Japanese cinema seminar

Like every Tuesday i opened my day with 90 minutes of Japanese cinema. I take this seminar at university, so at the end of the year we must write a 20 pages essay about any issue we choose from the very wide spectrum of Japanese Cinema.

Today we discussed the japanese family, and how it's presented in various films. As in every Japanese film, also in family matters the Giri (the obligations one has) are an issue. In Tokyo Story of Ozu (me and Jim Jarmush love this talented director very much) you can see how the children try to get rid of their parents, refuse the Giri. Ozu put the son in Osaka and the daughter in Tokyo - spread all over the country. In the traditional Japanese family children and parents continued to live under the same roof their entire lives. You see the younger sister still respects the Giri, and the widow of the son is the one who takes the most care for the parents. She, of course, doesn't have to take care of them - but she does it because she wants to.

I'm not sure what this means. Perhaps not only gap between children and parents, but also something deeper - the real obligation starts from the inside, not from outside rules that fade with time. At the end, Giri or not Giri, we all make our choices as individuals.

The second film we talked about today was Family Game of Morita. I didn't know this director until today but the film was interesting both in theme and style, and quite extreme. A stranger enters the life of a family, and though he change it a bit, at the end all is the same. The ending dinner scene is great, very original and full of...food.

The last film discussed was Visitor Q. This one is real extreme piece, not realistic and was very hard for some students to watch. A daughter fucks with her father (and then laughs about him for being an 'early bird' and taking money from him), a mother who is a whore and a drug addict, a son who hits his mother with a belt, a father that takes video shot of his son being beaten by his friends on the street. All this untill Visitor Q enters their life (in a violante way, of course) and becomes part of the family. After filling a room with the mother's milk everything starts to change. I guess this film is a must see, if your eyes and guts can take it.

Besides that, I'm still working on my script. Long night ahead.

Charlie Kaufman was so !!! when he got the Oscar

A good script to learn structure from

Just wanted to say, The Verdict is a great script. The writing style is interesting, very clear and simple. The structure is pure. It's really one of the best scripts I've read, especially for a scriptwriting student to learn from.

The Third Act (not easy at all)

This is the time to get scared. I wanted to write the final act for my feature (a beat sheet for the third act, not the actual scenes yet). Then I've realized I need to work still on act II and the essence of my story. Without this I won't have a third act.

The bad thing is that I'm supposed to send my beat sheet now (actually a few hours ago). I'm behind, but the head has its own time. Damn.

Great scriptwriting today, with Eitan Green. He always gives us fun excersizes and I really wanted to hear his new assignment today, but we ran out of time so only next week. Damn.

I feel like returning to an old love of mine, photography. I have some stills I want to enlarge and perhaps the day after tomorrow I'll go to my old art school to the lab. I love the quiet and the darkness. I love it most when it's only me and one other person there. I hate talking in the dark room.

For a long time now I've been going to dark rooms of a different kind. But I've had enough of that. I want my life back.

I'm going to continue with my third act now, for UCLA. My next courses on the UCLA Extension begin on April 9th, I can't wait.

Eitan Green (the scriptwriting teacher from Tel Aviv University) told us today we must write. Every day, to have a project we work on. He's right, I've been doing it for the last 2 months. Not every day, but almost. I need to do it more. I need to feel like it's my office and I have 3 hours a day I must attend. No matter what. Writing is all a writer must do.

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 dreadful second act

I just wrote the first skech for my second act. It's a super hard mission, your brain feels like the world, total chaos and many details. But, since its just a first skech, I had the freedom to let myself go, no fear.

So I added a character, might gave it too much space, but it opened a new direction. My tutor (UCLA Extension) gave some usefull suggestions. Writing is the key here. The more I write the more there is to write. It's a great feeling, especially since I do have the time now.

I still have a short script to write for another class (at Tel Aviv University). The subject we're supposed to write about is 'downtrodden'. I think it's facsinating, I have a general idea of my story. I want to keep it short (cos it needs to be read during class, time is very limited).

I'm going to enroll for another 2 UCLA Extension courses today. I'm very excited about my next semester. In terms of beggining, middle and end, it's going to look like - lots of interesting courses, study hard, give birth. I hope together with my human baby I'll also experience the birth of a script. That would just do it.

And then - the summer ::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Lots of changes, I'm still writing

Looking at your life like on a doll house, that's inspiring. Everything seem to have a reason. You understand the order of things. It's called perspective, I guess. But it's also meditative.

Anyway, I switched departments at university: from directing to scriptwriting. It's been great, really brilliant. My work is to write now, it seems like the good life is here. No one pays me for it, but being smart as I am I know that little can be measured with money. Joy cannot. And my life is full of joy now.

I take two scriptwriting courses at uni: "writing the scene" and "advenced scriptwriting". For both I write on a weekle basis (writing and rewriting, that is). It's going very well so far (today I'll have a short script read at class, hope I still be so happy in the evening).

I also take that UCLA Extention course, feature scriptwriting. This also goes very well. We go from the premise, the characters and the structure - into creating the beat sheet of our feature. It's hard, requiring a lot of writing. A lot. 3 hours a day is the minimum I need to write to take this project somewhere, and the more I do it the more fun it gets. I see my characters better. they sometime even talk to me. Still miles to go.
I work now on the beat sheet for the second act. It is hard, to decide how it all will fold out.
We read a script every week (well, we can watch the movie instead but what's the point). So I've read yesterday Ghost. I think the script is much better than the film itself, even though it's not very different. We use on this class two books: Lajos Egri's "The Art of Dramatic Writing" and Linda Seger's "How to Make a Good Script Great". Both books are excellebt. Egri's book is meant for the theatre and I enjoyed reading the examples he uses, taken from plays I've never saw or even heard of. The book of Seger is just brilliant, very clear and full of usable notes. I think I'll buy this one (the library will want it back at some point and I just can't give it away).

Besides all that, I'm very pregnant now. 4th month. I have a small belly (the size changes all the time). I feel sick every evening, but at least I can go to the cinema (I couldn't do it one month ago). So I saw No Country for Old Men, which I loved a lot (but I wouldn't say it's the best film by Coen Brothers, this wouldn't be fair. Miller Junction, Blood Simple - they have such a diverse record, there's no one best film). I also saw 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 Days...which I must say I didn't go crazy for. the style was too outside of the movie. it's not like in Rosetta of
those belgian brothers, there the style was in the movie. Here i felt it was just a costum. I thought the acting was good, and some good dramatic moments. I guess I didn't like the directing very much. The script could have be made into a better film, that's my guess.

I shut up now.

Good films are easy to make

Check this out, a link my friend Maya sent me: http://www.lernert.nl/haas.html. Too bad I cannot attach here the actual video, it's brilliant, and sad.

The film student skips classes

So I skipped the Wednesday scriptwriting class. I felt sick the whole week so I couldn't write the synopsis, though I wrote this short sequence for production. I also had a few ideas, but I couldn't sit and write. The screen is very hard for me those days. Should I take the paper block and the pen now?

Anyway, we went to the first ultrasound Wednesday night. It was funny, but very predictable. Today I skip classes again, cos I have another meeting with a doctor. It's also my sister's birthday, she's 26! Mazal Tov Michal!!

Actually I remember Michal and my other sister, Maya (who is now at Sarasota, FL - come back already!) they used to love this movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I saw it many times mainly because of them, they wouldn't hand me the remote. I like this film. I love the actors mainly, and the idea of a movie that takes place within 24 hours is also cool. As a kid it's easy to understand, cos your days are also very long. I guess.

Anyway, for next Wednesday I must hand a synopsis and a step outline. Grrr. Good thing now my days are better, the sick only starts in the evening.

A short script to produce

Finally i feel like shooting something. After days of feeling sick and lazy, I got up this morning and..felt sick and lazy again. But I ate my porridge in front of the screen and started to write. I had to come out with an easy-to-produce idea for my directing class. the teacher got real mad coz we don't shoot nothing no more. He gave each of us a date to bring something, no matter what, with three characters. I thought this would be a nice exercise for me, to check what I write about when all is open.

So i started to write. I thought of an ear. The easiest gateway to someone's brain. I wrote about the ear. It ended up being a sequence about technopathy, film noir style. I'm not saying it's too easy to produce, but it's not too difficult. I just need to decide how it will all look and feel.

For example, I don't want the scientist to be old and wearing white. He will be young and his lab will look more like an artist's studio than a doctor's room. Maybe he'll wear orange robe, like a prisoner, or a monk.

I'm quite excited about this, coz in the last year there was nothing I felt like making. I think I was trying to write like the movies I enjoyed watching, instead of just writing easy from my own head. It is a confusing thing, to understand that what you enjoy watching is not necessarily what you end up writing or filming.

I will start searching for a location (perhaps my parent's basement) and 3 actors. I'm happy!