Deluxis Entertainment: The Blog

Handling Rejection.

I think this is going to be the shortest in this series, because all I want to do is provide an introduction to someone else’s post.

Rejection is something that everyone faces in their life. People in creative fields must face it more often. People in highly coveted creative fields, even more so.

The best advice in the world is that you must face rejection with grace and dignity. In a rare glimpse into what it is like to fail on a large and public scale, one of the credited screenwriters of Conan the Barbarian recently wrote an eloquent personal description of what massive rejection feels like:

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Films and shows, as outrageous as they can be, still operate under believable human motivations. If a character’s reasons for acting don’t translate understandably to the viewer, the story could be disregarded as unbelievable, even if it’s set in a galaxy far, far away. 

But what can a screenwriter do to compel the audience that a character’s motivations are strong enough to motivate momentous action? What could make our hero leap off cliffs, face dragons and take down space tyrants?

In Robert McKee’s Story, the established screenwriter describes this subject as “the principle of antagonism”:

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Writing Movies For Fun and Profit from Thomas Lennon

We’ve listed five of our favorite screenwriting sites below. We focused on quality content and informative advice. Did we miss your favorite screenwriting sites or blogs? Please let us know in the comments below! Also, the video up top is pretty funny.

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“Stories are powerful. Great stories can last forever. But stories are also elusive, capricious and need to be handled with care.”

Communications expert Greg Power delivers an inspiring TEDx Vancouver talk on the power of storytelling in not only politics and business, but also in our everyday human lives. He provides great examples of the stories that surround us and dives into what he calls his three attributes that make up great storytelling.

In quick summation, a great story is…

1.) Irresistible - Drama and conflict draw us deeper into the story.

2.) Believable - Cultural relevance and empathy. You can’t change minds until you see how the audience sees the world.

3.) Unforgettable - Feelings, thoughts and desires of the unconscious mind drive decisions. Emotions lead to action more than reason. Stories drive behavior.

At Deluxis Entertainment, we are devoted to the art of storytelling. Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. When we launch, you’ll be the first to know.

No one knows more about the art of storytelling than those writing and producing stories for a living. The first in a continuing series, we’ll be picking the minds of talented storymakers around the world to collect some of the best practices and tips associated with creation. If you’d like to be featured in a future post, please send a hello email to keane(at)deluxis.com. And be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more exciting Deluxis news.

Who is Brett Snelgrove?

I’m an Australian living and working in London. I come from a background in factual and comedy television production. I’m now focusing on writing, making contacts and development projects here in London. I’ve written for as long as I can remember and have spent a lot of time developing my craft, which translated means getting all those crap and cliche scripts out of my system. To date I have written sketches for a topical TV comedy programme, written and produced several short films, taught scriptwriting to both adults and young people, worked as a freelance script reader and have been awarded development funding for a multi-platform drama. In 2005 I wrote and produced Domestic, a self-funded HD short film which screened at 20+ festivals and won the 2006 St. Kilda Film Festival’s Editing and Craft awards, plus numerous accolades for best film, best actor and audience choice. Domestic is licensed to Atom Films and has screened theatrically and on television networks in Australia and overseas. 

When you conceive an idea, what is your process/methodology for converting it into a script?

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For millions of viewers, Oprah Winfrey has been like a friend who has come into their homes five days a week to share their lives. -CNN

And like that… *poof*… she’s gone. The media juggernaut known as Oprah Winfrey hosted her final show yesterday to a teary-eyed country of viewers. One wonders how this collective moment of sympathetic emotion might disrupt the universal stream of consciousness, the same way I used to wonder as a child what it would sound like if all the dogs in my hometown started barking at the same time (you could link them up doghouse-by-doghouse to create a domino effect). But let us digress and examine the qualities of long-running shows and how they affect us emotionally. 

“We all, in our own way, have been inspired by Oprah,” said Shameeka Ayers, who planned a Southern hospitality viewing party at the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, in honor of the final show. “To me she epitomizes the notion that if you can dream it, you can be it. I know that sounds trite, but if you look at her life, you see how true it is.”

Spanning 25 seasons, The Oprah Winfrey Show is both the longest-running and highest-rated talk show program in history. But what makes a show resonate so deeply within the minds of a viewer? Longevity is certainly a key factor. Longtime viewers of a show can reminisce on past moments as if the memories of being on set were their own. We grow with the shows that we love (and even some of the ones we just mildly enjoy). To quote one of the six friends in the hit show Friends (I don’t remember who said it — probably Rachel), “It’s the end of an era!”

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The end is nigh. In preparation for impending doom tomorrow on the dreaded May 21, 2011 apocalypse, we take a look at end-of-the-world stories and why they’re just so compelling to our collective imaginations. 

A Precautionary Tale

True to all good science-fiction, apocalyptic stories offer a warning of the possible outcomes of the various paths humanity might take. While the advent of Skynet seems more and more like a possibility these days, the idea that Manhattan might turn into a large maximum security prison in 1997 is now unlikely. Regardless, it’s the “what if…” effect that makes an end-of-days story so interesting.

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We take a look at the most significant ratings earners of the May 2 week according to Nielsen analytics to discover what people are watching on television. The week was dominated heavily by the NBA Playoffs (for the most part shown on TNT) and Fox’s American Idol. Notable entries include History Channel’s Pawn Stars, a reality show following a 24-hour pawn shop in Las Vegas, and WWE Raw, which, for the purposes of simplification, I categorized as “Sports” in the breakdown graphically shown below.

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The state of television has changed much in the past few decades. Today, we explore these changes in clever visualization format, because, as devout television fans, we’d much prefer to have it cleverly summed up in easily digestible segments. And, in case you’re wondering about the title count, I consider the first three as one big infographic on the state of television.

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Deluxis Entertainment is a company of storytellers and storytelling. Not only do we aim to produce the finest shows, but we appreciate everyday the great stories created by others. A well-crafted script turns a good plot into a piece of art. Whether it’s in scripting clever dialogue or editing beats to a fine production, a good writer delivers thoughtfully paced entertainment.

Who are the greatest television writers today?

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