Media Art: #15secondpremiere

Boy loves girl, Girl loves cat, Cat loves tuna- hates boy, Boy gets job @ fishmarket, cat interns; Girl moves out buys dog #15secondpremiere

— Tim Needles (@timneedles) March 2, 2014

This week the Tribeca Film Festival and Heineken are partnering for a twitter based #15secondpremiere, a 140-character screenplay pitch as a lead in to this years festival. The winning pitch will be cast and made into a film which will premiere at the film festival in New York. For all of the aspired screenwriters out there this is a great little challenge! I submitted my entry above so if your interested in creating one the rules can be found here: pic.twitter.com/rjwnli1SvR. Remember the idea is be original and fun and don't forget retweets count so help each other out and give a little retweet love!

Media Arts: Screenwriting

This week we will be working on our first screenplay so each day at the beginning of class we'll take a look at a screenwriter and learn a bit about how they work.  Today we'll be looking at Rob Reiner who began his career as an actor winning an Emmy on  All in the Family then started Castle Rock producing, directing, and writing films like  Stand by Me, When Harry Met Sally..., The Princess Bride, This Is Spinal Tap and A Few Good Men.  Here's an interview I did with Rob this summer: Tim Needles interview with Rob Reiner.

Tomorrow we'll be looking at Tales from the Script a documentary about screenwriting featuring clips from Frank Darabont and William Goldman among others.

Media Art: Screenwriting

Before we begin writing our screenplays in class it's important to write an outline of what is going to happen and in the film world that's called a script breakdown.  The breakdown should include five plotpoints or major things that happen, below is an example of the five plotpoints for the film Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl:

Elizabeth Swann (Keria Knightly) is in love with an orphan named Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) since she rescued him on her father’s ship as a child. She is captured by pirates looking for a magic coin to break an ancient curse. Will sets off with the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) to save her from the evil Captain Barabossa. Will and Jack chase her across the sea, and when they finally rescue her, the evil Pirates have set new sights on Will. Once they return him to the original island of the curse, it’s up to Jack to rescue Will and save his own skin.

So use this method of organising the story and combine it with the screenplay cheatsheet that we used in class and type both up for Wednesday so that we can begin writing our screenplays.

Media Arts: Screenwriting

We are beginning our screenwriting unit in media arts class and here's a short interview with Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash, Letters from Iwo Jima) that gives some perspective on the process and the realities of screenwriting.  We are also going to take a look at the SKYPE in the Classroom talk that our media arts students had with screenwriter and Smithtown East alumni Kevin Bisch earlier this year, below is a short clip from the talk.

Skype talk with screenwriter Kevin Bisch

Yesterday we had a fantastic and candid talk with screenwriter and Smithtown alum Kevin Bisch via Skype in the classroom.  Kevin discussed his days at Smithtown East, how he broke into the business, his professional advice, and the story of his first big film Hitch as well as answering questions from students.  Above is a short snippet from the hour long discussion which proved to be both a terrific learning experience as well as a fascinating story!

Skype in the Classroom: Screenwriter Kevin Bisch

This Thursday the Media Art Honor Society will host a Skype in the Classroom chat afterschool with Smithtown alum screenwriter Kevin Bisch best known for his hit film Hitch starring Kevin James and Will Smith.  He was voted one of "100 People in Hollywood You Need to Know" so it should be a great talk for students who want to go into film and writing!

Full Sail visit today

Today the media and business college Full Sail will be coming in to speak with students about their unique media school. We've had a number of successfull students go through Full Sail's program such as Strictly Students Film Festival winner Eric Sibley who's gone on to work on films such as Jackass 3D, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, and the upcoming The Avengers for which he was Lead Artist in addition to those currently studying there now such as Dom Aprile and Richie "Cagemach" Vernillo.