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Tag Archives: Hollywood

LOVE ~ Fiction’s Greatest Common Denominator

14 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by Elizabeth Fais in Love, Story, Writing

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Blake Snyder, Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire, Elizabeth Fais, Fiction, Hallmark, Hamlet, Harry Potter, Hollywood, Jane Austen, Katherine Applegate, Love, Macbeth, Mortal Instruments, opera, Othello, Rom-Com, Romantic Comedy, Romeo and Juliet, Rossini, Save the Cat!, Severus Snape, Shadowhunter Chronicles, Shakespeare, The One And Only Ivan, Valentine's Day

I love you heart❤️ It’s Valentine’s Day ❤️ 

Love is in the air, whether you adore the holiday or not.

Many bemoan the grandiose expectations the holiday puts on…well…everyone.

Don’t blame Hallmark.

Instead, look to fiction for insights into why this holiday has become a national obsession.

Love … Has Everything to Do With It

As Blake Snyder, Mr. Save the Cat!, used to say, “The motivating force of a story has color heart lightto be primal.” And nothing is more primal than love. I’d go so far as to say that love is fiction’s greatest common denominator, that the roots of every story are based in love.

Whether it’s seeking love, giving love, protecting love, grieving for love, or the ugliness that springs from lack of love or unrequited love.

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is one of the most popular stories of all time, because it resonates with humanity’s innermost core. Love.

Love’s Joyful Eccentricities

The romantic comedy (rom-com) is the popular love story of today. Shakespeare was the first to make that particular story type popular, though. Shakespeare wrote a total of 16 romantic comedies, earning him the title as the original Rom-Com King. Rossini, and other composers, carried the romantic comedy into the opera houses with great success. Later, Hollywood was quick to spin the romantic comedy into a film genre.

In children’s literature, the net of love stretches to include other species. For example, TheOneAndOnlyIvan_coverin The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate, a young girl’s compassionate love for Ivan, the shopping mall gorilla, is the catalyst for his freedom.

Likewise, Ivan’s love for the elephants who are also trapped in the roadside shopping mall attraction sparks his imagination and fuels his actions that provide the means for the young girl to help them.

Spanning centuries, artistic mediums, and species…the love story has touched the hearts of audiences everywhere. To such a great extent, it has permeated the fabric of our consciousness. Such is the power of love. Because it’s primal.

Love’s Darker Faces

The primal motivating force of a character always comes back to love. “Even the villain?” you ask. Yes. Severus Snape, in J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter series, is a perfect example of denied love giving the character a villainous face.

City of Heavenly Fire coverShakespeare’s dramatic plays reflect the darker facets of love, such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello. Jane Austen, thought by many to be the Queen of Romance in fiction, touches the sadder sides of love in her works, such as Persuasion.

Cassandra Clare‘s Mortal Instruments series is woven through with characters’ experiences and expressions of the grimmer facets of love, that sometimes grow so dark as to perpetuate murder. However, the main theme revolving throughout the series is self-acceptance.

The characters come to see and understand that the choices they make and the consequences that follow are a reflection of their level of self-love. This realization leads some through their darkness, to where they can embrace the healing power of love.


Staging and Props ~ Building Character and Depth Into a Story

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Elizabeth Fais in Film, Story, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Elizabeth Fais, Film, Hollywood, Props, Staging, Story, Universal Studios, VIP Tour, Writing

Props for Props

Creating a believable set for film and television is similar to creating believable settings in fiction. It’s all about staging and props. To be honest, I didn’t realize how much time and attention went into building and dressing a set until I took the Universal Studios VIP Tour. Who knew there’s an entire warehouse filled with every type of prop you can imagine? Seriously.

Universal Studios LA props department

The VIP Tour provides an intimate behind-the-scenes view of how they create television and movie magic. An amazing treat, since I love films. But I was surprised that it also gave me insights into how to craft stories with more character and depth. [photos by moi, Universal Studios Hollywood]

Establishing the Setting

Sound Stage 44 on Universal Studios back lot is where the television show, Parenthood, a NBC family dramedy, is filmed. I learned that it took one day, 12 hours for a team of carpenters to build out the entire set.

Set for Parenthood, Universal Studios, LA

The Craftsman bungalow in Parenthood is set in Berkeley, California. The architecture and location establish the mood and tone of a story, as well as setting expectations for the family that lives there. Their morals, values, even their environmental and political beliefs. If it was a ranch house in Texas, we’d project an entirely different set of expectations on the family. When a setting is fully developed it becomes a character in the story, such as the graveyard in Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book”.

Dressing the Set

Dressing a set is the process of making it believable, giving it depth that reflects the characters. The Parenthood set took a skilled set designer six weeks to fully dress. The furniture, draperies, books on the bookshelves, pictures on the walls, and the knickknacks were all chosen to reflect the personalities of the people who inhabit the house. Subliminally, those items convey personality and quirks without having to say a word.

Inside the set of Parenthood, Universal Studios, LA

Props are also used to hint at a plot thread or character trait, such as items that are in a bedroom closet, or on display around the room. In an episode of Glee one character was going to enlist in the service, and the set was dressed with patriotic props.

Patriotic props used in an episode of Glee

In fiction, we’re always told “show, don’t tell”. What they fail to say as often is that “what” we show is just important. Too much detail slows a story down. A smattering of well-chosen detail—describing items that convey character and give their personality depth—moves the story forward while keeping the reader engaged.

Staging and props are a craft focus for me in my current project. So, I guess this post is a reminder to myself more than anything.


 

How do you approach staging and props in your stories?

 


 

The Selfie That Brought Down Twitter & Why It Matters

10 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Elizabeth Fais in Academy Awards, Social Media, Technology

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Academy Awards, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Dolby Theater, Ellen DeGeneres, Hollywood, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Spacey, Meryl Streep, Oscars, selfie, The Ellen Show, Twitter

The 2014 Oscars were last Sunday evening, March 2nd. If you don’t live in a cave, you probably heard about Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar selfie that broke Twitter.

If you just came out of your cave and missed all that action, you can get the deets from the Los Angeles Times article about the event here and the New York Daily News article here.

2014 Oscars Selfie that broke Twitter

One Message ~ Over 2 Million Retweets

Basically here’s what happened…

Oscar host, Ellen DeGeneres, encouraged Bradley Cooper to take the infamous picture of her and the cozied-up group of A-List actors, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Spacey, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

Long before midnight that night, Ellen’s selfie was retweeted more than 2 million times. The overwhelming influx of network traffic brought Twitter to its knees. Or, to use a highly technical term, “they were hosed”. So much so, that Twitter later sent out an apology regarding the 20 minute disruption in service that happened after 8 p.m. PST.

Why it’s a big deal…

People who don’t use Twitter don’t get how big this is, both on a technically and humanly—the way we work and live.

I’ve been a technical writer in the software industry for a number of years, and have been exposed to a broad range of technologies in some of the most influential companies in Silicon Valley. Twitter, and other high-profile companies that provide real-time services, have substantial server farms to compensate for traffic during peak times. Nothing short of World War III should bring them down.

So … for ONE TWEET to hose the services of a company like Twitter is HUGE.

But something else was remarkable about this phenomenon. It shone a lantern on how Twitter affects the way we interact and communicate as a society.

One message shared over two million times because it resonated with a population, is nothing short of amazing.

This says something powerful about instantaneous connectedness. How the world is a global community in which we share thoughts and ideas in a fraction of a second. More important, how much we have come to depend on this ability.

I was one of the many who live tweeted through the 2014 Oscars broadcast, talking with people across the nation and around the world, retweeting and replying to tweets. I experienced the “Twitter crash” in real-time, the frustrating sudden loss of being able to communicate with other tweeters.

The retweets-heard-round-the-world from Ellen’s single tweet demonstrated our power as a collective whole. Because at the end of the day, technology is nothing without us—the people who drive it.


How does technology affect the way you communicate and live?


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Demystifying the Logline with the “ACME Instant Logline Generator”

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Elizabeth Fais in Blake Snyder, Save the Cat!, Story, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

ACME Instant Logline Generator, Blake Snyder, Elevator Ptich, Elizabeth Fais, Hollywood, LA13SCBWI, Logline, Matthew Wright, Save the Cat!, SCBWI, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Story

The Illusive, and Often Anxiety Inducing, Logline

We writers spend months, sometimes years, slaving over a novel in order to get the story just right. Then we’re told we have to boil down our labor-of-love—with its three-dimensional characters, intricate plot and subplots, and dynamic dialog—into one sentence (of 25 words or less).

This is known as a logline, or elevator pitch. Some say it is what you have to have to get your dream agent / book deal. Yeah, no pressure there. Right. Tell it to this guy.

Believe it or not, publishing gremlins did not spend months dreaming up loglines as a new and entertaining way to torture writers, both published and pre-published. Hollywood has been using loglines since Hollywood became… well … Hollywood. That’s because, loglines are a quick way to test out story ideas.

The secret, I learned from Blake Snyder’s “Save the Cat!” approach to story structure, is to perfect your logline BEFORE you write your 400 page tome. This is because…

If you don’t have a solid logline, you don’t have a solid story.

 

Loglines Aren’t Just for Hollywood Anymore

At the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Annual Conference in Los Angeles (check out the #LA13SCBWI blog), the topic of loglines came up in several workshops. Children’s authors are not immune from needing a good logline anymore.

Blake Snyder aptly described the value of a good logline:

A good logline is the coin in the realm of Hollywood and can be traded like currency with those who appreciate it.

“How do you grab that illusive gold logline coin for your story?”

Generator with light bulbs and knobsIt’s easy! Use the ACME Instant Logline Generator.

I’ve come across several logline formulas, but the easiest and the most fun is the ACME Instant Logline Generator.

I wish I could take credit for the genius behind the ACME Instant Logline Generator. But this unique and humorous one-from-column-A and one-from-column-B method of demystifying the process for creating a logline was devised by M.J. Wright, an author whose blog I follow. You can view the originial blog post here. Or, read the reblogged version here…

The ACME Instant Logline Generator

All novels need a logline, sometimes also known as a hook line – a single sentence that describes the plot and acts as a sale pitch to agents and publishers.

The form is usually “[Character name], [character description] has to [action] in order to [result].”

The result usually has an emotional content. Hard to winnow your story down to it? Try this. Begin with the logline instead. All you need, in fact, is a six-sided dice. Roll once for each variable and complete the sentence:

1. Roger Dodger the old Codger,
2. Peregrine Hyphen-Hyphen Folderol,
3. Snoot,
4. Adele,
5. Eric,
6. Heinz Dasistwirklicheinesehrdummelangeswortistesnicht von Abernatürlichistesjaabsolutichdenkeso of Sehrgutwerdeichgehenundhöreaufmeinekraftwerkalben,

1. a world-renowned horologist,
2. a rock god,
3. an up-and-coming railway enthusiast,
4. a truck driver specialising in cab-over series Macks,
5. an unemployed random-generator writer,
6. a rodent exterminator,

has to

1. win a challenging drag race
2. build a box-girder bridge with a toothpick
3. write a vampire fan-fic novel
4. learn how to sing and dance
5. cook a souffle
6. defeat the evil Thog monsters from Planet Zil

in order to

1. become the Ruler of the Universe.
2. rescue beloved from certain doom.
3. be home in time for tea.
4. get to Buckingham Palace and receive a knighthood.
5. audition for ‘America’s Got Talent’.
6. finish up at the beginning again, only better for it.

Have fun.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013


If you need more intel before tackling a logline, no worries! Nathan Bradford wrote a great post on How to Write a One Sentence Pitch that you can read here.

Easy peasy? You know it!

Your dream agent/book deal is just a logline away.


A Real Magic Castle!

11 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by Elizabeth Fais in Castles, Magic

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Castles, Elizabeth Fais, Hollywood, Magic Castle

Hollywood’s Secret Magic Castle

Yes, a real Magic Castle nestled against the Hollywood hills … a private clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts, Inc. It’s secret because you have to be as talented as Houdini to get in, or know someone who is. Seriously. You have to be a professional magician or know one to be admitted to the mystical fortress … which is actually a vintage Victorian, but whatever. The strict admission policy is a reflection of the professionalism of an organization devoted to the advancement of the ancient magical arts. No sideshow amateurs here. This is the real deal folks. Trust me on this one. I’ve been inside!

How did I rate an invite to this exclusive club?  Nothing as glamorous as befriending a magician, I’m afraid. I stumbled upon the Magic Castle before I was old enough to get in (21 because alcohol is served), and was obsessed with the place ever since. Finally, I discovered a local  B&B who’s owner was a member at the Magic Castle and he treated his guests to reservations. I couldn’t believe my luck! The price for the elusive invite was well worth it. The magicians I saw perform were AWESOME! The seating for all the shows is intimate … and it was all MAGIC!

The B&B changed hands, but now there’s a Magic Castle Hotel just a couple of blocks from the castle that can hook you up with a magical invite when you stay there. As easy as Bibbity-bobbity-boo!

A Glimpse of Magic…

Those of you who won’t be dashing off to Hollywood can still sneak a rarified peak inside one of Hollywood’s best kept magical secrets…

What’s magic for you?

Come on, spill. You know you want to!

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