Three Project Ideas

February 9, 2010

Make a list of three utterly different subjects, ideas or projects you'd like to devote a whole semester to. Don't think in terms of what you must do or what you're supposed to do--think about what you want to do. The best editor I ever had was Judith Moore, at the San Diego Reader, who never assigned stories. Instead, she'd ask, "What do you want to spend three months learning about?"

1.

The first and most important thing I would like to devote an entire semester too would be my screenplay. Although I do have one I’m working on in my screenwriting class and I do think it could be a successful script, I had another idea recently that I felt pretty passionate about writing so I’d like to have the chance to work on that. I don’t want to do two screenplays at the same time, BUT I do want to make sure I put enough polish into each to be considered legitimate work.
2.

The second project I’d like to do is make my own movie scene. I don’t want to direct an entire movie right now but I have a few scenes that have nothing to do with my script, which I have written and but have yet to put into action. I could either adapt these situations to the script I’m writing now, or just put them aside for another day. I will be putting these scenes to use at some point in a DFM class when I have to make my own short film.
3.

One subject I’d like to write about, and have since thought of a screenplay for, is the legal hunting of wolves in Alaska. Not many people are aware of the situation, but the State of Alaska allows citizens to hunt wolves by firing on them from an airplane with a 12-gauge shotgun. These wolves are never killed on the first shot, but rather wounded (usually in the back legs since they are running away) and chased down until they run out of energy. In some cases the hunters will land, finish the job, and receive the $150 perk offered by the state for the front left leg of the wolf; while in other cases the wolf may run into the underbrush and not be found again, thus leaving it injured, shot, and likely very near to death. Am I going to give up school and save the wolves in Alaska? No, but at least I can bring some attention to a serious issue.

Beginning Ascent

So I've started three blogs this semester. The first is on my Jeep, the second on Film screenings required for my DFM major, and the third is this one, for the Writing Portfolio class.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll be posting to this site aside from the assignments given to us and other topics related to professional writing. However, if this blog is intended to be an online journal of sorts then by the end of the semester I'm sure I'll have a few posts that will have you readers arguing. Maybe my next post will be about the 3 ways to spot a Masshole from the distance? Or why Honda is better than Toyota.

More or less this is meant to be an introductory post to this new blog, so bookmark it and come back when I have some cool posts up.