Write down the main things you remember first, then as many of the details
as you can recall. Pick a movie you have only seen one time.
Exercise #2:
Imagining your character standing in the middle of a cafeteria filled with
different cliques deciding which table won't reject him/her if he tries and
sits down. The table he decides to join speaks volumes about his character.
Exercise #3:
Have a conversation with a member of your target audience about your ideas.
If you cannot find someone to have this conversation with carry on this
conversation with yourself acting the part of the target audience. This
bouncing ideas of another way of thinking can help you get unstuck, show
you what areas you need to fix, etc.
Ex. A simple comment like "Oh watch out for a plot hole there." Can really
get you thinking.
Exercise #4:
Take one of your fave movies and mute the sound.
William Pace
suggests:
"A great tool for this is to turn off the sound. Yes, you won't be able to
hear the dialogue, but you also won't be caught up in it, the music and
sound effects and will be able to watch the film as a purely visual story."
He continues: "So watch movies without the sound and study how the scenes
are constructed and flow into one another and see how much you can follow a
movie purely visually. "
Exercise #5:
Write down what you didn't like in a bad movie. Watch the movie and flip through
the actual script for it. This well help you learn what you need to keep
out of your script. And it may actually make it clearer what should have
been there that wasn't there. I once saw a movie that felt like someone had
mixed up the reels and had put all the footage that was chopped onto the
cutting room floor into the movie and put what was supposed to be in the
film in the trash. It was like watching a slow meaningless
rip-your-brains-out going nowhere plotless movie.
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