For the month of March, All the Blog's a Page (AtBaP) is going to the big screen...and center stage as we talk to screenwriters and playwrights!I'm excited to have writer of all trades Kristin Johnson @ AtBaP! This week, she writes about writing across the media and her project, Dotcomers! If you are a writer interested in screenwriting...or in any creative writing, you owe it to yourself to read the entire feature @ AtBaP
About DotcomersTeenage waitress Honey Dee battles the greedy, slick, corrupt businessman Dubious Diction, who owns her hometown of Greedville. She creates Dotcomers Café, the main setting for the series, and inspires the cast of quirky eccentric characters to resist Dubious.
"Dotcomers" is a creative blend of today's edgy, satirical cartoons and yesterday's zany, classic toons; that means its appeal is...we can almost hear Yogi Bear saying this...broader than the average cartoon!
Dotcomers explores the culture of social-networking entrepreneurs who don't wait around for a bailout to solve their problems. They fight the old corrupt system, represented by greedy Dubious Diction, which is open to excess. Although they are quirky and they clash on more than one occasion, Dotcomers represent the best of the Internet culture, and Honey Dee, founder of the Dotcomers Cafe, is a female role model who uses her mind and common sense to make a difference in the world.
For the month of March, I asked my featured panelists SEVERAL QUESTIONS. When answering the question,
What similarities, things no matter the medium, are important for a good story to be told, Johnson stated,
"The commandment of "Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy Audience" is still valid no matter what the medium. I don't mean that you have to have nonstop violence or sex, since many people, myself included, find *those* boring.
You have to care about the characters. "WALL-E" connected with audiences because, even though many people (including my movie buff friends) found the notion of a fat, childlike future population and a destroyed Earth depressing, you still cared about that cute robot. "Slumdog Millionaire" had depressing elements such as cutting out street kids' eyes to make them more sympathetic and earn more begging money for the gang lords, but in an economy that gives us nothing but bad news, we love the idea that people can improve their circumstances. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" suspends disbelief and gives us a great love story.
Similarly, Richard LaGravenese made people care as much about the romance in the movie "The Bridges of Madison County" as people did in the book. The images were visual poetry."Gone With The Wind" was so powerful as a book that people forgot the changes of their world and experienced the changes of the Old South, and they immediately cast Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. The movie did justice to the book because it captured the essence of Scarlett and Rhett and Tara without getting bogged down in details. How many people find it impossible to forget the image of Scarlett in shadow?
And two words: Harry Potter. Take an orphaned kid who turns out to be a wizard, and finds just as much trouble in his new life as in the old, but with more joy and a sense of purpose, give him a monumental challenge and a fascinating world to play in, and the result is gold.
You have to touch your audience. Make them laugh, make them think, shift them from their reality."
To read the rest of Kristin Johnson's wonderful comments about writing across the media, head to All the Blog's a Page!
And while there, check out John W. Bosley, writer/producer/director of AMNESIA, as he talks about screenwriting!
ALL THE BLOG'S A PAGE (AtBaP) - Where everything relates to writing[http://alltheblogsapage.blogspot.com]
