Select from one of the readings from week 1 or 2 and briefly describe two points that you have taken from that reading. Points that excite you, something that was completely new to you.  

Not being very familiar with directing, Slogans for the Screenwriter’s Wall introduced completely new ideas to me. What was most intriguing about it was the deconstruction of the Director/Actor relationship.

What really struck me is how much attention a Director must pay to an actor, in particular their body language and facial expressions, to achieve a vision of a character. I particularly enjoyed the short section on the biology of the human eye, and how it translates into expression right down to the minute movements of the pupil that indicate thought or stimulation.

The most interesting – and somewhat amusing – part of the chapter for me was the emphasis Mackendrick put on the subtle ways a Director must, in short, manipulate an Actor to get them to achieve the same vision that the Director had from the start, without directly instructing them to do so, “How does the director get an actor to do what he wants?…’You don’t. What you do is try to get the actor to want what you need.’” (p. 190).

I fully understand the logic behind this though as a path to coax an actor into performing a substantiated and hence more naturalistic performance, as opposed to ‘say it like this’ or ‘move in this direction at this point’. I look forward to applying these skills on a shoot this semester.

Consider Jasmine’s lecture on Screenwriting and briefly describe one point that you have taken from it. A point that excites you, something that was completely new to you, perplexes you or even one you take issue with.

Screenwriting alone is an exciting prospect for me since it’s something I’ve never done before; I’ve attempted to write stories before, but never for a visual medium. The mechanics of writing characters and a coherent story are skills I have never formally approached as a result, so the lecture became something of an introduction for me.

Cause and Effect is something that’s stuck with me since the lecture, and it’s something I’m keeping in mind whenever I attempt to write from now on. For me all it is is a way of thinking about how a story world comes together, but I’ve found I already feel more confident with it in mind. It’s easier to visualise a character or an environment if I imagine the character as something that reacts to an event or problem, the effect of a cause.

In this vein of thinking, Conflict as a key part of a story makes a lot more sense now. In a more sadistic way of looking at the task of writing, as the writer it’s my job to harass, demean, or otherwise torture the character’s I create through various means.

As someone who’s knowledge is most technical, the prospect of screenwriting is quite exciting, and the opportunity to explore the more creative side of media making is something I’m looking forward to, especially with the knowledge I talked about before.

In 200 words or less please outline your goals, desires – what you want to get out of this semester. You will review this later in the course. Many will rethink this dramatically – this is a good thing.

As much as everything as possible; this primarily rests on absorbing as much information as possible from lectures, reading material – plus external sources – and tutorials, through focused and considered listening, review, and collaborative discussion.

I will endeavour to apply any of this knowledge to my media practice both professional (assessments, work placement and external projects, as well as my personal creative work) be it conceptual, or practical ability, in particular pre-production such as writing and administration roles. Process and protocol are also a priority when it comes to writing and producing professional – that is, as a career – media, something still very vague to me.

By the end of this semester I want to take the skills and knowledge to create professional and high quality visual media, and apply them to my own work with the goal of completing pre-production on 3 parts of a documentary, of broadcast standard, to eventually pitch to a television broadcaster.

Most importantly, the creative and collaborative opportunities through this course are a luxury I am looking forward to capitalising on to further explore genre, form, and style that I am unfamiliar with right now.