We’ve Moved!

Hi everyone!

It’s been a good ride using WordPress, but I’ve recently decided to pay for my own URL!

This new webpage is a collection of the three blogs I have on this account, and will be a portfolio showcasing mainly design work. However, there will also be written work on the blog!

So thank you to all who have been following this blog, but it’s time for me to upgrade! I would appreciate if you all follow me over to my new website at:

www.btzhang.com

Thanks, and I hope to see you all over there!

Brian

Tiny Films

With graduation coming up, and me still not having a job, I’ve been thinking about how I can spend my summer wisely. I’ve come up with a four-day rotation that is as follows:

• Day 1: Update resumé and apply to jobs, or other career-related things
• Day 2: Write a script
• Day 3: Shoot film based off script
• Day 4: Edit film

What I want to focus on are the last two days. I realize now that two days is a very short amount of time to bring a short film from conception to creation. Instead, I have decided that, if I were to go about this plan effectively, I would be creating what I want to call “tiny films”, which as you might imagine, will be even shorter than the typical short film. I plan for these tiny films to be no more than trailer-length, capping out at a maximum of 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

There are, as with many things, pros and cons to this idea. The pro is that I would only be editing something that is 1 or 2 minutes long. The obvious con to this is that I only really have 1 to 2 minutes to tell a story. Is it possible to tell a good story with such a limit on time?

There is a story that says (paraphrased) a young Ernest Hemingway once told a story in six words: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” I don’t know if the story as a whole is true, but those six words nevertheless let a reader’s imagination run wild. While these six words in particular paint a very succinct picture, I think it’s definitely possible to do something similar with film. After all, that’s essentially what trailers are.

Anyway, so there’s that.

“Selfie Olympics” and Brainstorming

With spring break coming to a close, my friends and I managed to write a script this week, and we’re going to try to shoot it in the coming weeks. If all goes well, it will be shot tomorrow.

The premise for this idea is based off of the recently trending “selfie olympics”, where, as I’m told, people take increasingly ridiculous selfies in an effort to outdo their competitors. That’s about all I know so far, and we used that as a starting idea for the script.

Instead of posting the script here, I thought I would try this thing where I give brief snippets of what it’s about, then talk about something related to it in a more topical manner.

Story: Sam and Tom fight over getting the attention of Heather in a battle of epic selfie proportions. Things get a little out of hand.

Hopefully that doesn’t give away too much or too little, but what I really wanted to talk about was the process of brainstorming this idea.

It was definitely different coming up with this idea than it was coming up with the idea that was used for the script I wrote with Wong Fu Productions back in August and September. Back then, I had a very basic idea and kind of went with it, not really knowing where it was going to go. Although the final product was much better than what it started off as, I learned a lot about story development and character development that changed the way I approached it this time. Back then, nothing was fleshed out and I hoped that things would fall into place as time went on which, to my surprise, did.

However, I had the feeling that coming up with a “good” script was much more than flow of dialogue and background. Since most of the things I want to shoot are in the form of sketch comedy, skits, or short films, there’s only so much you can develop a character before the product becomes too convoluted with unnecessary storyline. Instead, it was important for me to see that a character can be very developed on paper without it translating to something tangential on screen. Giving characters backgrounds, even if the viewer never sees it, really fleshes out how dialogue would work more naturally into the setting.

That aside, I found that the initial brainstorming for this short was littered with random ideas. Now, understand that we started brainstorming around 1AM, so things were already a little loopy. However, I think it kind of made us OK with things we usually wouldn’t be OK with, and that allowed us to be more “crazy” with our ideas. Luckily, the final idea isn’t something that can’t be understood, but there were a few ideas along the way that were just plain outrageous.

So I guess this is all to say that I think I learned a very good lesson from the last time I wrote a script. That lesson is that there is as much storyline development behind the script as there is in the script.

Peace.

REDEFINE: Rewriting Myself

Hello, everyone. Long time no talk!

Today, I want to introduce a series of three (or maybe more) posts that will span across all three of my blogs. You can find the links to the other parts here:

• REDEFINE: Redesigning Myself
• REDEFINE: Rethinking Myself

Although all parts including this one are standalone, they are part of a bigger “series”, or idea, or whatever you want to call it; that I have dubbed “REDEFINE”. You might notice that all three titles have something in common: they are all about redefining myself in the sense that I am doing my best to not change myself, but to gain some clarity. Hopefully that clarity will come as I continue writing these three posts. So without further adieu, here is the first part: Rewriting Myself.

Since this blog in particular is a lot about written material, whether it be “nobody” or script writing, I thought it was appropriate to talk about what it would mean for me to rewrite myself. As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t so much a way for me to change anything significant about who I am, but rather a way to gain some clarity. As you may have noticed, I haven’t written or posted anything here since August/September. That was six months ago. The same six months ago that I said that I would do my best to post on a more consistent basis. Obviously, that didn’t work out too well. Why?

After some serious thinking awhile back, I came to the conclusion that I honestly don’t like finishing anything that I know the ending of, unless the ending is especially interesting. Yes, I’m one of those people that will eventually come to read the end of a book before I actually get there. To be honest, I think I like what I imagine happening in the middle too much to know what actually happens. Now, in the case of some really good movies, I will watch it even if I know what’s going to happen because it’s been long enough since its release that everyone around me has already told me what happens. For example, Disney’s Frozen. I know enough about it from other people that I probably never need to watch it. Usually, I would just Let It Go, but it piques my interest enough for me to see it anyway. But that’s beside the point. Kind of.

In any case, the way I operate is that, for the projects that I embark on, the ending must be unclear for me to remain interested and invested long enough to finish. This is why I am so much more proactive in team projects: I only know my other teammates so well, meaning anything could change at given moment because of their own respective personalities. This makes things interesting and therefore keeps me invested, so long as the project doesn’t go downhill. Similarly, when I start writing things, I love writing in stream of consciousness because a) I hate to plan or outline things in detail, and b) I never know where my mind is going to take me once I start on a topic. In the case of “nobody”, I’ve actually known how I wanted it to end a very long time ago. It occurred to me then, as it has now, that I no longer really care about what happens in between because I can let my imagination take care of the rest. Now, anybody else who is reading doesn’t know what happens in between, and doesn’t know what’s going to happen at the end. So I guess you’ve kind of lost there if it matters to you. I’m sorry…-ish.

What does it mean to rewrite myself?

First things first, it is a personal exploration to see what I can do when pursuing being more active in written word. It entails a lot of other things, but the main thing is script writing. Within the past few months, I have gathered a multitude of ideas for scripts that I hope to eventually turn into viewable media, such as short films. It has gotten me motivated enough to really go for these projects. Furthermore, I have enlisted the help of others, whether it’s asking them for script ideas, or help in writing the scripts themselves. This goes back to the team thing, where I work better when there are other people involved. As it stands, I think to rewrite myself essentially means to endeavor in this “writing” thing a bit longer.

I love stories. When I talk to people, I love to hear stories from them more than anything else. I can talk to you about sports. I can talk to you about politics. I can talk to you about religion, science, philosophy, entertainment, etc. But what I love to do most is to trade stories. Stories from your past, your present, your future, your dreams, aspirations, goals… And I will do the same for you. However it is only when the timing is right do these kinds of conversations even bother showing themselves. So for me to rewrite myself is in some ways telling more stories through the medium of prose. Whether it will be scripts, short stories, lyrics; whatever it is, I will enjoy telling you the story. I will rewrite myself into someone who tells these stories in the most fascinating ways possible. Hopefully.

How does rewriting myself help me REDEFINE myself?

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you for sure how this is going to happen. It’s more of a process than anything else, though, so I’m not worried. I hope that, as I write these stories and share them with the [online] world, that there will come a time when I can sit down, take a look at myself, and really consider what has changed about me. College is a transformative experience, but I’m not quite done transforming yet.

So that’s a brief look into what I hope becomes a lifetime of new experiences. I also hope this means I will post content on this blog on a more consistent basis than I have been with the other two. Toodles.