Screenwriting Masters

I’m on another screenwriting kick after seeing Paul Thomas Anderson in the flesh last night at the 70mm premiere of The Master at the Astor Theatre in Melbourne.

There were beards and glasses aplenty and the Q&A was littered with pseudo-intellectuals trying to sound smart by asking a past-tipsy PTA philosophical questions that hardly made sense. Made me hate Melbourne a little, I’m just saying.

Despite this, I was relieved to see the man was about as impressed as I was with these sorts of questions and hardly warranted them with a response.

I won’t bring the film down to my petty analysis so all I’m going to say is see it, in 70mm is possible, and just sit back and revel in it’s beauty.

On the subject of screenwriting though I just came across this excellent lecture by one of the great American screenwriters of the past 20 years, Charlie Kaufman. From the man that gave us Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York we are given a unique perspective into the process of screenwriting, in all his quirky glory.

A Warm Glass of Milk

This is a short animated digital story I made on Anime Studios. As described below, it is very short, very mundane and my animation skills are certainly lacking in some areas. I have certainly found a new level of respect for the animators of the world as the whole process is extremely slow and painstaking. The patience these people must have is extraordinary.

Despite all this I’m pretty happy with the final product. I hope you enjoy it!

I also uploaded it on Youtube for those who are interested in watching it in lower quality

Tools used in this production

• Adobe Photoshop CS5.1
• Smith Micro Anime Studio Pro 9
• Final Cut Pro 7.0
• Soundcloud (for sound effects)
• Vimeo
• Youtube
• My imagination

Digital Story: Progress Report

So I’ve been working a bit with Anime Studios program and I’m starting to get the hang of it. It is, however, incredibly time consuming to get anything done. I feel like Ben Wyatt on Parks and Recreation when he tried to make a stop motion film.

 

One of the first things I tried to achieve was to make my character walk. It took a while at first but here’s what I ended up with. I’m pretty happy with the results.

There’s still a bit of a jump where the animation loops but I’m going to try to iron that out. I have to say though, I’m pretty proud of the arrogance of the strut.

Level Three: we need to go deeper

For my digital storytelling project I’ve decided to rely on a simple form of animation. My story will follow an animated version of myself on a short, rather mundane adventure through a non-animated world.

I will be primarily using a program called Anime Studios from Smith Micro Software. This program allows me to do some simple 2D animation that ends up looking half decent despite my lack of any skill in the area. I will also be using Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 to convert some of my animations into animated GIF format so that I can post them here on this blog. My final product will hopefully be in a video format so that I can host it onto website such as Youtube and/or Vimeo. In the meantime I will be using Photobucket to host my GIF files as I have found it offers the best support for this sort of web hosting.

So without further ado, I introduce to you… well, me.

Well go on then, don’t just stand there blinking, say ‘hello’ at least!

Apptitude

Okay, let’s have a look at apps.

Smartphone applications pretty much run peoples lives these days and are at the centre of how user’s interact with and use their smartphones. As of September 2012 there were over 700,000 downloadable applications in the iPhone App Store. Recent statistics show that the App store has now reached 25 billion downloads, tracking at one billion downloads a month, which, according to the article I found that in, is a figure nine times greater than the rate McDonald’s sells burgers. Come on McDonald’s, step up your game!

Whilst is true that different Apps serve different purposes, a large proportion act as native portals into content that could be accessed through a web browser. Native applications provide many advantages over simply visiting the website which include faster browsing, better performance, the use of sensors and actuators, and quick access through the smartphone interface. For example, using the native Twitter application instead of accessing the actual website through Safari on your iPhone increases performance, speed and browsability letting you shoot out you 140 characters with ease. Other social networking services such as Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress and even Myspace (I had to to check) offer similar application to increase functionality and usability for smartphone users. Native applications for webpages also exist for sites such as Wikipedia, IMDb, eBay and many online banking services.

The previously much-maligned official Twitter app
Source: macrumors.com

Apart from native applications for webpages other popular application types include mobile games (i.e. Angry Birds, Draw Something, Words With Friends etc.) , e-book readers (i.e. Kindle, iBooks), weather and location services (i.e. The Weather Channel, Google Maps), and photography/photo-sharing programs (i.e. Instagram, Snap Chat).

Applications may make life more convenient for the smartphone user,  but they do hold their own disadvantages. For example, many young people cling to their phones so they can check social networks or text messages every few minutes, and that can interfere with the normal process of working or studying. At times we can rely too heavily on apps which may not always work. I know some people who have absolutely no sense of direction due to the fact that they always us Google Maps to navigate. There is also growing concern that having constant access to the internet is having a negative effect on peoples memory. Today, instead of having to rack your brain to remember that name of a famous person that you have forgot you can look it up in seconds on your smartphone. Whilst their has yet to be empirical evidence to prove this has adverse effects on memory down the line, it is an important point to consider when weighing up the pros and cons of smartphone applications.

Personally, I’m constantly using different apps to make my life easier. Personal favourites include the Commonwealth Bank’s Kaching app, the Rotten Tomatoes Flixter app, Facebook, Twitter and of course the brilliant music recognition app Shazam. I get sent Snapchats from my friends but I very rarely reply and I’ve never really seen the appeal of Instagram. Oh and Google Maps of course but apparently it’s been removed from IOS 6 so I’m at a loss as to whether I should update or not. I hear you do get new Emojis though.. Worth it?