in any work that you want to read in class, get feedback from, turn in, etc. Also bring in anything you need to work on your scripts tomorrow.

You guys are doing a great job of moving forward with your stories and changing and evolving ideas into more concrete plots and characters. Keep working at it, and remember: the more feedback and constructive criticism you can give to your fellow classmates, the better their scripts will be.

Finally...

I am just here to say I have finally (after 2 hours of pure brainstorming) created my ultimate story involving my title character's Nolan Cument (Bubble Gum Chewer), Marvin Tod (The Classic), and Detective Michael Regan. With these chracters I have created, what I believe to be a compelling mystery story with new twists without becoming cliche. I just thought I'd let everyone know that it is possible to escape writers block, and maybe that thing is just thinking more into the conflicts rather than the characters, much like Lindsay has been saying. I hope tomorrow everyone is as impressed as my friend (co-story creator) and I were with our compelling story.

Thanks for the time and sorry I just had to write that, I'm so happy to know exactly where I'm going.

Untitled

First of all, I would just like to say that I just found out that Heath Ledger died in case you didn't know. Some of my friends were really upset about that.

Also, I wanted to recommend the movie P.S. I Love You to Carissa. I already told her that this movie reminded me of her script a bit. Basically, there is a short scene with the husband in the beginning and within the first 10 minutes he dies. Then the wife has to cope with his death for the rest of the movie. I actually think I like Carissa's plot better though. In P.S. I Love You the audience doesn't really like the husband by the time he dies. I also didn't like the ending very much.

Software

I'm just curious: who has downloaded the free demo for either Final Draft or Scrivener?

What do you think?

Reminders

1) No school on Monday!

2) Write!

3) Get your work in on time!

4) Have a good weekend!

(That last one is optional).

Suggestions

These are the ones that we have talked about so far in class. If anyone thinks of more, please add to this list. And if you see one of your recommendations (which I recommend), please post a blog entry about it (possibilities to write about include: what you thought about the film, if it helped you in anyway, what it made clear to you, how it related, what you didn't like, etc.)

Ben: Bottle Rocket
Justin: Lucky You
Pat: Shadow of a Doubt
Kelsey: Elephant
Carissa: When Harry Met Sally

Let's think of some coming of age movies for Jordan (maybe My Life As a Dog by Lasse Hallstrom?) and some for Matthew that aren't necessarily comic or superhero based. For Matthew let's think of movies where a main character has a crisis of confidence and lack of pride...this could also work for Justin's film too. Think not just about films that relate in plot, but also with themes and character conflicts or objectives.

Carissa's Idea

I don't have any movie ideas for anybody, but I have a suggestion for a book Kelsey could read. It's called "She Said Yes." It's the story of one of the girls that was shot at Columbine. The girl's mother wrote it for her acouple years ago. It's a very touching story. I know you would like it!

Video Competition

Go here to check out a video competition for Skills USA, an organization that I will talk a bit about in class. Maybe this is something we can plan to do as a group in the video class. Entries are due February 15.

Please read the contest rules and forms to get a better idea of the contest.