I have decided to try to organize a monthly Eugene story slamm. If you are in Eugene and want to help send me an email.
I am so excited about the progress of my webseries. I spent a bunch of time this afternoon recording and practicing my voice directing skills. I hope it worked out well and my actor does not hate me now. My previous forays into directing weren't really successful. Mainly because they were in high school and the students refused to recognize that director did actually mean I got to make decisions on what they did on stage. They also decided to randomly switch roles without telling me or asking me. And didn't understand and got upset when I said no. I was just being a bitch.
But I digress. I love doing this. It is SO fun!! I also found some sale Van Aken clay. That is supposed to be a great clay for doing claymation stop motion animation. I haven't had the courage to break it out yet. But at least I will get to practice with it. Maybe I will try to animate it.
I saw Frankenweenie last night. I need to see it again. I was really excited for this movie, and I think in my zeal to learn everything I can about stop motion and the movies coming out this year I spoiled it a little. I listen to a podcast called Scriptnotes Podcast with John August and Craig Mazin. John August was the writer for Frankenweenie, so of course when the movie first came out he talked about it on his podcast. This was awesome, but also a curse. I did it to myself, I know. I could have waited. But as I knew some stuff abut the writing process and production process I was paying more attention to that than just enjoying the movie. I was busy comparing techniques with Aardman for Pirates! and Laika for Paranorman. Very different and interesting and valid styles and techniques. Also, there was an inside joke that I am not sure you would understand. If you haven't seen it yet I don't think this will spoil it for you. It is about biffy gnomes. Biffies, if you don't know, are portapotties. If you have seen the movie you may get it, if you haven't I am not going to spoil it for you. If you have seen it and still don't get the correlation I will be glad to explain it to you. It made that movie that much more enjoyable for me.
My point is though that the more I learn about the process of writing and production, the more I watch movies and analyze it with writing process and production in mind. Has it totally spoiled watching movies for me? I hope not. I am hoping that I can learn to control it and turn it off and on at will. I also found myself watching the trailers and seeing the exact same storyline in different contexts for every movie. My friend was all excited about the new movies. I, on the other hand, was like "They are all the same movie. Why would I want to spend my money on them?" Is that a downside to learning more about how to make movies? I don't know. Am I maybe too cynical for my own good? Maybe. Or maybe I am better able to discern better. Or maybe it is just that studios are so desperate to make a movie that makes money they are afraid to deviate from the formula. I don't know.
Has learning about movie making ruined movie going for you?