Research: On collaboration...

"How The Kingdom Came
Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola recall their collaborative process in scripting Moonrise Kingdomand explain why, for them, writing dialogue is like a musical experience.

Written by Rob Feld

(January 25, 2013)"

http://www.wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=5167

Research: On humor...

My takeaway tonight was from a lecture not a film: that funny is the unexpected.

Is that true? Sometimes. 

Richard Saul Wurman had this to say at tonight's lecture (among other riveting topics):

Woody Allen said: "80 is the new dead"
Clearly funny.

Wurman said: "79 is the new 77"
But no one laughed. Unexpected, yes. Funny, not necessarily.

Incorporating humor in the script is perhaps my biggest fear and weakness. Perhaps I need to think about the rules of improv - the circumstance creates the funny, and it's often the unexpected.

Ughghg.  

Research: Transitions

Quick read tonight...

Takeaway: convenient transition from Clementine reading a letter to the actual scene referred to in letter. 

It will be interesting to map out transitions - abrupt, adjoining, connected, etc. 

Research: Stranger than Fiction

I started reading Stranger than Fiction tonight. Brilliant. It's just so good. Clever and meta. Witty and whimsical. Dramatic and tragic. It literally had me laughing out loud.

So much to learn here.

Today's quick takeaway: Immediate hook when the narrator mentions this a story about Harold, and his wristwatch. All within the first page of script.

More to come...

Research: Good tagline example

The Giant Mechanical Man: What if only one person understands your art?


Asides:
(the symbolism of the zoo with caged animals is a great location for Janice and Tim)

(did you know that Lee Kirk, writer and director, and Jenna Fisher, actor and producer, met through this script, fell in love, and are now married? I just came discovered that while searching scripts)

(meaning of the film revealed: Janice and Tim attend an engagement party. The bride to be's speech is also one of the central's points of the film: It only takes one person to make you feel appreciated and that you belong. Paraphrased)

Research: Meta and the Velveteen Rabbit

A few more pages of Eternal...

Takeaway: I love the use of a story or reference within the story that points to or reveals some larger meaning. For example, in one of Joel's memories, Clementine talks about the book the Velveteen Rabbit. Her reference is about the rabbit, but she is really describing the whole point about the film, the main message about relationships:

"It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Brilliant, isn't it? 

Research: Universal truths

Continuing to read Eternal. I've been tied up at a conference all week, so I've only been able to read a few pages each night.

Tonight's takeaway (elementary but still important): Most stories reveal the same truths but under different circumstances. In this case, it's the reality of relationships but revealed through an unusual story where one can erase one's memory. The same dialogue could have been in any movie (not to diminish the dialogue here, it's quite good), but it's set in these surreal scenes. For example, what Joel once found charming in Clementine is now annoying as the relationship progresses. Or, the jealousy Joel has upon learning Patrick is seeing Clementine.

Universal truths or common realities or shared fears.

Might be an interesting experiment to take the same dialogue of a movie (word for word) and place in a new setting....