Friday 2 July 2010

Create your own movie posters

When I was at a meeting with writer/actress buddy Sue Clarke, I noticed a few things on her wall - pictures, or rather posters of what she's writing. I decided to follow suit, loading up word, grabbing tonnes of pics off google and printing out some posters.

Why? Principally for two reasons:

One - with those posters stuck up on my wall, every single time I walk through my room (which is a lot), I can't help thinking out the story. This way, I am having at least one mini brainstorming session every day. I've had the posters up for a couple of months now and already lost count of the number of times I've walked past, stopped, walked back, and scribbled down a new idea for the project.

Two - it gives me something visual. There's always debate about whether you should visualise a particular actor in the character you're writing. On the plus side, you're more likely to actually write a good character. On the negative, if you aim to write a Robin Williams persona and the reader doesn't see it, you're screwed!

Personally, I create a character and then (occasionally) think about which actor would be good in that role. Right now I have one poster with pictures of Kenneth Branagh and Yvonne Strahovski on it - an unlikely but awesome pairing? I like to think so. *

So anyway, for me, this works great. Yes, it might come off as cocky or arrogant, but who cares?! Just don't put the words "Winner of 11 Academy Awards" on it and you should be ok. Aim for at least 12!

Happy writing!!!

Currently digging:



* Six degrees of seperation:

Kenneth Branagh > Derek Jacobi (Henry V) > Russell Crowe (Gladiator) > Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind) > Tom Hanks (The Da Vinci Code) > Nathan Fillion (Saving Private Ryan) > Adam Baldwin (Firefly/Serenity) > Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck)

Ok, so not exactly six degrees, but it works. Note: this took me ages to work out. Thank Odin for that Nathan Fillion > Tom Hanks connection!

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