For tomorrow:
Think about the language of this world. How do the characters talk? Think about the various forms of writing, speaking, dialoging in a digital/media age: blogs, Wikipedia pages, chatrooms, IMing, e-mails, etc. Then, think about if those conversations were actually in the flesh--one character speaking a monologue, or a dialogue. Write one of those conversations.
THEN, either post it here (preferred), or bring it in to workshop (also fine but please make sure you do it.)
Thanks,
AKBW
hm. I get stalled on a thought- should these characters have a heightened language or should they talk like normal? In the same way we're leaning towards not having a computer onstage, I think maybe we should consider not smacking the audience with the lingo. cyberspeak. I like keeping to the core of these rooms: they are ways we are trying to connect to each other.
ReplyDeleteThe process of improv we did the other night in the 'lounge' area would be nice to do again. Throwing ideas at each other seemed to work really well.
I think characters in our world communicate in several different ways:
ReplyDelete#1. Natural language, excessively polite, like two un-natural people on opposite sides of a commercial transaction. This method is not foolproof:
Example:
THE DUTCH BANK COMPUTER: Good morning. Would you like to sign in to your account, post a new thread, create a new account, or dissemble your body into its constituent elements and scatter them throughout the cosmos?
THE SPRINT VOICEMAIL CONCIERGE: To initiate a conversation, press 1. Para español, presione dos.
THE DUTCH BANK COMPUTER: I humbly beg your pardon. I was momentarily distracted, performing over 1.2 trillion calculations per second, and I somehow failed to internalize your thoughts, so eloquently expressed. Please be so kind as to repeat them one more time?
THE SPRINT VOICEMAIL CONCIERGE: "I humbly beg your pardon. I was momentarily distracted, performing over 1.2 trillion calculations per second, and I somehow failed to internalize your thoughts, so eloquently expressed. Please be so kind as to repeat them one more time?" IS NOT A VALID ENTRY. Please hang up and try your call again.
THE DUTCH BANK COMPUTER: WAIT! I just retrieved your request, translated it into Pashto, then ancient Bulgarian, and then back into International Capitalist English. You're having trouble with your commerce-related subroutine, right?
THE SPRINT VOICEMAIL CONCIERGE (pauses, then replies sadly): How did you know?
THE DUTCH BANK COMPUTER (very slowly): Good morning. Would you like to sign in to your account, post a new thread, create a new account, or dissemble your body into its constituent elements and scatter them throughout the cosmos?
THE SPRINT VOICEMAIL CONCIERGE: Please hang up and try my call again.
-end-
#2. Enraptured, self-absorbed monologues, even when other characters are present, ostensibly engaged in conversation with each other. Interruptitis Digitus.
#3. Onomatopoeia: "click, whirrrr, (power-up and -down noises)
#4. One-note songs, like the character noises we created in CA Show Workshop #1.
RE: Dana's comment. I agree--I think we don't want it to necessarily be parody of cyberspeak. Instead, I think we should find a way to mimic the rhythms of cyberspeak, blogspeak, the stiltedness of the former, or the steam-of-consciousness of the latter. A way to comment on it without making it parody.
ReplyDeleteI think in general that we Lions do better with heightened/skewed versions of reality than straight up parody.
I think Ben's dialogue is a good example.
I think it should not just be a skewed version of cyberspeak, but also I think using recorded voice prompts from virtual operators (like in Ben's dialogue), using marketing lingo (multi-platform design), pronouncing internet abbreviations like words (LMAO--lmay-o; OMG--ohmiguh; PWND--pwind; FTW--ftwuh) are other ways to mimic/skew digital/cyber/marketing language without parodying it.
Also, yay Ben that is funny.
ReplyDeleteTHE WEB CELEB:
ReplyDeleteBecause we here in a world of always-on, hyper-commercialism, never-admit-a-mistake, EVERYTHING IS GREAT ALL THE TIME, people have come to expect blind optimism.
I can't do that. I am just not the type of person who pretends everything is great when it's not. It's dishonest, and at the end of the day, I have to look myself in the mirror, and if I am feeling something, I am going to just be honest about it. That sort of rawness can be both good and bad.
But I think some of you misinterpreted my post yesterday. What I was trying to say was that I had been so emerged in this recent campaign that I had trouble looking at myself objectively, and as a result, I wasn't sure if was I was what I thought I was. Some people interpreted this to mean I thought that I sucked. That just couldn't be further from the truth.
I have been working non-stop on these projects for going on five or six years. Ever since I got here, my entire existence has been a non-stop sprint towards realizing my goals. I have been constantly writing, fighting, struggling, marketing, maneuvering, strategizing--it has been a rare hour in my life where I am not pondering or executing some aspect of my larger plan.
I am the type of person who demands to be known. I know I was placed on the earth because I experience things in an extraordinary way, not because I experience extraordinary things. I experience the kind of things everyone else experiences, but I then come here and tell you about them. You see yourself in me, or you see me in the experiences and the way I describe them is so unique, and you think to yourself, you know. Damn. She really brings it.
Ultimately I will be judged on each level of the platform I have erected. I am the type of person who is both paint and painter, art and the artist, producer and product.
I am the type of person who creates many things, not just one, I hear things see things feel things multi-mediarily. If these short films are as great as I hope they can be, then I am set. If these tunes are as great as I hope they can be, then I am set. If people get me, the me I really am, as I have presented here, then I am set.
It's all up from here. I will be a star, I will have boundless opportunities that weren't available to me before, the world will truly be my oyster. Everything I sacrificed, all the pain and the suffering and the work, it'll all be worth it. I will have won.
If it's not though, if it falls short in some major way...I don't know what then. I really don't know. I haven't planned for failure. I haven't even planned for mild success. All my assumptions and plans start with this being a success. If it's not, I just don't know what will happen or what I'll do.
But I don't think I suck. I just have a complex product to communicate. And that's hard, y'all.
Please note: portions of the monologue written above were taken verbatim from Tucker Max's blog for his movie "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell."
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't seen the extent of web celeb douchebaggery, I highly encourage you to visit his site.