Month: August 2015

Peggy Bechko Ponders Character Development

Pondering-Questions

by Peggy Bechko

Characters and character development, we all think a lot about it and them. The people who populate your script or novel must be real. They must have flaws as well as commendable attributes.

I think we all know the parable of The One You Feed. If you don’t, here it is:

An old grandfather told his grandson: “My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, and resentment. The other is good. It is joy, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and bravery.” read article

Is TERMINATOR GENISYS Worth Seeing?

CGI Arnie the Super Blow-Up Doll! And you know what blowup dolls are good for, right?
CGI Arnie the Super Blow-Up Doll! And you know what blowup dolls are good for, right?

by Diana Vaccarelli

When I heard they were doing another Terminator film my big question was, what else are they going to do to ruin such a great franchise?

After viewing the trailer I was hopeful that this film was going to reinvigorate the legend that is James Cameron’s Terminator. So one gloomy, rainy Friday night, I decided to see “Terminator Genisys” and find out for myself what the filmmakers had done.

Here’s what I discovered: In no way does it measure it up to the original. read article

How to Write Better Dialog

The following article concentrates on dialog in video games, but the discussion is valid for all media. Yes, even TV writers can learn from gamers. Craft is universal, just like creativity itself:

masseffect

HOW TO WRITE GOOD DIALOGUE: COURTESY OF MASS EFFECT

Here’s a question for you. You’re reading a book and the pace starts to drag, but you’re still curious to know what happens next. What do you do? The answer for me is obvious: you skip to the next section of dialogue. Good dialogue takes the story forward and shows character. Good dialogue crackles on the page. A confrontational exchange can be like two boxers slugging it out, trading punch and counter-punch. But what makes “good” dialogue, and more importantly how do you write it?

’m going to try to answer those questions by looking at a series of computer games calledMass Effect. Many of you will be familiar with them already, but for those of you who aren’t, bear with me. For the purposes of this article, all you need to know about the games is that they have lots of dialogue, and that you get to choose (to a degree) what your character says, and therefore what sort of character he or she is. read article

Behind the Scenes Look at Motion Capture Graphics

imageengine

This TVWriter™ minion may well be one of the few people in the U.S. who has seen the film CHAPPIE, and not only did I watch, I thoroughly enjoyed what I saw.

While I was watching, unbeknownst to me at the time, I was also getting a slightly, hmm, altered look at an actor who since become one of my faves: Sharlto Copley. (And if you don’t know who he is or what he’s done that’s so great, well, first there’s CHAPPIE, and in a very close second, then there’s POWERS, a terrific TV series seen by even fewer people who’ve seen CHAPPIE. (But that’s a story for another day.) read article

Discovered: Agatha Christie’s Whodunnit Template

No one has ever written mystery stories more interesting and difficult for the reader to solve than Agatha Christie. But don’t let that get you down because guess what. As of this week – right now – the mystery of how she did it has been uncovered. And with enough patience, we can all do it too.

Maybe:

by Haroon Siddique

agathachristieequationFor almost 100 years, Agatha Christie has beguiled readers with her much-loved mysteries. But now a panel of experts claims to have worked out how to answer the perennial question: whodunnit? read article