How do I start writing a movie script?

First Understand what a script is. The script, or screenplay, outlines all of the elements (audio, visual, behavior, and dialogue) that are required to tell a story through movies or TV.

Read the scripts of some of your favorite movies. Find movie scripts online and decide what you like (and don’t like) about them. Get a feel for how the action is portrayed, dialogue is written, and characters are developed.

Flesh out your concept. Assuming you already have an idea you want to write about, sketch out all the necessary plot details, relationships, and personality traits that will guide your story.

Outline your story. Begin with a basic flow of your narrative. Focus on the conflict of the story; conflict drives drama.

Write your story in three acts. The pillars of a screenplay are the Three Acts. Each act can operate independently, and when taken together provide the full arc of a story.

• Act One: This is the set-up for the story. Introduce the world and the characters. Set the tone of the story (comedy, action, romance, etc.). Introduce your protagonist, and begin exploring the conflict that will drive the story. Once the protagonist is set towards the objective, then Act Two begins. For dramas, Act One is typically 30 pages. For comedies, 24 pages.

 

• Act Two: This act is the main portion of the story. The protagonist will encounter obstacles on the path to the resolution of the conflict. Subplots are typically introduced in the second act. Throughout the second act, the protagonist should be showing signs of change. For dramas, Act Two is typically 60 pages. For comedies, 48 pages.

 

• Act Three: In the third act, the story reaches its resolution. The third act contains the twist of the story, and ends with the final confrontation of the objective. Because the story has already been established in the second act, the third act is much faster-paced and condensed. For dramas, Act Three is typically 30 pages. For comedies, 24 pages.

Why do people pretend they are someone else on social media?

There are different reasons why someone might create a fake profile online, or pretend someone else:

• Loneliness: You might want to meet someone online and feel worried about using your real identity. You might lack confidence or be extremely shy.
• Fear: You want to meet someone but you don’t think you are worthy of love or connection the way you are, so you invent a different or embellished identity.
• Sadness, Anger or Jealously: Sometimes fake profiles are created as a way to talk to someone you already know and see how they react. If you’re worried your boyfriend or girlfriend is cheating, you may create someone else as a “test.” If you’ve broken up or are worried about a relationship, you may want to try and stay connected. It can be very hard to express these kinds of feelings directly, but these indirect ways often cause more problems than they solve.
• Boredom: You may have created a fake profile online just to see what would happen. Once you start talking to someone, it might feel awkward or uncomfortable explaining that you are not the same person as your profile.

Why Bollywood Music lost its charm.

A song would have to be perfect recipe of appropriate portions of music, singing and lyrics.

Hindi cinema till some time ago had all of these, but off-late things have changed in all three areas, enormously.

The biggest reason why Indian music has lost its importance and class is BOLLYWOOD. If you look closer, Bollywood was never about good music, it was about hit music. Bollywood music has lost melody almost completely. The important reason is that today music director only aim on hit music, not on good Music.

Just pick a tune from other and put some catchy vocals, that’s it and seriously that’s not what you call Melody.

Reasons:

1. One of the main reasons I believe is the politics. Talented people are not given a chance, while people who are not in form are still making music.
2. The youth does not appreciate Indian elements in music which sound amazing. Electronic peeps most people now days.
3. Melodious music still comes from artists in the form of albums, and there is still no album culture in India. The only way people are exposed to music is Bollywood.
4. The regional music is still very cultural, wide and melodic. Do try and get hang of some.

Usage of the software can make you sing. But that doesn’t make music;it makes technology.!!!music need to be felt within. Its the manifestation of ones true self. The songs in Bollywood are not compelling and unique and the music is recurring and everybody end up with a crossover cover version. That’s no fun.

 

What Bengali Film industry Needs Right Now.

Bengali films which I watched growing up were mostly black and white movies of Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee. It was due to the fact that my mother and grandmother watched them a lot.

One things about those commercial movies of 60’s and 70’s was, that they had very less budget. Also, during those days, people in Bengal did not like action packed Hindi movies. So, these movies earned good revenues.

After the death of Uttam Kumar, there was a big vacuum created. Prasenjit Chatterjee and Tapas Paul (Currently MP) came with action packed commercial movies. But they were merely copied from Hindi movies. Now, times were changing and Bengalis started accepting Hindi movies. So, when I can watch a Hindi movie, why should I watch the same type of movie in Bengali, where the quality of acting, sound and picture, combined, were below the Hindi industry level.

Bengali industry started copying from the Telugu and Tamil movies from around 2000. These movies not only copied the stories, they started copying the looks, style, dressing pattern and even music. This was a fresh concept. These movies started earning good revenue. A new generation actors like Jeet, Dev (Currently MP), Soham and Hiran came and took the industry from old actors.

Shree Venkatesh Films and Surinder films, both big production houses in Kolkata has spend enough money and enough resources and also generated good revenue. But it is nothing as compared to what Hindi, Telugu or Tamil industry earns.

The benefits for Hindi films is the worldwide viewership. Tamil is spoken widely in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore. They have viewership in South East Asia. Telugu movies runs in India, USA, UK and some African countries where the diaspora is spread.

On the other hand, Indian Bengali movies do not have market beyond WB. Assam and Tripura hosts huge Bengali people but there are hardly any theater to show the movies. Bengalis in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai or Delhi hardly watches commercial Bengali movies. Bengali movies from India have limited release in Bangladesh where we lose 15 crore potential audience.

Bengali industry thrives on parallel films. The trend set by the likes of Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. The legacy has been carried forward by Rituporno Ghosh, Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Gautam Ghose. These films were mainly made from a different viewpoint of life. They don’t have mass appeal. They are limited to film festival going audiences and foreign audiences. Reports tell that even Martin Scorcece was a big Satyajit Ray fan.

So, these are the main factors which has been a hindrance for the growth of Bengali film industry.

The situation can be improved by the following measures:

1. Increase theaters in North Eastern states where there are sizable Bengali audience.

2. Increase multiplexes in tier-2 and tier-3 towns in West Bengal.

3. More Bengali movie releases in Bangladesh.

4. Theaters in Bangalore, Delhi, Varanasi and Allahabad, where there are huge bengalis ppulation should start bengali shows.

5. Overall improvement in West Bengal will improve purchasing power which will in-turn increase the theater going audience.

Twitter vs. Facebook

In the entire web and social media industry, two platforms have captured nearly all the attention: Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is the world’s largest social network, while Twitter is considered by most the hottest.

That’s exactly what we’re going to do today – right here, right now. Facebook or Twitter: which one do you prefer? Cast your vote and comments below.

68th Annual Golden Globe

How worthless are the Golden Globes? Let me count the ways — or at least the most recent five.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., with a voting membership of 81 obscure foreign entertainment journalists, managed to nominate the aggressively mediocre “The Tourist” and “Burlesque” for one of its major awards — best comedy or musical. Plus it nominated Johnny Depp twice – against himself in the comedy actor category.

2. The nominations shut out “True Grit,” the Coen Brothers classic western which is anchored by another sterling performance by Jeff Bridges and one by Hailee Steinfeld as the girl who hires Rooster Cogburn to catch her father’s killer

3. How about one major nomination each for “Toy Story 3,” “The Town” and “127 Hours”? “127 Hours” got a screenplay nod and best score.

4. On the flip side, how about seven nominations for “The King’s Speech” and six nominations for “The Fighter.” Guess those must really be good. “The Social Network” also got six nominations.

5. The musical/comedy category has two Depp pictures: “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Tourist,” neither of which is a musical or comedy, “The Kids Are Alright” which really isn’t a comedy either, the abomination of “Burlesque” and “Red” the senior citizen action picture. Truly nice work on this meaningless category.

How stupid is the entertainment media?

Very.

We actually pay attention to the Golden Globes and act like they have some bearing on the Academy Awards, which they, by and large, do not.

Sure some of the same movies are nominated. But getting the majority of the 81 votes in the payola tainted Globes is tantamount to nothing. It certainly doesn’t reflect anything going on with the 6,000 Oscar voters.

The HFPA does throw a nice party and the laidback Globes ceremony is a fave of many in the movie business.

Nominating the likes of Depp and Jolie, who have no shot at Oscars, Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, equally no shot, the “Burlesque” bunch and the geezers from “Red” mean that a good crop of pretty people will show up for the cameras — which, I’ve always thought is the point of the comedy/musical categories. Double the nominees, double the star power, increase viewership.

But the Golden Globes themselves are near worthless, signifying nothing and having  zero impact at the box office. They do, however, likely make a fine doorstop in many celebrity homes.

 

DSLR Filmmaking

DSLR filmmaking is the future of filmmaking. There are companies like Red, Canon and Nikon that are all competing to make small cameras that are easy to wield, provide high resolution imagery and a shallow depth of field.

Before, cameras relied on celluloid to capture the information received by reflected light. Celluloid is nothing more than a layer of chemicals that reacts to sunlight and since the reaction is organic, film is considered to be a medium that can capture the greatest resolution of an image. Today however, computer sensors inside some cameras can capture the same amount of information as 35mm film.

Since the advent of video technology, camera enthusiasts have complained about the lack of a shallow depth of field. This has changed however with the interchangeable lenses that can be mounted on video cameras and still photography cameras in conjunction with computer sensors that record high resolution imagery. Now you can get a soft focus on either side of your subject matter, rich colors and a cinematic look.

Technology today will change the way filmmaking is done going forward. Photojournalists will no longer be viewed as technicians but rather as artists. Videography won’t be seen as something that “isn’t rock science” but as something that is rocket science. Viewers will expect videos to be engaging with beautiful imagery and well told stories. The dawn of filmmaking has arrived or perhaps a new “era” has arrived.

The DSLR cameras that are available today are just the beginning of this new era of filmmaking. Cameras will be more affordable and anyone will be able to make Hollywood level films. However, keep in mind that anyone can buy a paint brush or a pencil but it doesn’t mean they will ever become Picasso or Edger Allen Poe. It still requires great training, dedication and talent to tell stories well.

There was no written script involved in the movie, every actor improvised their lines.

Cyrus is a 2010 comedy drama film written and directed by brothers Jay and Mark Duplass and starring John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei and Catherine Keener.

John is seven years divorced from his wife and is having trouble adjusting to his new life. After meeting Molly at a party, he thinks that maybe he has found the perfect person again. There’s just one problem: Cyrus, Molly’s grown son. John must find a way to make his romance with Molly work despite intentional and unintentional interference by Cyrus.

How to Write a Film Synopsis

The ability to write a compelling summary of your completed screenplay can make the difference in whether a prospective agent, director or producer will invite you to submit your entire manuscript for consideration. Technology allows scripts to be submitted electronically from anywhere in the world, but queries can be deleted in a nanosecond if the reader isn’t hooked on the premise from the beginning.

Instructions

1. Type your name, complete contact information (address, phone and email), the title of the project, the genre and the target market in the upper left-hand corner. Identify your genre or sub-genre with only one tag (for example, drama, romantic comedy, science fiction or animation). Likewise, be as specific as possible in identifying your target audience–for example, teens, family or WWII veterans
2. Summarize the premise of your film in one sentence that contains 25 words or fewer; this is known as a “logline.” It can be something as simple as “An extraterrestrial gets left behind by his peers and must fend for himself in suburbia,” or something clever that marries the elements of two prior films (for example, “Forrest Gump Meets The Terminator”). Write it as “Logline: An extraterrestrial gets left behind by his peers and must fend for himself in suburbia.”
3. Identify the main character and the core conflict that will drive the story. Act 1 will be the first paragraph beneath the logline and will divulge the major plot points that transpire in the first act of your film. Your first paragraph also should include any necessary foreshadowing of what’s to come.

 

2. Type the names of major characters, when first introduced in the plot, in uppercase.

1. Escalate the suspense and risks in your second paragraph, which represents Act 2. List only the key scenes and turning points that influence the lead character’s actions.
2. Escalate the suspense and risks again in your third paragraph, which represents Act 3. Act 3 should not only resolve all the problems introduced in Acts 1 and 2, but it also should flirt with that bit of foreshadowing in Act 1. It is critical that you divulge the ending of your script in this third paragraph.
3. Mention any notable contest awards or additional information you think might sell the merits of the screenplay in a fourth paragraph. If your screenplay is adapted from an existing work, such as a stage play or novel, include that here, along with verification that you have acquired the legal rights to adapt it to a different medium. If you have a specialized background or unique experience that led you to write this work, include that here as well. If you do not have any of these elements to add, there is no need for a fourth paragraph.

Unconventional, Simple, Straight-forward Film

 

 

UDAAN mirrors the real life and although the plotline is simple and uncomplicated, I must add that simple stories are extremely difficult to narrate. However, debutant director Vikramaditya Motwane remains faithful to the written material and handles the characters in the film with tremendous care, understanding and maturity. I genuinely feel that UDAAN borrows something from everyone’s life. And that’s what makes it an absorbing watch, especially its defining finale.

Final word? This one’s a must-see for every parent, every child. This coming-of-age story is unique and speaks a universal language and hence, shouldn’t be missed!

The best thing about [most] first-time directors is their ability to narrate a new story without bowing down to market diktats. UDAAN is realistic to the core, so much so that the viewer becomes a participant after a while and feels that he’s getting a first-hand account of what the troubled teen is enduring.
UDAAN is a simple, straight-forward film that doesn’t need to be explained. It needs to be experienced.