Elliot Stein Lit. And Media Studies Blog

Throughout the week, I've read both My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris, and Ghost World by Daniel Clowes. Both are graphic novels about characters lives, and are based on an abstract take on reality. Though Ghost world is more of a narrative novel, and Monsters is a graphic novel like a comic book, both tell stories of human emotion. In Ghost World the story follows two teenage girls Enid, and Rebecca as they graduated high school, and wonder what they will do for the rest of their lives. While pondering their futures, they also take the time to wander their town criticizing pop culture, and the people they meet. While their friendship is big, their bond is testes throughout the novel when Enid plans to move out of town to go to college. My Favorite Thing is Monsters focuses on a young girl named Karen Reyes as she discovers to her dismay that her neighbor was murdered. Conflicted, and curious Karen, and her mother try to cope with their friends, neighbors, and other ch...

Having a voice through filmmaking can be a hard thing to use, especially when you want to tell your stories to a large audience. Wether based on ideals, beliefs, ethnicities, ideologies, or personal senses of thought, telling a story about a topic through a specific tone. Throughout the past week I've watched three movies by filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, an American filmmaker best known for abstract takes on life, and how we feel between them. The movies I've watched (in no order specific to the release dates of the movies) were There Will be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), and Boogie Nights (1997). Each of the three movies follows different protagonists, but each also follow similar themes of human emotions, ideals, and all have incredible acting in each of them. In chronological order, each of the movies follow under a timeline I've theorized as "The P-TA Timeline." From the dates, and periods in which these movies play out, it begins with "There Will ...

While reading the screenplay to Boogie Nights (1997) by Paul Thomas Anderson, and I have decided to write a script based on the screenwriters perspective. While writing a script for a movie, I will approach the writing with reasonable, and suitable circumstances for everyone including the director to understand. When writing a story for a movie, especially a coming of age film like Boogie Nights, I want to make it so that the script can relate to not just the viewers, but the characters playing the roles of the teenagers. The film itself focuses on living life during the 70's, and the rise of the porn industry. It follows Eddie as he becomes a porn star, and rises to the top gaining power, and respect in the industry when his family wouldn't respect him. For me when I write the screenplay I want to write it so that everyone on set, acting directing, filming and producing will be acceptable for everyone to work with. I want to write a screenplay that will be acceptable for e...