#storytelling script to screen

[briannas-casebook]

Storytelling Script To Screen: EVALUATION

For my project, Storytelling: Script to Screen, I was tasked with coming up with a story for an animated short film, pitching a synopsis with concept art to my peers, writing a screenplay/script and creating a 90 second animatic of my story.

I first started by doing research into different philosophies of storytelling and the different types of story structure in order to get a good idea on how to make a well-structured story for a short film. Looking to creators like Andrew Stanton and his rules of storytelling, and Dan Harmon’s story circle – a narrative structure formula created by Harmon loosely paralleling Joseph Campell’s theory of The Hero’s Journey. I analysed several animated short films, taking note of how they fit into or, in some cases, subverted the steps of structures like Harmon’s story wheel, what that said about the types of stories being told, and how I could apply these types of rules to my own story.

With these theories in mind, I brainstormed possible ideas. After collaboratively brainstorming with my classmates and on my own - based on the prompts unrequited love, mysterious portal, obsession, and heist, I eventually came up with two ideas: a short where a bird becomes attached to a snail who she mistakes for one of her own eggs, and a plot where an activist breaks into an animal testing lab and discovers something sinister. After writing a synopsis and artwork for both, I pitched my ideas to my class and received their feedback which was more favorable for the serpent synopsis. I ultimately agreed and chose the second idea, as I felt the story had more potential for interesting visuals and would convey a message I felt more connected to.

I then made a second draft of my synopsis that refined some details and cut down the length significantly. That way it could fit into a shorter runtime for my animatic short film.

After this, I used the synopsis as the basis of a script which I wrote on the script writing website Celtex. I then edited and redrafted the original script and created a final script in which I added more location detail and refined its format.

With this script in hand, I set about drawing some concept art for the two main characters; Sam the activist, and the Uktena serpent Sam frees from the water company lab. I also drew concepts for maps of the film’s locations, such as the interior of the lab, some thumbnail sketches for storyboard shot compositions, and created a Pinterest board to gather reference material for inspiration. I also studied material such as Peter Loomis’s book ‘Figure Drawing for All Its Worth’, as reference for figure drawing and drawing multiple figures in a 3d plain with two-point perspective.

For the animatic, I used the storyboarding program Storyboarder on my laptop whilst using my iPad (connected to my laptop) as a drawing tablet using the app Astropad Studio. The storyboarding process was going well as I drew each shot. But at some point, the program crashed, and I lost a few drawings, even though I was saving frequently, and the program was supposed to save things automatically. So, to prevent these shots being lost, I started screenshotting each shot and saving them to a folder.

Once the animatic was completed, I took all the clips and screenshots and put them all together in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Some clips and frames did not fit into the 16:9 aspect ratio. So I selected the clips, set the frame to fit to scale and the image fit the screen.

I also sought out sound effects on Pixabay (royalty-free sounds/music site) and edited these into my film.

Originally, the animatic was two minutes and twenty-seven seconds in length. But the brief specified the animatic be ninety seconds to a maximum of 120 seconds. So I edited down the footage. Eventually being able to cut down to one minute and fifty-seven seconds, including the opening title and end credits.

After this, I exported the video as an MP4 and uploaded the whole thing onto my Vimeo page.

I also arranged the animatic shots on a PowerPoint in three-by-three rows, much like a professional storyboard. This way, I could put these frames in my visual portfolio.

I’m overall proud of the work I’ve done for this project. I gained a better understanding of the animatic short film production process. I gained valuable experience writing a well-structured narrative through studying theory and other short films, writing a synopsis and a properly formatted screenplay. I learned to use new software tools such as Celtex for script writing and Storyboarder to create my animatic. As well as gain more experience with editing an animatic on Adobe Premiere Pro. All these programs I will use in future creative projects. Most of all, I’m very proud of the film I created through this project, and I feel it’s one of the most high-quality short films I’ve produced so far.

#storytelling script to screen #evaluation #animation

[kuruk]

oh my god I know like it sounds weird to say this when it's just avatar but the original show has aang go back to the southern air temple to show katara and sokka his home only to find evidence of the genocide of his people and the loss of his loved ones and it's quiet until you see his grief and his rage but you just see the aftermath a hundred years later and the netflix adaptation makes it feel like they wanted it to be a cool action movie with an epic scene showing the fighting and running of the airbenders like that side by side with aang running away and it's like ??? okay it's "darker" congratulations I can see that's what the goal is based on the differences in firebending and early on screen deaths go and focus on every bit of violence for the audience's lazy sadistic pleasure instead of any of the characters personal narratives especially the women that can all be taken right out + the discovery of different places all over the world in the earth kingdom and outside of it. put everything in omashu so they don't get to meet people and see the diversity of the world and each town and SEE what life is like for them under war and have these experiences with all these people build up to something bigger at the end

#changing the order of when the audience discovers new information in favor of a more linear storytelling was a bad idea #it came off as so bizarre like adding in these types of scenes so that it's just cooler and more intense #when the original show had 20 min long episodes 20 episodes per book not much time was needed. but so much was missed in the live action? #because they had to add and drag out things like this that just feel wrong #and it's not very good every event in the live action felt very smushed together like no scene stood out no contrast just the same level #of flatness all around you dont even get a chance to really feel anything about what happens on screen #when everything happens so surface level and without much real emotion it just happens so something can happen after that and so it can end #it felt like watching a bad movie everything that gave the cartoon any meaning was taken away #adding in that weird airbenders genocide scene towards the beginning but leaving out katara's inspiration of haru and those earthbenders #was it not cool enough did it take too much away from sokka's romance plotlines #one of the most important book 1 katara episodes #it felt like the natla script was written by people who are writing from memory based on what they watched 10 years ago

[dipperdesperado]

I WROTE a Movie in 33 Days...

Imagine a coming-of-age story set in a world inspired by LA Noire, Metropolis, and Bioshock. I decided to challenge myself, and write a movie in a month, with some decently heavy worldbuilding elements. It’ll be linked at the end if you’re interested in reading it. Just know, a month may sound like a decent amount of time to some, but to the rest of y’all, you know it’s not a ton of time. If you don’t mind rough edges, you might find the script enjoyable. I want to go through my writing process, talk about the triumphs and hurdles, and how, if you’re a complete nutjob, you can try out this challenge for yourself. This is how I wrote a feature film in a month.

Story Planning

So, for the first few days, I focused on creating and figuring out what the story would be. Some people might call this finding the story. I love Notion and used that as my home base for everything except the script.

I knew I wanted to do something set in a time period set in the early 20th century. I remembered that I wrote a story during that era in early 2021 for a fiction writing class. I fished it out and it was…interesting. I did like some of the tonal characteristics, so that informed the current piece.

With my ideas in tow, I decided to do some visual research inspiration. Something that was really appealing to me was the aesthetic of Decopunk, which is described as “Dieselpunk but shiny.” I love the look of things like Metropolis, The Great Gatsby, and of course Bioshock, so I wanted to evoke some of that. I made a Pinterest board with a lot of the different pieces that I gathered for visual inspiration, to inform what I wanted the look and feel to be.

a screenshot from my Pinterest board

At this point, I started to feel really good about what I was working with and was excited with the story’s potential. I knew that within this world, I wanted to have a young adult who would have to deal with being the heir of his family on the cusp of a change, due to some external force, but as a result of an internal force. Essentially an “adapt or die” kind of thing. Here’s the logline I came up with at that point: “Keni Clementine, the heir to his family, has to decide whether or not he will embrace modernity when the new world starts to envelop his livelihood. To protect his family, will he cast aside the things he’s known?”

One thing I wish I would’ve touched on more in the actual script that I had an idea for was this concept of how time and progress moves and the difficulties that it can present to people. That friction of the old age versus the new is there, but I think that it was something that could’ve been more front facing.

Okay. At this point, we’re halfway through the first week, and I’m ready to write my main beats. For this, I used a structure that roughly follows the Save the Cat format.

In the end, there were some changes to the script, but thinking of the main beats helped me have a decent feeling of direction to go in for what I was doing. I’ll give you the original overview.

The film starts with a shot in the car. Keni, the main character, is with his parents and his friend Laila, who is the daughter heir of a rival faction. They are on the way to the theater that Keni’s family owns. Once they get there and settle in, Keni’s mom explains a bit about the world, and most importantly that their influence through controlling the arts district is what gives them power. Then we show all of the different factions and hint at what their production focus is on. As the play goes on, Laila’s parent’s men start a fire under the stage, which obviously ruins everything, and leads Keni’s parents to want to fight Laila’s. Keni and Laila try to make a last-ditch effort to stop the conflict, and when they realize that they’re not going to be able to, they try to go around, stopping the other families from getting them involved. It ends with a giant battle royale between the families, and I imagine the parents dying. I still don’t exactly know what happens in this fight, as you’ll see in the final version.

Writing

At the start of the second week, I wrote a treatment-esque thing, where I took my beats from the last week, and then filled in the gaps, so that there was a scene-by-scene connection between the different parts. This goes more in-depth and has some changes to those initial beats. The treatment will also be at the end.

During the rest of this week (and the beginning of the following week), I wrote the actual script. Rather than tell you story content, since you have a decent idea at this point (hopefully), I’ll talk about my experiences writing it. Writing Act One was pretty easy. I felt like I had a pretty clear indication of the scenes and inciting incident, and the buildup into the moving forward. Act Two was really fun as well, as it was an opportunity to really spend a good chunk of time with the MCs. Act Three basically doesn’t exist, as the whole thing would be a giant fight, and I didn’t really know how I wanted it to look, and I was running out of time to write. I decided that I would fix it during the rewrite. I didn’t fix it during the rewrite.

Editing

There’s not fun stuff to note during this time, except you might notice that I said I wrote this in 33 days, but that doesn’t add up to the three weeks. That’s because before I edited, I took like 9 days off to just not think about the story consciously and look at it with fresh eyes. The most extensive reworking happened in the beginning, trying to make it less contrived. I tried to make sure that it was readable, and also worked towards the ending. There’s slightly more than was before but act three still kinda doesn’t exist. Oops. But hey, we did a lot, so I’ll mostly consider this challenge a success.

Postmortem

I kinda touched on this earlier, but I wanna go in more depth on how I feel about the project. I think that it was an interesting challenge to try and write something within a month, as that’s not a lot of time to write a full-fledged thing. It’s not peak fiction, but I’d say it’s also not the worst thing ever. Which is a win in my eyes. If you’re bonkers enough to subjugate yourself to this, one thing I would recommend is finding someone to do the challenge with, so they can read your work and give you feedback. You should probably do this after editing, since someone might think you’re nuts if they see your first draft.

If you’re interested in reading the full script, along with any of the other developmental materials, I’ll put the link below, and you’ll also find it in the description. if this was at all interesting, or if you have suggestions, let me know. Otherwise, thanks for taking time to read this long post, and get to creating!

Link to all the files

#filmmaking #film #decopunk #dieselpunk #roaring 20s #screenwriter #writers of the future #writers of color #screen writer #screenwriting #script writing #scriptwriting #stories #storytellers #story #storytelling

[thomasmwatt]

Returning to the White Pages

Returning to the White Pages

I’ve been largely absent from this blog this year. That’s in large part due to my interest in music. I’ve really enjoyed learning more about music theory, production and sound design. After completing “Doctor with the Red Houseware,” I needed some time before I felt ready to tackle another project. I have a terrible habit of overthinking details. This results in the phenomenon of “Analysis leads…

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#feature #novel #producing #screen writing #script #self publishing #short story #storytelling #writing

[romchat]

In Blossom visual analysis (ep. 1-7): How to film a gothic romance

Although I'm not completely convinced about some of the writing choices of In Blossom, I absolutely LOVE the show's production design and cinematography. @mademoiselle-red wrote a great post about how main character Pan Yue fits the gothic romantic lead archetype, and those gothic elements are not only present in the script but also in the show's visual storytelling.

Lighting

A key element of gothic romance is its atmosphere of mystery and suspense.

Something I really like about In Blossom is that despite its dark subject matter, many of its scenes take place during the day. One of the show's main themes is that appearances can be misleading and the cinematography often plays with that notion by linking light to deception and darkness to truth. Note how many of the emotionally honest beats of Yang Caiwei and Pan Yue's relationship happen at night (e.g., their couple escapades at the Li Residence, Ghost Market, and Life and Death gambling house) while fakery, corruption, and evildoing happen in the day. It's with this subversion of our expectations for light that the show creates an unsettling atmosphere.

And these lighting choices also help set up Pan Yue as a classic gothic romance anti-hero, someone the female lead, Yang Caiwei, fears but still finds herself drawn to.

Look at how Pan Yue is lit when shot through Yang Caiwei's subjective point of view. The strong use of light creates a lot of contrast--through her eyes, he is a mixture of light and dark, his morality as inscrutable as his shadowy figure.

Camera Angles and Shot Sizes

The show's use of low angles and close-ups further reinforces the idea that Pan Yue is unpredictable and even dangerous.

In cinematography, low-angle shots tend to make the subject look more powerful and menacing, and the show uses this technique to great effect.

Even in the intimacy of close-up shots, we can sense the threat emanating from Pan Yue. He’s always shot just a smidgeon too close for comfort.

For example, look at how much Liu Xueyi's face fills the frame in an early "romantic" scene. The shot feels almost claustrophobic as if he's so single-minded about his goals that he has no choice but to dominate the frame (and Yang Caiwei). It's an unnerving moment despite the soft words coming out of his mouth.

Side Note: I live for Pan Yue's (vampiric) long shots. The production design team was smart for dressing the character in dark clothes with such a sleek cut and drape--he looks like a sexy bat.

The Nosferatu references in Yang Caiwei's tomb are also perfect.

Composition and Framing

And finally, like any good gothic romance, In Blossom illustrates how love can drive one to despair and even madness.

Because of this, my FAVORITE scene of the show has to be the introduction of Shangguan Zhi. Her obsessive pursuit of beauty in hopes of seducing Pan Yue has left her a shell of a human being, and the scene's composition perfectly encapsulates this with how it focuses on the elegant lines of her body--not her face or personhood.

Shangguan Zhi is trapped by her delusional fantasy of a life with Pan Yue--see how she's boxed in by the vertical lines of the screen panel she admires--and the show regularly uses architectural lines to show how her desperation has trapped Yang Caiwei as well.

#in blossom #花间令 #cdrama #meta #cinematography #liu xueyi #ju jingyi

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

When the twisted wonderland anime comes out what are the things you hope they do better then what they could do in the game?

To quickly clarify a few things (so new readers and anyone stumbling across this post doesn't get the wrong idea): firstly, we do not yet have any confirmation on what the Twisted Wonderland anime will be about. Secondly, I have previously expressed that I would prefer the TWST anime to be random slice of life rather than another main story adaptation. If we assume that the anime will be another adaptation of the main story, I don't think the anime staff has a ton of liberty in the alterations they can make to the source material. Book 2 is widely known to be the greatest example of Bad Writing in TWST, and it cannot exactly be swept under the rug since it's in the main story. I doubt anyone would be allowed to make massive rewrites to the script or to the series of events; the biggest changes we get are slightly compacted scenes in the manga and the light novel. For example:

Skipping lines that appear in the game. (Ex: in the Book of Heartslabyul, Ace does not joke about sharing a room with Yuuken.)

Combining scenes to save on time. (Ex: In the light novel, Yuuya and Deuce meet Leona for the first time not in the Botanical Garden, which is the case in the game. Instead, the mob student that broke the eggs meant for Ace's apology chestnut tart is a Savanaclaw kid that Leona shows up to reprimand.)

Adding slight details to fill in logical gaps. (Ex: Yuuya in the light novel is granted a NRC uniform by Crowley; the uniform is described to us, the readers. Yuu getting a uniform is never mentioned in the game.)

Continuing from the last point, new details can also serve to flesh out character motivations, backstories, and lore. (Ex: the Heartslabyul light novel informs us that Riddle faces social repercussions for his OB and almost got expelled from school; the Savanaclaw light novel sheds new light on Leona's motivations, and the same can be said of Riddle.)

So basically, the story (again, if the anime does end up following the plot of the main story) would be the same. What would make the anime different from the manga, game, and light novel is largely the medium in which it is presented. I have talked about this at length in a number of older posts, but here is one example of how the manga, uses visual storytelling (as it is primarily a visual medium). A manga chapter is usually limited in length due to it being physically printed and shared in a magazine alongside other manga; there is therefore a constraint on how long-winded it can be, and its limited pages must be used effectively. We need to think about the strengths and the weaknesses of each individual medium and how those strengths and weaknesses affect how it might slightly change how TWST I presented.

An anime is able to incorporate animation with sound in a 20ish minute time slot to tell a tale. It gets the same benefits of the game, but far more freedom of movement. There is, however, also a time constraint to be considered. One complaint TWST often gets is that despite half of its core gameplay (I'm not going to count reading as gameplay) being rhythm games, the music the game has is NOT memorable. While the anime most likely won't have a ton of original songs, I hope that it can at least creatively incorporate some of TWST's scores as background tracks to fun scenes and make them more enjoyable that way. The anime will also be able to... well, be animated!! We won't get just a static screen where a maximum of three characters are crammed onto the screen at once staring back at you. It's okay to have in the game to save on time and budget, but you have to admit it does get boring to look at after a while. But with an anime production, we can get exciting lighting and camera angles that result in cool animation! I hope that this will really help the TWST characters' stories come to life on the screen ^^ One scene in particular that I hope the anime will adapt well is the VDC/SDC performances of RSA and NRC. The game tells us that RSA's performance is clumsy and amateurish, but it still managed to capture people's hearts. The game also tells us that NRC was not able to perform at their maximum capacity because they were already physically worn down from dealing with OB Vil. I want to see these descriptions actually be realized on screen (the Rhythmic/Twistune alone isn't enough), as it could help us better judge and have an enhanced understanding of the situation. I know a lot of fans who, to this very day, still feel that NRC was cheated of the win and shouldn't have lost to such a lackluster performance from RSA, so I'm hoping that a fully animated version might give us more perspective.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst anime #twisted wonderland anime #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #notes from the writing raven #question #twst light novel #twisted wonderland light novel #twst manga #twisted wonderland manga #episode of heartslabyul #episode of heartslabyul manga #Ace Trappola #Deuce Spade #Dire Crowley #Yuuya Kuroki #Kuroki Yuuya #Yuuken Enma #Enma Yuuken #Leona Kingscholar #Riddle Rosehearts #Vil Schoenheit

[kabuki-draws]

I watched Ridley Scott's NAPOLEON yesterday and it was a complete Waterloo.

Yes, I am a big history nerd with a giant heart for movie adaptation of historical topics. But when I watched NAPOLEON I sat there... and tried not to laugh. It was not only so historical inaccurate, that I wanted to cry, at the same time it was filled with cringe dialogues, red flags and terrible color grading. This whole movie made me so sad yet so angry, that I HAVE to write this review:

(Disclaimer: This review is based on my own opinion. If you enjoyed the movie, it's completely fine. Btw. in that case or if you agree with me, feel free to tell me your opinion. I would love to know!)

First of all: Don't get me wrong, the medium film has its own rules and you can't put as much historical accuracy into a big scale movie as you would into a documentary - sometimes the story needs to be altered to be a good movie. And that is fine. Even if Gladiator is a complete fictional story set in the Roman Empire, I can still enjoy this movie for what it is: A good-written story with great characters, a beautiful score and iconic scenes. With Kingdom of Heaven it's kind of the same - and while the movie cut was very inconsistent, I still kind of liked it. But then the Directors Cut made it a a masterpiece for me.

Funny enough, both of these movies are made by the same person: Ridley Scott. So naturally I thought: Well, Napoleon won't be a historical accurate film, but I surely will enjoy it anyways. Well, ...no. It is not only historical incorrect, it's also a bad movie overall.

To start it short: NAPOLEON clearly lost itself in all the various topics it wanted to tell within a runtime of two and a half hours. It made the whole storytelling very weird and inconsistent, causing the problem, that the audience even loses itself in the questions of when and where. Where is that scene located? When did that happen? And then comes the question: Why is this even happening?

Ridley Scott wants to depict Napoleon as a lover, a military genius, a big political figure, a revolutionary and more. But in the end he tells all of this in the most shallow way possible, which waters down Napoleons personality traits and achievements to a series of small scenes. You never get a glimpse of the "true" Napoleon, who was described as a highly intelligent and charismatic man. In fact, you never really feel ANYTHING about him except that he was a cringe red flag in front of his wife. He just stands there, stares and has very limited dialogue scenes to get a picture of that man. What are his overall motivations? Only Josephine? If so, why is this motivation only vaguely explored?

The whole love story between him and Josephine feels so unnatural and got to the brink of being disgusting. This is particularly sad because I deeply respect Vanessa Kirby and Joaquin Phoenix, they're both stunning actors. I don't know if they just couldn't fit the role or if it was rather a problem of the script (the last one is my guess). Yet whenever I saw Josephine and Napoleon on screen, I felt like acted very stiff and forced. Napoleon seemed more obsessed with her than actual love and that can be a character trait, but there wasn't a chance to explore that deeper. Before the movie entered the cinema, the lovestory between these two was marketed as intense, obsessive, deeper than you could imagine. What the audience got was a few scenes without real conversation, much staring and a bunch of cringeworthy s-scenes. And seriously, these "sexy" scene were the worst. I was so disgusted by them because they were SO DAMN WEIRD. There are no scenes that undermine ANY deep love between Josephine and Napoleon. It felt therefore so off, when they still longed for each other after their divorce.

And let's not start to ramble about the fact that they depicted Josephine ONLY in a somehow sexual way. Yeah, there is that scene where she says to Napoleon, that he is nothing without her. BUT SHOW, DON´T TELL! You never see her doing something instead of sitting there, talking with others or when the plot needs her to have sexy time with someone (not only Napoleon). As a woman myself this makes me so freaking furious, you have no idea. I don't need a marvel-coded super-strong woman with unlimited talents - I just need a female character that is written GOOD and plausible! Make me CARE for her plot and for the plot of Napoleon! Both of them don't even feel like normal human beings because they're like blank pieces of paper with their names written on it!

And don´t make me start to talk about the historical inaccuracies. At first I didn't want to draw that card. Actually, I don't need a historical movie to present 100% facts. If the movie is still enjoyable, it's okey. But even if many people say that the war scenes were awesome, I can only partly agree. Yeah, we have that cool ice-lake Austerlitz battle, but it took me a couple of minutes and a better look on the uniforms to know that Napoleon is now at war with Austria! You get nearly ZERO context to Napoleons battles. Yeah, nice, the scenes look cool - but there is nothing more to it? Is that all you need to show for the audience to care? For me at least, I just didn't care at all and I was very happy when I got out of the cinema. Overall this movie is full of messy non-sense choices that don't contribute to the story. Many moments just confused me and it left me with the question why Scott couldn't simply hire some historians to put together a consistent story. Everyone who read about Napoleons life knows that there are so much cinema worthy moments in his career that would've been so much better than what we now got.

I could ramble about that movie for hours if I´m honest, but I hope this little TED talk was enough to make my statement clear.

In the end, it just makes me sad. I wanted to like this movie, I wanted it to be good. For months I hyped myself up to this, read books about Napoleon, watched the trailer all over and over and talked with friends about how great this movie will be. Now I am just disappointed and frustrated. Oppenheimer was such a great biopic of a historical person that became a great success at the box office - even without great battle scenes. I hoped that Napoleon would push a cinema revolution, that shows people want big scaled films about historical personalities and history topics. But now I just want to forget this Napoleon movie to be honest.

#napoleon #napoleon bonaparte #napoleon movie #ridley scott #joaquin phoenix #vanessa kirby

[larrylimericks]

23Mar23

We’re feeling some internal friction At silver screen Louis’ depiction; All the world is a stage But it’s hard to engage When plot lines combine fact and fiction.

I get really rambly below the fold. Proceed with caution if you’re over the discourse already.

I debated seeing All of Those Voices in theaters. I didn’t see either of Harry’s films in theaters — Harries are too much of a wildcard, and I refused to sit through hours of squeals and gasps and reactions, not to the movie but to “omg! Harry’s going down on someone! omg, Harry’s bum!” So I was already tentative about seeing Louis’ film in a shared space, outside the protective silos of tumblr. But I bought a ticket, because I want to support him and because I was genuinely curious what story would be told. Then we got the trailer and I hesitated again, not wanting to watch a propaganda film. But, I’ve lived through all the other Bullshit moments, so I figured I could live through Bullshit on the big screen.

My theater crowd was great — pretty neutral aside from an amusing row of politely excitable Larries I was in secret solidarity with. And I pretty much loved the film. Well, 92% of it. I look forward to watching it again when it streams. I mean, it was an hour and a half of content featuring this fascinating creature we’re all obsessed with. I didn’t want to blink. I hung on his every word (when I could understand them). How cool to get, essentially, a long-form interview, where he’s not promoting an album and we’re not getting the same sound bytes. Louis is wonderfully open and vulnerable, and the story of his life (heh) is inherently compelling. The cinematography is beautiful. The behind-the-scenes are delightful and delicious. I can’t wait for the AOTV gif sets once we have it in high-def.

But it has some plot holes as wide and deep as the ones in Don’t Worry Darling.

First, there’s the confusing (to the uninformed) absence of a love interest. Louis is asexual, as far as the film goes. There’s not even a ghost of Eleanor, with whom he’s cumulatively spent a decade and who is supposed to have inspired so many great love songs and with whom he is supposed to have survived a pandemic. Props to E for living her best life now: going to see Scream on AOTV opening day, enjoying full custody of the pups, publicly supporting her assumed partner — sorry you got Kiki Layned from the film, but I’m guessing you weren’t even written into the script. (It’s not like the film was conveniently re-edited in the months since their break-up. Her stunt tapering was intentional.)

Then there’s the glaring absence of a baby mama (thank god; that family would have been even more insufferable). We’re cruising along for 45 minutes or so and then, wham, Dad!Louis enters the chat with a fully formed 6-year-old child. The kid just magically appears with no backstory — just like in real life ... twice (the first time with the pregnancy announcement and the second time with the revival of Dad!Louis after several years of dormancy, right in time for documentary filming. Just like Harry stunted with his co-star during filming and production, Louis stunted with his.)

The kid is cute, and faultless in this. The scenes are objectively sweet (as they were designed to be). But Louis, who normally keeps things very close to the vest, is all of a sudden an emotional spigot you can’t turn off when it comes to these scenes. It seems quite out of character. Which brings back to mind that this Louis *is* a character. The Freddie scenes just didn’t seem to have a point in the plot other than: Louis is a dad. And that role isn’t integral to the film’s story.

He’s incredibly emotional with Freddie, but the movie doesn’t tell us why. The storytelling gets lazy here. The lad/dad plot seems wedged in. The movie would be perfectly complete without it. I felt like it could have been integrated a few different ways: Louis experienced tragedy after tragedy after tragedy — loses 1D, loses his mum, loses his sister ... and then impending fatherhood either becomes another trial he must reluctantly face (in the surprise pregnancy narrative) or it helps him navigate the grief of losing his sole parent, his closest confidante. OR, Louis, not wanting to be like the absentee father he had, shows up for his own oopsie baby despite the unexpected circumstances. But there’s no exposition or rising action. No footage or photos from the first few years of the kid’s life that we haven’t already seen. Just an immaculate conception.

I think the most compelling narratives of the film are these:

Louis’ overcoming adversity after adversity after adversity. Holy hell. I lived through 1D ending, through the devastating news about Jay (god, I remember the shock and sadness of that day — it was incomprehensible), through the heartbreaking news about Fizzy, and then when you think Louis is gonna get his moment of victory with his first solo world tour, coronavirus pulls the rug out. (That sequence was well done: where we keep seeing the dates get closer and closer to March 2020, and we all know the villain that’s coming, but it’s still such a blow.) I lived through all that in real time, but seeing it in such a concentrated sequence really highlights the shit he’s been dealt, and hearing him open up about so much of it ... that’s the character development relevant to the film’s denouement. And getting to see Louis get what he deserves, finally, and hearing him acknowledge that he deserves it, was a lovely ending.

Louis’ journey to find his footing and his confidence as a solo artist after unfathomable success as part of a group. But, in a sort of plot twist, he’s not really solo, is he? The film gives a lovely introduction to his band now — and in their own words, reveals that they’re not just a backing band, they’re a *band* band. Louis has let them in. He’s forged a new brotherhood. *That*, for me, was the heartwarming story. I loved those scenes, loved seeing Louis in his element, which is in a collective, where he is both king and jester at the same time. (Or perhaps Oli’s the jester. Thank fuck for him, man. Oli is the standout. The breakthrough performance. The comic relief. I want a spinoff series.) It’s easy to miss 1D and glorify those short years and think nothing will ever top it, but Charlie’s storytelling of the LT Band is remarkable. We’re left looking forward, not back.

I know Louis’ dedication to his fans and his fans’ dedication to him is a huge focus, but I don’t really enjoy watching commentaries on fandoms I’m a part of. I’m living it. I don’t need outsider context. And in a fandom as fractured as Louis’ (and 1D’s) there’s not a universal experience. The film depicts dedication as sleeping on streets for rail, hopping from country to country and draining bank accounts — because that’s the kind of “superfandom” that gets easily turned into a marketable freak show. Show me the documentary on the fans who organize the light projects, who run the fashion accounts, who curate livestream sources on show nights, who have turned giffing into an art and science, who help promote Louis in the absence of a competent marketing team, etc., etc. I also thought the interview with the American(?) girls talking about LATAM shows was shortsighted. And showing the rainbow factions but not addressing them? What a missed opportunity to talk about songs like Only the Brave becoming a queer anthem. Straight artists can have gay fans, you know.

But the film doesn’t make the kid relevant to any of those storylines. He could have been worked into the first, but wasn’t. It was like a standalone narrative, with footage from a narrow set of days. I was at both those L.A. shows. The energy was so different from night 1 to 2. And in retrospect it’s clear Louis was performing the first night so Charlie could get the right shots. More like a choreographed play than a rock concert. It makes sense now why the Clarks weren’t in the VIP box with Freddie — couldn’t have them cluttering the frame or distracting the actors. Just, everything about the Freddie scenes is heavy-handed. Make a sign for your dad! Draw his logo in the sand! Fly a kite at sunset! He’s the spitting image of Louis! (Len does all the heavy lifting.) And all the maneuvering it had to take to get all those shots from the L.A. show?! In the VIP box from behind (and from the front, and when he just happens to be mouthing along to Two Of Us), side stage watching Louis end the show, on-stage watching Louis approach Freddie after the show, on-stage catching the moment Louis gives the lad a shout-out ... Charlie had a shot list. But sure, nothing was set up, it was totally organic.

I’m still unsettled by how heavily Charlie laid it on at the first premiere press conference — *he* was the one to bring up the kid, and was weirdly emphatic that nothing was staged, nothing was forced. It had the same energy of the “It’s. Not. Real” thrown baby doll moment, only it’s Charlie insisting that It. Is. Real. Thou dost protest too much, me thinks.

And of course, the lack of interaction between Louis and Harry remains, as ever, the biggest tell. We get poignant post-1D Nouis and Lilo moments in the film, but no Larry. We’re spoon-fed these Very Emotional Moments between father and son (“love you,” “Darling,” mouth kisses), when the real story, the real emotion, the real connection is in just a few seconds of furtive glances between Harry and Louis in the backstage footage of the last 1D performance. Christ, the way Harry’s eyes bore into Louis — chin tilted down, eyes glancing up from beneath a furrowed brow, lips tight, disguising his attentiveness with a hair flip ... they mastered so many forms of silent communication. The quiet call and response, the depths of love and care and concern and protection contained in micro-expressions. Fuck, give me 90 minutes of that. Just a silent film of Louis and Harry looking at each other.

Anyway. Sorry this sounds so grumpy. I did really love most of the movie. But I haven’t made sense of why this film was made. I don’t know its purpose. Maybe the introspection forced by the pandemic lockdown is to credit for this glut of music docs (“docs”) lately. Maybe nine minutes frees him up for nine more months or nine more years. I dunno. He obviously wanted this story told in this way.

Seeing a movie requires the willing suspension of disbelief. You have to ignore critical thinking in order to enjoy the story you’re being told. You tune out your knowledge that everything is fake for the sake of being entertained. We know that Superman can’t actually fly, but we still buy tickets to the cinema. But, a documentary shouldn’t require us to employ this semi-conscious perceiving mode. Yet here we are. I’m just not sure how much more or how much longer we can suspend our disbelief to enjoy fandom.

#larry #louis #louis tomlinson #all of those voices #aotv #stunts #babygate #bbg #spoilers #aotv spoilers #limerick-lt #march 22 #2023

[stellar-constellations]

Uppermoon trio + Muzan x female reader watching a horror movie headcanons? ;)

Muzan + Upper Moon Trio (separately) x Fem! Reader Watching Horror Movies

Modern AU (they're still demons and reader is a female human!)

Muzan: 

It's hard finding a movie for Muzan to genuinely watch. He's so nitpicky about them. What's the point of watching fake gore if he can just go outside, kill someone, and create his own horror movie?

Muzan glares at the screen if the gore is inaccurate or there's too much blood (or too little). Why lie? Where's the real stuff? 

Muzan probably likes torture gore movies but still wants plot. 

Muzan likes Silent Hill (2006), the Saw series, Silence of the lambs (1991), Truth or Dare (2018). He likes all the gore and the plot makes up for the inaccuracy of the gore (he likes Truth or Dare simply because the idea of controlling human's minds and bodies are amusing to him)

It's hard to make Muzan sit down and watch a movie with you since he'd rather do other things instead such as work, but once in a blue moon you can convince him. 

Muzan rarely ever cuddles you when watching movies, but if he notices you're scared, he'd pull you close by your waist so you're hugging his side. He acts like it isn't a big deal, but it obviously is considering Muzan's dislike for humans and their weakness. He doesn't bother trying to tease you about your fear, you're already scared and you both know this, and scary movies are supposed to ignite that sort of fear (he also might be engrossed in the movie you put on, but he'll never let you know that satisfaction). 

Douma: 

Douma loves gory movies. 

Douma talks to the TV like it can hear him. Will tell the characters to calmly run, makes remarks about them being too slow or how the killer is catching up (he might be fantasizing about being the one chasing them). 

Douma laughs at every joke in the script like it's the funniest joke he's ever heard. He even laughs when background characters laugh (that's how you know he's a fake one). 

Douma likes obscure movies such as the Circle (2015), Last Shift (2014), the Final Destinations, and Wolf Creek (2005). Probably likes Human Centipede (2009) and laughs at the grossest scenes.

Douma forces you to keep your eyes open, like physically holds them open.

Douma laughs at your fear, he finds amusement in it. It's real genuine fear compared to the fake acting on TV. 

Douma will only comfort you if you cry or if you walk out on the movie to get away from him. He'll apologize profusely (mainly because he doesn't want to sleep alone on the couch). 

Kokushibo: 

Kokushibo doesn't care much for them. He prefers thrillers or mysteries instead.

Kokukshibo is genuinely a little bit freaked out of Scream (1996) because of the guessing who is the killer element, along with the technology of phones (he's traditional, refuses to use anything except letters or email). It was a fight to get him to use router phones. 

Kokushibo likes storytelling movies, or movies with multiple protagonists, or movies where you guess the killer.

Kokushibo likes movies such as Trick ‘R Treat (2007), the Tales from the Crypt series (1989), Stephen King's 1922 (from 2017), Psycho (1960). Nothing too graphic. Gore does not equal horror in his book. He watched M3gan (2022) and was uncomfortable of the advanced technology. 

Kokushibo will reassure you if you're scared. He'll tell you that the movie is fake and will turn the movie off if that's what you want, he'd rather read or do something else instead. If you want to continue watching the movie, he'll give you a blanket so you can hide your face when you get scared, or hide it in his chest, he doesn't mind that either. He finds it comforting that you turn to him when you're scared.

Akaza: 

Akaza is someone who yells at the TV. He'll be one to yell "Run lady run!" whenever the victim trips. Akaza understands final girls cannot punch a hole through their stomaches like how he can, so he just screams at them.

Akaza loves watching movies involving final girls such as the classic 80's and 90's movies with the most final girls. He likes seeing the women kick evil men's asses because the killer had the audacity to prey on someone they believed were weak. 

Akaza likes the first Halloween (1978). He walks you home so you don't get stalked like Laurie Strode did. He also likes the Nightmare on Elm Street series (and watches you when you sleep to make sure Freddy Krueger isn't getting you). He likes Joy Ride 1 (2001) and Joy Ride 2 (2008) [though, he likes the second one way better], and Unfriended: Dark Web (2017). Unfriended made him genuinely uncomfortable because of the invisible paranormal force killing the victims off. How can you fight if you can't see it?

Akaza notices the second you show discomfort or fear, he asks if you want to have the movie turned off. If you don't, he'll put his arm around your shoulder and pull you close to him. He likes when you hide your face in his shoulder or chest, he likes that you turn to him to protect you (because he obviously will). 

        I apologize sincerely for the huge delay! I had little time to write due to work so the only time I had to write was when I was supposed to be sleeping or relaxing, but I finally got this done! Better late than never!

         Want more Muzan content? Check out the Muzan masterlist!

        Want more Kokushibo content? Check out the Kokushibo masterlist!

        Want more Douma content? Check out the Douma

masterlist!

        Want more Akaza content? Check out the Akaza masterlist!

        At the moment my requests are temporarily closed, I'm working on other requests (that are months old...), but once I finally clear those up, I'll be accepting more requests!

#stellar constellations #x female reader #x reader #x you #x y/n #x yn #kny muzan #muzan x reader #demon slayer muzan #muzan kny #muzan kibutsuji #kokushibo x reader #kokushibo demon slayer #kny kokushibo #demon slayer kokushibo #kokushibo #kokushibo x y/n #kokushibo x you #muzan x you #muzan x y/n #douma x reader #douma kimetsu no yaiba #kny douma #demon slayer douma #douma x y/n #douma x you #akaza demon slayer #kny akaza #akaza kimetsu no yaiba #akaza kny

[briannas-casebook]

SCRIPT TO SCREEN: PERSPECTIVE, PORTRAITS AND THE LOOMIS MANNEQUIN.

As part of my storytelling script to-screen class, we were tasked with practicing our anatomy, figure drawing and perspective with the Loomis Mannequin model of anatomy and gesture drawing. The technique was coined by artist Andrew Loomis, the author of the highly influential drawing book 'Figure Drawing For All Its Worth', originally published in 1943. I myself was familiar with the book and some of its techniques. As my sister owned a copy and I was aware it was a significant influence on the artist, animator and Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar.

With the mannequin technique, we learned and practiced two-point perspective drawing with multiple figures. One trick we learned from our tutor was that when multiple figures are standing in frame but in different placements in the scene at varying distances from the camera, one part of the figures usually line up with the horizon line, such as the knees, thighs etc. depending on the angle and perspective.

With this in mind I drew my figures at varying distances and lining up the top of their knees/thighs with the horizon line. I think it turned out looking accurate.

Another exercise we learned was a technique in portraiture that involved drawing over a face with a square surrounding the head, blacking out the outline of the head and neck, and outlining the facial features such as the mouth, end of the nose, eyeline, hair, hairline, and brow. I initially drew an eye line and nose shape in the first portrait practice, but my tutor told me only the brow line and a small line under the nose was necessary.

Overall, I enjoyed brushing up on my perspective, figure and portrait drawing. I am proud of the drawings I was able to produce and I feel these techniques will be very useful for me when drawing my storyboard as well as in other future projects.

#storytelling script to screen #script to screen #drawing #sketches #portraits #perspective #perspective drawing #figure drawing

[jeannereames]

Shows or movies based on historic figures and events are hard to pull off if the goals are to be both entertaining and somewhat true to history. If we accept that some inaccuracies can't be avoided in order to appeal to audiences what would you consider cornerstones and pillars about Alexander and his history that can't/shouldn't be touched in order to paint a somewhat realistic picture in media based on him and his life?

I saved this to answer around the time of the Netflix release. For me, there are four crucial areas, so I’ll break it down that way. Also. I recognize that the LENGTH of a production has somewhat to do with what can be covered.

But, first of all…what story is one telling? The story arc determines where the focus lies. Even documentaries have a story. It’s what provides coherence. Is it a political tale? A military one? Or personal? Also, what interpretation to take, not only for Alexander but those around him. Alexander is hugely controversial. It’s impossible to make everyone happy. So don't try. Pick an audience; aim for that audience.

MILITARY:

Alexander had preternatural tactical skills. His strategy wasn’t as good, however, especially when younger. Tactics can be a genius gift (seeing patterns), but strategy requires experience and knowledge of the opposition. The further into his campaign, the more experience he gained, but the cultures became increasingly unfamiliar. He had ups and downs. He was able to get out of Baktria finally by marrying Roxana. That was strategy, not tactics. He beat Poros, then made a friend of him; that’s strategy. Yet he failed to understand the depth of the commitment to freedom among the autonomous tribes south along the Indus, which resulted in a bloody trek south. And his earlier decision to burn Persepolis meant he’d never fully reconcile the Persian elite.

So, it’s super important to emphasize his crazy-mad tactical gifts in all forms of combat, from pitched battles to skirmishes to sieges. Nobody in history ever equaled him except maybe Subatai, Genghis Khan’s leading general. In the end, I think that’s a lot of Alexander’s eternal fascination. He fought somewhere north of 250 battles, and lost none (where he was physically present).

But HOW to show that? What battles to put on screen? Oliver Stone combined three into one + Hydaspes because he had only 2-3.5 hours (depending on which cut you watch). The Netflix series is going to show all four of the major pitched battles…or at least all 3 for the 6-episode first part. They had circa 4.5 hours to play with, but they cut out other things, like Tyre.

Another issue, from the filming/storytelling point-of-view is how to distinguish Issos from Gaugamela for the casual viewer. They’re virtually identical in tactics (and players on the field). So it made a fair bit of sense to me for Stone to conflate them. In a documentary, it’s more important to separate them, largely to discuss the fall-out.

Some v. important clashes weren’t the Big Four. Among these, the sieges of Halikarnassos and Tyre are probably the most impressive. But the Aornos Rock in India was another amazing piece. I’d also include the bridging of the Indus River to illustrate the astonishing engineering employed. Again, if I had to pick between Halikarnassos and Tyre, I’d pick Tyre. I was a bit baffled by Netflix’s decision to show Halikarnassos instead, but I think it owed to an early error in the scripts, where they had Memnon die there. I corrected that, but they’d already mapped out the beats of the episodes, so they just kept Halikarnassos. That’s fine; it was a major operation, just not his most famous siege.

Last, I really wish somebody, someday, will do something with his Balkan campaigns. What he did in Thrace and Illyria, at just 21, showed his iron backbone and quick thinking. It’d make a great “and the military genius is born” set-up, drama wise. But you could use the Sogdian Rock to show the clever streak, at least (“Find men who can fly” … “I did; look up.” Ha) Plus it has the advantage of being where he (maybe) found Roxana.

Last, he fought extremely well--wasn't just good at tactics. Being a good general doesn’t necessarily mean one’s a good fighter. He was. Almost frighteningly brave, so show that too.

RELIGIOUS:

Ya gotta deal with the “Did he really think he was a god?” thing, and the whole trip to Siwah. I obviously don’t think he believed he was a god; it’s one of the things I disliked about the Netflix show’s approach, but they were dead-set on it. I DO think he came to believe he was somehow of divine descent, but of course, that’s not the same as most moderns understand it, as I’ve explained elsewhere. It made him a hero, not a god on a level with Zeus, and to ME, that’s an important distinction that Netflix (and to some degree Stone) rode roughshod over.

But I’d like to see more inclusion of sacrifice and/or omen-reading—religion in general. Cutting the Gordion Knot (omens!). His visit to Troy (Netflix tackled that one). A really cool thing would be to make more of the lunar eclipse before Gaugamela. Again, Netflix touched on that, but it’s one of those chance events that might actually have affected a battle’s outcome, given how seriously the ancient near east took sky omens. (A solar eclipse once halted a battle.) The Persians were freaked out. Even his massacre of the Branchidai in Sogdiana was driven by religion, not military goals. Pick a couple and underscore them.

I give Stone big props for the sacrifice before the Granikos/Issos/Gaugamela battle. It was so well-done, I’ve actually shown it in my classes to demonstrate what a battlefield sphagia sacrifice would look like.

Alexander was deeply religious. Show it.

POLITICAL:

Ah, for ME the most interesting stuff surrounding Alexander occurs at the political level. Here’s where the triumph story of his military victories all went south. He knew how to win battles. He was less good at managing what he’d conquered.

In terms of a story arc, the whole period up to Gaugamela is really the “rise” of the story. Post-Gaugamela, things began to collapse. And I would pin the turn on PERSEPOLIS. Yes, burning it sent home a message of “Mission accomplished.” But he was selective about it. Areas built by Darius I were spared, Xerxes’ were destroyed: a damnio memoriae.

Problem: Persepolis embodied Persia, and ATG essentially shat on it. Not a good look for the man who wanted to replace Darius III. That he also failed to capture and/or kill Darius created an additional problem for him. Finally, his lack of understanding of how politics worked in Baktria-Sogdiana resulted in an insurgency. Bessos was going to rebel, regardless. But Spitamanes might not have. Alexander created his own mess up there.

Another matter to look at is why he created a new title—King of Asia—instead of adopting the Persian title (King-of-Kings). I don’t think that was a “mistake.” He knew perfectly well the proper Persian title (Kshāyathiya)…and rejected it. He adopted some Persian protocol, but not all of it. After the summer of 330, he was essentially running two parallel courts, which seemed to satisfy neither the Persians nor his own men. (Kinda like docudramas are a hybrid that seems to annoy perhaps more than satisfy.)

So I’d like to see this handled with some nuance, but it’s intrinsically difficult to do—even while, if done well, it would be the most interesting part of an Alexander story, imo.

So, what events, what events…3-4 leap out after Alexander’s adoption of some Persian dress. The Philotas Affair, the Pages Conspiracy, the Death of Kleitos, the marriage to Roxana. I’d show it all, although I could also understand reducing the two conspiracies to one, for time, in which case, the Philotas Affair because it resulted in the fall of Parmenion. But the fact there were two, not just one, tells a story itself.

What about the proskynesis thing with Kallisthenes? I’ve come to disbelieve it ever happened, even though it’s symbolic of the whole problem. So, weirdly, I’m of two minds about showing it. OTOH, it won’t be in my own novels. But OTOH, I could easily see why a showrunner or director might want to include it. And it certainly appears in several of the histories, including Arrian.

Then we have the two indisciplines (mutinies)…one in India that made ATG turn around, and another at Opis. They’re really two different things as one was an officer’s rebellion, the other the soldiers themselves. But will viewers be able to distinguish between them? It’s like the Issos/Gaugamela problem, or for that matter, the two conspiracies. They’re similar enough to confuse the casual viewer. “Didn’t we already see that?”

But if they were narrowed to one, how to choose? The mutiny on the Hyphasis provides an explanation for why he turned back. But the Opis event was more dramatic. The man jumped down into the middle of a rioting crowd and started (essentially) knocking heads together! So if I had to pick…Opis. The other might could be mentioned in retrospect.

PERSONAL:

Here are five things I think really OUGHT to be shown, or that I have yet to be pleased by.

1) Philip isn’t an idiot and should get more than 10 minutes of screentime. Oh, and show Alexander did learn things from him. Stone had to make his movie a Daddy-Issues flick, and the Netflix thing did very little with Philip as they wanted to get to the Alexander-Darius face off (which was the meat of their story). But there’s a very interesting love/competition story there.

2) Olympias is not a bitch and was not involved in Phil’s murder, although I can see why that is catnip to most writers. She did kill Eurydike’s baby and (by extension) Eurydike. One of the historians in the Netflix story (Carolyn, unless I misremember) talked about the rivalry between the two wives, at least. But I think ATG planned to marry the widow and Olympias got rid of her to prevent it. Now THAT’S a story, no? But they were in too much of a hurry to get to Persia.

3) Alexander was not an only child! He had sisters (and a brother) with whom he was apparently close…and a cousin who was his real rival. To me, missing that cousin rivalry overlooks a juicy personal/political story! Too often all the focus winds up on Alexander-Olympias-Philip-Eurydike-Attalos, but man, a more subtle showrunner could do a lot with the Alexander-Amyntas rivalry. But he’s constantly cut out. I can’t think of a documentary that actually addresses Amyntas except in passing (if at all)l

4) Hephaistion’s importance is a must, but I’d like to see him treated as someone with a personality and authority of his own, besides just as ATG’s lover. At least Netflix Went There onscreen with the love-story part, but otherwise, the writers couldn’t figure out what to do with him. Neither Stone nor Netflix really portrayed him as his own person. I do understand why they can’t show the whole cast of characters. I had to do weeding myself in the novels, but I’m annoyed Netflix showed only Hephaistion and Ptolemy. Where’s Perdikkas (so important all along really, but certainly later)? Or Philotas, Kleitos, Krateros, Leonnatos, Lysimachos (later king of Thrace)? I think viewers could probably have handled at least another 5 people, especially if introduced gradually, not all at the beginning.

This brings me to….

5) Alexander’s apparently very real affection for the people in his orbit, from personal physician (Philip) to childhood pedagogue (Lysimachos [not same as above]) to Aristotle to various other philosophers. He was so loyal to his friends, in fact, he initially jailed the people who brought word of Harpalos’ first flight.

He needed to be loved/appreciated and wanted to give back to people. Yes, generosity was expected of kings, and as a king (THE king), his generosity had to excel that of anybody else. But he seemed to genuinely enjoy giving presents. I think of him like that one friend who heard you say you liked that cute pair of “Hello, Kitty” socks…then 6 months later they’re your Christmas present from them. Some of his gifts were grandiose, but not always. I love the dish of little fish (probably smelts) that he sent to Hephaistion, presumably just because his friend liked smelts!

To me, point #5 would be easy to get in with a skilled scriptwriter, tucked into the corners of other scenes. It’d be fun to highlight the personal side. If we can believe Plutarch, he was a PRODIGIOUS letter-writer. Also, he loved to hunt, so that’s another thing. And he loved the theatre, and to watch sport. These would all be very humanizing details.

I think the biggest issue is that most of these documentaries/docudramas are done by people who don’t know squat about Alexander aside from a few things, before deciding to make a documentary/movie about him, or write a book. Their research is shallow, and even if they bring on the experts, they don’t always listen. Stone DID at least have a long fascination with ATG, but it caused him to try to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. It wasn't as bad of a film as some have made it out to be, just horribly bloated and for all his reading, he never understood the WORLDVIEW. I wrote about that some while back in my review.

The best documentary/movie would be told by an actual specialist who knew enough at the outset to craft a better, more complex story arc.

Or maybe I’m just biased because I tried to do that myself in my novels. 😂😂😂😂

#asks #alexander the great #oliver stone alexander the great #netflix alexander the great #telling the story of alexander the great is intrinsically difficult #docudramas #historical movies #historical documentaries

[notashadowbutawave]

i almost posted this on the true detective subreddit episode thread but thought better of it:

I've gotta say… I feel like a lot of complaints people are having about this season of the show don't pass muster objectively when held up against Season 1. Melodrama, "unrealistic" dialogue, complaining about being shown too much about people's personal lives and not caring about the characters…

There is so much unrealistic dialogue in season 1. The way Marty and Rust during their video interviews just come in talking about some big philosophical idea or "life wisdom" nugget in the middle of the episode (nobody talks like that IRL). The scene with Marty's daughter and the princess crown, for example. Marty cheating on his wife multiple times isn't like, objectively "more interesting" than Evangeline's sister having mental health issues or Liz being sexually promiscuous and a mess.

I've seen season 1 probably 10 times and I adore it but a lot of the angry comparisons people are making to S1 kind of just come off as straight up misogyny at a certain point. Like it rubs people the wrong way because it's women. Complaining about Liz and Evangeline going to the dredge without backup but when Rust and Captain America Marty Hart do something like that it's believable?

I don't think anyone's obligated to like the season by any means but you can just say you aren't feeling it as opposed to trying to make these apples-to-apples comparisons to season 1 that really don't hold water; I think people are just a lot more willing to accept this type of storytelling when it's about men and kind of has a fetishization/shame angle with masculinity in general. Like S1 is very masculine but it's also a love story. idk. I'm gay so I should probably stick to Tumblr for talking about this show, ya'll are wild.

----

idk watching people who are probably white dudes complain on Reddit that we are seeing too much "native culture" on the show strikes me as really icky.

i recognize that these are reddit comments and not like, actual media criticism but i think it says a lot about how people are conditioned to understand storytelling in general. like there's still so much fucking misogyny and white supremacy in our mainstream media and i realize a lot of people wouldn't say it out loud but i think they genuinely just find it exhausting that they're being asked to contemplate the interior lives of native alaskans and women by watching this show lmao

(that's not a value judgment about how well it is doing at depicting  Iñupiat culture because i'm not the person who gets to make that judgment but it REALLY rubs me the wrong way that people can't STAND even seeing it depicted)

(i think the fetishization of the American south also has a lot to do with it, like people are very willing to accept the aesthetic style of the American south as a vehicle for crime/mystery/possibly supernatural storytelling because it really doesn't challenge any conceptions they might have about the genre) (it helps that Woody Harrelson and Matthew McCounaughey are native southerners with great acting talent and natural screen chemistry who really took Season 1 to a higher level, in no small part thanks to their uncredited script doctoring. with lesser actors I think the story falls flat as hell because you need them to sell a rich relationship and complex inner lives with their performances because SO MUCH of their relationship is subtextual) (so when people see these great acting performances in the context of a police procedural set in Louisiana i think they're very pre-conditioned to elevate it to an almost mythical status in the genre because it doesn't present TOO many challenges to a conventional worldview about who has power and agency in stories)

like I said i've watched season 1 probably 10 times. it's very good. but it does MANY of the same things that people are complaining about regarding season 4/night country in terms of showing a lot of relationship/sexual drama for the leads and their Tragic Pasts. they just don't like it. which is fine. i just think it's a disingenuous angle to approach criticism of the show.

like if any actor other than McConaughey were doing Rust's monlogues in S1 it would not have been very good because it would have come off like self-serious edgelord shit, which is what it actually was (pizzolatto sucks) before it ended up in the hands of competent producers and performers. instead it really comes off like a man who has suffered and developed this worldview genuinely, within himself, not as a way to wield power over others but to protect himself from harm.

anyway....

for my part, i wanna know what the fuck is up with the spirals and the bad CGI polar bear visions and i'm going to be disappointed if it's not just some massive red herring designed to freak people out a little because that's what we deserve.

but in terms of like, the characters' lives, i generally find them very interesting. the opening scene of episode 3 with annie genuinely moved me to tears. annie seems like a fucking cool person and i would love another flashback about her.

i love that liz is a fucking asshole who is constantly being forced to confront her own behavior as racist, self-centered, impulsive, etc.

i love that evangeline is a very lonely person just barely keeping it together. kali reis is putting on an amazing performance. also, for the record, i'm VERY gay.

i wanna know more and there are only 2 episodes left and i hope it sticks the landing so i can write a big actual essay about what it did well from a storytelling perspective!

gosh i just love serialized fiction on the television

#true detective season 4 #true detective night country #night country #true detective spoilers

[heartstopperthoughts]

I think I’ve started to figure out how Heartstopper TV works. Very little is actually completely new plot lines added to the script, it’s more that things that are mentioned in the comic but then never explored (because it’s a comic and it needs to be a bit more concise storytelling-wise) get screen time in the show.

For example, in the comic, Tara and Darcy mention that they should all go on a double date, but then the date is never shown. Also, there’s one scene in the comic where Charlie is rehearsing for the spring concert, but it’s left at that. The show gave us a whole episode!

So that got me thinking about what might be added in future seasons. I’ve got a couple ideas:

Nick is given driving lesson vouchers by his mum for his 17th birthday, and he mentions really wanting to take the car on New Years, and then all of the sudden we jump to March and he’s got his license. So I’m hopeful that we’ll get a (maybe humorous) glimpse into Nick learning to drive.

Then, after the joint family dinner where Nick comes out very chaotically, Nick’s dad also mentions that he’d love to spend some time with Nick before he leaves the country and that Charlie should come, too. I’m hopeful that this will be included in the show so that we get more insight into Nick’s turbulent relationship with his father.

#and that concludes my Ted talk #can you tell how eager I am for s2? #heartstopper #heartstopper tv #nick and charlie #nick nelson #charlie spring #sarah nelson

[mittensmorgul]

Hi!

Can you explain me the how to spot the difference? I mean the reblog about literary analysis. How do I know if the parallels and narrative echoes are used to highlight important differences or to indicate similarities in storytelling? What kind of signs I am looking for? I have never thought about this.

honestly? it just comes from practice. mostly what i meant was not jumping to conclusions based on mirrored characters. for example:

two characters are going through a similar ordeal and yet come to different conclusions about what that means for them. an example in spn canon is hannah and cas. they’re both faced with a similar dilemma at the beginning of s10, but they both came to that dilemma from different places, and learned different lessons about themselves through their similar, shared ordeal.

it doesn’t make the parallel between them “wrong” or invalid in any way. it’s still useful to compare them! but understanding why they’re different and come to make different choices helps clarify both characters’ motivations and desires, you know?

what would be wrong is trying to force the parallel to be exact 1:1 to say their motivations were obviously the same, and therefore they will choose the same things. or else to dismiss the parallel entirely and reject ANY comparison between the two because they don’t match perfectly.

imperfect mirrors can sometimes be the most revealing.

also, not looking beyond a single episode to a larger character or narrative arc, and trying to force a parallel between a main character and a MotW guest character to apply only to what’s currently being presented on screen can lead to really confusing conclusions.

one i’ve seen that falls into that category is in 11.17, where dean’s talking to the surviving victim at the end about never being the same again after losing her husband. through the majority of the episode, dean’s struggle was over sam’s apparent death, and this conversation CAN be interpreted as applying to the fear dean experienced and lived through during this specific episode. but in a larger scale (and in this case it helps knowing that this episode was written to air AFTER 11.18, and instead was aired first (link to 11.17 script, and 11.18 script)... it really changes the perspective of why dean might still have been struggling with that even AFTER he discovered that Sam was still alive and going to be fine, you know? it was addressing a much bigger picture than was presented in this single episode.

ongoing stories don’t exist in a vacuum, characters don’t reset to some baseline at the beginning of every episode, and parallels aren’t always 1:1 with the exact same results. different revelations or interpretations don’t invalidate the parallel, and the parallel doesn’t imply that they should be perfectly identical.

[zetomato]

Brand New One (rant)

I need to understand something so I really want people to answer and tell me because I know my viewpoint on the QSMP cannot physically be perfect and whole.

I haven’t watched any POV in a few days (Due to being sick af, lel) but I’m hearing more and more confusing things coming from this fandom. I’ll point out some of them and hope people will explain more points of view to clear up the extremely confusing situations. (While tagging this neg because I don't want this on main for peeps trying to chill)

Ok so we can all agree that it’s impossible to watch everyone’s POV. Just taking the more active streamers gives you over 9h/day to watch, taking into account that they often are live at the same time and you get already more than anyone should watch their screens in a day (I say that as a Graphic Designer, I keep watching screens, that’s my job). Add everyone else and you got easily over 20h/day. So yeah, for viewers, that’s intense. So it’s even more impossible for streamers since, well, they have to plan their streams and… stream.

Good.

So why are people mad at Philza for not knowing Tubbo lore that happened while he wasn’t on the server, some even when he was streaming something else? I know that there’s always that weird moment when something happens for the character you main and then you switch POV and the information doesn’t line up, but why is it expected? Getting super into a storyline is incredible, it’s nice, it’s saying how immersive someone’s RP and storytelling is, how much it resonates with you. But this is live RP, not a script. People will read tones wrong, mishear/misunderstand, make mistakes, talk at the wrong time, mess with friends, have the wrong timing. A bunch of weird stuff will happen.

None of them are doing this out of spite, hell, they are making a point to make sure everyone is included and supported and they have ways to talk to each other when there’s a problem. The ones I know of who do chat with others/in other’s chat are Phil, Tubbo, Cellbit and Etoiles. (there are way more, those are the ones I saw do it/heard say it)

Then there’s the question of doing a critique of the CC’s under the guise of “Oh it’s about the character!”

Yes, QSMP and RP servers in generals bring you HARD into a story to the point sometimes things are hard to differentiate. I’ve reread books and got confused about something before I realized that they were headcanon things I grabbed from fanfics and not canon book events. But some of y’all need to step back. I saw people doing critiques of someone’s laugh or gesture or playstyle under the “Q!” excuse. These are real people, y’all. A CC not reading the room, Tubbo talking loudly over Bagi because he didn’t notice the situation and adjusting when told, Philza not immediately getting that Tubbo’s death was his canon last one and then adjusting to follow the mood. There’s been dozens of those situations since the start of the server, there will be a dozen more.

The players can deal with those situations themselves, they are adults, but I’ve seen some people on here getting weird information and spreading even weirder gossip about a character being mean/rude/an ass when they’re sharing friendly banter or just, not immediately getting a joke or an important moment.

No, Tubbo was not planning on talking over Bagi, he had a lot to say and didn’t notice everything.

No, Phil was not ignoring Tubbo’s lore, he was unaware this death was canon and did not watch a stream while he was already streaming.

People are people. CCs play Characters and aren’t professional actors with scripts. They chill in each other's chats sometimes.

Can we now play nice and take a chill pill about streamers being mean and heartless?

#qsmp neg #Plz if you have more info tell me #But geez y'all need a chill pill #Tubbo neg #Philza neg #Tho this is neg about the fandom not the players or their characters #They're doing such cool RPs right now and deserve to get praised for it not called monsters goddamnit #Ze rant

[pixellangel]

"Don't you feel stupid answering these questions when you don't even know who you are?"

STORYTELLER SYNTHESIS SCENE 1 - A GIRL NAMED V

overview - masterpost - taglist

____

Storyteller Synthesis is an indie cyberpunk RPG that I’m currently writing and designing. This is the first scene of the game, where we're introduced to our first party member - a girl named V. Please enjoy!

____

Onyxveil is a troubled city. The streets are covered in litter, the skies are gray with smog, and the only sources of light are flashing neon advertisements on walls. Within this bleak cityscape stands an equally troubled young girl, one with hot pink hair and an unfocused gaze. Just a few years ago, she experienced a horrific eve-

"Can you shut up and give the Player control already? Nobody wants your stupid expository speech."

...Ahem. As I was saying, just a few years ag-

"Why can't you ever listen? The Player isn't interested and neither am I. Get it over with."

Ugh. Fine. I came up with this whole summary, but if you're so ungrateful I GUESS I can throw it in as flavor text somewhere...

"Perfect, I'll make sure not to read it. Now get rid of this black screen so the Player can see."

Excuse me? I know what I'm doing.

"Sure. Just get rid of it."

Ugh. Fine.

[Now, in tile RPG format, we see the aforementioned girl from behind. She's at the edge of a rooftop, looking out into the smog-covered cityscape. The camera shifts downwards to show another person, one with a long, pale blue ponytail. The girl turns around and walks towards them. She keeps her distance, but begins speaking. Her character portrait shows a girl with purple, rectangular irises. Her hair is spiky and she wears some sort of strange cropped techwear hoodie. She looks dissatisfied.]

"So, "Sylvie." Long time no see."

> I could say the same to you.

...

"How long has it been now? Three years? Four?"

> Three.

Not sure.

"And how was your little warrior's expedition? Successful?"

Very.

> You could say that.

Not exactly.

"Good, good. Now, Don't you feel stupid answering these questions when you don't even know who you are?"

Wh- hey! I already told you not to go off script!

> I'm not sure.

Oh. Sorry, you don't need to answer that. Let me just fix this... small bug.

[The Narrator goes silent for a moment and the girl stiffens.]

There! Much better.

[The girl's character portrait is different when she speaks again. Her eyes are wide open with no shine. She has a wide, fake smile. Her hair spikes stand up a little less.]

"So sorry, SYLVIE! I don't know what came over me there. I'm glad your expedition went well! Woul d y ouu be wil lin g to h e-"

[She snaps out of it, shakes her head, and glares up at the sky.]

"UGH!! Stop doing that!!! I would literally NEVER talk like that. You of all people should know. Ughhh... anyway, Player, I'm not gonna keep up the "Sylvie" act. You aren't her and we both know it."

If you go off script again, I'll have to keep acting for you. Get back to the story or else.

"Shush. Player, follow me."

[The Narrator protests as the player follows the her down from the rooftop. The two come to an arcade, which the girl enters without hesitation.]

Ahem. Sylvie. You don't need to go in there. If you would just give me a minute, I can get her to come back out...

Sorry, this is going to take some time. Please be patient.

[The player enters the arcade anyway while the Narrator is distracted.]

"Hey. Glad you could make it."

[The arcade is empty, save for the two of them. Most of the machines look like they're out of order. A few of the arcade cabinets are still working, though.]

"If you're waiting for him to talk, you should know he can't hear us in here."

> "He"?

"The Narrator. He's messing stuff up in Onyxveil, and probably in other cities too. If i had to guess, I'd say his other targets would be The Sunbasked Stratum and Karma Point. They'd be good settings for a story, so..."

> Why can't he hear us in here?

What is he trying to do?

Who are you?

"I dunno. My guess is that he never intended for anything to happen in this arcade, so it's barely more than set dressing. I've never heard him speak a word while I’m in here, though. It’s pretty nice."

Why can't he hear us in here?

> What is he trying to do?

Who are you?

"He's writing some stupid story. I don't know... it's hard to explain, and we probably don't have much time. All you really need to know is that he's meddling with reality for his own selfish reasons and not taking anyone else into account."

[Her face contorts in anger.]

Why can't he hear us in here?

What is he trying to do?

> Who are you?

"My name's V. There's nothing else you need to know about me."

> Who am I?

"You’re the one playing the video game. Obviously."

> That's not what I meant.

"Oh, you must want to know who's body you're in. It's another person from Onyxveil. Their name is Sylvie. They went out on some training journey a few years ago. I... haven't seen them since."

> ...

"It doesn't matter. I need your help, Player. I don't want to be trapped in this stupid reality where I'm a character in a story I never asked to be a part of."

> What do you want me to do about that?

"I want you to help me kill the Narrator."

[V looks determined, but angry. This Narrator person has very clearly wronged her in some way, and based on her face, it looks like it was extremely personal.]

> How are we meant to do that?

"I don't know all the details just yet. However, I think the most effective method would be for us to assemble a party of several people. More people means more firepower, and he already wants us to gather more allies to fight the robots that keep appearing in the city. It'll be easy to fly under the radar as long as we don't discuss it in front of him."

[She speaks quickly and confidently. It seems she's been thinking over her plan for a long time.]

> Do you know who we need?

#pixell.rpg #pixell.art #storyteller synthesis #WHEW this post had a shit ton of work go into it #it was a journey #but AAAAA SCENE 1 FINALLY UPPPP #EXPLODES #uhmm uh.m. i hate to beg but im working really hard on this game and if you reblogged this i would love you forever <3 #godddd i would so totally blaze this if i could. but alas #anyway #gamedev #indie gamedev #indie game #writing #original writing #oc #oc art #oc illustration #cyberpunk aesthetic #solo dev #rpg maker #rpg maker game #illustration #art #digital artist #okay thats probably too many tags