PNA (CONTINUED)
PNA exercise You ve recently been hired by Outrageous Media Productions. The president has asked for you to meet with a new client: Abrahams Hummus who wants you to do a commercial for their line of products. To prepare for this meeting: 1. List 5 general topics that you need to address when doing your project analysis 2. For each topic, come up with as many specific questions as possible Ask one of your classmate to play the role of the client, and collect his answer into an organized project analysis document.
PNA exercise Your PNA should include the following categories: Overview Deliverable Target Audience Positioning Messages Tone Imagery Budget Schedule
DEVELOPMENT AND SCRIPTING
TREATMENT
AUDIO & VISUAL A treatment needs to describe both visual and audio content, but does not contain dialogue. It is written in first person plural, present tense.
SHOW DON T TELL Telling: The child was terrified by the monster in the closet. Showing: We see the child curled up in his bed. His eyes are wide open - he is anxiously staring at the closet. He hold his teddy bear as tight as he can while shaking.
STYLE The treatment should get your story points across in a voice that evokes the tone of the project.
Dean is a big, blond, handsome high school senior. He is the star athlete of Southfield High, plays football, hockey, wrestles and throws the shotput farther than anyone in the state of Michigan. He has been going out with Suzie for three years. She is a very pretty blonde cheerleader. Suzie's locker is next to the locker of a short, fat, ugly fellow named Carter. He likes Suzie and he always has. He thinks that she is way too nice for a creep like Dean. Dean picks on Carter whenever he sees him. Suzie loves Dean intensely. Dean, on the other hand, is bored... A month into the second semester a new girl arrives at school. She's a knock-out She has huge blue eyes and long brown hair. She always wears dark full length dresses from the 1920's with sequins and beads on them. Her name is Leigh and she doesn't talk to anyone.
Among the spray-painted school buildings a cat prowls between the dumpsters. It looks up, freezing alert, at something beyond human perception. A sourceless wind rises, and with it a keening whine. Papers blow across the pavement. The cat yowls and hides. Windows rattle. The whine intensifies and with it comes a wash of frigid purple light. A concussion like a thunderclap right overhead blows in all the windows facing the yard. The cat's eyes are wide as the glow dies. Electrical discharges arc from the dumpster to a water faucet and climb a drainpipe like a Jacob's Ladder. The sound of stray electrical crackling subsides. In the middle of the previously empty yard stands a NAKED MAN. Tall. Powerfully built. Handsome in an utterly unremarkable way, except for the eyes, which are intense blue and depthless.
STORYTELLING The treatment is written in narrative form. There should be a beginning, middle, and an end.
ARISTOTLE S DEFINITION OF TRAGEDY Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished ( ); with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.... Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality namely, Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Melody.
ARISTOTLE S UNIFIED PLOT middle beginning end
FREYTAG S PYRAMID climax inciting incident rising action falling action exposition denouement
FREYTAG S PYRAMID - ROMEO & JULIET Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo kills Tylbalt Romeo needs to marry Juliet secretly, fearing that Capulet and Montague would not be allowed to marry Romeo meets Juliet To avoid forced marriage with Paris, Juliet fakes death. Romeo thinks she is dead, when she is just asleep. Introduction to Montague + Capulet families Romeo drinks poison. Juliet wakes up, finds him dead. Kills herself.two families agree to stop hatred after tragedy.
FREYTAG S PYRAMID - SHREK Shrek finds out that Fiona is actually an ogre just as she is about to marry Farquaad. To get swamp back, makes deal to rescue princess Fiona for Lord Farquaad. Despite their differences Shrek and Fiona fall in love. However her witholding a secret creates tension. Lord Farquaad is defeated by Shrek and his companions. fairy-tale creatures are squatting his swamp. Shrek is a grumpy, smelly ogre, living peacefully in a swamp. Fiona stays ugly and marries Shrek. They live ugly ever after.
ASSIGNMENT 2 due next class Write a three-to-seven paragraph treatment for a 30-second PSA. (See class blog for full guidelines)
PSA
FREYTAG S PYRAMID - PSA climax inciting incident rising action falling action exposition denouement
ASSIGNMENT 2 due next class Write a three-to-seven paragraph treatment for a 30-second PSA. (See class blog for full guidelines) Reading: On Video Games and Storytelling: An Interview with Tom Bissell