This week my son and I had the chance to see Disney's latest Beauty and The Beast movie (and we had lunch to celebrate his B-day, which was last week).
Here is an old photo of my son - he is lower right with the cute little REI suit on...
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| Prior Boys: December 1999 (CO) |
Back to Beauty and the Beast...
The 2017 movie was incredible - the high tech graphics - the music - and the vibrant colors really moved the viewer.
It felt like a very expensive endeavor.
It reminded me that we are in a day and age of very high tech equipment.
After the movie, we were talking about fiction and my son's big point lately is 'showing not telling' - we also talked about basic stuff with character development.
As great as the movie is - there were small character details that irritated.
For example, parts of the way they depicted Belle were off - especially the fact that they gave us this French girl with an obvious ENGLISH accent. A French girl from a poor provincial town.... does not have the same British accent that Mrs. Potts should have. It was a big distraction for me.
Also, my son noted how the writers completely missed the quirkiness of Belle's father. I agreed.
I will write a formal review soon, but the movie still gets an A.
Today, I opened my email and Delancey Place featured the topic of fiction and character development (here).
I love when things line up in my life like this - and so grabbing a fresh cup of java, I read the DP entry with a smile of contentment and wanted to share a snippet:
Delancey Place: WRITING GREAT FICTION -- 3/24/17
Today's selection -- from Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters by Michael Tierno. The Greek philosopher Aristotle's book Poetics has given countless writers a guidepost for creating great fiction:
"One of the many things we can thank Aristotle for is his writings on how to create characters that seem both realistic and able to captivate an audience. First, make them good enough that we can root for them. Second, make them 'appropriate,' meaning give them characteristics that make sense for the type of person they are. Third, make them human -- give them flaws or quirks that make us believe that they exist. Finally, whatever characteristics you do give them, make sure you keep them there throughout the length of the screenplay. As Aristotle says, make sure they are 'consistently inconsistent.'...
"Additionally, he gives us five principles of life that we can use to create character in our stories:
1. Nutritive Life
2. Desiring Life
3. Sensitive Life
4. Locomotion
5. Capacity for Rational Thought
1. Nutritive Life
2. Desiring Life
3. Sensitive Life
4. Locomotion
5. Capacity for Rational Thought
"Because these five principles all belong to the makeup of a real-life person's 'psychology,' they can be used to create convincing three-dimensional characters. Let's examine each one.
You can read the rest here