User:Chen Junyu/Reading Writing Research Methodologies/1st Assignment

<By the Sea>

A screenplay which was written by a four-member group.One of us brought up a simple idea about a story which happened between some adults and a child . This person also developed the theme, which was “these adults built good memories for the child”.Then four members discussed and defined which kinds of characters these should be (a demobbed soldier, an old dying man, a young female writer and a 5 or 6 years old girl) .After that,each member chose one character and turned to describe the feature and background of the choosen character.In the end , four members got together to read other’s character descriptions and discuss what specific conversation and plot would happen among these four characters.For me, the most important reason of writing this cooperative screenplay were its technical aspects. During this work, each member of the group is both writer and reader .At the beginning,we only had rough ideas for each character before we separated to write details of the ones we chose, so that we should enrich their characterization independently. However,when we disscussed the details of this story after reading others’ character discriptions, we found some conflicting parts between the main line and the characters’ discriptions.To modifying these inappropriate parts, we translated our angle of view from a writer to a reader .This translating of the angle of view helped us read the screenplay more objectively and write more logically.

< Untitled >

A black-and-white photo which recorded one moment in my journey.I took this photo in Baisha, a town which is located in the very south of China,during the summer of 2012.Baisha is an old, non-modern town. After half a day walking,I sat down by the side of the flagstones street to get a rest.The torrid noonday sun burned the road,I could almost see steam rising up.Then,this worn-out horse appeared in front of me, drawing a carriage which was used for sightseeing. He stopped at the closest corner, breathing heavily.At some distance,a seven or eight years old tourist who was dressed in a tight child-cheongsam was standing at the other side of this corner,with some snacks in her fattie hands. I tried to find an angle through each I could place these two characters in the different ends of the frame .“Click”.It is hard to explain the motivation of shooting a photo,because everthing is just happening in a second.But there is one thing for me is really important to judge if it is a valuable one: if it can convey any strong feeling to people. I am not a photographer, even not a good fan, but every time I saw this photo,I can remember the hot day in Baisha,and tiredness in the eyes of this horse.

<River with Stories>

An ongoing 2D animation. This animation is made up of six small parts. The mainline of this story is about a river which is suffering a flood.As the river level rising up ,water floods into people’s house which are sitting at the riverside.So a lot of unusual things rushed out from people’s house.And the six parts of this animation are about little stories of six things which are coming from different riverside families. Follow the river,six things appeared floating on the river one by one. Then each part story starts in order.This first idea of this animation came from a dream.One night when I have been away from home for years,I dreamed of the river which went through my hometown.That made me think of if I could tell a story about the hometown’s river. Because as a small developing town,it is changing everyday.Each time I went back home, there would be something new substitute for the old ones. I want to find a way to store my memerios of the past hometown . Another reason is I’m always attracted by the works of Hou Hsiao-hsien ,which is a Taiwan director focusing on filming life.As a big fan,I want to learn his image language and his way of telling story. The theme of this ongoing animation is similar with some of his works. Therefore,it is a good opporturnity for me to learn and pratice this skills.