There are warnings on the news about a huge hurricane coming: the biggest one in years and people are being reassured that the government have been working on underground safe rooms that will accommodate everyone when the hurricane comes; these places are being highlighted on a map on the television screen. A program starts and a few minutes in an emergency warning breaks in and the same news reporter tells everyone that the time has come to evacuate their house and make their way the their nearest safe rooms which are again being shown on the television screen. The girl panics but does as she is told and shouts to her boyfriend. [The girl is around 20 years old and has long blonde hair. She is on holiday in Galveston, Texas visiting her boyfriend. He is also 20 and at Galveston University in Texas studying medicine.]
She hurriedly packs her bag and makes her way to the car. The roads are busy and the atmosphere is tense, the blocked road goes as far as the eye can see. They slowly but finally gets to their nearest safe room and again everyone is panicking and trying to push their way through the crowds to get to the front. They manage to squeeze in and the door starts to close. As the door is about half way down they realise that there are some children outside playing, everyone panics but nothing can be done. Suddenly a man runs out and tries to get them and get back through the door before it closes. He doesn’t make it and neither do the children. The screen goes black and suddenly an alarm is heard, there is an alarm clock in a bedroom, it’s from the girl’s perspective. It turns out it was all just a dream. But as the day goes on the dream starts again in exactly the same way. The girl realises that she has to try and save the children and their dad.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Hurricane Research
· In 1967, a hurricane in Texas caused more than 140 twisters.
· The worst hurricane damage is often caused by a storm surge. A storm surge is like a giant wall of water pushed onshore by hurricane winds.
· In 1989, Hurricane Hugo completely destroyed several forests in South Carolina.
· In 1971, Hurricane Ginger lasted for over three weeks.
· In 1970, a hurricane in Pakistan killed more than 300,000 people.
· Hurricanes do not occur in the South Atlantic Ocean, where the waters are too cold for them to form.
· Taping your windows in preparation for a hurricane is a waste of time and money. Tape does not strengthening the glass. Flying debris will smash a taped window as if the tape wasn't there.
· Hurricanes didn't start having boys' names until 1979.
· Hurricanes are large storms with rotating winds. They form over the warm waters of the ocean when there are large pressure and temperature differences between the warm water and the clouds. The clouds pull the moisture and the air near the surface of the water up, toward the clouds, which creates a column of fast-moving air.
· In the beginning, the ocean storm is called a “tropical disturbance”, which is like a bunch of thunderstorms with very little wind circulation. When wind speeds up to 20 to 34 miles per hour, the ocean storm becomes a tropical depression. A tropical depression can quickly become a tropical storm if the wind speeds reach 35-64 miles per hour. Once the whirling mass of air grows and continues to spin around a centre of low pressure, wind speeds increase. When wind speeds reach 74 miles per hour or greater, the storm is considered a hurricane and given an official name.
· Hurricanes may have a diameter of 400 to 500 miles (640-800 kilometres).
· The “eye” (centre) of a hurricane can be up to 20 miles (32 km) across. The weather in the “eye” is surprisingly calm with low winds and clear skies.
· The most severe loss of American lives from a hurricane took place on September 8, 1900, in Galveston, Texas, when an unnamed category 4 storm came ashore, flooding the city. Eight thousand deaths were reported, but experts estimate as many as 12,000 people may have died because many bodies could not be recovered.
My story in 7 points
1. Tragic hurricane is coming.
2. Everyone has to evacuate and get in a safe room.
3. The door starts to close but some children are playing outside.
4. Someone has to try and get them but this means risking their life.
5. The children's dad immediately runs out and tries to get them but the door closes and they are trapped outside.
6. The girl wakes up and realises it was a dream.
7. The same day starts all over again and the girl realises she has to save the children.
2. Everyone has to evacuate and get in a safe room.
3. The door starts to close but some children are playing outside.
4. Someone has to try and get them but this means risking their life.
5. The children's dad immediately runs out and tries to get them but the door closes and they are trapped outside.
6. The girl wakes up and realises it was a dream.
7. The same day starts all over again and the girl realises she has to save the children.
Dream Research
· You forget 90% of your dreams
Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream if forgotten. Within 10, 90% is gone.
· Dreams prevent psychosis
In a recent sleep study, students who were awakened at the beginning of each dream, but still allowed their 8 hours of sleep, all experienced difficulty in concentration, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis after only 3 days. When finally allowed their REM sleep the student’s brains made up for lost time by greatly increasing the percentage of sleep spent in the REM stage.
· Not everyone dreams in colour
A full 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in black and white. The remaining number dream in full color. People also tend to have common themes in dreams, which are situations relating to school, being chased, running slowly/in place, sexual experiences, falling, arriving too late, a person now alive being dead, teeth falling out, flying, failing an examination, or a car accident. It is unknown whether the impact of a dream relating to violence or death is more emotionally charged for a person who dreams in color than one who dreams in black and white.
· Dreams are not about what they are about
If you dream about some particular subject it is not often that the dream is about that. Dreams speak in a deeply symbolic language. The unconscious mind tries to compare your dream to something else, which is similar.
· Quitters have more vivid dreams
People who have smoked cigarettes for a long time who stop, have reported much more vivid dreams than they would normally experience. Additionally, according to the Journal of Abnormal Psychology: “Among 293 smokers abstinent for between 1 and 4 weeks, 33% reported having at least 1 dream about smoking. In most dreams, subjects caught themselves smoking and felt strong negative emotions, such as panic and guilt. Dreams about smoking were the result of tobacco withdrawal, as 97% of subjects did not have them while smoking and their occurrence was significantly related to the duration of abstinence. They were rated as more vivid than the usual dreams and were as common as most major tobacco withdrawal symptoms.”
· External stimuli invade our dreams
This is called Dream Incorporation and it is the experience that most of us have had where a sound from reality is heard in our dream and incorporated in some way. A similar (though less external) example would be when you are physically thirsty and your mind incorporates that feeling in to your dream. My own experience of this includes repeatedly drinking a large glass of water in the dream which satisfies me, only to find the thirst returning shortly after – this thirst… drink… thirst… loop often recurs until I wake up and have a real drink. The famous painting above (Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening) by Salvador Dali, depicts this concept.
· You are paralyzed whilst you sleep
Believe it or not, your body is virtually paralyzed during your sleep – most likely to prevent your body from acting out aspects of your dreams. According to the Wikipedia article on dreaming, “Glands begin to secrete a hormone that helps induce sleep and neurons send signals to the spinal cord which cause the body to relax and later become essentially paralyzed.”
1. When you are snoring, you are not dreaming.
2. Toddlers do not dream about themselves until around the age of 3. From the same age, children typically have many more nightmares than adults do until age 7 or 8.
3. If you are awakened out of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, you are more likely to remember your dream in a more vivid way than you would if you woke from a full night sleep.
Gender differences in dreams
Many studies have been conducted to examine differences in the dreams of men and women. It has been shown that women dream of both genders equally, yet 67% of the time the characters in men’s dreams are predominantly male. Women’s dreams tend to last longer and include more emotional content whereas men’s dreams are reported to include more violence, cars, and roads. On average, 8% of people’s dreams include sexual activity. The primary gender difference in sexual dreams is that men tend to dream about unknown or public places and their dreams often feature strangers, while the opposite is true for the majority of women. Women more often dream of enclosed bodies of water, such as pools, lakes, ponds. Of course this data is based on general percentages and is not true for everyone.
Your brain is active when you dream
Studies have provided evidence suggesting tremendous variation in brain activity during sleep. This has been demonstrated using EEG technology. Scientists have identified five distinct stages of sleep, characterized by differences in brain activity. Stages 1-4 and a final stage labeled rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. When awakened during REM sleep, subjects report dreaming. With the development of new brain imaging technology in the early 1990’s we learned even more about brain activity during REM sleep. Researchers found that certain areas of the brain are extremely active during the REM sleep state, even more active than being awake. Studies have shown that certain visual areas of the human cortex, which decode complex visual scenes, are significantly more active during REM sleep. Intense activity is also observed in the limbic system, which is a set of structures heavily involved in human emotion.
Adults dream off and on, for a total of about an hour and half to three hours every night.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Schedule
The idea i have chosen, is Idea 4 and this is my intended schedule for the 6 steps...
Step One: Make an entry outlining your idea for an original screenplay.
Step Two: Publish a research plan detailing how you will utilise primary and secondary research sources
Step Three: Make an entry when you have collated research and comment on them - remember that this is supposed to inform your idea, so provide evidence of how this is doing it!
Step Four: Read existing screenplays, then blog about them. What have you learned? Has this inspired your own writing?
Step Five: Read literature on screenwriting and review it. What have these publications taught you about writing?
Step Six: Revisit your original research - remember that writing and the research involved is always evolving... its your job as the writer to see where it leads you.
So my schedule is...
Step one and two are already completed.
Step Three will be completed by 19th October
Step Four will be completed by 21st October
Step Five will be completed by 24th October
Step Six will be completed by 25th October
I plan to use primary research in the form of a questionnaire in order to target the public directly, and for secondary research i will read previous statistics and information on what other people have found.
Step One: Make an entry outlining your idea for an original screenplay.
Step Two: Publish a research plan detailing how you will utilise primary and secondary research sources
Step Three: Make an entry when you have collated research and comment on them - remember that this is supposed to inform your idea, so provide evidence of how this is doing it!
Step Four: Read existing screenplays, then blog about them. What have you learned? Has this inspired your own writing?
Step Five: Read literature on screenwriting and review it. What have these publications taught you about writing?
Step Six: Revisit your original research - remember that writing and the research involved is always evolving... its your job as the writer to see where it leads you.
So my schedule is...
Step one and two are already completed.
Step Three will be completed by 19th October
Step Four will be completed by 21st October
Step Five will be completed by 24th October
Step Six will be completed by 25th October
I plan to use primary research in the form of a questionnaire in order to target the public directly, and for secondary research i will read previous statistics and information on what other people have found.
ScreenWriting Ideas
Idea 1- We came up with this idea as a group...
Genre: Horror Drama
Setting: Family home
Plot: There are two sisters who live in the family home, one of them is killed, but no one knows who it was or how she died, although the audience know she was poisoned. The sister that is still alive is greeted by a ghost which turns out to be her sister and she helps her to try and find out who it was and why they did it. She thinks it was their horrible step mother but the twist is that it was actually her father. He did it because they are a religious family and he thought she was possessed. So the other sister runs away.
Idea 2
Genre: Mystery, Drama
Setting: Family house/Town
Plot: There are Twin brothers, one dies in what is thought to be a car crash. The other brother starts to get weird signs and feelings that it could have been something else. He discovers that someone had put something in his car which made it blow up, so the brother goes out to find the man that did it. He suspects their next door neighbour, an old man who has never liked them.
Idea 3
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Holiday Resort
Plot: Twin brothers again but this time they go on holiday with a group of their friends. One man spots a bracelet they have on with a certain symbol on it, he believes it's to do with the devil so follows them around. They start to notice that he is following them and get worried. One night the man follows them to a night club and they have to try and escape through the crowds of people.
Idea 4
Genre:
Setting:
Plot: A girl has a dream about a worldwide disaster and when she wakes up, she doesn't remember the dream but as she goes along with her day she starts to notice and recognise things and people that shes never seen before. She doesn't think anything of it until she gets home and starts to watch the news, there is a warning saying a huge flood is coming. She then remembers that the whole day has happened before but in her dream. She realises that her dream is coming to life! She doesn't want to sleep that night in case something else happens. She eventually falls asleep and the whole story is shown to her, she then tries to stop all these things happening.
Genre: Horror Drama
Setting: Family home
Plot: There are two sisters who live in the family home, one of them is killed, but no one knows who it was or how she died, although the audience know she was poisoned. The sister that is still alive is greeted by a ghost which turns out to be her sister and she helps her to try and find out who it was and why they did it. She thinks it was their horrible step mother but the twist is that it was actually her father. He did it because they are a religious family and he thought she was possessed. So the other sister runs away.
Idea 2
Genre: Mystery, Drama
Setting: Family house/Town
Plot: There are Twin brothers, one dies in what is thought to be a car crash. The other brother starts to get weird signs and feelings that it could have been something else. He discovers that someone had put something in his car which made it blow up, so the brother goes out to find the man that did it. He suspects their next door neighbour, an old man who has never liked them.
Idea 3
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Holiday Resort
Plot: Twin brothers again but this time they go on holiday with a group of their friends. One man spots a bracelet they have on with a certain symbol on it, he believes it's to do with the devil so follows them around. They start to notice that he is following them and get worried. One night the man follows them to a night club and they have to try and escape through the crowds of people.
Idea 4
Genre:
Setting:
Plot: A girl has a dream about a worldwide disaster and when she wakes up, she doesn't remember the dream but as she goes along with her day she starts to notice and recognise things and people that shes never seen before. She doesn't think anything of it until she gets home and starts to watch the news, there is a warning saying a huge flood is coming. She then remembers that the whole day has happened before but in her dream. She realises that her dream is coming to life! She doesn't want to sleep that night in case something else happens. She eventually falls asleep and the whole story is shown to her, she then tries to stop all these things happening.
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