Sean Lawrence

( Due: Sep 19 Status: Not Completed) 1. We’re going to engage in a bit of improvised acting, or “role-playing” as a technique to develop character. The point of this exercise is to take a character you think you know (your protagonist) and putting them in an unfamiliar situation. You will be chatting “in-character” as your protagonist with the rest of your class, each of whom will be role-playing their protagonist. 2. If you want to role-play as someone other than your protagonist, you need to contact me at least 24 hours in advance. 3. The In-Character Chat will be in a silly setting: the improbable and outlandish Restaurant at the End of the Universe (also known as Milliways), from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Milliways is a space station situated at the end of time and the known Universe (in a frozen moment right before everything ends). Eat, drink, and admire the ultimate end of everything, then time-travel back to you own present day and tim...

( Due: Sep 12 Status: Not Completed) Goal: This assignment will familiarize you with the Myers-Briggs personality types, give you the experience of having your personality assessed for you, and aid you in the use of the Myers-Briggs and other psychological typologies and assessments for character development. Instructions: 1. Take the unofficial Myers-Briggs assessment at: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp Be sure to write down your four-letter personality code! 2. If you haven’t already, read the section on MBTI personality types and traits on the Myers-Briggs Foundation website: http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/ Be sure to follow the links for each of the “letters” in the test code – such as “Sensing (S) or Intuition (N),” the link to the “16 type desciptions.” 3. Determine your MBTI type based on the test and compare it to the other types. Consider whether you feel that this is a good impression of who (an...

( Due: Dec 5 Status: Not Completed) 2.6 Art and Sound 1. Game art and sound are incredibly important to storytelling, but they are also elements that will generally be largely or completely out of your control as a writer. You need to understand the basics, but you also need to be able to let go when, for example, a character you’d written as interesting and independent gets animated with a D-cup and a 30 inch waist, stuffed into a chain mail bikini. 2. There are a few different kinds of game art, defined by how they are created by artists and presented to the player, and a nearly infinite range of different styles can be applied to each kind of art. a. Pixel/Sprite Art: for a long time, the maximum resolution supported by computers and game systems was less then the resolution of the eye: thus, everything appeared more-or-less pixilated, made up of discrete dots or, mainly, rectangles of color. “Sprites” are 2d images made up of collections of pixels, normally designed...

( Due: Sun, 12 Jun | Status: Not Completed ) :: Objective: To focus on the primary relationship in the entertainment industry: the marriage of art & commerce. :: Readings & Resources: • I Liked It, Didn't Love It by Edwards & Skerbelis. All of it.

(Due: Sep 12 Status: Not Completed) Discussion Board Goal: The discussion board assignments for this class are intended to help you develop your character-writing skills and generate ideas for the final class assignment, the character portfolio. For this discussion board, you’ll be taking your protagonist as developed so far, writing a short bio that focuses on the motives and personality of the character as you see him or her, and giving each other feedback on your short bios. Instructions: 1.) Consider your protagonist, as developed to this point. What drives the character? What events have shaped the character into who he or she is? When has your protagonist been hurt, shocked, humbled, embarrassed or stricken? What does the character keep hidden about him or herself? What does the character keep hidden from him or herself? 2.) Come up with one secret the character holds close (something about the character, their personality, history or experiences that they would...

( Due: Dec 5 Status: Not Completed) 2.4 Needs of the Audience 1. Read Game Writing Chapter 10 “The Needs of the Audience” 2. Consider: a. How the audience for games has changed over the past 30-40 years, and how the expansion of that audience has changed what games are like, and how they are made. b. In what ways has the games industry been slow or resistant to change? c. Games Extra: think about the differences between major commercial releases and “indie” games you’ve encountered. How have “indie” games responded to changes in the audience for games? 3. Games Extra: read TVG’s “The Art of Storytelling” with Rhianna Pratchet (author of Game Writing Ch. 10), David Cage, and Rob Yescombe Part 1: http://www.totalvideogames.com/TVG/feature-12072.html Part 2: http://www.totalvideogames.com/TVG/feature-12077.html

( Due: Sun, 16 Jan | Status: Not Completed ) 1. Watch Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog at Trailer Addict, keeping Freud and Jung’s theories in mind, and noting how Whedon uses the three-act structure you’ve already learned about. Act 1: http://www.traileraddict.com/clip/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog/act-i Act 2: http://www.traileraddict.com/clip/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog/act-ii Act 3: http://www.traileraddict.com/clip/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog/act-iii 2. Jacques Lacan combined Freudian Psychoanalysis with Ferdinand de Saussure’s “semiotic” theory of language. He claims to be a true successor of Sigmund Freud, which he contrasts with the work of Anna Freud and Melanie Klein (who are outside the scope of his course). Lacan’s theory is that the unconscious is “structured like a language,” offering new readings of Freud and new ways to approach the unconscious mind. Lacan’s own writing on his theories is notorious for its complexity and difficulty. 3...

( Due: Sun, 16 Jan | Status: Not Completed ) 1. Listen to H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Unnameable” as read by MorganScorpion on The Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/TheUnnameableByHPLovecraft The Internet Archive is a fantastic source for public domain and Creative Commons (CC) audio, video, texts and concert recordings. It’s also the home of the Wayback Machine, an archive of the past contents of web pages dating back to 1996. If you don’t have it bookmarked already, do so immediately. http://www.archive.org/ 2. Trauma theory is part of present-day clinical practice. It has to do with how people process incredibly stressful events. The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) suffered by many soldiers returning from war is described by trauma theory. Trauma often leads to repetition and avoidance behaviors, and especially an inability to remember, process, or feel connected to the moment of trauma (“dissociation”). Trauma theory offers another way to look at how...

( Due: Sun, 12 Jun | Status: Not Completed ) :: Objective: To learn to communicate with other entertainment professionals in an appropriate and effective way. :: Reading and Resources: • http://www.writersstore.com/writing-effective-query-letters • Chapter 12: "Get Your Query Letter Read or Bust" in Mind Your Business by Michelle Wallerstein • http://www.craftyscreenwriting.com/query.html • http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/how-to-sell-your-screenplay/how-to-write-a-professional-query-letter-for-your-screenplay/ • http://filmdiva.blogspot.com/2006/07/sample-query-letter-really.html • http://www.storylink.com/article/257 • http://www.insidefilm.com/queryletters.html • http://screenwritingfromiowa.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/marketing-your-script-part-2/ • http://screenwritingfromiowa.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/marketing-your-script-part-3/ • http://www.carolynjewel.com/craft/querysamples.php • http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2009/0...

( Due: Dec 5 Status: Not Completed) 2.3 Types of Game Writing 1. Writing for games involves a number of different techniques. The most common of these are: a. Scriptwriting b. Bibling / Outlining c. Branching Dialogue (a difficult technique) d. Descriptive Text e. Flavor Text (a specific kind of Descriptive Text) f. Descriptions for Team Members (another specific kind of Descriptive Text) g. In-World Texts 2. Listen to the “Types of Game Writing” Podcast on iTunes U. (or download from the sidebar on this page). 3. This week’s Discussion Board and Assignment require that you start thinking about Branching Dialogue and Descriptive Text. If you have difficulty with this week’s work, you may want to re-listen to the Podcast. 4. Take a look at the Game Design Document (GDD, or "bible") for Deus Ex. You can download it in .doc format from the sidebar. Note that this isn't just a "story" bible - it contains production schedules and other...

( Due: Oct 10 Status: Not Completed) Problems of Plot 1. Read Fields, Chapters 8-11. 2. Understand and consider the following concepts and questions: o Why is there a tendency with writers to explain instead of reveal their story and why do they rely so heavily on dialogue to move the story forward? o What can be attributed to most problems in screenwriting and why do you think most writers hesitate to do enough research? o What does Fields mean by too much too soon? o One of the most common problems screenwriters have is explaining too much (using too much exposition). Can you think of instances in your own writing where you’ve felt like there might be too much exposition? How did you solve this? How does Field say to solve it? o Fields identifies one of the primary rules of screening to be that the audience discovers what’s going on at the same time the protagonist does. Why do you think this is so important? o If you skip important scenes for m...