Donald L. Vasicek

Tag: movies

  • “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

  • A favorite Zen story

    Favorite Zen StoryA favorite Zen story in which three men are observing a flag fluttering in the breeze: One man says, The flag is moving. The second man says, The wind is moving. The third man says, You are both wrong, it is your mind that is moving.

    If you look inside of yourself, you will see the information you need to be successful. This information contains everything you need to be successful. The secret to tapping into this information is contained in Writing/Filmmaking Whispering.  How so, you ask?

    Look inside of yourself and you will see the answer. This is the secret to successful writing and/or film-making. Look inside of yourself and you will see the secret.

    Why is it that Steven Spielberg is a successful filmmaker? He has the ability to look inside of himself and see the secret.

    Why is Stephen King a successful novelist? He has the ability to look inside of himself and see the secret.

    What do you seek when you write a letter, or make a corporate video? Do you look outside or inside of your mind and heart?When you look inside of your mind and heart you enhance your ability to see the secret to being successful in your undertaking.When you look outside of your mind and heart, you have no ability to see the secret to being successful.What rings true in each one of us is our ability to think and feel.

    When we tap into those senses to write a screenplay or make a documentary film, we look inside of ourselves. We see the secret to successfully write the screenplay or making the documentary film successful.You might ask, but I do that and I see nothing.

    The reason you see nothing is because you allow yourself to avoid seeing the secret. You allow yourself to avoid seeing the secret because you do not know how to see the secret.With Writing/Filmmaking Whispering, you will see the secret. You need simply to contact me.