Web Content Lifecycle..

The web content lifecycle is the multi-disciplinary and often complex process that web content undergoes as it is managed through various publishing stages.
Authors describe multiple "stages" (or "phases") in the web content lifecycle, along with a set of capabilities—such as records management, digital asset management, collaboration, and version control—that may be supported by various technologies and processes. One recognized technology for managing the web content lifecycle is a web content management system.
Concepts often considered in the web content lifecycle include project management, information management, information architecture, and, more recently, content strategy, website governance, and semantic publishing.

Stages

Various authors have proposed different "stages" or "phases" in the content lifecycle. Broadly speaking, the stages include content creation/development, revision, distribution, and archiving. The lifecycle processes, actions, content status, and content management roles may differ from model to model based on organizational strategies, needs, requirements, and capabilities.

Two stages

In 2003, McKeever described "two iterative phases": "the collection of content, and the delivery or publishing of that content on the Web." She also explains a Web Content Management (WCM) "four layer hierarchy"—content, activity, outlet, and audience—intended to illustrate the breadth of WCM.

Three stages

Bob Boiko's Content Management Bible emphasizes three major parts: collect (creation and editing is much more than simply collecting), manage (workflows, approvals, versioning, repository, etc.), and publish. These concepts are graphically displayed in a Content Management Possibilities poster developed by Boiko. The poster details such content management concepts as metadata, syndication, workflows, repositories, and databases.
Gerry McGovern also sees three "processes," designating them creation, editing, and publishing.

Four stages

JoAnn Hackos' Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery argues for four "components": authoring, repository, assembly/linking, and publishing.
In Managing Enterprise Content, Ann Rockley argues for the planning of content reuse through four stages: create, review, manage, deliver. A stage can have sub-stages; for example, the "create" stage has three sub-stages: planning, design, and authoring and revision. She notes that content is often created by individuals working in isolation inside an enterprise (the coined term is the Content Silo Trap). To counter this content silo effect, she recommends using a "unified content strategy," "a repeatable method of identifying all content requirements up front, creating consistently structured content for reuse, managing that content in a definitive source, and assembling content on demand to meet your customers’ needs."

Five stages

Nakano described five "collaboration operations": Submit, Compare, Update, Merge, and Publish.
The State government of Victoria (Australia) produced a flowchart with a diagrammatic view of the web content lifecycle with five stages: Develop, Quality Approval, Publish, Unpublish, and Archive. Some of the stages include sub-stages (for example, Archive consists of Storage, Archived, and Disposed) intended to further delineate content status. In addition, this model depicts three aspects—Status, Process, and Roles—as part of the flow for web content. The four roles in this model are content author, content quality manager, business quality manager, and records manager.
The AIIM speaks of managing content “to achieve business goals”. AIIM ECM 101 Poster from 2003, and the AIIM Solving the ECM Puzzle Poster from 2005, present the same five stages: Capture, Manage, Store, Deliver, Preserve.

Six stages

The Content Management Lifecycle Poster devised by CM Pros suggests six "steps":

    Plan
    Develop
    Manage
    Deploy
    Preserve
    Evaluate

Each step contains sub-steps. For example, step 1, Plan, consists of Align, Analyze, Model, and Design; and step 2, Develop, consists of Create, Capture, Collect, Categorize, and Edit.

Seven stages

Bob Doyle suggests seven stages of the Web content lifecycle:

    Organization
    Creation
    Storage
    Workflow
    Versioning
    Publishing
    Archives

Doyle argues for seven stages based on the psychologist George A. Miller's famed magical number "seven plus or minus two " limit on human information processing. He notes this is merely a suggestion and that one should "add or subtract a couple of your own favorites."

Governance rather than workflow

In a 2005 article, Woods addressed governance of the content lifecycle. In his model, there are categories of issues to address, rather than a simple, cradle-to-grave pathway. He writes that most content governance questions fall into one of the following categories:

    Legacy Content Migration
    Template Considerations
    New Content Creation
    Content Modification and Reuse
    Version Control and Site Rollback
    Content Rotation and the End of the Road
    Monitoring Progress, Managing for Success

More recently, Halvorson has humorously suggested 15 discrete steps in the web content lifecycle: Audit, Analyze, Strategize, Categorize, Structure, Create, Revise, Revise, Revise, Approve, Tag, Format, Publish, Update, Archive.

Role of technologies

Enterprise content management as a business strategy might incorporate web content management:

    When integrated with an ECM system, WCM enables organizations to automate the complete Web content lifecycle. As soon as new content is developed, the system ensures that it goes live the moment it is intended to—not a minute earlier. By specifying timed releases and expiration dates, content is published to and removed from the Web according to recommendations, requirements and even regulations.
    —Jenkins (2004)

A web content management system can support and enhance certain processes because of automation, including document management, templates, and workflow management. However, the absence of well defined roles and process governance will greatly dilute the effectiveness of any technology intended to augment/enhance the publishing process overall.

Role of information management

Information management describes the "organization of and control over the structure, processing, and delivery of information." The goal of information lifecycle management is to use policies, operations, and infrastructure to manage information throughout its useful life. However, businesses struggle to manage their data and information.

    The missing stage in all the major sources is the organization of information, structuring it where possible, for example using XML or RDF, which allows arbitrary metadata to be added to all information elements. This is the secret that the knowledge managers describe as turning mere data or information into knowledge. It allows information to be retrieved in a number of ways and reused or repurposed in many more.
    —Doyle (2005)

Using semantic markup in the publishing process is part of semantic publishing. Tim-Berners Lee's original vision for the Semantic Web has yet to be realized, but many projects in various research areas are underway.

(Source Wikipedia)

History of Arts Vs Art History!

A talk of the history of the visual arts worldwide. For the academic discipline of art history, see Art history.

The history of art is the history of any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview. Over time visual art has been classified in diverse ways, from the medieval distinction between liberal arts and mechanical arts, to the modern distinction between fine arts and applied arts, or to the many contemporary definitions, which define art as a manifestation of human creativity. The subsequent expansion of the list of principal arts in the 20th century reached to nine: architecture, dance, sculpture, music, painting, poetry (described broadly as a form of literature with aesthetic purpose or function, which also includes the distinct genres of theatre and narrative), film, photography and comics. At the conceptual overlap of terms between plastic arts and visual arts were added design and graphic arts. In addition to the old forms of artistic expression such as fashion and gastronomy, new modes of expression are being considered as arts such as video, computer art, performance, advertising, animation, television and videogames.

The history of art is a multidisciplinary science, seeking an objective examination of art throughout time, classifying cultures, establishing periodizations and observing the distinctive and influential characteristics of art. The study of the history of art was initially developed in the Renaissance, with its limited scope being the artistic production of western civilization. However, as time has passed, it has imposed a broader view of artistic history, seeking a comprehensive overview of all the civilizations and analysis of their artistic production in terms of their own cultural values (cultural relativism), and not just western art history.

Today, art enjoys a wide network of study, dissemination and preservation of all the artistic legacy of mankind throughout history. The 20th century has seen the proliferation of institutions, foundations, art museums and galleries, in both the public and private sectors, dedicated to the analysis and cataloging of works of art as well as exhibitions aimed at a mainstream audience. The rise of media has been crucial in improving the study and dissemination of art. International events and exhibitions like the Whitney Biennial and biennales of Venice and São Paulo or the Documenta of Kassel have helped the development of new styles and trends. Prizes such as the Turner of the Tate Gallery, the Wolf Prize in Arts, the Pritzker Prize of architecture, the Pulitzer of photography and the Oscar of cinema also promote the best creative work on an international level. Institutions like UNESCO, with the establishment of the World Heritage Site lists, also help the conservation of the major monuments of the planet.

(Source Wikipedia)

Θέα Τριών Κόσμων, Από το Στούντιο Δραματικής Τέχνης του Εσωθεάτρου

Θέα-τρον = θέα τριών

Αναστάσιος Ασημακόπουλος (Ενωδών)

Το θέατρο, το αληθινό θέατρο, λέει όλη η εσωτερική φιλοσοφική παράδοση, είναι ΘΕΑ ΤΡΙΩΝ ΚΟΣΜΩΝ. Ο θεατής μετέχει δηλαδή κατ’ ουσίαν, σε μια μυσταγωγία, κατά την οποία ΘΕΑΤΑΙ ΤΑΥΤΟΧΡΟΝΑ:
α. τον απτό υλικό κόσμο, που εμπίπτει των αισθήσεων και αποκαλείται «πραγματικότητα»
β. τον λεπτοφυέστερο συναισθηματικό-ψυχικό, που διαβιεί μεταξύ λόγου και δράσης και μένει στην μνήμη ως ζωηρή εντύπωση και
γ. τους ανωτέρους υπερβατικούς κόσμους, τους κόσμους της Όντως -κατά Πλάτωνα- Πραγματικότητας.

Η επικοινωνία μεταξύ σκηνής και πλατείας σ’ αυτές τις συνθήκες, καθίσταται ευκρινής, γιατί το κείμενο ερμηνεύεται από  ηθοποιούς ειδικά εκπαιδευμένους, με δραματική συγκρότηση και ευαισθησία, ικανούς να ανασύρουν από το ψυχικό τους βάθος  πρωταρχικές αλήθειες, οι οποίες, «υλοποιούμενες» στην σκηνή, συγκινούν τους θεατές και ανυψώνουν τις ψυχές σε τέτοια επίπεδα ταύτισης, όπου θεατής, θεώμενος και θέαμα γίνονται Ένα.

Όταν επιτυγχάνεται αυτή η εσωτερική συγκινησιακή φόρτιση, απότοκη της θέασης των τριών κόσμων, τότε μόνον έχει συντελεστεί μια ουσιαστική δραματική πράξη. Οι θεατές αποκαθαίρονται και οι ηθοποιοί νιώθουν ευτυχή πληρότητα, αφού πέτυχαν να συντονιστούν με την ανώτερη έσω-ύπαρξή τους, καταθέτοντας υλικό από τα ψυχικά τους αποθέματα.

Το δε έργο, στον λόγο και στην δραματική του απόδοση, πρέπει να διαθέτει ουσία, αισθητική και μέτρο, κυρίως όμως μέγεθος.  Το ασήμαντο, το ευτελές, το ποταπό… πώς να συγκινήσουν; Το θέατρο οφείλει να τέρπει τις αισθήσεις των θεατών. Το ωραίο πρέπει να γεμίζει τα μάτια τους και ο λόγος να είναι γλυκύς -«ηδυσμένος», όπως λέει ο Αριστοτέλης στην Ποιητική, στον ορισμό του για την τραγωδία- και να έχει ρυθμό, εναλλαγές και μουσικότητα. Η κίνηση των ηθοποιών στον χώρο να είναι αρμονική, με μέτρο και χάρη και το σκηνικό, τα κοστούμια, οι φωτισμοί, οι ήχοι και η μουσική να συμβάλλουν στην προσφορά ενός άρτιου και υψηλής ποιότητας αισθητικού αποτελέσματος.

Το θέατρο που εμείς υπηρετούμε, έχει αλήθεια. Αποσκοπεί μεν στην αισθητική παρουσίαση του φαινόμενου αλλά ζητά να συλλάβει και το νοούμενο. Δεν μας ενδιαφέρει η φωτογραφική απεικόνιση μιας μίζερης «πραγματικότητας» αλλά το αιώνιο και συνεχές που είναι πίσω από τα πράγματα, που φωλιάζει ανάμεσα στις γραμμές του κειμένου και στις παύσεις του. Μας αφορά η Αλήθεια και όχι η περιγραφή της. Μας συγκινεί το θέατρο που από μία συγκεκριμένη κατάσταση σε δεδομένο τόπο και χρόνο, οδηγεί τον θεατή στο συμβολικό διαχρονικό επίπεδο και από εκεί, στο Αρχετυπικό, στο άχρονο Τώρα, στο Είναι, όπου νιώθει και συνειδητοποιεί την Αλήθεια και τον εαυτό του μέσα σε αυτήν, ως αιωνιότητα, συνείδηση και ευδαιμονία.

Αυτό είναι το θέατρο: λούσιμο στο Απολλώνειο φως και εσωτερική βύθιση στην θεία Βακχική μανία. Έχοντας αυτές τις σκέψεις για οδηγό, κάνουμε θέατρο για την ψυχή μας –όπως έλεγε ο δάσκαλος Κάρολος Κουν- μα και για την ψυχή των θεατών.

How To Find Your Theme, J Krueger!

What the Heck is an Archetype? J Krueger!

The Passover Question, J Krueger!

How To Avoid a Dud Ending, J Krueger!

Disruptive Innovation by Wikipedia!

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology. The term is used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically first by designing for a different set of consumers in a new market and later by lowering prices in the existing market.
In contrast to disruptive innovation, a sustaining innovation does not create new markets or value networks but rather only evolves existing ones with better value, allowing the firms within to compete against each other's sustaining improvements. Sustaining innovations may be either "discontinuous" (i.e. "transformational" or "revolutionary") or "continuous" (i.e. "evolutionary").
The term "disruptive technology" has been widely used as a synonym of "disruptive innovation", but the latter is now preferred, because market disruption has been found to be a function usually not of technology itself but rather of its changing application. Sustaining innovations are typically innovations in technology, whereas disruptive innovations change entire markets. For example, the automobile was a revolutionary technological innovation, but it was not a disruptive innovation, because early automobiles were expensive luxury items that did not disrupt the market for horse-drawn vehicles. The market for transportation essentially remained intact until the debut of the lower priced Ford Model T in 1908. The mass-produced automobile was a disruptive innovation, because it changed the transportation market. The automobile, by itself, was not.
The current theoretical understanding of disruptive innovation is different from what might be expected by default, an idea that Clayton M. Christensen called the "technology mudslide hypothesis". This is the simplistic idea that an established firm fails because it doesn't "keep up technologically" with other firms. In this hypothesis, firms are like climbers scrambling upward on crumbling footing, where it takes constant upward-climbing effort just to stay still, and any break from the effort (such as complacency born of profitability) causes a rapid downhill slide. Christensen and colleagues have shown that this simplistic hypothesis is wrong; it doesn't model reality. What they have shown is that good firms are usually aware of the innovations, but their business environment does not allow them to pursue them when they first arise, because they are not profitable enough at first and because their development can take scarce resources away from that of sustaining innovations (which are needed to compete against current competition). In Christensen's terms, a firm's existing value networks place insufficient value on the disruptive innovation to allow its pursuit by that firm. Meanwhile, start-up firms inhabit different value networks, at least until the day that their disruptive innovation is able to invade the older value network. At that time, the established firm in that network can at best only fend off the market share attack with a me-too entry, for which survival (not thriving) is the only reward.
The work of Christensen and others during the 2000s has addressed the question of what firms can do to avoid oblivion brought on by technological disruption.

Send Your Characters to Hell, ScreenwritingU!

Written by Hal Croasmun on June 19, 2010.

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When your lead character is placed in a terrible spot, entertaining things happen.  The audience worries about him. They feel sympathy for him.  They want to know what is going to happen to him.  Why? Because you, the God of your script, set it up that way.

Or did you?

Sometimes, it appears that writers are too nice to their characters. You've established a deep friendship with those characters and don't want to hurt their feelings.  You'd never put a friend in such an awful situation.  So why would you do that to your characters?
There's nothing wrong with loving your characters.  After all, they were so much fun to create.  But remember, they have a job to do that, if done right, will bring them to life along with your career.
What is their job?  To go through hell and somehow survive to tell about it.
Think of it this way.  If your characters don't experience conflict and tension, neither will your audience.  This is important.  I don't mean that a story can't have happiness or fun or any other positive emotions.  For a story to be an emotional roller-coaster ride, there has to be both ups and downs.
But the highs and lows need to be delivered effectively and in most stories, it is the conflict that keeps an audience glued to their seats.

SOLUTION: Turn up the heat on your characters and watch them roast.

Here are a few suggestions.  At some point, I may write articles providing details on these strategies.  But for now, this simple list can provide you some possible solutions.

1. Put them in uncomfortable situations as often as possible.

2. Make sure the main conflict of the story is an absolutely "unsolvable puzzle" for the main characters.

3. Every time it looks like they'll succeed, send them a twist that mucks up their plans.

4. Place other characters in their lives that either sabotage or disrupt your main character's usual coping strategies.

5. Alternate "hope" and "hopelessness" whenever possible. The first pulls us back in and the second makes us worry.

6. Force them to do the one thing they would never do.

7. Don't give them the easy way out.  Leave them in pain for as long as possible.

8. Murphy's Law and misfortune suddenly visit their lives in unusual and interesting ways.

9. Take their problems to an extreme.

10. Make sure their internal conflict is represented in a graphic manner as well.

 
BTW, movies aren't all about pain.  As I said, there are both highs and lows in any good movie.   But try this exercise and see what you find out about conflict:

-------------------- EXERCISE --------------------------

Watch three of your favorite movies with a pad of paper.  As you do, make a list of all the things the writer did to cause pain and conflict for the main characters.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Even if you've written 10 screenplays and watched thousands of movies, you may still be surprised at the results.  You'll see both conflicts and setups for conflict that you never noticed before.
I heard a song once that said "you got to go through hell to get to heaven."  Could be that same advice applies to writing movies... or being a writer...or even being a producer.
Send your characters to hell and you'll send your audience through a highly entertaining movie.
And if you want help punching up your script, check out our "Fresh & Edgy Screenwriting Class."

Besting Your Own Best, ScreenwritingU!

Written by Hal Croasmun on June 9, 2010.

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About a year ago, we started having a curious thing happen in our more advanced classes.  People started asking me this question:
 
"This is the best script I've ever written.  How can I possibly improve the best I've ever done?"
 
My normal thought on this is to learn more skills and then apply them to the script.  But the writers who were asking were some of our best writers, so I had to look deeper.
So I read some of their scripts and they were right.  Those were some pretty good scripts.  The interesting thing was that there was nothing wrong with those scripts.
Nothing wrong.
Make sure you understand this because it is going to be important later in this article.  Most scripts have things wrong with them. Some have glaring mistakes.  So they are easy to critique and improve.  You just solve the problems.
But these scripts didn't have any problems.  There was nothing wrong with them.  So the standard solutions didn't work.
And that is when I realized something.  Most people work to the point where there is nothing wrong with their script...and then they're done.  Their standard for success is "nothing wrong."
Essentially, they have a script with no flaws.  Is that the same thing as a great script?  Can a script have nothing wrong and still not sell? You bet.
You don't just want a flawless script.  You want an amazing script.
Right?
You want a script that blows producers away.  You want it to sell you as a writer and you want it to be produced.
That takes more than "nothing's wrong."
So I created a simple, but profound 4-step process for besting your best.
 
THE PROCESS FOR BESTING YOUR BEST
 
1.  Decide that you are going to improve this script until it is truly amazing and until it causes people in this industry to give you the respect and admiration you deserve.
 
This is important.  When I talk with people who have written their best script ever, most of them don't want to do anything else to it. What they want is for it to sell the way it is.
Essentially, they've shut off the creative process because they thought their script was already done.
In order to improve it (improve is different than change, remember?), they must step back into the arena and fight the fight again.  All it takes is a decision.
Make the decision now and you'll enter into the creative process on this script.  As soon as you decide, you'll start thinking of ways to improve the script.  Just do it.
 
2.  Put the script away for 7 to 21 days.
 
You've made the decision to improve this script.  Now, I want you to get some distance from it.  That way, the next step will be so much more valuable.
If you've ever done this, you know that when you return to the script, the break time allows you to see the script with fresh eyes.
I know that you are going to want to dive in right away, but that is just stirring the same pot.  The objective here is to separate the script from the emotion that may be clouding your thinking.
When you return to the script, you'll be more objective and that means you'll be more creative.
 
3.  Change your standard from "nothing wrong" to "nothing can be improved" and discover all the areas that can be elevated.
 
This is the fundamental shift that will double or triple the quality of your screenwriting.  Once you have a script where there is nothing wrong, you can then go for this new standard.
This step is simple.  As you read your script, flag everything that can be improved.  Using a 1 - 10 scale, if a character is a 6 and you'd like them to be a 10, flag that character.  If a scene is good, but not great, flag that scene.
Do that process on every structural point, character, scene, description line, and dialogue line.
We had a lady come to us with a "perfect script."  She had two different consultants confirm that the script was perfect and ready for the market.
Both Cheryl and I read it and we were very impressed.  She had written a script to be proud of.  There wasn't a single thing wrong with it and it was a compelling read.
When I did this process with it, I found 39 places we could improve.
Keep this in mind.  The script consultants weren't lying to her.  Her script was perfect -- according to their standards. But she wanted the script to go to Studios, so I applied a higher standard.
When we finished elevating those 39 spots, she said that the script was at least 200% better.   I believe her assessment was accurate.
 
4.  Elevate everything you can until nothing can be improved.
 
This final step means you are going to apply the best skills you have and you'll be doing a lot of brainstorming.
But it is worth it.
Simply put, just start with the first item that needs to be improved and get clear on the purpose of that item.  Then, brainstorm ways to fulfill that purpose and don't stop until you have elevated the item.
Then move to the next item.  Continue that process until all the items are improved to the level you want them to be.
BTW, this works extremely well -- if you have professional level skills so you can elevate any piece of writing.   If you want to improve your skills, join us for an upcoming ProSeries and you'll get what you need to make this process fly at a professional level.
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WHAT TO DO?

It is easy to think that you've worked your script to death and there is nothing else you can do.   But if you actually go through your script focusing on the search for places you can improve, you'll be surprised how many show up.
Do this process one time and you'll be hooked.  It will take a lot of work, but the results will astound you.  Anyone who has read your writing before will see a significant improvement. Many of them will be overwhelmed at the new quality level.
Final Recommendation:  Take a script you've already written through this process IMMEDIATELY.  It will give you a better script to showcase your talent and turn this information into an experience that will pay off many times in the future.
And when you win a contest or sell a script, email me to let me know how this process worked for you.
I'm looking forward to that.

Becoming a Naturally Talented Screenwriter, by ScreenwritingU!

Written by Hal Croasmun on February 19, 2010.

What if agents and producers saw you as “naturally talented?”

There are two ways to become a great screenwriter.  One is to find your “natural talent.”  The other is to build in all the skills, understanding, and creative process that can express that talent in the most amazing way possible. 
You need to do both.   Today, I’ll map out a plan for writing from your core – from that natural talent that you have deep inside of you. 
Keep this in mind:  Becoming a great screenwriter is a growth process.  Done right, you’ll mature a bit more every day – in writing skill, in philosophy, and in creatively expressing yourself.

1.  What are you naturally good at that can help your screenwriting?

A quick search will likely reveal some of your natural talents.  Maybe you can visualize a story.  Maybe you come up with good dialogue.  Maybe you can dream up unique and interesting characters.  Maybe you just love movies. 
Make a list of what you just naturally do well having to do with writing.   But don’t stop with the obvious.   Keep looking for a deeper understanding of what you are naturally talented at.   The more you understand your own talents, the more you’ll be able to focus on them to deliver your own unique voice in your screenplays.
Every day, you can discover something more about what you are naturally good at.  Brilliant talent isn’t always easy to understand or see.   Keep looking deeper. 
And with each discovery, your TALENT emerges.

2.  What interesting situations have you lived that you can bring to your characters and stories?

We’ve all had ups and downs in life.  Love and tragedy.  Successes and failures.  Embarrassments and proud moments.  Breakdowns and breakthroughs. 
Just as important, we all have a public face and a private face.  We’ve said one thing and meant another.  We’ve been both courageous and fearful .  We’ve had times we’ve won and felt like losers, but also had times we lost and felt like a winner.  Life has given us enough experience to build the most interesting situations and characters. 
Find those moments – especially the paradoxical moments – and fill your stories with them. 

3.  How can you use your imagination to bring those moments to life in a unique way?

The most common thing for people to do is write exactly what happened to them.  They put their characters in common situations and have them do common things.
Rather than that, what if you took your experiences and understanding and translated that into something amazing?   Your experience of being embarrassed at dinner becomes a tabloid publicized humiliation for your character.   Your experience of being pulled over by a traffic cop becomes your character being arrested for multiple felonies someone else did. 
Use your imagination to transform your experiences into an emotional roller-coaster ride that causes your character to grow in some amazing way while still feeling real.  
What makes it feel real is that it comes from your experience and understanding.  What makes it amazing is when you use your imagination to set it in a whole new context or to give it to us in an unexpected way. 
Can you take what you know and imagine it in an even more entertaining way?   You bet you can. 

4.  What skills will you learn that will elevate the quality of your screenwriting?

If you don’t think this game is about skill, you need to look again.  Read any great screenplay and you’ll see a combination of character depth, subtext, meaning, setup/payoff, and interest – all designed into single lines of dialogue. 
Those happen because the writer spent years learning ALL OF THOSE SKILLS.   Translating the story in your mind onto the page is all about having the right skills.  Higher quality skills equals a stronger translation of your vision and a more compelling read. 
But don’t worry; you’ll learn those skills as you progress.   You’ll discover them as you read produced screenplays and experiment with your own scripts or you can learn them even faster in ScreenwritingU classes because we give you exactly what you need to succeed.
Whichever route you take, make learning high-level screenwriting skills a priority now.

5.  How are you going to test your writing to make sure it is professional?

At some point, you need to find out how good you really are – and how much improvement you truly need to be professional.  
One way to think of it is climbing a ladder.  You write a script and move to rung 1.   You submit it to a contest and maybe you don’t even place.  So you take some classes, write another script…and your script is a Quarter-finalist.  You’ve moved to rung 2. 
Go back, apply more of #1 – #4 (natural talent, experience, imagination, and skill) and you make it to Finalist.  Not bad.  You’re on rung 3.  Now take some more classes, write another script, get script consulting, and surprise; you win the contest.  Rung 4. 
But does that make you professional?  So you test that script against the market and are turned down by everyone.  Give up?  Hell no.  You’ve come this far and with a bit more work, you’ll get where you want to go.  Apply more of #1 – #4.  Take better classes, get a better script consultant, write a better script…and you get optioned.  Rung 5. 
You continue moving up that ladder until one day, you’re at the top – A-List. 
Notice two things – 1.  You kept going back to your core and most likely, each time, you discovered something new about your natural talents.  2.  You kept learning, growing, and finding even better ways to express yourself in screenplays. 
Stay on this path and soon, you’ll be seen as “naturally talented” — and you’ll be paid for it!

Are You Thankful For Your Writing?

by, Jacob Krueger November 24 2011

On this Thanksgiving Holiday, I’d like to invite you to take a moment to ask yourself the following question:

What are you thankful for in your writing?

So often, we spend our time criticizing ourselves, searching for what is wrong, and what can be improved in the words we write.  And certainly there is value in that part of the process.

But it’s important to remember that the real key to becoming the writers we want to be lies in identifying what we love.

When you identify on the things you love about your writing, you shift your focus away from the things you lack, and onto the wonderful gifts you already have.

In this way, you give yourself a foundation upon which to build, open yourself up to the opportunities in your writing, and invest yourself with the hope and excitement that will carry you through to the end.

So take a moment today, think about your writing, and write down the things you most love about it.

Think about your process.  What about it makes you happy?

Look at a scene you’ve written or a character you’ve created.  What do you most connect to?

What’s a line of dialogue you’re thankful to have discovered? A theme you’re thankful to have explored? A character you’re glad to have taken on a journey? Or an obstacle you’re grateful to have wrestled with and overcome?

Get specific about all the things you’re thankful for.  And then,  if you’d like, share some of them with us and with your friends by posting what you love about your writing to our new Facebook Page!

We’ll be thankful that you did!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jake

Titanic, Leo's Ticket to Rose!

Where Is Your Character Going?

by Jacob Krueger

I’m writing this from the air on my way to Costa Rica, thinking about the importance of location, both in screenplays and in life.
We behave differently in different places, and so do our characters. Travelling abroad, we speak to people we wouldn’t necessarily speak to, face fears we wouldn’t normally face, and get in touch with aspects of ourselves we wouldn’t normally recognize. New locations break us out of our routines, and open us to new experiences.

 

And of course they do the same for our characters.

As writers we know our job is to take our characters on a profound journey. But oftentimes we pay so much attention to the emotional side of that journey, that we forget the value of the physical side.



Simply choosing the right physical location for a scene to take place can completely change the value of that scene, the given circumstances for your character, and the feeling it gives to your screenplay.

 

There are many ways to take your characters abroad.

The concept of home is important for everyone, and we tend to be attached to the places we consider home, whether they are working for us or not. We stay in places we find unsatisfying simply because it feels safe, normal or routine. And our characters do the same thing.
Taking your characters abroad means forcing them out of the places they think of as home: the places are comfortable and normal for them. You can do this by taking them to a foreign place or an unexpected location. Or by choosing a location that already has a strong value for them and allowing that value to change.



Make your characters confront their fears, go to a place they are afraid of and allow something beautiful to happen to them there. Or, pick a place that seems comfortable and safe and violate that safety with something out of the ordinary. Force them to confront an old memory in a location in a place where they grew up, and find something different than they expected. Or allow an element from a location in their past to enter their present day life.

When you break your characters routine, you force them to take profound journeys.

And the great thing is, when you choose the right location, the place itself can do half the writing work for you! In Toy Story 3, think about the value of the daycare center, which begins as pure heaven, the answer to the toys’ desperate need to be played with, and ends up turning into a living hell, run by a satanic teddy bear. The contrast between the value of the daycare center and the shifting value of home helps us understand the character’s journey, simply by understanding the location.
Think about the value of a location in a movie like Into The Wild, as a character travels toward his imagined paradise of Alaska, only to realize he’s said no to all the real paradises that were offered him along the way.
Think about any haunted house movie, or a twist on the genre like Cabin in the Woods, and once again you’ll see how important the specifics of a given location can be to your storytelling and your character’s journey.

 

Your scenes can travel too.

If you’ve ever tried to get anyone to change, you know it doesn’t happen easily. Our characters cling to familiarity just like our loved ones do. And we cling to familiarity as well.
One of the unconscious ways we do this is by writing familiar scenes in familiar locations: the breakup at the fancy restaurant, the argument about dirty dishes in the kitchen, the drunken binge at the bar. We end up unconsciously writing scenes that feel cliché, simply because we’re attached to the locations that feel familiar to us.

 

When you switch your location, magic can happen.

Allow your breakup scene to happen at the top of a ferris wheel. Move your argument about dirty dishes to midnight mass, or allow your drunken binge to happen in a nursery school, and suddenly you transform a scene that feels cliché into one that feels fresh and exciting.
I’m reminded of a student who wrote his very first scene in my Write Your Screenplay class. It was a lovers’ quarrel, taking place in the bedroom as the couple got dressed. And it read pretty much like every other lovers’ quarrel. I suggested that he change the location, and he came back next class with one of the most hilarious scenes I’ve ever read. And the dialogue was exactly the same.
All he’d done was switch the location, from the bedroom, to a skydiving lesson. The characters were delivering the same lines to each other, but they were doing so as they plummeted toward the earth. The result not only made us laugh—but also made us recognize just how bad things actually were between them, because they were still discussing it, even in this totally ridiculous situation.

 

Location forces your character to do something interesting.

 

One of the big problems many writers have is that their characters aren’t doing anything. They stand around posed, delivering their lines, or doing their normal routine. But when you allow them to interact with a new location, they suddenly start to do fun stuff that roots your scene in action, and creates those movie moments that people can really connect to.
Remember the scene from When Harry Met Sally, when they’re “doing the wave” at the ballpark? Set this scene in any other location, and it’s going to be one of the most boring scenes in history. It’s purely exposition: Billy Crystal catching his friend up on his breakup with his ex-wife. There’s no conflict, and in the lines themselves there’s not so much comedy.
But watching the two of them seamlessly continue their conversation, standing and sitting to do the wave each time it comes around to them, transforms this scene into one of the most memorable scenes in the whole movie.

The Truth About Awesome Dialogue..

by Jacob Krueger 

 

Just Because Your Character Says Something Doesn’t Make It Dialogue.

 

Dialogue can be one of the most daunting aspects of writing for many screenwriters. It’s easy to become so obsessed with how an audience is perceiving your dialogue (is it believable, memorable, original, unique to our characters, realistic and compelling enough to captivate an audience) that you entirely forget to ask the most important questions:

What is dialogue? And what is it supposed to do in your screenplay?

I’m about to say something radical: just because your character SAYS something doesn’t make it dialogue.
Real dialogue, good dialogue (and the kind of dialogue you actually want in your screenplay) is distinguished from all the other stuff your character says by one simple quality…

Dialogue is just another way of getting what a character wants.

Your characters are just like you. When they talk, they’re doing it for a reason, whether they are conscious of that reason or not.
There’s no such thing as “just talk” in movies, or in life. And though that idea may seem counterintuitive at first, think about a recent social situation where you were “just talking” and you’ll probably be surprised to realize how many hidden wants were happening just under the surface, things you were trying to get from the person you were talking to: approval, congratulations, laughs, sympathy, compassion, protection, encouragement, excitement, thrills, sex, status, a free drink, a friendly smile.



And guess what? The person you were “just talking” with had a similar symphony of wants playing in their mind, the whole time they were talking to you, adding complex, barely perceptible conflicts to the scene that infused it with a certain feeling, and a certain reality.
When dialogue gets separated from the wants that motivate it, it’s almost impossible to make it feel authentic.

The reason most writers have such a hard time writing dialogue is because what they’re really trying to write is not dialogue, but simply talk.



Rather than listening to the complex symphony of their character’s wants, writers find themselves obsessing over the characters individual words and the way they’ll be perceived by an audience.
When you write dialogue in this way, there’s no drive or structure to it. Your dialogue isn’t actually doing anything. And more importantly, it’s not reflecting anything in the real world. That means the burden falls upon you, as the writer, to turn in the perfect virtuoso performance, in order to pass off a false product as a real one. And even if you succeed, unless you have a marvelous gift, you’re going to have to work your butt off for every word.
It’s like attending a concert at Carnegie Hall and listening only to a single violin. No matter how well executed the performance may be, it can’t help but sound a little tinny and false when divorced from the broader context of the symphony.
And heaven forbid a single chord be misplayed or a mistake be made in this context. Rather than being absorbed, or providing an interesting complement to the larger soundscape, it suddenly becomes an object of fixation for the writer, cutting them off from their creative impulses and from their natural talents.

Once you learn that your characters are using their words to get something from another character, the character starts to do most of the heavy lifting for you.

Rather than fixating on the words of the character (and your fear of being judged for how you write them), you can instead allow yourself to tap into the complex symphony of your character’s desires, allowing yourself to play around with the different ways your character can use their words to get what they want, in ways that are unique to that character.
Now, when you first set out to write a scene, the words themselves no longer need to be perfect, because you’re building around the deeper intentions that drive them, following your instincts and listening to the instincts of your character, focusing on what the characters are doing with their words, rather than what they are saying.
As you then work into later drafts, it becomes much easier to hone and refine your dialogue, and to separate the lines you need (the ones that pursue a want in a way that’s unique to that character) from the ones you don’t.

Tap into the symphony, without micromanaging the conductor!



It’s important to remember that just like you, your character may not always be consciously aware of their wants. And if you get super literal about analyzing every want before you even start to write, you may find that it’s just as much of an impediment to your writing as not thinking about the want at all.
Instead, I’d encourage you to keep your characters’ big wants (or at least the ones they are consciously aware of in the scene) somewhere in the back of your mind. And then allow yourself to play, enjoying the different tactics they use as they attempt to achieve those wants, and allowing your subconscious impulses to guide you.
You can then work back into the dialogue you have written, eliminating dialogue that doesn’t relate to the character’s desire, and getting more specific with the dialogue that does.

The Truth About Truth & Cliche, J Krueger

by Jacob Krueger

Cliché. If you’re a writer, you’ve probably experienced the terror this word implies about your writing:  boring, tired, overused, uninspired, uncreative, or just plain not good enough.

If you’ve ever been part of a writing class, you’ve probably had the dangers of cliché burned into your brain like a mark of shame.

 

And detecting it like a bad smell lurking in your pages despite all your attempts to avoid it, you’ve probably found yourself questioning if you really have what it takes to be a writer.
So here’s a little bit of truth for you to chew on:

 

All Writers Write Clichés.  All The Time.

Screenplays are just like people.  At first glance, they seem like they fit into certain types, but if you look at them closely, you come to realize that they are all filled with complexities and contradictions.
People are weird and strange and surprising, and absolutely nobody is normal if you’re looking at them closely.  The same is true of every character, every line of dialogue, every image and every scene of your script.

 

 

Writing a first draft of a screenplay is like going on a first date. 

Based on a very little bit of information, you extrapolate an entire story of who your characters are, and what your journey together might look like.  And as well observed as you may try to make it, this story is naturally full of clichés, because you haven’t really gotten the chance to know the character or the story deeply.
As you spend more time with your characters and your story, you start to discover all the things that make them special.  The qualities about them that you never could have seen coming on that “first date.”  Just like a relationship, this takes time, meditation and exploration… and involves going through some tough times together.

 

Clichés Are Necessary For Survival

If you were bombarded with all the complexities and contradictions of a person the first time you sat down to sip a Margarita, the chances are you’d never get to a second date with anyone.  Yet this is the mistake writers often make with their screenplays, trying to discover every layer of detail before they even have a sense of who their characters are or what their story is.

As cliché as they might be, it’s those early assumptions, that early sense of the scene, the character, or the story, that allows you to hang in long enough to decide which ones you want to explore more deeply.  And which ones you want to get the heck out of!

 

Your job as a writer is not to avoid cliché, to fear cliché, or beat yourself up over being cliché. 

When you’re feeling that desperate need to impress people as a writer, it’s hard to just sit down and be real with your characters.  So instead of worrying about how people are going to perceive your writing, put your focus on learning to step into the worlds of your characters, so you can capture them as truthfully as you possibly can.
Your job is to allow yourself the clichés you need in early phases of your writing, and then to look more closely at them, so you can uncover the truth, and turn them into more specific, more exciting or more closely observed writing.



Nobody is normal.  And no scene is normal either.  So next time you feel your writing is cliché, just sit with it awhile, and ask yourself what you’re missing.  What’s that extra detail that would make it special, and compelling?  What would be slightly cooler, slightly more exciting, or slightly more complex about the truth?
Capture that detail, and you’ll no longer have a cliché.
In fact, you may even find you have a screenplay worthy of a second date.

 

Connect to the Truth of Your Characters With Meditative Writing

 

If you’d like to discover a new way of moving beyond your clichés, connecting to your characters, developing your voice as a writer, and capturing the compelling heart of every moment of your story, I invite you to check out our new 6 Week Meditative Writing class with Jessica Hinds, starting soon.
Each class begins with a guided meditation, and then segues into a series of mind opening writing exercises designed to set free your voice as a writer and connect you to your characters, your story, and the truth of each moment in your writing.  Over several weeks, you’ll develop a meditative writing practice that you can use every time you sit down to write to get to your best writing faster, and find the inspiration you need every time you sit down to write.
I’m so excited about this class that I’m taking it as a student!  And hope that you will join me either in our NYC Studio, or through our Live Online Video Stream.

Film Director by Wikipedia!

A film director is a person who directs the making of a film. Generally, a film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects, and visualizes the script while guiding the technical crew and actors in the fulfillment of that vision. The director has the "final day" in choosing the cast members, production design, and the creative aspects of filmmaking.

Responsibilities

Film directors create an overall vision through which a film eventually becomes realized. Realizing this vision includes overseeing the artistic and technical elements of film production, as well as directing the shooting timetable and meeting deadlines. This entails organizing the film crew in such a way as to achieve his or her vision of the film. This requires skills of group leadership, as well as the ability to maintain a singular focus even in the stressful environment of a film set. Moreover it is necessary to have an artistic eye to frame shots and to give precise feedback to cast and crew, thus, excellent communication skills are a must. Since the film director depends on the successful cooperation of many different creative individuals with possibly strongly contradicting artistic ideals and visions, he or she also needs to possess conflict resolution skills in order to mediate whenever necessary. Thus the director ensures that all individuals involved in the film production are working towards an identical vision for the completed film. The set of varying challenges he or she has to tackle has been described as "a multi-dimensional jigsaw puzzle with egos and weather thrown in for good measure". It adds to the pressure that the success of a film can influence when and how they will work again. Omnipresent are the boundaries of the films budget. Additionally, the director may also have to ensure an intended age rating. Theoretically the sole superior of a director is the studio that is financing the film, however a poor working relationship between a film director and an actor could possibly result in the director being replaced if the actor is a major film star. Even so, it is arguable that the director spends more time on a project than anyone else, considering that the director is one of the few positions that requires intimate involvement during every stage of film production. Thus, the position of film director is widely considered to be a highly stressful and demanding one. It has been said that "20-hour days are not unusual".

Career pathways

Some film directors started as screenwriters, film editors or actors. Other film directors have attended a film school to "get formal training and education in their craft". Film students generally study the basic skills utilized in making a film. This includes, for example, preparation, shot lists and storyboards, blocking, protocols of dealing with professional actors, and reading scripts. Some film schools are equipped with sound stages and post-production facilities. Besides basic technical and logistical skills, students also receive education on the nature of professional relationships that occur during film production. A full degree course can be designed for up to five years of studying. Future directors usually complete short films during their enrollment. The National Film School of Denmark has the student's final projects presented on national TV. Some film schools retain the rights for their students' works. Many directors successfully prepared for making feature films by working in television. The German Film and Television Academy Berlin consequently cooperates with the Berlin/Brandenburg TV station RBB (Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting) and ARTE.
A handful of top directors made from $13 M to $257 M in 2011, such as James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. The average movie director makes a lot less. In May 2011, the average US film director made $92,220.