Donald L. Vasicek

Blog

  • “Unique Promotion for Authors”

    by
    Donald L. Vasicek
    Olympus Films+, LLC
    Writing/Filmmaking/Consulting
    http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress
    dvasicek@earthlink.net

    What is passion? Merriam Webster in part defines passion as, “…the emotions as distinguished from reason…” By tapping into your passion, you will be able to write as you’ve never written before. And this, in turn, will work as a subliminal approach to promoting yourself and your writing.

    Before you write one word, look deeply inside of yourself when an idea comes to mind about which you would like to write. You must use the who, what, where, when and why journalistic approach to identify that which is deep inside of yourself and relate it to the idea that has come to mind you want to write about. By utilizing this approach, you can identify your passion and write with ruthless abandon.

    So, ask the questions.

    What caused the idea to come to mind? Perhaps you saw a child weeping. She was holding her finger. It was bleeding. You wanted to reach out to her, but you were a stranger and her parents were there. You still wanted to help her with her fear and pain. Why?

    You were inspired to write a short story about what you saw. Why? The inspiration came from deep within the wells of your heart and mind as you remembered when you got hurt when you were a kid and no one came to help you. This inspiration is your passion for helping children in need now because no one was there when you were a kid and needed help.

    Identify when it happened. What were you doing? What caused you to get hurt? Why were you alone? Where were you? Why did you get hurt?

    You get the picture.

    This unique approach should also guide you to the use of your five senses. What did you taste at the time you were hurt? What did you see? What kind of sound or sounds were present? How did you feel (emotionally)? What were you touching? How did it feel? By using the five senses, it will help place you back in time so that you are able to more realistically write the story.

    This approach results in passion and will enable you to write from your heart (emotion) and mind (reason), together. The power of combining your mind (reason) and heart(emotion) instead relying on one or the other, will bring out the essence of what you are writing about. This, in turn, will draw readers to you and your writing.

    Donald L. Vasicek
    Olympus Films+, LLC
    Writing, Filmmaking, Consulting
    http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress
    dvasicek@earthlink.net

  • “Hollywood Openings”

    by

    Donald L. Vasicek
    Olympus Films+, LLC
    Writing/Filmmaking/Consulting
    http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress
    dvasicek@earthlink.net

    In order to write, sell, and get your screenplays produced
    in Hollywood, you need to write openings that Hollywood
    utilizes to attract audiences. When you watch movies
    produced by studios and mainstream production companies
    and producers, what do you usually see in the opening?
    If you’re stumped, the first thing you usually see is
    movement.

    This could be movement across a body of water with the
    POV of the camera aimed at a skyline of a city, or someone
    walking, someone running, a moving vehicle, etc. Images of
    movement help pull the audience into the movie in order to
    get them into the movie, like they’re really in the movie, to
    make them feel like they’re part of what is going on in the
    movie.

    Openings also include a metaphor that defines what
    the main theme of the movie is going to be, introduces the
    main character, defines the character’s main problem to solve
    in the movie, of his/her goal, and the setting. And this should
    all be accomplished on page one of the screenplay.

    In my produced screenplay, “Born to Win”, the opening shows
    a butterfly fluttering away from a headstone. A boy cleans
    the headstone. He weeps. He rubs the headstone with a cloth
    beyond that of cleaning it. The movement is the butterfly
    moving away. It shows the defining theme of the movie, which
    is “letting go.” The main character, the boy, is holding onto his
    dead mother. The setting of scene, a cemetery, exacerbates the
    theme of letting go. This movement also shows the metaphor
    for the movie of letting go.

    The boy must let go before he can move on with his life
    regarding his mother’s untimely death and he does
    it by driving his mother’s race car in a race to win $25,000 for
    an operation to save his Gramps’ life. In the end, it’s either
    let go of his Gramps, or continuing his fatal flaw of holding
    onto to something that he should no longer hold onto.

    When you write screenplays that you want to sell and get
    produced, study openings of movies that Hollywood produces.
    You will see that the most successful of these movies (box
    office, DVD and rental sales, Internet streaming, etc.) contain
    elements which include movement, metaphor, defining theme,
    main character, and setting. Craft these elements into your
    screenplays, and you’re off to a great start with writing
    screenplays that you sell and get produced.

    Donald L. Vasicek
    Olympus Films+, LLC
    Writing/Filmmaking/Consulting
    http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress
    dvasicek@earthlink.net

  • Obama-Biden; McCain-Palin, The Zen of Writing and Education”

    Educational Background:
    >
    > Barack Obama:
    > Columbia University – B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
    > Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
    >
    > Joseph Biden:
    > University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
    > Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)
    >
    > vs.
    >
    > John McCain:
    > United States Naval Academy – Class rank: 894 of 899
    >
    > Sarah Palin:
    > Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester
    > North Idaho College – 2 semesters – general study University of Idaho – 2 semesters – journalism Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B.A. in Journalism
    >
    > Education isn’t everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.
    >
    >