Why do I enjoy the UCLA writer's program?

When I was a kid I had this book, how machines work, or something like that. It explained how machines work. Very smart. Anyways, I was too young to read, so I just browsed the illustrations. My favorite part of the book was a page (spread of 2 pages actually) with a big boat. The illustrated boat was cut, so you could see the inside. Now it remindes me of this film with Bill Murray, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Anyway, I could sit there for hours, stare at that still image, meditating to it. In my mind it was alive. The girl in the room at the bottom was waiting for the guy from the hall. The couple in the room just had an argument. The empty room had a history larger than any of our lives.

I think I understood right there I wanted to write. It's the game of the mind, of the eye, of the heart. Studying scriptwriting teaches me so much about myself.

The course I take at UCLA Extension is great. They teach us the craft, and the business. I know right now I'm not in the US, and perhaps the business here is a bit different than what's happening in LA, but still. We proceed fast (unlike normal classes, where each student with a stupid question drags the class to another wasted hour). We learn everything, we communicate with each other well (the forum of the program is very good). We must do our assignments on time (dicipline is so important in this business).

The rest of my afternoon I will use to write and try to complete the 8th assignment we got: the beat sheet for the third act of our story. I have no idea yet, but writing is all a writer needs to do to find the answers.

Btw, I killed vista today, went back to xp. The first thing I did was to reinstall Celtx, the free scriptwriting software i love so much.

The teacher loved my scene!! I'm on the winning track!!

That was a very good day. First, I had 4 Sufganiot (that Jewish sweet donut for Hanuka). Second, the teacher (Esti Namdar, the best and only true teacher I've had in film studies so far), she loved my scene!! We had to give in a scene that includes defamiliarization, and today she returned us the papers and asked me to read mine out loud.

It was very interesting to hear my scene being read out loud. Though it wasn't the correct cast for the roles, listening to the words being SAID was very...well, impressive. And convincing.

Of course it's not a perfect scene, but it was very good, and interesting. The teacher also complimented me on my dialogue, which surprised me, cos I never thought I wrote dialogue very good. But that also made me think. Say I write a script in English, the dialoge probably will not work as good as it did in this case.

Anyway, it was a very good day. I also have an idea for a feature. I hope no one will get shocked in university, coz they always expect students to make a final film of no more than 20 minutes. But actually, I don't say I want to shoot it, I just want to write it. I can be satisfied with shooting a very good short. A short I will love even more than A Summer Dress.

I also found this awsome scriptwriting software. It's totaly free and seems no less good than the famous Final Draft (which I used to love, but it's not free and slightly heavy). This new software I found is called Celtx and it has some great features, such as different types of projects it supports (audio-visual, radio, storyboard, film etc), user-friendly interface and very very cute look and feel. Did I mention it's free? It also has an online creative bank, with many interesting projects. Films, screenplays etc. Check it out, I find it the best screenwriting software so far. Of course it does not yet support Hebrew, but I hope this too will happen. Bloody RTL.