Is Digitality Taking Over Conventionality?

Amazon.com, the global commerce company, reached a significant milestone earlier this year when their sales of e-Books exceeded the sales of hardcover books. This week CEO Jeffrey Bezos announced that they are selling twice as many e-Books, in the top 10, 25, 100, and 1.000 best selling lists, than their hardcover counterparts.

In the first nine months of this year Amazon has sold three times more e-Books than at the same time last year. ”This is remarkable when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover and paperback books for 15 years, and Kindle books for just 36 months.“ senior vice president of Amazon Kindle, Steve Kessler, said in a press statement.

Amazon´s library now holds more than 700.000 e-Books, plus about two million free, out-of-copyright titles; books that take up no space, and will never go out of print.

Since Amazon introduced the Amazon Kindle reader, back in 2007, the e-Book market has been rising steadily.This year two competing devices were lunched, Barnes & Noble Nook and Apple´s Ipad, giving the electronic books market a big boost. This has been a long time coming for the e-Book technology.

The e-Books history dates back to the early 70´s with the Gutenberg Project, started by Michael S. Hart, and a few other research projects started around the same time. Although e-Books were already invented when the personal computer boom started in the Eighties, it wasn’t until the arrival of the internet that e-Books became accessible to the general public.

Many tech gurus predicted that e-Books would make printed literature obsolete in a few years. This was back when 500 mb hard drives were huge, and people thought Pauly Shore was cool. But maybe their predictions were just a little too premature and the beginning of the end for the printing industry is starting now. 

I for one am happy to jump on the electronic bookmobile!

Screenplay Enquiry

Good Will Hunting

Great movie, I was shocked when I found out, years after watching it, that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, both of South Park fame, had written the screenplay for this really entertaining film. Ok, maybe not shocked, but it was an interesting story of two friends making things happening for themselves, and reaping the benefits of their hard work greatly.

Good Will Hunting Screenplay

Anyways, I chose the most memorable scene in the movie, when Matt completely destroys this snob, prep school old money brat, with his superior intellect. It is basically the same in the movie as in the script, apart from minor streamlining in the dialogue. 

It was fun and refreshing to see someone pwn on an intellectual level, instead of the usual fighting ownedge, and that was probably a major factor in the success of the film. Lol that sentence sounds ridiculous, but I hope it makes sense.

Oh, and I found this updated version of the scene, just so the younger generation understands what the real message is.

 

300

This movie would probably have been better suited in the graphic novel assignment but I just had to have it here after I found this:

300 (The Abridged Screenplay)

The (un)official abridged script to 300 does a great job of pointing out the silliness that many films fall into. Sometimes these little things can ruin the whole movie, but if the action is great as in 300, it often doesn’t matter. Couldn't find the original script, but this one is probably better.

Oh, it would have been great if the dialogue here below had been in the clip above : D

PETER MENSAH

I am a messenger for Rodrigo Santoro. He wants a gift of water and earth from you as a sign that you fall under his rule.

GERARD BUTLER

The men and women of Sparta submit to no ruler.

PETER MENSAH

But they all submit to you. You’re their king. And you submit to a bunch of inbred priests that talk to gods.

GERARD BUTLER

I shall kill you where you stand for pointing out how silly the premise is!

Storyboard

What was probably great for the people working on 300, is the fact that the storyboard for the movie already existed; based on the graphic novels by Frank Miller, the artists in charge of storyboarding the movie had the process mapped out for them

 

Back to the future

I was going to use the shooting script as a reference point, but then I found this gem, the original script from 1981.

Back To The Future, First Draft

Oh  nostalgia ensues, I watched this movie like a million times, back when VHS Ruled the world, and I and my brothers had to choose between episodes of Pride and Prejudice or BTTF; well you do the math. So it is great for a fan to see how much the script changes after all of the revisions it goes through before being filmed.

After reading the first act, I could see that they had altered the whole script before shooting it, and that’s a good thing in this instance, because the original is pretty awful heh. Lot of unnecessary extras, the main characters undeveloped, and the plot is just weak, although extremely amusing if you compare it to the actual movie.

In the original script the time machine is located in a theater, and it is powered by a home made nuclear furnace, which is powered by Coca-Cola. Haha thank god they didn't go with that idea.

Phew, woo, I got through it with a defective keyboard, you can read all about that in my previous post, where in my frustration I had a little RabbleRabble Moment : )

Nicesome!

Screenwriting

Fack!!%$, oh how I hate computer issues; every key on my keyboard works except the "R", so I have to have it copied on the clipboard and paste it in every. single. time! it comes up, and it does come up a looot *faint*, okok time to suck it up and blog (don´t be suprised if there are some "R´s" missing ;))

This is a cool way to learn about the screenplay format

Screenplay Format Sample

If you´re a complete noob, and want to learn the basics of writing a screenplay, with out immediately jumping into the rather tedious research process pertaining to learning this writing style, then this is a great little piece. Of course reading this small guide doesn't eliminate the time that has to be spent learning the fundamentals, and then the massive effort trying to get somewhere in the industry, but this is a good starting point.

This also looks promising

Screen Writing Process


Wow I can´t keep going on pasting every single R in, it feels like I´m disabled or something haha, I´m going to go find a solution to this stupid ass problem

Later

Short Stories yeah

I started out with searching "famous short story writers" and I immediately clicked on this..

10 Greatest American Short Story Writers

..because, as usual, I´m a sucker for those "10 Best/Worst Blah" sites. The only thing that piqued my interest on that list was the fact that many of Chuck Palahniuk´s novels had previously been short stories and than compiled into a book. But that´s just because he is the only author there I have ever read anything by, I´m sure that the other nine are great as well.

Then in my random browsing I stumbled on to this.

Tips for Writing a Short Story

It gives you a structure for an effective short story writing. Skimming over this, I suddenly had like a mini epiphany about short stories. Okay, maybe calling it an epiphany is a little dramatic, lets just say that few random facts accumulated in my mind and formed a simple conclusion. A short story is like a condensed novel, with all the bullshit fill ups, and random characters that don´t really matter in the end., cut out. It gets right to the point of the idea or theme it´s trying to convey.

I see that most people probably think of short stories just in this way, and my rather stupid rambling is common knowledge, but I had really never thought about the essence of the short story format. And why would I, not like I read short stories in my spare time, but maybe reading a short story can accomplish as much as reading a whole novel.

Anyhow, I decided to find a short story to read, so I googled and found this random story by Edgar Allan Poe, and read it.

The Tell Tale Heart

This piece of story is quite captivating. Really interesting take on storytelling. The writers gives us a chance to observe the mind chatter of a truly twisted mind, and how it rationalizes it´s actions up until the climax of the story. Edgar gives us a little understanding of how a psychotic mind functions, especially with the final paragraphs where the narrators paranoia becomes his downfall.

After all this reading I wanted to break it up, so I found this video for all you would-be writers out there.



Here Ray Bradbury gives us a little insight into how most short story writers struggle to get recognition for their work. It´s probably a harsh world for writers, and the most valuable virtues a writer can have are patience and perseverance, and a good blend between a dreamer and practical mentality.

The child-driven education

The child-driven education: Sugata Mitra on TED.com

Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight | Video on TED.com

These TED talks are pretty thought provoking. I found the second talk, with Jill, especially interesting. Disconnecting from the left hemisphere to embrace the hidden "power" of the right one. Sounds like a lame infomercial, but if it were possible to do, with out the tumor and all, it would be pretty amazing.

And this ties into the other video with Sugata.  The children in the Indian slums had never even heard of a computer, but still picked it up amazingly quick. Did they learn this quickly because they were using the right hemisphere more than the left.



But this could also be because they are children. Their actions are not clouded by passed experiences so they don´t assume anything. So this research would not help teens/adults with learning, unless there were a way to disconnect from the left hemisphere...

... omg I´m so deep lol ble

Student writing

"Why do students write? Easy, most students would say: Because we have to. Honest, perhaps, but discouraging. It makes writing seem pretty trivial. How about another go? Here's a likely second answer: To show what we know. Hmm, I'm not sure I like that much better. Isn't there something more positive we can say about writing?

Yes, there is. The best reason to write is the best reason to do anything—because it helps you grow and develop your potential. Writing is a terrific way to learn. When you write you discover whether you really understand something, or just think you do; and the very process of writing makes you think, and think hard"
- Michael Harvey

These paragraphs really resonated with me. When I write about the subject I´m learning, it always helps me more than listening to the teacher explain it. It´s even more helpful than taking notes in class, because I find that to be somewhat like "zombie-mode", elegantly put ;). It sort of reminds me of watching TV, you don´t have to think about the subject, your just an observer.

I find it sort of liberating to write down specific thoughts I have about a subject in school, or even just thoughts that are bothering me in general. Thoughts are sometimes so obscure and vague that you can´t really understand them, and thinking harder about them just doesn't give the same result as writing them down. Writing them down also gives you the chance to dig much deeper. 

*Off topic(sort of)* 

Doing this also helps me with decisions I make. Writing down the goals I want to attain from a decision I make helps me stick it out. The brain is so good at making your unconscious mind do something that your conscious mind doesn't "want" to do, and than rationalize it to make you feel better. Having your thoughts on paper doesn't always stop this, especially if the habit is really persistent, but it lays the groundwork for changing the pattern.

Expressive writing

One common way to categorize writing is to distinguish between expressive and communicative writing. Expressive writing is personal and informal, written to encourage comprehension and reflection on the part of the writer. Open-ended and creative, expressive writing is a good way to start learning about a topic. By contrast, communicative writing is analytic, formal and more or less impersonal. It presupposes that the writer already has considerable knowledge and understanding of the topic, and is writing to inform a reader. It demands adherence to established conventions of tone, voice, diction, evidence, and citation; these conventions will vary according to discipline and type (e.g., lab report, history paper, business plan, legal brief).

Writing as learning begins with expressive writing. Consider what it's like when you're first learning about a topic. Everything is unfamiliar. It's like being in a strange land where not only the terrain but even the signs and maps are unfamiliar, and the words themselves are foreign. That's the situation students find themselves in when they begin studying a field like history or anthropology or biology or business. Expressive writing gives students an opportunity to start to make sense of the world they find themselves in, to bring the myriad facts, definitions, rules, theories, and perspectives to life and impose some order on them. - Michael Harvey

This also caught my eye. The bit I wrote before, about thoughts and writing, is a good example expressive of writing. It helped me sort through few of my thoughts about the subject and it is just my understanding of the matter. It serves to help me make sense of what I´m thinking, not to guide anyone else. Maybe it would be beneficial for someone else, but it would be more beneficial to read a communicative article written by an expert in the specific field (probably), because expressive writing is usually just some bizarre rambling :)

The wave of the future

We had to read these two articles for today´s class.

   The New Literacy

   Logging Off

The first piece is about a Stanford study of writing. It didn't really come as a surprise to me that young people are writing more today than they´re parents, or even people few years older than the "net generation". But are young people better writers?

Well maybe. It´s probably pretty hard to determine. I, for one, don´t use the popular contractions, like LOL, OMG, or GWUAR, when I´m writing an essay because I´m not retarded. But then again, I use them when I talk with my friends, online or in person, so maybe I suffer from mild retardation.

But maybe these contractions are a wave of the future, me sixty years old and using "LOL" or something.