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The Power of the Metaphor

June 2, 2010 0 Comments

Metaphors are spiritual. They’re physical representations of our innermost workings. The story of the Prodigal son is a metaphor about a son physically leaving his father but the power behind the words is that they actually represent something so much more, a spiritual leaving and then a spiritual return.

The very best stories are metaphors. They are the best because they are accessible in layers… engaging in their physical arc, but moving the audience emotionally on a spiritual level. If it is sounds mystical and overwhelmingly deep..? It is. But so are you.

Please don’t read this…

June 1, 2010 1 Comment

People don’t like to read anymore… not on screen, not unless they are hyper-passionate about the subject they are reading. Think about this…

A computer is a screen or a viewing platform, people primarily watch and listen (as oppose to read) when they sit in front of a screen, it is now designed to be primarily an auditory and visual experience.

On screen people have been trained to read small amounts of text, text that is immediately engaging, text that evokes images and stirs their imagination. Have you ever wondered why people struggled to read your long winded travel blogs? Instead write a very short story, tell it on video or illustrate it with photos.

And yes, you can be sure that this blog will soon be on video.

Your story reads my life…

May 24, 2010 1 Comment

The creative process demands integrity if it is to resonate with its audience; what on earth do I mean by this?

In my opinion for too long now, a large portion of cinema has relied on Gimmicks, Explosions, CGI and Special Effects to impress their audience. These are very holy, creative things in themselves when they are used in the right way, when they lay themselves down in service to the story. Sometimes we get it wrong and the effects etc become greater than the story themselves; in fact the story is created to service the gimmicks. I believe this occurs when we allow our films to be solely market and business driven. The result is that although our audience is momentarily impressed they are ultimately disappointed

A long time ago, before gimmickry was possible, cinema was forced to rely on a form of storytelling that simply connected and resonated with the stories in the audience.

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Love your characters…

March 23, 2010 0 Comments

I am sitting in a cafe creating characters for a TV sitcom I have in development. It’s good to keep on creating while you are waiting for meetings on other projects etc.

I have a ten page list of questions (see below) that I ask the characters before the writing process even begins. Before you know can possibly know what someone will say (dialogue) or what they will do (action) you have to get to know them. Besides they are my characters and if I LOVE them I will want to know everything about them.

People are stories and a “play” is simply an intersection of many stories. Every person is vitally important because they’re tell their own story and they are worthy of love.

P:S: Click the head to download FREE Character Question List

A list of questions to find your characters.

The Secret to Dancing

March 16, 2010 9 Comments

A very famous modern dance teacher was once asked the secret behind her dancing. She replied, “the secret to dancing is that it’s about everything except dancing.”

Do I need to explain? The moment you concentrate on “technique” you lose sight of the very reason you loved dancing in the first place. Dancing is about emotion, passion, expression… LIFE.

The secret to film-making is that is about everything except film-making. The secret to writing is that it is about everything except writing. The secret to business is that it is about everything except business.

2010 Copyright Seven Sentences – Writing & Dancing Secrets

This is a terrible story…

December 18, 2009 7 Comments

I believe that all stories are essentially good but not all stories are well told… Do you agree?

There is very little value in an idea for a film… 99.9% of the value is in the telling.

This means that you don’t need to protect your idea. Instead you need to work really hard at becoming excellent at storytelling.

Can you think of a bad idea for a film or television show? I bet you can’t.

Mining for Gold

November 23, 2009 0 Comments

To mine for gold you have to dig through a lot of dirt, to find a good story you have write a lot of rubbish. It is true that on occasions you can get lucky and find a lump of gold just sitting on the dirt track you are walking down. Sometimes when you are writing (or creating anything) you can stumble across a gold mine… a story that is just pure genius. But most of the time you have to write a lot of very average words before you find the pure gold.

I am reminded of this as I write a rugby film that is set in the Cook Islands. Woody Allen once said… 80% of success in simply turning up. For a writer “turning up” means sitting down at the keyboard.