General: On Moving

We were talking in class today about maintaining unity of time and space when writing a scene.  The rule of thumb is that within a script, scenes should be self-contained, with all the action occurring in one place and in linear time.  Films break this rule all the time, of course, but that's the principle they want you to work with when you start out.

It occurs to me that one of the reasons the unity of space-time is so integral to filmmaking is because - like the three act structure and character that arises from conflict - it reflects the way we live our lives when there are no cuts.  We can't skip forwards or backwards in time, can't snap our fingers and move from room to room.  Life is very slow and very solid.  At least in the day to day sense.

But in the broader arc of life, the long eye, we don't have the same respect for space as we do time.  We move ourselves not just from room to room but from house to house, city to city.  We can collapse the continuum and start a new scene somewhere else.

Pretty cool!
Cheers
Julia

Gender: Girl Talk

Briefly: I go to film school. Several of my professors are women. Working in a male-dominated industry, most of them are pretty aware of issues of gender, even though they rarely attempt to address this with a class that's seventy-five percent male.

Last week, a (female) professor of mine was doing a general pitch about interviews we were supposed to be conducting with an industry professional of our choice. She gave examples: if you want to go into cinematography, talk to a cinematographer. If you're into set design, try and get an interview with a production designer.  Female student? Try getting a hold of a woman in the industry.

Film: X2 - The Limits Of Power

I re-watched the first ten minutes of the film X2 today.  Though I don't remember much about the the movie, the opening scene stuck with me from my first viewing some five years ago, and I was pleased to see that it held up to my remembrances.  The premise is simple, for anyone not familiar: the scene is an assassination attempt on the President in the Oval Office by a superpowered mutant, and it's less that three minutes long.