What skills and understanding do I have about what it takes to survive? Before today I hadn’t considered how important my home is to me. It has all of the comforts to make life safe, and so much easy to get food. I think it’s time for a snack.
I began doing some research about how Paulsen created his story. Apparently he wanted to make sure that every scene in the novel was as realistic as could possibly be. As I create my chapter, I think I will go outside to look at the stars...long enough to see them move. It might be a way for my character to express how their mind had shifted away from clocks and light-speed communication. Time to explore, reflect, and then write.
After much practice, and many more takes after that, I think I have enough raw material to create a movie. The process must continue, and will obviously take another round of shooting. Sometimes I was able to record the image, but not the sound, and other times the sound but the lighting was wrong. Also, how do I create suspense, but not give away the ending? I hate knowing the ending.
After thinking so much about the movie trailer for for Hatchet I went online to watch the movie trailer for The Hunger Games. It allowed me to visualize the characters in the book in a different way, but I think I would do it in a different way.
Writing a spoof was more fun than difficult. While the two authors had extremely different voices, it wasn’t difficult to get into the minds of these protagonists because they were so well-described by the author. I think I will write one character in first person, and about the other character in third person. Time to write.
After writing a short story, I wanted to keep writing, so I turned my story into a screenplay. I think I might have written too much dialogue. We learned that screenplays rely more on the visual than they do upon characters speaking. When they do speak, they have to say something that drives the plot. Practice makes perfect.
The storyboard helped me to visualize my screenplay and make choices as to what to keep and what not to keep. I realized how important editing is to do ahead of time. We had an ambitious shooting schedule, and were not able to get as far as we had predicted. I might have to make time to meet with my partners out of school to film.
I am proud of our finished product. It was exhausting, but so much fun I want to do it again. Steven Spielberg, here I come.
After further refinements, our class has a show to put on. I was also able to rethink the chapter I had previously written, and added some new insights. I now have a complete picture of what my character looks like, and how they would react in certain situations. Revisions are not as scary as they used to be. They are essential to making my writing better.
Satisfaction comes from sharing my thoughts, feelings, and work with my family and friends. I don’t think I will ever be truly satisfied with the work I do, but that doesn’t mean that the work was not important. What I really learned is that there is so much more to learn, and this is just the beginning of my exploration.
