The world's largest 48 Hour Film Project is coming to Hong Kong on October 30 - November 1, 2009!

Get your team ready to make a short film - write, shoot, edit and score - in one weekend...just 48 hours.

See your work up on the big screen right away. Your completed film will be screened at the Agnes b theatre at the Hong Kong Arts Centre the very next week, on November 6 from 8:30pm. Winning films will also be screened at Clockenflap.

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The Drummer premiered in Ukraine on October 9th, 2009. Jaycee was unable to make it to the premiere, so he recorded a video message for the Ukrainian audience. Jaycee Chan for Ukraine's release of The Drummer

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trTvXJrfnqE

I am often asked by audiences and my screenwriting class students on how one writes dialogue. More specifically, almost ninety-nine percent of the time the question is, “How do you make dialogue sound natural and realistic?”

Like in many things in life, the answer lies in asking the right question. So is this the right question?

 

“How can I make my dialogue sound more natural and realistic?” My answer is always, “Why do you want to make it sound natural and realistic?” Not “why would you?” but “why do you?”

It’s not wrong to want something more “natural and realistic” from one’s dialogue, but consider the motivation of the writer who asks this question. Judging from the question, it is fair to assume that the writer feels his/her dialogue is unnatural sounding because the dialogue is being used to convey information.

Consider the following example from the first scene of a screenplay:


There’s nothing wrong with this line of dialogue per se. We do say stuff like that. It’s just at the beginning of a scrīpt, it sounds like information is being shoved down our throat. We take offense. What makes dialogue sound unnatural is that it sounds informational.

As audience, we do not want information. We want drama. Drama is the Greek word for “do, act.”

If we see a character or characters engaged in an action that is part of a larger “conflict” then it’s easier to know what dialogue is needed. The simple truth is that the characters will say anything that they think will achieve what they want, not what the writer wants the audience to know. “What the characters want” is the answer to all questions regarding drama.

Consider this highly unnatural but extremely memorable and powerful speech:

 

“There’s a passage I got memorized, seems appropriate for this situation: Ezekiel 25:17. ‘The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.’”

One can ask, who talks like that? Actually, I know someone who walks around quoting Shakespearean monologues and he’s one of the shadiest people I know. That doesn’t give the writer license to write such unrealistic dialogue, especially since Jules, who delivers the speech, is a hardened gangster from Pulp Fiction.

It’s an exercise in dialogue taken to extreme theatricality. Jules wants retribution. He wants to put the fear of God into this traitor he’s talking to. He wants to make his killing a ritualized, justified act of his conscience, using the Bible. If you asked the writer, he may say it’s all of those things or none of those things. But we the audience are deciphering the motivation of his speech. We accept it because we understand his want. The speech is partly fabricated and partly taken from different passages in the Bible. Tarantino made this speech up which is an even more audacious act, taking this story into the realm of hyper-fiction.

What we want to ask of the characters is what we want to ask of ourselves: What does he want from her? What does she want from him? What do I want from her? What does she want from me?

What the characters want is really what we want. If what they want is not what we want deep down, then we can’t relate to it. Sounding natural without the want in dialogue is like the guy who is embarrassed at being naked so he puts on a pair of sunglasses to cover himself up.
 

Sign on the refrigerator door in the hotel.

"The beverage which is by the refrigerator inside inside is no charge and per the reorder hour bottle it pays thousand won fees and it does."

I was very confused as to whether the bottled water was complimentary or if I get paid for drinking it.

by Rosa Li (Producer)

by Rosa Li (Producer)

I attended the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival last week because one of my new projects, Chased, written and to be directed by a new director, was selected to participate in the film financing forum.

Puchon (new spelling is Bucheon) is situated right between Seoul and Korea’s main international airport, Incheon. It’s considered a suburb of Seoul as most people who live here actually work in Seoul.

It was great meeting and talking to industry heavy weights such as Chris Lee (executive producer, Valkyrie, Superman Returns), Gloria Fan (executive producer, The International), Roy Lee (executive producer, The Ring, The Departed) and Yasuhiro Mase (executive producer, Departures aka Okuribito). I was particularly impressed with how smart and intuitive they are when it comes to story development.

 
Gloria Fan, Anderson Le and Ham Tran

Speaking of story development… On the 4th day I was told by a British producer friend that Anderson Le, Programmer of the Hawaii International Film Festival and producer of Breaking Point, another project in the film financing forum, had been accosted by a group of local gangsters the night before while drinking with friends at a bar. Anderson was reluctant to befriend the gangsters, but before he could say ‘no,’ the gangsters turned to another table and beat up someone for not showing respect to them. Seeing this Anderson had no choice but to let the gangsters join him and his friends. They drank together for three long hours.

The next day I told Anderson I’d heard about him being accosted by some gangsters. He looked a bit confused so I repeated the story to him. Looking amused, he said it did happen but not to him, although he was happy to take credit for the protagonist/victim. About five minutes later Anderson told me someone else just said they heard the same thing about him.

I wonder if someone could find a plot in this anecdote and develop it into a movie scrīpt by the next Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival?