Screenwriting Essentials: Hero’s Journey and The Sacred Meeting

The Hero’s Journey is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon – understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters.

The Hero’s Journey:

Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.

Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.

Interpreted metaphorically, laterally and symbolically, allows an infinite number of varied stories to be created.

The Hero’s Journey is also a study of repeating patterns in successful stories and screenplays. It is compelling that screenwriters have a higher probability of producing quality work when they mirror the recurring patterns found in successful screenplays.

The Sacred Meeting

One element of the Hero’s Journey (during the stage of the Meeting with the Supernatural Aid / Mentor) is the common frequency of a Sacred Meeting between the Hero and Mentor. Further, others frequently absent themselves from this meeting:

In Wall Street (1987), Carl Fox takes Bud Fox aside when he comes to visit; his friends leave them alone.

In Star Wars (1977), R2D2 turns himself off during the initial meeting between Ben and Luke. Ben then takes Luke home, where the journey and the Empire et al are discussed.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indy and Sallah and Indy and Marcus [separate scenes] discuss the Ark alone (Marion plays with the Sallah’s children).

In Empire Strikes Back (1980), Yoda takes Luke back to his home where he debates whether to take on Luke as a trainee.

The detailed, complete deconstruction and the Complete 188 stage Hero’s Journey and FREE 17 stage sample and other story structure templates can be found at http://managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. His specialities include Knowledge Management and Creativity and Innovation Management. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached at http://managing-creativity.com/

January 9th, 2009

Bacardi Fronts Water Organization

Water is the element that brings life. The renowned spirits and liquor maker Bacardi knows this and has been on the frontline with regards to water conservation. The Bacardi Foundation has partnered with various agencies to promote efficient water use methods and advance research on water resources.This conglomerate of business and industry leaders have banded together to form the Stockholm Water Foundation, an organization that aims to expand the importance, as well as come up with the latest innovations of effective water use and treatment.Among the numerous companies that joined the Bacardi family in this common goal are DuPont, Grundfos Management, General Motors, Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, ITT Flygt, Kemira Kemwater, Kaupthing Bank Sverige, KPMG, Uponor Group and Water Environment Federation (WEF).With the Stockholm Water Foundation, Bacardi Limited was able to create the Bacardi Foundation-Stockholm Foundation Professorship at MIT. The professorship is given to a professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop teaching programs and make breakthroughs in water resources research.The Stockholm Water Foundation also recognizes the people who have toiled to provide innovative solutions to the rising problems concerning water resources. The Stockholm Water Prize is given to a person, an organization, or an institution whose findings and research have significant impacts to the water environment and to mankind as well.The Bacardi Company is a pivotal institution that continues to support the actions and efforts of the Stockholm Water Foundation. In this regard, Bacardi is a leading example of a name that prides itself in making the world a better place.Links/Sources:The Stockholm Water Foundation awarded two ecologists for their research creating sustainability by understanding how water works. The Bacardi Company, in accordance with Bacardi environmental policy is a founding member of Stockholm Water.An article discussing the new professorship in MIT which is created and funded by the Bacardi Family and Stockholm Water. The professorship was designed to teach and further improve research efforts in global water conservation.

January 9th, 2009

Every Web Based Card Player’s Fantasy: Rake Back Offers to Even the Odds

There are many players in the gaming community who are extremely dissapointed at ignoring Full Tilt Poker rakeback however right away most of them have opted in for every last leading poker site and skins. Don’t make the same mistake.

Continue Reading January 8th, 2009

Break the Grip of Procrastination

Perhaps no single human behavior is as universal as procrastination. Even the most productive among us occasionally fall prey to its grip. And there are few things that rob us of more joy, productivity, freedom and achievement than procrastination. My purpose today is not to discuss all the reasons we procrastinate, but to offer some simple but powerful techniques for breaking its hold on us. Perhaps as you read this, you’re procrastinating on writing a report, exercising, starting a project or cleaning off your desk. So, read on, and apply any or all of the steps listed below, and start making things happen.

1) Ask yourself which project, task or result will have the greatest payoff for you if you act on it now. Once you’ve decided on a focus, go to step 2.

2) Ask yourself what you could produce or complete in the next 5 minutes toward that project. Usually it’s a matter of taking one or two small steps that breaks the deadlock of procrastination.

3) Once you’ve identified those small steps, pick one and do it. Then do the next.

4) Stay focused on the results you’re aiming for. Most of us get derailed because we smother ourselves in the minute, forgetting to look up at the goal we were after in the first place. Especially if it’s a big project, keeping that vision in mind can be very motivating.

5) Keep a list of easy-to-do projects that will produce a quick, visible result. Sometimes we simply need the satisfaction of a small win to fuel us toward greater achievement.

6) Remember times when you broke through procrastination and even beat a deadline? A coaching client of mine recently completed two huge projects in a matter of days. Now when she gets mired in “I don’t know if I can do this,” thinking, I remind her of her recent accomplishment, and it sparks her motivation.

7) Stop worrying about whether you “feel” like it. As Shakespeare said, “our doubts are traitors.” Instead go back to steps 1 and 2 to decide what is most important, then act on it.

Celebrate your successes along the way. Did you complete a project this morning that you had to get done? Give yourself a small reward. The old saying “nothing succeeds like success” applies here. But usually we get so busy on the next task or project that we don’t stop to savor the satisfaction of our accomplishments.

9) Create a guideline to remind you. In the Best Year Yet program we create guidelines–standards of behavior–to guide us through the year ahead. A guideline that repeatedly shows up on my BYY plans is “Act on it now.”

10) Do something counter-intuitive. Need to break a mental block? Get up and do a few minutes of stretching or walk around the block. Trying to write and the well is dry? Get a paper and pen and simply write the first thing that pops into your head. Keep writing until words begin to flow again. Get laughing. Laughter has a way of clearing mental debris, and the endorphins released have a way of getting you in action. Sometimes the logical thing to do is the least logical. Give it a try.

As I often confess, these weekly messages are more for my benefit than anyone else’s. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m ready to tackle the rest of my to do list!!

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Quote of the Week
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“Procrastination is the fertilizer that makes difficulties grow.” ~~Unknown

Betty Mahalik has been coaching small business owners, independent professionals and leaders who want to achieve more but stress less, since 1996. Her background includes several years in the broadcasting and public relations fields prior to starting her own firm in 1987. She is an accomplished public speaker and corporate trainer specializing in communications, goal-setting and leveraging your strengths. Since 2001, she has written a weekly motivational message, free to subscribers, titled Monday Morning Coach.

January 8th, 2009

Helpful Advice concerning Telly Stands

When you are wishing to buy a spanking new telly, one of the vital choices that you have to make, especially if you have young children, is if you require to wall-mount you’re Plasma telly, house it in a cabinet or on a television stand. Buy a cheap TV Stand online at Digital Direct.

If you choose you need to put your telly on a telly stand, it is rational to buy your stand at the exact time as you lay your hands on your new telly so that you can set it up straight away it comes.

A few makes of tellies come with a stand already included, however if you have selected TV is not one of these, you will be required to make a decision whether or not you want to procure a stand expressly produced for your TV or a normal television stand that is totally planned to suit any variety of telly.

If you choose a telly stand specifically designed by your TV’s producer, you will surely need to make sure that you have the right model number of your specific television nearby when you are browsing for the stand to go with it.

Furthermore, there are also many makes of television stands to procure, therefore you will need to reach a decision whether you require a floor stand, a podium stand or a desk-top stand. You may perhaps prefer to get what’s branded as an “open cabinet”. Open cabinets are television stands which, unlike the common furniture telly cabinets, include open shelves with the intention that you can store your VCR tapes while at the same time still being capable to get straightforward access to the wires & the back of your television when you need to.

Picking the correct cabinet to suit your arrangement can be really difficult, definitely considering the amount of television makes in the market at this time. To assist you in making the right decision there is a huge choice of guides available online nowadays.

When you procure a TV or home cinema system, you may well also need some accessories to go with it. There is a wide choice of TV accessories on sale on the market now for example; remote controls, television stands, television cabinets, wall-mount fixings & telly cables.

January 6th, 2009

Mobile Broad-Band will soon be the Secret to the Spread of Internet

Mobile broadband is the trendiest discovery in the technological world which holds the turning point to the future of high speed broadband. Until recently, broad-band has been available via a normal phone line, fast internet cable, which links to your terminal through an ADSL modem or router. Wireless high speed connection is more and more spread, whereby the Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line connection is connected to the PC terminal thanks to a wireless network, and as a consequence internet users are throwing away cables. However mobile broad band will take internet one step further and offering another idea in the technology of internet; a broadband line almost in all the house without the use of a landline cable.

The option of going online with a working high speed internet speed anywhere is surely an interesting idea for many internet users, especially those who often connect with their laptops not from home. Business people who travel for business meetings are the obvious target for mobile broad-band who will enjoy the possibility of not having to search for a reliable WI-FI public hotspot for a quite decent connection. Mobile broadband is going to go further than that, and as soon as fees soon start to decrease and internet speeds go up soon we will experience the broadband potential users signing up for mobile high speed broadband. Get super fast mobile broadband with www.CompareBroadbandUK.com .

Mobile broad band works by attaching a small portable modem to any modern personal computer, generally referred to as a ‘dongle’, from which your personal computer is then able to go online using whichever mobile ADSL internet provider the users have purchased. Most companies are now marketing mobile ADSL lines and coverage of the networks, known as 3 G networks, which is around 90% of the United Kingdom.

Broad band speed is an important issue for any internet line and mobile high speed internet providers initially had some problems to persuade potential mobile users that their mobile high speed internet could be as good as conventional, landline-based high speed broadband. Connection speeds are better, however, with Vodafone reporting mobile broad-band lines as fast as more than 7 mb, which is as fast as most of the fastest landline broad-band. The majority of the countries, including the UK, are going to finance with money in fibre optic cable networks, in order speed up broad band line to up to 100mb.

In New Zealand, however, an important telecommunications provider has said that mobile broadband networks will soon develop fast over the coming years and they have forecasted that mobile high speed internet could be delivering connections of up to 100mb by end of 2011, which coincides with when the UK’s fibre optic network is due to be delivered. This could create a step in industry thinking, with the development of a reliable super fast mobile broad band connection network with obvious advantages over the installation of lots of Kms of fibre optic cables, without mentioning the practical point of view.

January 5th, 2009

Casino Card-Playing: a Beginners Guide to Wagering

Poker is undeniably an immensely trendy casino pastime. The bettors, holding partially concealed cards, bet into a principal pot which is ultimately bestowed onto the winning gamer retaining the best hand. (And yes, the coolest bluffing hand can win)

Continue Reading January 5th, 2009

Microsoft And Peru

Wired magazine recently reported (on July 27, 2002), “Afraid that Peru may adopt a bill decreeing the use of open-source software in all government systems, Microsoft apparently enlisted the American ambassador in Lima to help try to convince the Peruvians to kill the legislation.”

Many people have stated they feel it was wrong (even evil) for a US ambassador to “lobby for Microsoft”. Playing the devil’s advocate for a moment, let me ask the following question: if an American citizen was having trouble in a foreign country would it be okay for an ambassador to help him or her out? What if an American company needed help in a foreign country? Is it okay then? Why would Microsoft be excluded? What is the purpose of an ambassador? My understanding is these people exist to further the goals and objectives of their country: including the government, individuals and companies.

What is the job of the US government? To support it’s citizens (a government has no other valid purpose). You could argue that supporting corporations directly or indirectly supports citizens.

Ambassadors do not exist to stop wars or make war talk. They exist to further the goals of a government, and a government exists to further the goals of the majority of it’s citizens. If I owned a company I would totally expect any US government organization to cooperate fully with my business, especially if by cooperating the goals of my country were also furthered.

This bill seems to say that the government wants to use open source for it’s systems. This is perfectly fine as a government should use whatever software it feels is the best fit for it’s goals.

Open source is not a product, it describes an idealized way to develop and maintain a product. Most so called open source is worthless junk that most people would not dare put on their computers. By far the great majority of this kind of code is never finished, poorly documented, virtually unmaintained and so full of bugs and security holes that it’s laughable.

That being said, the same is true, of course, of all other forms of software.

Now there are some great open-source products, and when people speak of open source they usually mean something like Apache, Linux, Unix, OpenOffice and the hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of tools and utilities available. These are the products that have given open source a good name.

However, I have never heard of open source accounting packages, SCADA systems (systems that control water, power and oil systems), factory control systems, military systems and so on. These things are either developed in house or purchased from a company.

Peru may be making an error because they are thinking “open-source means good programs not created by Microsoft”. It will be interesting to see what happens when they attempt to find an open source SCADA system to control a hydro-electric dam or an open source payroll system.

Personally, I don’t care whether or not something is open source, closed source, proprietary, GNU or anything else. The software must meet the needs of the project or it’s useless. The Software must be maintainable and have a reasonable promise of future maintenance. It must perform all required functions and as many optional functions as needed. The product must have a good ROI (return on investment) as well.

I’ve been managing large projects for 25 years, and return on investment is usually the part that is missed by most technical people. We look at the cost of a product and think, “wow, this is free and this is $425, I’ll get the free one”.

That equation, unfortunately, does not work. The cost of a product must be measured over it’s entire lifetime and includes many variables. These include training (teaching people how to use it and keep it going as well as changing it), maintenance, security, hardware, “fit” to the requirements, and dozens (if not hundreds) of other things. I’ve found that once ALL of the variables are factored in, Microsoft does not come out as bad as most people would like to think.

Microsoft is being a little heavy handed here, and I’m somewhat surprised that the US Government is playing along. I don’t see any vital US interests threatened.

However, one must remember that there were no vital US interests threatened in Guatemala in the 1950s. There were just the Dole banana farms, which were in danger of being taken over by the democratic government. So good old president Eisenhower ordered the CIA to overthrow that government and replaced it with a much less democratic version, which, of course, was “smart enough” to leave the Dole banana farms alone. Don’t believe me, read your history books. (This is one of the more despicable chapters in American history – aiding in the overthrow of a legitimate government so that some banana company would not be inconvenienced.)

Point being the government may not in actually have a vital interest at stake, but the officials may, or large corporations which have contributed lots of money may as well. This might make the government do things which, on the face of it, make no sense (and on deeper analysis still don’t make any sense).

So am I opposed to Microsoft’s attempt to stop Peru? Of course as it is meddling in the affairs of another country. Do I understand why it’s doing this? Of course. And do I understand why the US government is playing along? Sure, it’s pretty obvious.

January 5th, 2009

DVD R

DVD stands for Digital Versatile/Video Disc. It is an optical storage technology that can be used to store large amounts of data, high quality video, audio or games. The DVD format has only been around for a decade and has evolved incredibly fast since its launch. In fact, the development of DVD technology has far outpaced similar movement in VHS or CD technology.

Users familiar with CDs and their various applications should have a pretty good idea of what a DVD looks like and the various functions that a user can achieve with it.

There are three main application formats on a DVD – DVD Video, DVD Audio and DVD-ROM(for data). These are exactly comparable with VCDs, Audio CDs and CD-ROMs.

DVD-R stands for DVD-Recordable. Readers should note that this is a physical technology and is distinct from DVD-ROM which is an application format. To illustrate this, it is possible to store DVD-Video and data(DVD-ROM) on a single DVD-R disc.

DVD-R discs are recordable only once; they are not re-writable discs. They are generally available in a standard capacity that matches the 4.7GB capacity of store-bought, pre-recorded DVDs. It is possible to find double-sided, single-layer DVD-R that can store about 8.75GB. DVD-R. They are generally compatible with all DVD-ROMs that come with home computers and are also compatible with most stand alone DVD players.

There are many competing formats of recordable DVDs. However, many compatibility issues between formats are resolved through the introduction of combo drives. A good rule of thumb is that a DVD-R disc will be read by most DVD drives and players but will only be written by a DVD-R or DVD-RW compatible drive.

The DVD-R format is supported by the DVD Forum, an industry association of DVDs led by Toshiba.

DVD-R discs are becoming ubiquitous as manufacturers have started including DVD burners as standard on home computers now sold. They can be used for numerous purposes including backing up data to creating home movie DVDs. DVD-R compatible drives currently have the highest market reach for both PCs and Macs and are a better choice than other comparable DVD recording formats.

DVDR provides detailed information about DVD Rs, DVDRs, DVD R discs, and more. DVDR is affiliated with Mini DV Tapes.

January 4th, 2009

The Secret Benefit Of Search Engine Optimisation: Increased Usability

A higher search ranking is what many website owners dream of. What they don’t realise is that by optimising their site for the search engines, if done correctly, they can also optimise it for their site visitors.

Ultimately this means more people finding your website and increased sales and lead generation. But are search engine optimisation and usability compatible? Aren’t there trade-offs that need to be made between giving search engines what they want and giving people what they want? Read on and find out (although I’m sure you can guess the answer!)…

1. Keyword research carried out

Before you even begin building your website, you should carry out keyword research to identify which keyword phrases your site should target. Using publicly available tools such as Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com), you can discover which keywords are searched for the most frequently and then specifically target those phrases.

Doing keyword research is also crucial for your site’s usability. By using the same keywords in your website that web users are searching for in search engines, you’ll literally be speaking the same language as your site visitors.

For example, you might decide to target the phrase, “sell toys”, as your website does in fact sell toys. Keyword research would undoubtedly show you that web users are actually searching for, “buy toys” (think about it – have you ever searched using the word, “sell”, when you want to buy something?). By placing the phrase, “buy toys” on to the pages on your website, you’ll be using the same words as your site visitors and they’ll be able to find what they’re looking for more easily.

2. 200 word minimum per page

Quite simply, search engines love content – the more content there is on a page the easier it is for search engines to work out what the page is actually about. Search engines may struggle to work out the point of a web page with less than 200 words, ultimately penalising that page in the search rankings.

In terms of usability, it’s also good to avoid pages with very little content. A page with less than 200 words is unlikely to contain a large amount of information, so site visitors will undoubtedly need to click elsewhere to find more detailed information. Don’t be afraid to put a reasonably large amount of information on to a page. Web users generally don’t mind scrolling down anymore, and provided the page provides mechanisms to aid scanning (such as employing sub-headings – see point 6 below) it shouldn’t be too difficult for site visitors to locate the information that they’re after.

3. 100kb maximum HMTL size

If 200 words is the minimum page content size, then 100kb is the maximum, at least in terms of HMTL file size. Anything more than this and search engines may give up on the page as it’s simply too big for them.

A 100kb HMTL file will take 20 seconds to download on a 56k dial up modem, used by three in four UK web users as of March 2004 (source: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/intc0504.pdf). Add on the time it takes for all the other parts of the page to download, such as images and JavaScript files, and you’re looking at a highly un-user-friendly download time!

4. CSS used for layout

The website of Juicy Studios (http://www.juicystudio.com) saw a six-fold increase in site visitors after switching from a table-based layout to a CSS layout. Search prefer CSS-based sites and are likely to score them higher in the search rankings because:

- The code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines

- Important content can be placed at the top of the HTML document

- There is a greater density of content compared to coding

Using CSS for layout is also highly advantageous for usability, as it leads to significantly faster download times.

5. Meaningful page title

If you know anything about search engine optimisation you’ll know that search engines place more importance on the page title than any other attribute on the page. If the title adequately describes the content of that page then search engines will be able to more accurately guess what that page is about.

A meaningful page title also helps site visitors work out where they are, both within the site and the web as a whole. The page title is the first thing that loads up, often quite a few seconds before the content, so a descriptive, keyword-rich page title can be a real aid to help users orientate themselves.

6. Headings and sub-headings used

Search engines assume that the text contained in heading tags is more important than the rest of the document text, as headings (in theory at least) summarise the content immediately below them.

Headings are also incredibly useful for your human site visitors, as they greatly aid scanning. Generally speaking, we don’t read on the web, we scan, looking for the information that we’re after. By breaking up page sections with sub-headings that effectively describe the content beneath them, scanning becomes significantly easier.

Do be sure not to abuse heading tags though. The more text you have contained in heading tags within the page, the less importance search engines assign to them.

7. Opening paragraph describes page content

We’ve already established that search engines love content, but they especially love the first 25 words or so on each page. By providing an opening paragraph that adequately describes the content of the rest of the page (or the site if it’s the homepage), you should be able to include your important keyword phrases in this crucial area.

As web users, whenever we arrive at a web page the first thing we need to know is whether this page has the information that we’re after. A great way to find this out is to scan through the first paragraph, which, if it sufficiently describes the page content, should help us out.

8. Descriptive link text

Search engines place a lot of importance on link text. They assume that link text will be descriptive of its destination and as such examine link text for all links pointing to any page. If all the links pointing to a page about widgets say ‘click here’, search engines can’t gain any information about that page without visiting it. If on the other hand, all the links say, ‘widgets’ then search engines can easily guess what that page is about.

One of the best examples of this in action is for the search term, ‘miserable failure’. So many people have linked to George Bush’s bio using this phrase as the link text, that now when miserable failure is searched for in Google, George Bush’s bio appears top of the search rankings!

As web users, we don’t generally read web pages word-for-word – we scan them looking for the information that we’re after. When you scan through text you can’t take any meaning from the word ‘click here’. Link text that effectively describes its destination is far easier to scan and you can understand the destination of the link without having to read its surrounding words.

9. Frames avoided

Frames are quite an old-school technique, and although aren’t as commonplace as they once were, do still rear up their ugly head from time to time. Using frames is one of the worst possible things you could do for your search engine ranking, as most search engines can’t follow links between frames.

Even if a search engine does index your pages and web users find you through a search engine, they’ll be taken to one of the pages within the frame. This page will probably be a content page with no navigation (navigation is normally contained in a separate frame) and therefore no way to navigate to any other page on the site!

Frames are also disadvantageous for usability as they can cause problems with the back button, printing, history and bookmarking. Put simply, say no to frames!

10. Quality content provided

This may seem like a strange characteristic of a search engine optimised website, but it’s actually crucial. Search engines, in addition to looking at page content, look at the number of links pointing in to web pages. The more inbound links a website has, all other things being equal, the higher in the search rankings it will appear.

By providing creative, unique and regularly updated content on your website, webmasters will want to link to you as doing so will add value to their site visitors. You will also be adding value to your site visitors.

Conclusion

Optimising your website for both search engines and people needn’t be a trade-off. With this much overlap between the two areas, you should easily be able to have a website that web users can find in the search engines, and when they do find it, they can find what they’re looking for quickly and efficiently.

This article was written by Trenton Moss. He’s crazy about web usability and accessibility – so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible – http://www.webcredible.co.uk ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.

January 3rd, 2009