Randy A. Riddle's Lounge Discussions

Karen "Kay" Ross I'd love to! I know I'm not alone in my love for cheese (and I don't mean the kind you eat that makes you constipated).

Karen "Kay" Ross thanks for pitching in! Yes your right the use of types of shots is a good tell that it's a made-for-tv and yes motivated movements are more apparent in cinema. But I guess it has to do with time like it has been said.

What challenge are you talking about? I'm sorry I'm not sure I understand completely. But as far as locations go I really do find and recognize locations to the point that real estate people have asked me to locate a place by merely looking at a picture with a window and recognizing the view outside or have found locations from a reflections in a small mirror somewhere in footage. Can't do it always but I do very, very well. :)

I agree that there are a lot of different types of films that are interesting. There's nothing wrong with any one of them but I will agree that some people are more into one than the other. But that's like music to each their own.

I've thought about this for several years as I've done a lot of historical research on the development of film and television. They're really different mediums - films are intended to be viewed with an audience in a darkened auditorium, while tv is aimed towards a home environment where there are many distractions.

The shot choices partly have to do with lower budgets - there are less opportunities for expensive setups - but also with the fact that tv is a more intimate medium. Generally, you find more close-ups and focus on people in material shot for tv.

The cinematography is going to be more flat and bright - that really comes from a tradition of lighting sets and locations so they would show up properly on more primitive tv film chains. (You can always spot a Universal film production from the 60s and 70s - they were almost always lit with later television play in mind.).

With improvements in tv technology and larger screens, the cinematography and color grading for tv has gotten more similar to film, but can still have that "tv look" since more unusual lighting or color grading effects look their best in a darkened room on a big screen.

The rhythms of the editing are going to be very different, with movie editing geared towards the arc and pulse of the story, while tv editing aimed more to arcs of short segments built around commercial breaks.

With music and sound, you'll notice that films use silence and quiet moments a lot more than tv - since most people don't really watch tv in rapt attention and might view shows as they work on their computer, talk with the kids, etc., tv has to approach audio much like a radio play so you don't miss something when you look away from the screen.

One isn't necessarily better or worse than the other - film and tv are just different mediums that are screened in different circumstances.

Wow thank you Randy A. Riddle ! Very interesting point of view and I agree completely. I totally see your point about being different mediums and why one aims to capture one attention span of viewers vs. the other one and how different techniques are used to achieve one or the other effect. like cinematography, lighting, sound design and editing.

Very nice. Especially how more and more cinema content is viewed on TV at least these days and it makes me wonder how things might start to impact each other or not.

I know that I personally prefer the "cinema feel" of the work that I do. I'll never stay that I know exactly what that it and how to achieve it but I do like the feel of it.

Thanks Vital. There has been a merging of the two mediums very slowly over the past couple of decades.

Back in the 90s, David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" really made waves partly because it was shot and edited more similar to a feature film than series television. You really had to pay attention to it and it used the cinematography and sound to create a mood.

Miniseries and cable have been moving towards a more cinematic look and feel - parts of "Deadwood" looked a little like outtakes from "McCabe and Mrs Miller". It works in that format since more money is put into a smaller number of episodes and they're paced to fill an. hour, not short segments in between commercials.

The improvement in home video - bigger, more accurate tv screens, higher definition video formats, projectors, better sound systems - have contributed to that and made watching films on home video closer to the theatrical experience. But, your garden-variety television movies and series still use more of a "tv style".

There has been some crossover of the "tv look" to theatrical films. I mentioned how Universal's house style in the 60s and 70s, lit films for eventual tv showings. Remember that Hitchcock used the unit that shot his tv show for "Psycho" and many of his later films, like "Family Plot", look lit for tv.

TV properties, like the "Jackass" films, were shot on video (and transferred to film) to be as cheap as possible, of course. But I've seen several recent comedies that are shot in a more straightforward, tv-movie style, probably because of the replay value they have on streaming video and tv showings where you don't have to pay close attention to them to enjoy particular favorite moments.

Hi Thomas, I can highly recommend Jacob Krueger. You can participate in live online workshops which will make it easier for you. He was my first port of call when I took time off from my job in Australia to rekindle my creative spirit - his workshops set it on fire! A great start to learning the art and craft of screenwriting. Reading scripts and watching films - lots of them - are also vital learning tools.

One thing I'd recommend doing is, after you've read some of the good suggestions from people here, is to take some films in different genres - even ones you're not interested in - and closely examine the scripts or finished films to look at their overall structure. Read the script and watch the films and make notes on the way that they are formed into acts and the challenges and successes the main characters have at each point. That will help you see how to translate the ideas in some of the books and resources into an overall story arc.

Thank you all so much, You've all been incredibly helpful and kind. Believe me, I will utilize all your suggestions.

Hey Thomas. I highly recommend The Screenwriter's Bible by David Trottier. We cracked this open and learned everything you need to know about screenplay format. Plus, David is just awesome at answering questions if you reach out to him.

On one occasion my friend who received the Oscar for a short film told me that he had learned the most about screenwriting by watching the worst movies.

I have convinced myself an idea was good and 10 pages in realised I was lying to myself.

That’s why I have a mountain of loglines. They are all crashed attempts.

I occasionally think of ideas that I don't ever use. However, I've started screenplays where I felt I wasn't getting in a good groove. Nine times out of ten, I hung in there with those scripts and some of them turned out to be my best work

Write the outline first, and a character sketch before beginning the actual story. The outline will tell you if you have an effective and complete and worthy story.

I saw a show that covered the trauma of kids today after school shootings. They interviewed Columbine kids who survived and younger kids from more recent one and it was horrifying because these kids, young adult have PTSD. The impact of that experience will never leave them.

If it's only in a couple of places (like your example), then I think you can use parentheticals to tell the actor how to deliver the line. If Paulo & Sophia are cast as hyperactive Italian characters, then their physical delivery may be all you need with no subtitles required. Just don't go overboard with the parentheticals.

I believe NOT pitching material is the biggest mistake a writer can make here. There's a wealth of free knowledge on this site and these creatives know their stuff. You'll get views from all sides. Writers who don't know us give THE BEST feedback.

Keeping our ideas a secret only does us harm because there's no testing before we try to do something big with the script. Then we find out people don't get this or that and we're rewrites away from where we thought we were. I also believe once we become artists we have to realize our work isn't for us anymore. We're one movie ticket. It's for the people. To ensure our story is palatable for the masses, we need opinions.

There is no shortage of ideas. We all have a ton of 'em. Probably everyone on this thread doesn't have enough time in the day for their own ideas. And I guarantee we all have more faith in our ideas than anyone else's. Stealing ideas is a myth for the most part, anyway. Give 100 writers an idea and they'll come back with a hundred different stories and all of those stories will differ from ours. There are exceptions to every rule. But this I know: if I don't have what it takes to post my ideas, I don't have what it takes to grow. If I don't grow, I don't go pro. That's my goal. A pro can articulate how and why he builds stories to other pros. It all starts with posting loglines and pages.

Elisabeth Meier not so much worried. Just trying to protect myself, but like others have said really not much you can do except register it with WGA or LOC and only post a few pages. I just always hear stories of people's hard work being taken.

Dan MaxXx you are right. You cannot steal or imitate craft

I've had my ideas stolen, the soul sucked out of them and turned into a well-known show. It will eat at me til my dying day. I never share my work directly with production companies anymore and if I did I would want NDAs signed at the very least.

If you're not worried, why are you trying to protect yourself? I've posted a few short scripts from time to time, mostly as examples of 'proper' formatting. They've all won awards and they've already been produced. If one of my scripts triggers an idea in the mind of another writer - even better (I'm here to share & learn). Your script may spark an idea in me - so? Don't let paranoia throw a wet blanket on your creativity.