Find your tribe in a Sea of Creativity
Screenwriting - Blog Posts
Show Don't Tell - Symptoms vs. the Affliction
Another way to think of show don’t tell is to describe the symptoms rather than tell the affliction. You could say someone was close to fainting—or you could describe their symptoms and trust the readers to understand what they mean: the world swirled around her head, her ears beginning to hum lowly, then louder, increasing into a high-pitched ring. She took a deep breath, her stomach turning over itself. Etc.
Symptoms can also mean the lump in your throat as a “symptom” of being sad enough to cry, or the warmth of your face as a “symptom” of embarrassment.
That might sound a bit silly, but I find it really helpful when I’m reading over mine or others work and looking for those places where showing would be better than telling. Have you described the symptoms, or just told the affliction?
Here’s a short list of “afflictions” and their associated “symptoms” to get you started (but make sure to explore how different characters express different afflictions, even in more odd or unusual ways!)
Any symptoms I missed?
Web Shoutout: Youtube Edition
Today, I’m starting a new series: Web Shoutout. It’s a place where I Shoutout random stuff from all corners of the Internet that I find interesting, most especially regarding movies. Hope you like it!
This time I feature standout channels from Youtube that help me, as an amateur movie reviewer and movie enthusiast, understand layers of movies and moviemaking that I might never paid attention before. This list is by no means all encompassing, it’s just a bunch of channels that I enjoy watching at the moment.
1. Every Frame A Painting ( @everyframeapainting on tumblr )
I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that my first pick is Every Frame A Painting, because in my mind, anybody who’s plugged into the Internet’s movie newsreel for a while must have stumbled into an Every Frame A Painting video at least once.
The channel is created by filmmaker and editor Tony Zhou, to host a video essay series dedicated to the “analysis of film form”. Like the name suggest, the channel mostly--but not limited to--dissects movies you love on cinematographical level and makes you realize things you’ve never thought of before. But most importantly, he encourages “ordinary” people like me to appreciate a movie beyond the skin-deep, like with The Silence of the Lambs essay above.
To this day, Every Frame A Painting features a wide range of analysis from the works of Martin Scorsese, Jackie Chan, Edgar Wright, etc., to an entire video dedicated to texting on screen, and another one exclusively on chairs. Heck, even his video on Michael Bay makes you appreciate the director more (Bayhem is still crap, but a masterful kind of crap). To my knowledge, Every Frame A Painting is the first of its kind to gain real media recognition, and for good reason. His videos are engaging, crazy good, and always of excellent quality.
Subscribe to Every Frame A Painting. Support the channel through Patreon.
2. Nerdwriter1 ( @thenerdwriter on tumblr )
Due to no fault of its own, I immediately compared Nerdwriter1 to Every Frame A Painting when I first discovered it. In retrospect it was a bit funny to ever think that, because it turned out that Nerdwriter1 (by Evan Puschak) existed almost 3 years before Every Frame A Painting. But it was obvious why I did--they both produce high quality video essays (very often) on movies--but fortunately, I eventually understood that Nerdwriter1 is a different beast.
It took me a while to realize why I love his videos so much: it was because he treated movies not as a separate entity, born in a vacuum, but as part of humanity. Once I understood that, it’s actually very apparent on his channel. That’s why he makes video essays about Donald Trump, Youtube as a medium, and Black Friday--but the same holds true whenever he talks about movies (as evidenced by Children of Men essay above) and entertainment, like when he used Louis CK’s jokes to illuminate the nebulous nature of humor and morality.
His “Understanding Art” series, especially, is most excellent, in which he talks about movies a lot, but also about paintings, poetry, etc. His video on David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises might be my favorite yet (which you can watch on his channel, it’s too bloodily graphic to embed here. SERIOUS WARNING, guys), and others include Pan’s Labyrinth, Ghost In The Shell, A Serious Man, Batman, etc.
Subscribe to Nerdwriter1. Support the channel through Patreon.
3. RocketJump Film School ( RocketJump is @rocketjumptv on tumblr )
If you want to get a bit technical about what happens behind the scenes, RocketJump Film School is an excellent place for you to be. RocketJump itself is a digital movie studio that specializes in original web video content, including hit webseries Video Game High School (it ran for 3 seasons, BTW), and a collaboration with Youtube/TV breakout stars Key & Peele (can be seen through their main channel, RocketJump). They also recently had a deal with Hulu and their 8-episode documentary about their production will premiere this December. RocketJump Film School channel, however (they also have a forum), is their place to share their knowledge with budding film-related workers.
There are lots of themes discussed in their videos, ranging from editing, cinematography, lighting, screenwriting, sound, effects and CGI--to more random stuff like how to create fake blood, how to fold a green screen (it's surprisingly hard and easy at the same time), even as simple as how to hold a boom.
Aside from that, RocketJump Film School also have 101 classes as well as master classes, field trips, and podcasts (talkshow-type follow-up video to their previous content)--which, for lack of better word, are all kinds of awesome and full of information. If you don’t go to film school, it's the second-best place to learn and appreciate all the little things behind the art of film. And if you can believe Youtube comments, even people who actually went to film school frequently say that they learned something the were never taught at school. More than anything, I think that speaks a lot about the quality and dedication of the RocketJump FIlm School crew. Basically, it’s a channel that is chock full of information, if you are at the slightest bit interested in learning what happens behind the scenes, RocketJump Film School is a treasure.
Subscribe to RocketJump Film School.
/ᐠ-˕-マ~ about me !
𝐡𝐞𝐲𝐲𝐲...
...welcome to the "about me" page! this is where you'll learn whatever there is to know about me (besides the stuff I don't tell you lol). I figured I'd make this page just so you can get a feel for me as a person and, y'know, who it is literally doing all of the work around this place🥴.
to learn more about this account in general, you can always check out the intro page. to explore what fandoms I'm in and what I love to run my mouth talk about, then you should go to the heart. Continue reading further down to learn more about me, and possibly make a new mutual ♡. any questions? head on over to my faq's page.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ...𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞
───────── 《 .°•♡•°. 》 ──────────
𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 : theyluvlyss, lyssa, or lyss is preferred
𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬 : she/her/hers
𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 : black+beautiful🤎🖤🩷
𝐨𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧(𝐬) : writer, shifter (it's been four years, someone please help me🥲), fangirl
𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 : screenwriter, author, model, actress
𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐡𝐲𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧(𝐬) : shazam! (1-2), speed racer (yes, the 2008 live movie adaptation), darby and the dead, the flash (mostly just young barry allen), superheroes in general
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐈'𝐦 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 : entp, aquarius sun/cancer moon/leo rising, (undiagnosed) AuDHD, burnt out gifted kid syndrome
𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫(𝐬) : purple, black, pink, deep reds
𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐭 :ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ boll weevil - the presidents of the united states of americaㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤcan you feel my heart - bring me the horizonㅤㅤㅤㅤbring me to life - evanescenceㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤdark sun - after dark we riseㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤstar quality - s4brina
𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬 :ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤinsta - th3yluvlyssㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤtiktok - _theyluvlyssㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤdiscord - theyluvlyssㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤpinterest - theyluvlyss_
𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭 :
🖤💜🤍
───────── 《 .°•♡•°. 》 ──────────
𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬 : [active] [hiatus] [offline]
𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 : [open] [closed]
───────── 《 .°•♡•°. 》 ──────────
𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬...
...that's pretty much it😻. short, sweet, simple, now you know me lol :).
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ/ᐠ-˕-マ~ 𝐛𝐲𝐞𝐞𝐞 !
