I watch a lot of commentaries, read a lot of stuff, listen to a lot of interviews and often times take away these strange and obscure but WONDERFUL gems of advice that I keep dear in my heart for years and years. These are mostly about writing, but I bet people have these things about other artistic mediums! I thought it'd be fun to share them.
- When I was about 14 or so I bought "The Sandman Companion", a book that is basically a long interview with Neil Gaiman about the Sandman graphic novels. The story in that saga centers around the 7 Endless, creatures that a greater than gods but very human. He said he treated actual appearances by the Endless as if they were Hollywood movie stars and he had to pay 1,000,000 dollars to get them to appear so it had to be GOOD. I use this "Million Dollar Rule" a lot in my life, mostly in concern to men crying. Obviously that differs from character to character, some men I know cry about everything and so do some of my male characters. But being overly emotional and crying a lot is what many girl fanfic writers do when first starting out and it's one of the first things that have to go when you're learning to talk and think like the opposite sex. Again, it's different from man to man but it's a good thing to hold on to at first, like how babies start out with easy grip duplexes before moving on to legos or something. I'm INCREDIBLY fascinated by the art of women writing men and men writing women but that is a story for another day. I wish to be Joss Whedon and effortlessly write both convincingly.
- In the commentary for "Waiting In The Wings," an episode of Buffy that centers around ballet, Joss Whedon talks about the entire reason he created the episode- to show off Amy Acker's ballet skills. The thing closest to his heart and his absolute favorite scene was when the character Wesley falls asleep watching a ballet and imagines he is dancing with Fred (Acker). This scene was shot and absolutely wonderful- and it's not in the episode. He said that someone (I forgot who) told him that if you're having problems breaking a story and it doesn't feel right, take out the heart, the one thing that made you want to write the story in the first place- and rip it out. Joss said it works everytime. I haven't had to do this yet and I hope I never do but I will remember it always.
- The way Trey Parker talks about story structure in South Park commentaries is surprisingly BRILLIANT. He's a very . . . technical writer, very neat writer, he wants everything to start and end in a nice package. This doesn't always come apparent in South Park since he writes the scripts like two seconds before they animate it BUT when he gets it right you can really see that he's GOTTEN it right. My love affair with South Park has taught me to pay attention to how neat my story is and make sure if it's a suitcase, everything isn't just thrown in haphazard but, rather, folded and neat. This one is hard to talk about since he says a lot of little things I can't remember but will bring up!
If I can think of anything I took to heart in terms of acting or singing I will share it when. I think of it
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