We’re more than halfway through now. Presentation preparations are still going well. Eddie’s getting over some of his blocks. The solution might lie in a furry hat. Reminds me of the “animation hat” Brodie used to wear at our Stepney Studio whenever he was working on a scene.
I’m more involved in the presentation this time. There may be “technical difficulties” with my props. Our presentation is probably a little more planned that our last one, but will still be largely improvised.
The SAFC’s SIP (Screen Industry Programmes), Marketing, Legal and IT departments joined us in our singing today. There were staff there I had never met. Was good to have them join us. I’m getting better at singing and I’m getting my ear for music back. I used to hate singing, but getting the bass parts in a range that’s comfortable is a lot of fun. I used to play the violin and haven’t touched it for about 10 yrs, so it’s nice to exercise that part of the mind again.
Stephen’s lecture was on protagonists and antagonists. It’s a different way of looking at these characters than Michael Hauge’s (Writing Screenplays that Sell). Hauge’s way of looking at it is quite straighforward, whereas Stephen’s was confusing at times. But then again, Hauge doesn’t analyse the variety of films that Stephen does and his analyses come from a very narrow set of formulaic movies. Stephen’s point was that it can be easier to work out your protagonist once you have identified the antagonist (or more importantly the antagonistic forces) that will bring out the change in the potagonist. I think we’re not quite at the point of defining that antagonism quite yet. Eddie usually works out protagonists on his own and everything gets painted around them in due course.
The SAFC ticks on. Block mounted posters of films I have never heard of or forgotten are getting switched around while anxious actors sit in the lobby waiting for their auditions. The children sit with their parents who range from passivity to the ones who rehearse lines with them. On the other side of our office wall there is a two way door that swings both ways like the ones in a hospital. When people walk through them you can hear a thud followed by a creaking sound that sounds like bedsprings, like a massive weight dropping onto a mattress.
Eddie observed this morning that the SAFC isn’t as big as he used to think it was. I think he might be right.
