Posts tagged Joss Whedon
Pages In Courier
I should be writing
Much Ado About Nothing posters
Firefly/Serenity Valentine’s Day Cards
updated with a suggestion
(via geekandsundry)
Ditto.
![6 Filmmaking Tips From Joss Whedon
By Cole Abaius
Never Give Up On an Idea
“You know what? I never give up on anything, because you come back around, and suddenly the thing you thought you’d never do is relevant. I talked with my wife about Much Ado About Nothing for years, and it was always like, ‘I don’t feel like my take on the material is solid enough to merit that.’ And then one day I woke up and said, ‘Wait a minute, I know exactly what I think that movie’s about.’ I definitely have had a lot of projects that stalled, but I never know which one’s going to suddenly pick itself up. I don’t tend to look back that much. Except for Firefly. But I’m always open to something that I thought was moribund suddenly coming to life and trying to eat my brain.”
We are all susceptible to The Shower Principle.
From that same interview, a quick lesson for the Michael Bay’s of the world: “Spectacle and character are not inherent enemies.”
Sometimes a Drought Comes Right Before the Downpour
By most measures, Whedon has had a steady, successful career even if a lot of it was spent frustratingly close-but-not-quite to that highest plane of fame. Plenty of screenwriters would switch places.
So it’s a bit odd to think about the recent history that led to The Year of Whedo-mination. With the shelving of Cabin in the Woods, he hadn’t seen a feature theatrical release in 7 years and only had Dollhouse to call his own on television from 2004 on. That’s a nice, little dormant period. One that Whedon himself has noted a period of questioning – wondering whether he was already seeing his career in the rear-view.
Then, based mostly on Lionsgate’s ironic timing (which was undoubtedly fueled by having a movie from the director of The Avengers that starred Thor on their hands), Whedon saw two movies hit in a month’s time. As a writer, Cabin in the Woods represented a movie that made genre fans salivate and non-genre fans clap just as loudly. As a writer/director, The Avengers was the summer itself.
It turns out this narrative of failure and success fits in nicely on a creative and personal level.
“That moment where you stand up and say, ‘I have the right to exist.’ I’ve written it a lot of times, and I never get tired of writing it. And if I could just believe it about myself, I think I could stop writing it.”
Never Lose Sight of the Emotional Stakes
So you’re main character is a mythic beast killer? An astronaut forced to battle dragons? An accountant? No matter what genre rules you’re adhering to, what concept dressing is on the side or what toys you get to play with, don’t forget what’s centrally at stake for your characters.
Build the Structure, Then Hit the Playground
“The plot [for Cabin] is something I presented to Drew [Goddard] as ‘I think I found the movie that we could actually sit down and write in a weekend,’ because it has a third act. It starts one way then takes you another way and just when you think you know where it’s going, it goes a third way. And this is how it wraps up. And not only did I present it to him all in a bundle, but it came to me that way. The structure came first. Not, ‘We should make a movie about a guy named Marty.’ Or, ‘We should make a movie about two guys in an office. What could they do?’ The structure is what appeared before me, shining like a unicorn.
And I went, ‘Oh.’ And we just filled it in from there. And structure is the hardest part of storytelling. With The Avengers, the structure nearly killed me. It was very difficult to make it flow and cohere in terms of all the changing perspectives and characters, all these movie stars, all these beats to hit. It’s a ridiculously complex puzzle. But once you’ve got the puzzle, and you’re just filling in the voices and coming up with the moments, that’s what’s fun.”
Could eating your vegetables make dessert taste even better? If you build your sandbox first, you can actually have some fun in it. And other analogies.
Hire Yourself
“When people ask me ‘How do I get my start?’, I’m not a great example. I grew up knowing a little about the business, and my dad had an agent so I understood a lot about how you write these things and I had someone to look at it. So it’s hard for me to give advice. But in the last few years, the advice became: If you like something, make it. Don’t write it and try to find a studio. Make it. Because it is very possible, for anybody.
When I did Buffy as a show, it was partly because I couldn’t get a gig as a director. So I said, well, I’ll write a show. I’ll hire me. Buffy was, unabashedly, seven years of film school for me, with me teaching myself how to direct. The best way to learn is to do it. Get it wrong a couple times.”
If You See a Tired Trend, Do the Exact Opposite
Read the full awesome article](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mb1ay1FlnR1qj8ok1o1_500.jpg)
6 Filmmaking Tips From Joss Whedon
By Cole Abaius
Never Give Up On an Idea
“You know what? I never give up on anything, because you come back around, and suddenly the thing you thought you’d never do is relevant. I talked with my wife about Much Ado About Nothing for years, and it was always like, ‘I don’t feel like my take on the material is solid enough to merit that.’ And then one day I woke up and said, ‘Wait a minute, I know exactly what I think that movie’s about.’ I definitely have had a lot of projects that stalled, but I never know which one’s going to suddenly pick itself up. I don’t tend to look back that much. Except for Firefly. But I’m always open to something that I thought was moribund suddenly coming to life and trying to eat my brain.”
We are all susceptible to The Shower Principle.
From that same interview, a quick lesson for the Michael Bay’s of the world: “Spectacle and character are not inherent enemies.”
Sometimes a Drought Comes Right Before the Downpour
By most measures, Whedon has had a steady, successful career even if a lot of it was spent frustratingly close-but-not-quite to that highest plane of fame. Plenty of screenwriters would switch places.
So it’s a bit odd to think about the recent history that led to The Year of Whedo-mination. With the shelving of Cabin in the Woods, he hadn’t seen a feature theatrical release in 7 years and only had Dollhouse to call his own on television from 2004 on. That’s a nice, little dormant period. One that Whedon himself has noted a period of questioning – wondering whether he was already seeing his career in the rear-view.
Then, based mostly on Lionsgate’s ironic timing (which was undoubtedly fueled by having a movie from the director of The Avengers that starred Thor on their hands), Whedon saw two movies hit in a month’s time. As a writer, Cabin in the Woods represented a movie that made genre fans salivate and non-genre fans clap just as loudly. As a writer/director, The Avengers was the summer itself.
It turns out this narrative of failure and success fits in nicely on a creative and personal level.
“That moment where you stand up and say, ‘I have the right to exist.’ I’ve written it a lot of times, and I never get tired of writing it. And if I could just believe it about myself, I think I could stop writing it.”
Never Lose Sight of the Emotional Stakes
So you’re main character is a mythic beast killer? An astronaut forced to battle dragons? An accountant? No matter what genre rules you’re adhering to, what concept dressing is on the side or what toys you get to play with, don’t forget what’s centrally at stake for your characters.
Build the Structure, Then Hit the Playground
“The plot [for Cabin] is something I presented to Drew [Goddard] as ‘I think I found the movie that we could actually sit down and write in a weekend,’ because it has a third act. It starts one way then takes you another way and just when you think you know where it’s going, it goes a third way. And this is how it wraps up. And not only did I present it to him all in a bundle, but it came to me that way. The structure came first. Not, ‘We should make a movie about a guy named Marty.’ Or, ‘We should make a movie about two guys in an office. What could they do?’ The structure is what appeared before me, shining like a unicorn.
And I went, ‘Oh.’ And we just filled it in from there. And structure is the hardest part of storytelling. With The Avengers, the structure nearly killed me. It was very difficult to make it flow and cohere in terms of all the changing perspectives and characters, all these movie stars, all these beats to hit. It’s a ridiculously complex puzzle. But once you’ve got the puzzle, and you’re just filling in the voices and coming up with the moments, that’s what’s fun.”
Could eating your vegetables make dessert taste even better? If you build your sandbox first, you can actually have some fun in it. And other analogies.
Hire Yourself
“When people ask me ‘How do I get my start?’, I’m not a great example. I grew up knowing a little about the business, and my dad had an agent so I understood a lot about how you write these things and I had someone to look at it. So it’s hard for me to give advice. But in the last few years, the advice became: If you like something, make it. Don’t write it and try to find a studio. Make it. Because it is very possible, for anybody.
When I did Buffy as a show, it was partly because I couldn’t get a gig as a director. So I said, well, I’ll write a show. I’ll hire me. Buffy was, unabashedly, seven years of film school for me, with me teaching myself how to direct. The best way to learn is to do it. Get it wrong a couple times.”
If You See a Tired Trend, Do the Exact Opposite
Heart (Broken)
A caveman painted on a cave,
It was a bison, was a fave,
The other cavepeople would rave.
They didn’t ask “Why?”
Why paint a bison if it’s dead?
When did you chose the color red?
What was the process in your head?
He told their story,
What came before he didn’t show,
We’re not supposed to—
Homer’s Odyssey was swell,
A bunch of guys that went through hell,
He told the tale but didn’t tell,
the audience why.
He didn’t say, “Here’s what it means”
And “Here’s a few deleted scenes”
“Charybdis tested well with teens”
He’s not the story,
He’s just a door we open if,
our lives need liftin’…
But now we pick - pick - pick - pick - pick it apart,
Open it up to find the tick - tick - tick - of a heart,
A heart…
Broken.
It’s broken by the endless loads
Of “making of’s” and mobisodes.
The tie-ins, prequels, games and codes the audience buys.
The narrative dies,
Stretched and torn,
Hey spoiler warning…
We’re gonna pick - pick - pick - pick - pick it apart,
Open it up to find the tick - tick - tick of a heart.
A heart…
Broken down.
Do you really need to know
Sit back, relax, enjoy the show, oh no..
Let it go, oh no.
No, the crowd won’t rest ‘till he explains.
Like zombies clawing for his brains,
Or anything that infotains
And that maintains my fame.
My fame,
My precious quasi-fame,
What am I doing? There’s people watching?
I sang some things that I didn’t mean.
I think this commentary’s keen.
So let’s return now to the scene, I’ll tell the story.
This song itself was hard to write,
I cut the bridge to keep it tight.
It’s kind of slow and doesn’t quite advance the story.
It’s really boring.
That’s all done — get on the fun train!
We’re gonna pick - pick - pick - pick - pick it apart,
Open it up to find the tick - tick - tick of a heart.
We’re gonna pick, we gonna pick - pick - pick - pick it apart,
Pick up a stick and find the tick - tick -tick of a heart
A heart…
On sale now.
International Movie Poster: Serenity - Russia
33 Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies that Could Rock Your Summer
This year’s summer movies just won’t let up. There’s Joss Whedon’s Avengers, Chris Nolan’s third Batman film, and Ridley Scott’s long-awaited return to space horror. Plus maybe a dozen other movies that look like they could be totally fantastic
The Sound of My Voice (April 27)
The Raven (April 27)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (April 27)The Avengers (May 4)
Dark Shadows (May 11)
Battleship (May 18)
Hysteria (May 18)
Lovely Molly (May 18)
Chernobyl Diaries (May 25)
Men in Black 3 (May 25)Piranha 3DD (June 1)
Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1)
Prometheus (June 8)
Safety Not Guaranteed (June 8)
The Woman in the Fifth (June 15)
Extraterrestrial (June 15)
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 22)
Brave (June 22)
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (June 22)
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (June 28)The Amazing Spider-Man (July 3)
Ted (July 13)
Red Lights (July 13)
The Dark Knight Rises (July 20)
Ruby Sparks (July 25)
Neighborhood Watch (July 27)Total Recall (August 3)
The Awakening (August 10)
The Odd Life of Timothy Green (August 15)
ParaNorman (August 17)
The Apparition (August 24)
7500 (August 31)
The Possession (August 31)
(image)
Joss Whedon: Feminist
‘The Avengers’ Starts to Sell Sex with Black Widow Fight Scene
Really Joss? This feels wrong. Unless Agent Coulson has Tony Stark on the other line and he’s doing the same thing. In the same dress.
This one is just funny. “Always be yourself… unless you suck.” Joss Whedon (Screenwriter)
