How to Take a Screenshot on an iPad

Because I keep forgetting and because it was requested.

Assuming you’re on the iPad screen you want to take a screenshot of.

Click and hold that home button on the bottom of the iPad (the circle with a square in it).

As you hold it, a second later, press and then let go of the power on/off button. The screen will flash and the shot is sitting in your photos folder.

I don’t know why I sometimes get the order wrong for this. Now that I’ve written it out, it will probably never happen again, but figured I’d leave this advice for anyone else who needs it.

And here’s a screenshot!

iPad screenshot of an iPad

Four Stages To Writing A Screenplay

So while it wasn’t done in a day, thats mainly because time is a hot commodity. Add up the hour here and hour there and there you go, though I have no idea what the exact number is.

I finished writing a screenplay today – and felt like it went through a four stage process, so I thought I’d share it.

Of course this is assuming you have some idea for a screenplay, key characters, etc, as I can’t really help much if you dont have the default.

1) Spreadsheet – Outlined the full story by scene and kept it top level, so I could see when to connect chracters, mix scenes around with ease and also see what pace I had things going. Just a top level line or two of who and what was taking place, little detail, no real dialogue unless I felt something absolutely had to be referred to in the scene. This made the story line very flexible and rearrange.

2) Rough Draft it up – Once I was about 95% sure with the structure of the story, I wrote up a rough draft in traditional screenplay format, though with a bit of a shortcut thanks to an App that works ok for rough drafting and convenient for the next stage, even if inadvertently. But by now I already had a good idea on what I wanted to write, characters, etc, and so it was written up quite quickly.

3) Fixings with decorations and hooks – Not only did I need to fix up spacing and format issues, but this read through inspired me to push comedic hooks within the dialogue (such as defining character lines to make them stand out from other characters). And by this point it became a storyline that occupied the rare moment of drifting blended with inspiration. So this is when the story got cleaned up, checked up and some decorations added, particularly in scene detail such as character reaction, movement and dialogue hooks to make sure there wasn’t too much down time or bland scenes that had no reason to be there.

4) Final polish – Then over to Justin for a final read through and feedback, and after taking my eyes away from this script for a week or so (as I’ll be kicking off the next storyline spreadsheet), then I’ll return for a final read through or act through if I’m lucky to have the right people around and thats’ that. It will never be perfect, but thats when its time to get it registered and run with it.

Almost there, waiting for #4. But starting #1 on the next story.

Hope that helps put ideas and writing into perspective from a scheduling task list point of view. Once thats in place, will try and keep posting when possible to look at what we do with the idea. It’s a 90 minute comedy in this case, so its easy going and I’m not too attached to it, which is an advantage. I’m aware the story can always be improved, and an idea is never 100%, but also that this is good enough that I dont need to waste time nitpicking.

Worst Summer Blockbusters, According To Them

Now playing at a theater near you. Star Trek: Into Darkness, Hangover 3, Fast and Furious 6, After Earth, Superman: Man of Steel, The Lone Ranger, Pacific Rim, 300: Rise of an Empire. Once again, sequels and remakes galore compile the list of 2013 summer blockbusters.

Instead of making a list of worst summer blockbusters, because I don’t plan on seeing most of these, and bar a couple of these and some 80’s or 90’s flops that I actually wanted to see back in the days, I thought about trying a different angle and guiding you to various places on the web who’ve compiled similar lists way before I did and have more of a genuine say on this matter.

Of course, I have seen some of these, for instance a common theme is Transformers sequels (such as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), which a friend of mine really loved and convinced me to give a chance. I’ve been holding it against her ever since. Of course, the reasons I hated it, was actually why she loved it. As I learned on previous posts such as this one, people don’t want a lasting memory or an amazing insight from movies, they just want to be wowed and taken away for a couple hours.

Still, even the most recreational movie goer can attest to the fact that big budget movie doesn’t always equate to success, even when conservatively banking on an existing franchise or storyline remake. Here are some lists from other sites that include their takes.

http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/05/the-25-worst-summer-movie-blockbusters-of-all-time/ – loads of usual suspects like Superman III, Waterworld, plus Batman and Robin, along with a lot of DC Comic remakes

http://www.newser.com/story/124332/transformers-2-star-wars-episode-i-and-the-worst-summer-movies-ever.html – Battlefield Earth, which I’ve been told is so bad, I should give it a look one day. Maybe if stuck on a plane with only one film choice on it.

http://entertainment.time.com/2011/07/26/top-20-worst-summer-blockbusters/ – they dig up some rare ones. Hudson Hawk? Wow, and Bruce thought people forgot. Knight and Day, didn’t hear a thing about it. And some familiar ones most lists have, such as Speed 2, Catwoman and Howard The Duck. What I dont get was that people were expecting the latter to be good?

hudson-hawk-bruce-willis-or-bruce-danger-willis

http://guyism.com/entertainment/movies/50-most-disappointing-summer-blockbusters-of-all-time.html – another list, but at least has the nice option to view it all in one page. Many long forgotten flops like Prince of Persia, Da Vinci Code, Miami Vice, The Happening, Superman IV (which was amazingly worse than III), along with commonly shamed movies like Catwoman and Green Lantern.

Now if only one of those movies passed some of their budget over here. Its not like anyone would notice anyway, right?

The Directors Cut – A Short Film In Bowbarr, Carrboro

About a week ago, Dead Red Eyes worked on filming a short in Carrboro. As it was a short comedy, most of it took place in a bar. And luckily, the wonderful Amanda of Bowbarr in Carrboro, NC let us do the filming during the day in her bar while it was closed (as long as we were cleared out an hour before opening time!).

It was a hot summer day and so we had to tape up all the windows/doors with black blankets to keep the bright light out. However, these were washed away later on as the rains came down. And it poured. Heavy downpours for hours that flooded most of the town and made many homes lose power for the evening. Yet almost all of the cast members came through – even if it was for a short scene here and there, and for that we are very grateful.

Dead Red Eyes Crew behind the camera

The difficult part was early on, where we made some last minute changes to the cast and story in order to adapt to people’s timings, schedules and potential no-shows. However, once we got rolling, we were able to get through scenes at a steady pace. Scenes were ordered by location, so for instance we’d shoot scenes 5,7,11 and then move to the other end of the bar to do 3,9, and so on. But luckily all the scenes were indoors. Some scenes were “one and done” quick takes, while some had a fair share of out-takes and needed a few versions, in some cases to make sure we had alternate angles, close-ups, etc.

Like Alphabet Soup and The Torment, various actors/actresses from the area were in this short too, whether a brief appearance, such as Rob (who was the main character in The Torment) or Jared, who had a side role in the Torment, but played the main character in this upcoming short. We also managed to get local legend Tom in on the action, playing a key role and wearing a straw hat much to his initial chagrin (he “did it for the film”, and much thanks for that). That being said, he actually did quite like the Hawaiian shirt we had got for him!

Tom behind the scenes

Brian and his colleague did the camera work for the most part, while Justin did the directing. As for me, I helped out with the unpacking, the setup and wherever possible, took loads of pictures such as the ones on this post, and hopefully will be contributing with the background audio / soundtrack, as the edits come together. Plus while I may have escaped from being in any pictures (since I was the one taking them), I do play an extra in some scenes.

Overall though, we had a great time and everyone was in great form. Looking forward to having the final cut ready to show. In the meantime, any ideas for naming this thing?

Behind the scenes at Bowbarr

Writing The Screenplay – Round Two, The Fix Up Review

So we drew up an outline to make sure the screenplay kept pace and didn’t go into those dangerous dead-end tangents.

And then we used an iPad app to churn through pages at a fast pace (we’ll be reviewing other apps soon).

We exported to Word and needed to do some tidying up. This was a great opportunity to proof read the whole thing and look for notes where we could add/remove some character, some dialogue, scene description, plot loops and so on.

And it made it quite an easy transition to remember the plot, characters, spot the tangents and un-necessary lines. Also tried my best to not get attached to the script, which was much easier in this case, as it was a comedy. But what I mean by that is not feeling certain things have to be said, certain points have to be made. One valuable lesson I learned is when writing, to keep things flowing and make sure all lines need to be in the script.

So what’s next? Well, now we have a 90 or so page screenplay with a few scenes highlighted. These five or so scenes needed rewrites or better transitioning. And so onto the next stage.

Ideally this will occur in the coming days if I have time and I’ll have something finalized. Then what? On to the next one.

Lessons and Blessin’s with Kurt Weathers

Recent recording of Lessons and Blessin’s with Kurt Weathers. In this episode (episode 1, that is), Kurt discusses the perils of modern television, the glory of chap stick miracles, the benefits of local animal shelters, the difficulties of being a father in modern society, and more. This short film / skit was based on the character Kurt Weathers, which was part of Dead Red Eyes’ short film The Torment. This is him more fully developed. His evangelical christianity may not be infectious but his enthusiasm is.

Let us know what you think and/or view other short films from Dead Red Eyes.

Scripts Pro for iPad Review

One of the rare moments where I get a chance to really work on screenplays is whilst traveling. And a couple weeks back I had a pair of long flights to endure. However, I’m not one to take a laptop, let alone on a plane where there’s hardly any room to move. But at the same time, the iPad adds an option of portability. It’s not too small to type on, and while I know people can type on an iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc, its not something I would want to do for too long, let along for several pages.

And while I’m not much of an iLife person anyway (don’t have an iPhone, and even the iPad isn’t mine technically), I am impressed with the range of apps that the iPad has, especially when it comes to music and film apps, where there is not only an abundant selection but some gems that I couldn’t even imagine say, 10 years ago. Either way, I have tested out a few screenwriting apps over the recent months, particularly on travels like the one noted here.  As a result, I figure it might be worth starting to review them, now that I’ve used them for a while.  Another reason I want to go through a bunch, is so I can see what I can improve on when developing a screenwriting app of my own (though considering how little time I have, this may take a while)!

Scripts Pro is a popular app and its gained traction over the years (its also gained cost, from 4.99 to 6.99 to 12.99 which is pushing it a fair bit for this market but still a bit cheaper than some of the other stuff out there). It’s got some great positives to it, but also some painful negatives.

Lets’ get the negatives out of the way first though.  Exporting/importing is PAINFUL! And never correct. I imported a script from a custom formatted Word document I made too, still no luck. Same goes when I try to bring it back. Scripts Pro claims to be able to export back to Word. Technically it does do this, but expect formatting, spacing and tabs to be awry and expect odd characters.  In fact you might as well save your export until you’re done, and then use the opportunity to fix up the formatting as a chance to review and revise/finalize your script. But being able to easily take this back and forth between PC and iPad? Not happening, unless perhaps you ante up for the likes of Final Draft.

Within the use of the app itself, it has a range of character glitches actually. And putting apostrophes within text seems to create interesting outcomes like how ‘ becomes a italic i sort of character? Another issue is that as a writer, I like to hit “save” and “Save as” a lot, in order to feel reassured perhaps, or keep track of major variations. However, you can’t do that here.  And its very scary.  I get this screen a lot.

I also cannot change the name of my file in regards to how it appears on the menu, and sometimes a second version of the file appears in the menu screen.  Despite this, and getting the scary crash screen above on all variations at times, use a far from logical method keep trying again and the file will open to where you last left it – despite never selecting “save” and the file name selected no longer matching the name of the file name shown once opened!

While there is a backspace and an undo button, there is no “find” option a la CTRL+F to find that word/reference, while the delete button goes one way (the latter is not Scripts Pro’s fault though). This means instead of getting your cursor in and hitting delete to “forward delete” and backspace to deleted back, you can only do the latter.  Perhaps this is just me, but I often delete forward and backward depending on my flow, and with a touch screen like the iPad and a program that often preselects by word, you might not always get the cursor on the right letter of the word. So the lack of forward deletes on iPad itself drives me crazy, but I do wish some apps would account for it.  I understand that point is mainly my gripe, though from searching around, I’m not the only one. Again, thats more a dig at iOS devices overall rather than this app. But one dig at this app that it could have done something about – is that you cannot highlight a letter within the word midway if you want to spell it a certain way yourself. So you have to respell the whole word anyway!

That said, on to the positives. It’s good for burning through a draft. Character name auto-fills, you can move to any scene via one click, formatting in place for the display version at least (and actually it does an ok job exporting to PDF, though no cover page – despite places saying this was fixed). Auto-correct is generally decent at remembering what you’ve edited prior, so you dont have to keep forcing a word that’s not in its dictionary, such as a location or slang.

On the tab when you bring up the keyboard you can easily change the text from dialogue to action to scene heading, etc and it will adopt a relevant format for you. I like how it highlights the scene headings on the iPad screen and also allows you to move to any scene at any time.  If you don’t like a characters name later on, you can easily change it via the character menu (though a find and replace in Word does this better, as it finds it within the dialogue, action, etc, too).

Overall, that is the benefit of this app, convenience. Without apps like this, writing a screenplay while traveling would be tough to pull off.  Just don’t rely on it to be your final piece of work, and since you can’t “save” it, make use of the option to email it to yourself or upload to Dropbox after any major changes. However, you will be able to breeze through it. I churned out about 20 pages via my outline, during perhaps 3 or so hours of a flight (despite spending the first hour reformatting my import too), and when you’re on a roll using this app, it becomes good to have.  Though my iPad typing might need work, and I developed wrist aches from it, so its probably only useful for bits and pieces when on the go.  And don’t bother reformatting the exported version on MS Word until you are doing a final run through.

It’s a good app overall, and I’m making use of it, but there is room for improvement (particularly in compatibility and a CTRL+F element beyond scene headings). Price is realistic, considering how much of a rip off some screenwriting programs can be, when all some of them are is a custom formatted Word Doc with various Macros. For those that want to translate this into a rating, overall I give it an 8 out of 10 (less if you plan on working on it back and forth, more if its just for quick writeups on the go).

Timesaver note: When exporting/opening in Word, it will look pretty hard to fix up. In Word, do a Align Center, and Align Left, and all the weird spacing at the start of each line / between lines will go away. You still have some tidying up to do and may want to do some traditional Word doc tab settings…. but not nearly as much as before. Worked as a great 2nd round read-through though, which I’ll write about soon.

Lost in Translation – Movie Titles Around The World

In 2013, there is a movie titled “In The House”. But I didn’t quite understand why they needed to call it that, other than for consumer convenience.  “Dans La Maison” (its original title in 2012) was fine. The 2013 release in the US is in French with English subtitles and that’s fine with me, in fact I’m glad they didn’t try a full on revision (and gone are the days of dubbed over movies). Still, why remarket the title when having the title in French might help broadcast the movie name a bit better.  “In the House” just sounds cheesier too (as if one of those dance-off movies from a few years back!)

However, this post isn’t about the movie above, which has done well in film festivals around the world. I haven’t really seen any of François Ozon’s movies, but have heard some hype and wouldn’t mind checking this film out.

Instead, it reminded me of two things (and a need to keep posting even though time is a hot commodity). One was a friend of mine who over the years loves to say “Dans la Maison”. Secondly was the annoyance behind movie titles finding the need to be translated. Unless its “that” bad a translation, where you find it amusing.  Such as this excuse for making another top 10 list.

Top 10 Amusingly Translated Movie Titles:

The English Patient = Do Not Ask Me Who I Am – Ever. (China)

As Good as it Gets = Mr Cat Poop (China again, where allegedly the main characters name sounds like the word for Cat Poop)

Grease = Vaseline (Venezuela)

Never Been Kissed – Because She’s Ugly (Philippines)

Bad Santa – Santa is a Pervert (Czech republic)

Pretty Woman = I Will Marry a Prostitute to Save Money (also China, where they like to make the title very descriptive)

Die Hard – Mega Hard (Denmark), in fact several countries have odd translations for this series.

The Full Monty = released as “6 Naked Pigs” or “Six Stripped Warriors” in China based on language (Cantonese/Mandarin)

Dodgeball – Full of the Nuts (Germany)

Dr No = We Don’t Want a Doctor (Japan)

Kept this pretty slack, as it turns out there are loads of lists of these around the web, so if you’re looking for more, check out http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/13782/50-movie-titles-that-got-lost-in-translation or http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/50-funniest-movie-title-translations – though you’ll see some of these might even be made up.  For instance, “Matrix” in France was not what some of these people say it is.

Or for example, some say, Lost In Translation was translated to “Meetings and Failures in Meetings” over in Portugal.  Not True.  It was “o Amor É um Lugar Estranho” or “Love in Translation”.  http://cinema.sapo.pt/filme/lost-in-translation/poster/73d1df369f0a10498386771da63e853d

In fact its weird where some of these came from, I guess its the whole ability to make up stuff online! Anyway, let us know any other good ones (real or rumoured) that you know of.

Ok, end of quick break, back to writing again.

Common Questions When Writing A Screenplay

So I did the outline as per the post http://www.deadredeyes.com/how-to-write-a-screenplay-in-one-day – practicing what I preach of course – and it technically took a month, but also took only a day if not less when going by time.  Over the past month I had an hour here and an hour there at best, and so this added into the time I took to do an outline.  Overall, I spent about 10-12 hours on it total, which I think is a decent day’s worth if you can pull it off.

I’m happy with the story, its a light hearted comedy, so quite flexible too and probably comes in at a relatively short 90 minutes.  Originally I wanted to use a more dramatic and semi-personal idea, but it got the best of me and added negative vibes to an already stressful schedule.  So I reverted to comedy to relieve me in this case.

I ended up with just about 80 scenes laid out in an Excel Spreadsheet, with the columns of :

– Scene Number (which explains itself, though for some continuous sequences I would do 1a, 1b, etc)

– Outline (whats the scene doing, whos’ what, etc)

– Location (slugline in some ways, INT, EXT, that sort of thing)

– Main characters (who’s this scene focusing on)

– Estimated duration (when acted out in my head at least, rounded to the nearest 10 or 15 seconds, many scenes would be 30 to 90 seconds for instance, while faster sequences 15)

– Notes (more for me to notate in the scene if relevant)

So now is the next part.  How does this transition into a full length screenplay?  Will it be something I can easily churn out pages from and not worry about the outline, because I have already connected the loose ends?  Any guesses on how long it could take?  Hopefully equal to or less than this stage.

And I made sure it answered the common questions for writing a screenplay… such as:

– Do you characters have a reason to be there?

– Does each scene / line have meaning or relevance to moving the story?  Hmm, maybe not “meaning” if its a comedy, but you get the idea.

– Is there the right level of background and transition (not every scene has to lead through and onto the next for instance)?

– Did you come up with an idea for storyline (including the end) before you started writing it?

– Would you watch it?

Anyway, a bit of an interim post, but figured I’d document how its progressing, whether anyone is listening or not.  Hopefully will have an update soon.

 

Documentary Films, A Retro Wave of Comfort?

I read an article this week at http://www.vulture.com/2013/04/edelstein-documentary-is-better-than-filmmaking.html – and wanted to do more than drop a mention and a tweet, however time was slim, as somehow this week’s been action packed.

Still, the thought lingered for more than a minute, so I was convinced it had me wanting to open it up for discussion. Why are documentaries somewhat hip now, where they used to make people cringe back in the days?  My thought was that not only are the stories more in depth, but visually because the gap has grown between how documentaries and mainstream films look – that the visual feel of these movies have that natural sort of comfort to it.

Films at home on DVD or in the theater are “sharp” these days.  Too sharp perhaps.  But VHS tapes with a slight decay to the visual sharpness were just as captivating too.  Film tries to look too refined, too real these days.  The art has perhaps transitioned from story line to presentation and technique.  But who’s really buying all this CGI “that” much more than handcrafted effects in the past (you could fit the blade runner city on your desk and it may look amateur now but did it affect the movie that much?  would it have been that different if they replaced that with a fully customized effect with a living population?). Has it changed the experience of the movie that much? If so, please chime in. Personally though one of the great things about documentaries is that it has a bit of a blur to it. Its not as sharp visually or audio-wise.  Plus the storylines are pretty good too these days.

PS: Warmth in these documentary images below was taken from the article pic, linked above and also in New York magazine, though I couldn’t find their version online. If so, I’ll link to that too.