• Inside Entertainment,  Life of the Mind,  Little Diva Rising

    September Housekeeping

    Okay, lots of little things happening this week. So this won’t be your typical overlong blog, but a blog in four parts.   Little Diva Rising This weekend, we filmed a new opening (because the original opening became too impractical), and refilmed one small scene that had begun to nag at me. We had a slate of outdoor scenes planned, but Melbourne had other ideas. Rain pounded down through the morning and early afternoon. Once we called it a day, packed up, and went to lunch, Melbourne decided to stop the rain. Hmmm. Shooting of those outdoor scenes has been rescheduled. As we near the end of filming, I find…

  • Life of the Mind

    A Little Writing Housekeeping

    Throughout my life as a writer I’ve alternated my focus between prose and screenwriting. Both share some similar precepts (structure, plotting, character arcs, etc.), but also have differences that delineate them as different beasts. Just because you have experience in one doesn’t mean you’ll be able to execute the other. I had this conversation with somebody on Twitter recently: books are a cerebral journey, while screenwriting is a visual journey. In a book, we can sit inside a character’s head and explore what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling, and things (such as circumstances, events, and memories) that shape their decision-making. In a film, you can’t sit inside somebody’s head (unless…