Rayw
I find your Act descriptions more interesting than the news story, you should write some of these into screenplays
Well... THAT's what drama
is all about!
The "interesting" part for a movie-minded news hound like myself is to find a news story that does not travel along a single trajectory without highs or lows or is just a point and grunt "look at this" sort of thing.
Another exercise is to read over the NYTimes top 20 most emailed/viewed/blogged/searched/tweeted and think of a story for each of those. "Last 7 Days" oughtta render the more "grain from chaff" option.
http://www.nytimes.com/most-popular-emailed
1. Snacking Your Way to Better Health
Evidence for the health benefits of nuts has been accumulating since the early 1990s, and frequent consumption has been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases.
DRAMEDY - Researcher's intense investigation into the longevity benefits of consuming various nuts alienates his family, but as they die off and his cult "nut" following grows a new family emerges.
2. Who Says Math Has to Be Boring?
It’s time to overhaul the way math and science are taught.
INSPIRATIONAL POLITICAL DRAMA - Core group of educators, disgusted with counterproductive curriculum foisted upon them, fight against corporate and governmental machines exponentially greater than they are.
3. Sex as Exercise
Do intimate acts count as working out?
DRAMEDY - Researchers hatch the idea, craft the grant proposal, secure funding, conduct the interviews, and send their test group on their merry way to see if indeed sex qualifies as exercise. What could possibly go wrong?
4. 36 Hours in Kauai, Hawaii
You could fill a weekend simply staring slack-jawed at this island’s natural beauty. But Kauai’s appeal stretches far beyond those arresting views.
DRAMEDY - Given thirty-six hours to live as a terminal illness is about to definitively conclude a life, a couple discovers much more about each other and themselves as their Kauai bucket list gets checked off.
5. After Setbacks, Online Courses Are Rethought
Large-scale online courses, hailed as a way to democratize higher education, have so far been plagued by very high attrition rates.
COMEDY - Old school bricks and sticks and new school MOOG professors compete for university department funding as the university leadership itself questions if it's in a "transitional stage".
6.The Case for Filth
The only possible solution to the gender divide on housework is for everyone to do a lot less of it.
COMEDY - A hipster couple obsessed with perfection seek the professional guidance of multiple marriage counselors over the division of housework. The dog will be fine.
7. Exercise as Potent Medicine
Exercise can be as effective as many frequently prescribed drugs in treating some of the leading killers, including heart disease and diabetes, a new study suggests.
DRAMEDY - A hypocritical self-medicating physician advises and promotes exercise to his patients as his own health comes to a crossroads where it's his decision to practice what he preaches.
8. Why the Dutch Love Black Pete
In the Netherlands, the Black Pete debate underscores how deep lies the fear of losing identity.
COMEDY - Black Pete goes to Parliament to defend his right to even exist in the modern society which insists he is no longer "good".
9. Amsterdam Has a Deal for Alcoholics: Work Paid in Beer
Under a government-funded program denounced by conservative politicians, the city of tolerance is giving alcoholics street-cleaning jobs and paying them partly in beer.
COMEDY - HAIL! to the bums with brooms getting beer as they sweep the city streets of more trash than just along the curb.
10. The Path to Happy Employment, Contact by Contact on LinkedIn
LinkedIn, the networking site for professionals, can raise your profile and help you find a new job, but only if it is used properly.
INSPIRATIONAL COMEDY - Old dog on the new job market learns that business lunches are going the way of the dinosaur, and his personal life sees favorable changes for the better as he chooses to accept this new fangled computer gibberish.
11. Wall Street Mothers, Stay-Home Fathers
For growing numbers of women on Wall Street, stay-at-home husbands are enabling them to compete at work with new intensity.
COMEDY - Generations collide when holiday out of town parents-in-law get snowed in for an extended stay with their house-husband son-in-law while the daughter/wife is trapped at her workplace.
12. Obama Gets Real
With a big inequality speech, the president is finally sounding like the progressive many of his supporters thought they were backing in 2008.
POLITICAL SATIRE - A reporter wades through a "typical day of insanity" with the POTUS dealing competing approaches to ongoing White House, mass media, and public perception issues.
13. More Helpful Fatty Acids Found in Organic Milk
The research was met with a mixed reaction, as there is disagreement among scientists about whether omega-6 fatty acids are harmful.
HORROR - Competing scientists sabotage more than each other's test results releasing lethal mutations, both human and non, into the community.
14. Why a Brisk Walk Is Better
If you are walking to improve your health, it’s time to stop strolling and pick up the pace, reports Gretchen Reynolds in this week’s Phys Ed column.
ROMANTIC COMEDY - A sport walker and her orthopedic surgeon become romantically involved as her injuries force a decision between her new love life or spirit.
15. Beneath Malta’s Beauty, a Tangled History
The Mediterranean island-nation of Malta couples a tranquil, movie-set surface with an astoundingly rich past.
FANTASY ROMANCE - Lovers walk and talk along the streets of Malta recounting tales of past lives and foretelling future ones.
16. Why Machiavelli Still Matters
‘The Prince’ teaches that there are no friends in politics.
POLITICAL THRILLER - A Congressional aide to a rising star Congresswoman uncovers a crime of potentially devastating proportions forcing her to decide between destroying the faith of millions of girls, the economic livelihood of a city, or her own morality.
17. The 10 Best Books of 2013
The year’s best books, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.
COMEDY - Perfectly aware of the financial and social implications, bookworms and cyber geeks battle it out over a range of issues in a no-holds-barred fight to publish by deadline what books must be included and excluded from this year's "10 Best Books List."
18. Baffling 400,000-Year-Old Clue to Human Origins
DNA from a fossil in Spain most closely matches another extinct human lineage, Denisovans, whose remains have been found thousands of miles away in Siberia.
SCI FI FANATSY - Slip back into prehistoric time to discover how the body of one proto-human traveled three thousand miles with (or without) the help of ancient aliens.
19. Scholarship and Politics: The Case of Noam Chomsky
Dropping in on a three-part master class taught by a master, and witnessing thought of the highest order.
DRAMEDY ROMANCE - Perceptions of self, family, and life reverse, buckle, and bend for a group of high school humanities students assigned to debate the three parts of a speech by Noam Chomsky.
20. Thinking for the Future
What modes of thought will be most valuable in a future economy defined by machine intelligence?
SCIENCE FICTION ACTION ADVENTURE - A crossroads of rights and responsibilities culminates between human and A.I. machines as the 22nd century dawns impacting the fate of billions of "existences" and the threat of extinction for millions.
Anyone can do this activity anytime they want.
Just start thinking about things in a storytelling way.
Placeholder:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...de6084-637b-11e3-a373-0f9f2d1c2b61_story.html
Yup.