PARALLAX

[stealstrategies]

[prlx]

I've been suspecting this for the longest time

[prlx]

And ultimately a part of us remains quite aware of what is going on; it is only when we are totally unaware that fictions are fictions that they hurt us. […] we are being lied to, and we know it, and we love every minute of it.

Morris Beja on fiction in his book Film&Literature

[brightwalldarkroom]

The karaoke scene from Lost in Translation

(Coppola, 2003)

[lifeascaty]

I can’t tell anyone how to write a screenplay because anything of value you might do comes from you. The way I work is not the way you work, and the whole point of any creative act is that. What I have to offer is me. What you have to offer is you. And if you offer yourself with authenticity and generosity, I will be moved.

Charlie Kaufman (x)

[brightwalldarkroom]

"So, what I guess I’m trying to answer or say is that I don’t - being inside my head is what I have to offer you, and so that’s what I do. And it isn’t - to me, when I relate to a piece of fiction or a novel or something, it isn’t that it makes me step outside of myself. Although sometimes, there are those kind of books. But, I mean, the things that I really relate to is when I read something that is articulate, something that I felt but haven’t been able to articulate. And I find that incredibly moving. And I find an incredible sense of community in that.  

And sometimes it’s over centuries, which is even more exciting to me. If I read something somebody wrote 300 years ago, and it’s me, you know, what I’m going through now in my head - I mean, it sends chills down my spine. And I feel like that’s what I want to be able to offer, that if I offer myself, that there’s a chance that somebody else will feel connected because they felt that. And even if the story is sad, you can be connected in your sadness and the sadness of being a human being.”

—Charlie Kaufman

[peterfeld]

Nothing like when the President visits the troops.

[prlx]

Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000) playing the Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ son Commodus, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. What’s memorable about his performance? His portrayal of a character who is, aside from his thirst for power, desperate for love and admiration, but is, unfortunately so, downright unlovable. AM I NOT MERCIFUL?!! 

[prlx]

Let yourself write shitty pages, with stilted, direct, dumb, and obvious dialog. Don't worry about it. Just keep writing. Dialog can always be cleaned up during the rewrite. "Writing is rewriting" is the ancient adage.

Syd Field in Screenplay - the foundations of screenwriting

[filmmakinglife-deactivated20230]

Audiences and industry readers that read your screenplay will only have one first impression of your script, so make it a good one.

Opening scenes can (and should try to) do a number of things:

Capture the audience’s attention and immerse them in the story (what is this...

[prlx]

We go to the movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another human being who at first seems so unlike us and yet at heart IS like us, to live in a fictional reality that illuminates our daily reality. We do not wish to escape life but to find life, to use our minds in fresh, experimental ways, to flex our emotions, to enjoy, to learn, to add depth to our days.

Robert McKee in Story - Substance, structure, style, and principles of screenwriting.

[brightwalldarkroom]

Every time I cried, or almost-cried, was a little different, though each contained a similar parfait of feelings: a layer of sadness (for the unreal character); a layer of hope (for the unreal character); a layer of skepticism (what does it mean to feel sadness or hope for an unreal character?); a layer of curiosity, both emotional and artistic (how have I come to feel this sadness/hope for an unreal character?); a layer of pride (I feel things so deeply I can even feel sadness/hope for an unreal character); a layer of shame (I feel more for this unreal character than I did for the homeless man I just passed in the street); another layer of shame, this one more specifically inflected by my role as a consumer (how have my emotional responses been so easily manipulated?) but also — it cannot be denied — a layer of consumer satisfaction: I am having a powerful experience, which is part of the implicit contract made between a film and its watchers. We give our time, and maybe our money, and in return we are given an experience that will somehow make us different than we were before we had it.

Leslie Jamison, "On Short Term 12 and crying at the movies” (The Los Angeles Review of Books)

This.

[prlx]

Absolute Beauty.

The Painted Veil (2006). Screenplay by Ron Nyswaner based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Directed by John Curran. This hauntingly beautiful soundtrack was composed by the wonderful Alexandre Desplat. I love this piece in particular because it captures so perfectly that deep and narcotic kind of grief that only the death of a beloved person can unleash. Among the many things that make this movie worth watching are the stellar performances by both Edward Norton and Naomi Watts and the MAGICAL CINEMATOGRAPHY by Stuart Dryburgh, who paints rapturously beautiful images of 1920 rural China in lush greens and blues and soothing browns that will haunt you forever. I promise.

This movie - forever.

[totalfilm]

The Best & Worst Moments from the 2014 Oscars

[prlx]

What the hell

[prlx]

Pirates of the Caribbean: He's a pirate Film music composed by Klaus Badelt or: How to last-minute study dramatically.

[prlx]

Seabiscuit (2003). Screenplay by Gary Ross, based on the book by Laura Hilenbrand. 

[prlx]

A classic and iconic graphic design by Chip Kidd for a classic and iconic motion picture by Steven Spielberg. 

This dinosaur skeleton, forever. 

If anyone is interested in hearing Chip Kidd tell the story behind the design, watch his very funny and entertaining TED talk here

[prlx]

This beat by Taebeast, forever.