David Newton: Machinima and Screenplay Reflections

Watching machinima vids without sound helped me appreciate the detailed work involved in conveying ideas and expressing emotions of characters. As a movie fanatic, I often try to notice the camera work, special effects, sound etc. but never bothered to try to understand the complexity of animation. I had severely taken for granted the importance of “camera” work in animated film. The idea of various close-ups to help capture emotion was something I had never thought about actively before, although I had certainly experienced such strategies in films I had seen before. Last year’s CTW class seemed to come up way short with character expressiveness in my opinion. The Robot Girl series does a good job with camera work and character emotions, and I’ll be back to the vids for reference when I’m creating my own machinima.

I looked up the screenplay to The Godfather (part one), one of my personal favorite movies, and an extremely important movie to my family. I have seen the movie about a dozen times and have read the book, which closely resembles the book in dialogue and action. Being so familiar with the movie, the screenplay seemed familiar to me even though I had never read it. As I read the opening scenes, I paid closest attention to the action rather than the dialogue. Each screen direction and description of camera angle/focus caused me to remember the film with extreme detail. Unlike the novel by Mario Puzzo, the screenplay created vivid images of screenshots in my head; and I had read the book after seeing the movie about five times. One of my favorite aspects of the film is the subdued but highly effective camera work. The simple design of the screenplay allows for a smooth blend of camera work and allows for the audience focus to shift to things like character dialogue. I may also revisit this screenplay for inspiration when I write my own.

I want my own screenplay to cause a focus on dialogue and character emotion. I think the best movie soundtracks are those that seem to blend into the movie rather than stick out. Similarly, I hope my camera directions will be subtle enough so that no focus is detracted from the content of the storyline.

David Newton