No shake

Of late I am searching for a decent Gimbal for my DSLR. Here is a DIY website: http://www.diygimbals.com/category/gimbals/ and here is a parts seller with some fundamentals: http://www.axisgimbal.com/direct-drive-brushless-motor/
Let me know if you have successfully built a Gimbal yourself and share the instructions so that we can try building one ourselves.

Wireless Monitor for your Indi Shoots

If your camera is capable of a PTP connector then I believe you can use a TP-LINK TL-MR3040 N150 Portable Battery-Powered 3G/4G Wireless Router and an Android tablet  running the app DslrDashboard to get yourself a wireless monitor. Here, check out the details: 
http://nofilmschool.com/2014/01/dirt-cheap-wireless-monitor-hacked-tp-link-mr3040-router-will-help

Kick Ass really kicks arse!!

I don't know how I missed to watch this movie until now!! Superb! Don't miss it.

You can read the scrispt at http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/Kickass.pdf

Hello again...

I know I have been very quiet for a while... I finished a script a couple of months ago and tried to shoot it but couldn't :( 

Will start again on shooting if soon but in the mean while I flipped through my notes and decided to write another script!!

By the way check out this site: http://gointothestory.blcklst.com

Plot Points and Hero's Journey Revisited

Today I found this excellent diagram showing the plot points - I like this because Daniel has plotted the internal journey along the Hero's journey. This would be useful for any screen writer.

See bigger image.

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

I didn't know about this until a few days ago a screen writer friend told about this:
http://nofilmschool.com/2013/12/pixars-22-rules-of-storytelling-free-ebook/

And then I found these:

http://aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/22/the-story-spine-pixars-4th-rule-of-storytelling/

More Writing Resources

I found some nice resources that can help any writer. Check out the following - they seem interesting:

• http://writingwhilethericeboils.blogspot.com/2011/11/writing-roulette-all-generators-youd.html
• http://writingwhilethericeboils.blogspot.com/2011/11/writing-roulette-all-generators-youd_22.html

While that blog post collects various generators some links seem to be broken. I have managed to list a few links here for convenience:

• Plot suggestions
• Sticky situations generator
• Random Story Generator - for some reason this didn't work for me; probably I have to enable AxtiveX controls 
• Character's physical characteristics generator
• Motive generator
• Character quirk generator
• Name generator
• City map generator

• All generators in one
• Another collection of generators
• Yet another generator
• Some more generators

Now for some links that are very different from the above:

• http://writetodone.com/usebrain-science-to-hook-readers-and-reel-them-in/
• http://wiredforstory.com/8-random-writing-tips/
• http://wiredforstory.com/wired-for-story-2/

Short stories

Are you writing?
Or are you struggling to get over the block?
Here is something to kick-start your creative engine: 

• http://americanliterature.com/100-great-short-stories
• http://www.onlineclasses.org/resources/the-50-best-short-stories-of-all-time/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Short_Story
• http://www.world-english.org/stories.htm

Oscar Nominated Screenplays

Check out: http://www.studiodaily.com/2014/01/read-the-oscar-nominated-screenplays-and-more-scripts-from-2013-films/

Stroy story and story!

Here is another loooong rant on stories... Tell me what you think...

Types of Stories:

As you know there are many types of stories. Michael Rabigar's book had a list of 36 stories.
Here is another take on the types of stories:

• https://suite101.com/a/what-are-the-seven-basic-plot-definitions-a58402
• http://www.greenleafbookgroup.com/blog/2009/03/12/seven-major-types-of-stories-writing-the-high-concept-idea

Raising the stakes:

• What are the stakes: http://www.coffeehouseforwriters.com/fictionfix/0905%20Grossack.html
• How to raise the stakes: http://readtowritestories.com/2013/11/19/how-to-raise-the-stakes-in-a-story-by-challenging-a-characters-identity/
• http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-to-raise-the-stakes-in-your-first-50-pages-of-your-novel
• http://melaniecard.com/for-writers/raising-the-stakes/
• http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/beat-writers-block/how-to-build-tension-to-heighten-the-stakes
• http://www.movieoutline.com/articles/how-to-use-the-formative-event-technique-to-raise-the-stakes-in-your-story.html
• http://thescriptlab.com/screenwriting-101/screenwriting/script-tips/884-raise-the-stakes-crank-it-up#

We often hear writers and books on writing talk about “raising the stakes,” but what does that really mean? Raising the stakes simply means making things worse for your characters.

This is what I could figureout from my readings.
There’s a very simple formula for creating the stakes (and thus suspense) in your story: Show your reader something she wants, and then threaten it.

Here are some ways to elevate suspense in your story:

1. Establish What’s at Stake
2. Emphasize the Or-Else Factor
3. Create a Ticking Time Bomb
4. Create suspense by exposing only a portion of teh info
5. Create a puzzle

Finding out what your character wants and why will help determine your external and internal conflict and offer insight into how to raise the stakes.

There are three aspects of stakes that you should consider ie think up of trouble on all 3 fronts:

1. What’s the worst thing that can happen to the lead?
2. How to cause deeply personal or emotional anguish to lead or the one lead cares about? Or are there dark secrets from past
3. What are the social aspects or new characters can upset the balance?

Resolving the stakes in an entertaining manner is what makes your stories interesting and original.

Ending:

•  Climax: You must create a climactic incident that surpasses any other incident in the novel in terms of action, conflict, imagery and dialogue. Blow your readers away with the height and depths of the emotions you achieve. Leave them feeling disadvantaged that they might never meet your heroic character again.
• Twist: The ending has to be completely unexpected and turns the whole story on its head, often revealing that an assumed truth throughout the story was actually false.
• Tie-Back: Your ends should not introduce anyting new or leave out questions unanswered. Everything that happens in ending should have been set up earlier in the story. To make it artistic and more appealing the ending has to tie right back to the beginning; using the same dialogue, description, setting or idea. It creates a feeling of balance and completeness.

Does the heroic character learn an important lesson? Your hero’s scars cost him something, but he
also wears them like badges of learning. Make sure to leave your characters with reasonable, justifyiable emotional/physical scars and/or losses. Audiance who walk away from the movie unimpressed will kill you in the word-of-mouth department.

See here for 5 possible ways in which a story can end:

• http://www.scribd.com/doc/33350899/how-to-write-the-end-of-a-novel
• http://blog.liviablackburne.com/2009/12/how-to-pull-off-amazing-plot-twist-when.html
• http://kimscraftblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/troubles-with-twist-endings.html

Why write a story before making a movie?

I have seen and heard that producers and studios prefer to invest in a movie if the story is based on a published book. Why? To avoid or minimize the copyright wars. So if you want to make a book first then consider self publishing. But then it writing a whole story and to have it published in itself is a whole new ball game. Anyway to publish your story yourself here are some pointers:

• http://www.greenleafbookgroup.com/node/3774
• http://www.blurb.com/self-publishing
• Amazon's https://www.createspace.com/
• http://www.48hrbooks.com/Self-publishing

Read http://www.wikihow.com/Self-Publish-a-Book too; it has some nice tips.
 

Do you know of any other ways to avoid or minimize copyright wars and to entyce producers/studios?

Collaborative writing!

I have been thinking of ways to involve friends and other interested script writers to collaboratively write a story/screen play. Though there are some subtle challenges like who all to have involved in this process etc the advantage would be in crossing geographic, time and any such boundaries. You can definitely get the work done lot faster.
See this blog article http://madebyloren.com/github-for-writers where the author points out that a group of mathematicians collaborated to write a book using GitHub! (see http://math.andrej.com/2013/06/20/the-hott-book/)
Looks like the author of that blog created a collaborative writing tool: Penflip - GitHub for Writers

Now while that above can be too radical there seems to be something closer to us: https://story.adobe.com/en-us/index.html
I am yet to start exploring Adobe's Story but some coworkers said that this is really useful.

There is a web based solution too: https://writerduet.com

While you are at it you might also want to think about putting together some sort of an ownership split agreement as in http://www.wga.org/uploadedFiles/writers_resources/contracts/collaboration.pdf

Have you collaboratively written stories/scripts? Did it work? Did you use any software? Does this really add value in your writing? Share your experience with us.

Happy New Year!!

Oh! I was not planning to blog today but it just so happened!

Here are a bunch of audio books that you can listen to when driving around or when you don't feel like reading a book yourself...

• http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Audio_Books_Project
• https://librivox.org
• http://www.audiobooktreasury.com

Keep writing buddies - if you feel that you are not able to kick start your creative juices or ifyou merely want to have a portfolio item rather quickly then here is a crazy cool idea to accomplish just that :) http://www.roberttwigger.com/how-to-write-and-get-published/2009/10/22/how-to-write-a-film-script-fast.html
Some tips to help you along: http://www.movieoutline.com/articles/screenwriting-tips