October 2012
1 post
September 2012
1 post
8 tags
Frodo in Solitude
My first writing assignment in my Lord of the Rings class was to take a scene in the Fellowship of the Ring and analyze it. The original assignment was to write a 1775 word essay (he estimated it to be 3 to 5 pages,). I wrote it Friday & Saturday and turned it in Saturday night. The next day he e-mailed us saying that the original assignment was incorrect and that the REAL word count is 1061...
August 2012
1 post
5 tags
July 2012
3 posts
(Project Development, Preproduction & Preparation)
Course: Project Development, PreProduction, and Preparation(aka DIP) Description: We were assigned to make a short, silent film (to be shot on an old Bolex camera) that was enforcing one of several themes. The theme I chose was ‘No one is a loser with friends.” Background: I interpreted the theme literally, having the main character Shawn being robbed & his friend Trevor helping to...
7 tags
19 tags
What's Star Wars? (Time as a Narrative Construct)
My junior year at Columbia I took a high philosophy class called “Time as Narrative Construct.” It was a really philosophical class bordering on existentialism. Not sure if I understood everything that was said in the class… But in order to pass the class we had to write a 15-20 page essay on an idea involving time. I decided to do time in a long form narrative (i.e. trilogies....
June 2012
4 posts
7 tags
Dream Biography (Writing & Rhetoric I)
My freshmen year I took the first Writing & Rhetoric class. As a fun assignment we had to write our lives the way we would want them to pan out. I loved this assignment & even though my goals & aspirations have changed a bit (I want to be a songwriter & performer as much as I want to be a script-writer) it’s nice too look back on how I’ve changed.
Ryan Graduated...
8 tags
Drumline Speech (Marching Knights)
This is from my senior year of high school after we played our last performance as a drumline. I decided to do something special & give a speech to everyone in the drumline, from pit to batterie. It was well received & there WAS a video of it on youtube but i cannot find it anymore.
Speech
This has been a wondrous year for all of us. What a great show to end a career upon. The music...
6 tags
Spur of the moment inspiration
Tonight I watched Lars & the Real Girl & i was spurred to write a song. Before I watched the movie I had rummaged through my old guitar class stuff from 3-4 years ago & found a song that I had meant to show my last band, Sit There & Take It. I re-worked the lyrics & updated them, the chords I changed a bit as well, but the best part of it was the intro/verse part. I...
9 tags
A Good Man (Moving Image Production II)
Description: We were given a treatment that a classmate wrote & we had to make it our own and then shoot on a bolex camera. Background: I just changed minuet details. Like character names and such. The rest is Andrew’s work.
When we shot this it turned out horrible. The cage (where we had to transfer our film into digital work we could edit on our computers) lost a whole roll of my...
May 2012
7 posts
7 tags
Ryan Grace's Art of War (Positive Psychology)
Description: I don’t know what we were supposed to write about. Something about communities or what we learned in class. She didn’t really give any instructions on what to do, so i decided to wing it.
Background: I have been reading up on some alternative history books about World War II & the Civil War & wanted to explore more into what war does to people & how they...
5 tags
Lost Muse (Story In Fiction & Film)
In my freshmen year we had the Story in Fiction & Film class that I described previously. In this edition I wrote about my friends album & a character trying to find it but while he searches for it he finds other lost treasures. When I rediscovered this on facebook I had written my own little backgroud on it, it’s as follows…
Description: We were to write a story that...
stillsilly asked: Hi. My name is Sylvia and i'm not an Ignorant.
7 tags
Signing a Petition.
I’m a fan of The Finder, a spin-off of the FOX show Bones. I’ve been watching it on Hulu & currently am watching the final episode of the first season. After researching it a bit I discovered that it had not been renewed for a second season due to lackluster ratings. I dug around a bit on the internet & found a petition to “Save the Finder.” I signed it & left a...
10 tags
Just an Update
Hi. I’m Ryan. & I’m an aspiring writer & performer & other things. This is merely an update for my followers.
So over the summer I’m working on a lot of things. In the last few weeks of my junior year of college I decided I wanted to write a sci-fi novel. During those weeks of writing a 120 page screenplay & a 20 page research paper on Star Wars (Which...
5 tags
Dan Frank's Diary of Dangerous, Sexy Deeds (Senior...
I sat next to this interesting character in my Senior English class my last year of high school & I wanted to document all the things he does/says. I found this on my facebook along with a great many other things I’ll be posting soon. I wonder how Dan’s doing….
So, this is basically me(that is, Ryan Grace) keeping a log of all the funny stuff & stunts that my grand...
11 tags
Final (Exploring the Goddess)
For the Final Project in Exploring the Goddess we had to make a creative project that showed the endangerment of mother earth along with an accompanying paper explaining the project. I teamed up with Arkie Ring & he drew two posters each with five animals; one for Endangered animals & the other of extinct animals. I wrote the paper explaining our motives.
The Endangered Animals: The...
4 tags
April 2012
16 posts
4 tags
Inreality (Moving Image Production)
We had to write another treatment in MIP my freshmen year to follow-up with my Dance in the Grant Park story. This one wasn’t as well received but oh well.
Inreality Ryan Grace KEITH, a late teens man with an average body type blue eyes and brown hair, walks over to a woman on a park bench. They converse and go to swing on the swings together. Her name is DARCY, late teens, Western...
7 tags
A Dance in Grant Park (Moving Image Production)
Again, in my required film classes my freshmen year we had to write a treatment the first week of class. When we turned them all in we were split up into three groups of 4 or 5 & the teacher picked the three best treatments & we had to turn them into short films. Mine got picked but the group that made it was… well lets just say it didn’t live up to my expectations of it. It...
9 tags
Monica (Moving Image Production)
In my first semester of Columbia the first year students were required to take 4 classes to whet our appetites for film. In one of them we had to write some short treatments & short stories. This is one of them that my teacher really liked because it was a realistic story with a hard ending. It’s also one of my favourites. My sister didn’t like it & this is about the time she...
3 tags
Ig'Nant (New Millennium Studies)
I wrote this short story in my freshmen year of Columbia where we had to take a Freshmen Orientation class (New Millennium Studies). We had to do a short story on something we believe so i did a short story about my belief in acceptance. Pretty sure I did well on it.
Ig’nant Ryan Grace TJ, a small man in his early twenties, walks by an interracial couple sitting on a bench in the mall....
6 tags
Our Time is Up (Short Forms)
In 2012 we had to write a critical analysis of a short narrative film & I picked Our Time is Up by Rob Pearlstein. I previously had seen it in Screenwriting I when we were dissecting how to write characterization & I was smitten with it. I got a good grade on the paper & further analyzed it by making a presentation about it.
In the film Our Time is Up, director &...
10 tags
Motivational Speakers (Speaking Out)
In my oral communication class we only had to write one paper for the class about motivational speakers. I went on the TED website & watched the videos of J.J. Abrams & the other was Randy Paush, whose book I read in high school & I enjoyed it so much I watched his presentation on Youtube. I watched other speakers as well but those two were writing material.
A Point and a...
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Midterm (U.S. Foreign Policy)
I took U.S. Foreign Policy in fall 2011 & the midterm involved writing a ten page paper on our relationship to another nation. At the time I was freaking out about it & had to take off a day of work to actually sit down all day & do it. It was a huge relief to have it done & I did well enough (9 out of 10, if I believe correctly) to pass the course. But it was a terrible experience...
7 tags
Anger & Frustration in Post-War Britain (British...
This is really bad, but i wanted to post it to see my growth as a writer. I have no idea how I passed this paper.
Anger and Frustration in Post-War Britain
In many of the films viewed so far in the course of the first half of the semester, a theme is made in some of them. Of them, one that was prominent was a sense of anger and annoyance at the world, or at things in general with a...
midnightchance asked: Figured I'd contact you this way since I'm not sure if you're still awake! Absolutely LOVE your new posts! You are still one of my favorite writers. :)
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Goddess Dialogue's (Exploring the Goddess)
Our next assignment for Exploring the Goddess was to have a dialogue with our archetypal goddess. It was assigned over spring break at the same time I had to do a 15-20 page draft on Star Wars as well as finish a full length screenplay (90-120) pages. I did the paper in two days (taking into account I worked & went into the city for those two days, respectively) & did the screenplay the...
5 tags
First Film Analysis (British Post-War Cinema)
My first paper of the term was to analysis a short paper about two film we’ve watched in class. I chose A Matter of Life & Death (1946) as well as an Ealing Studios film The Captive Heart (1946) about the war in Europe & how society was portrayed at the time. Kinda didn’t know what I was doing at the time but still was able to pass. Lord knows why.
In A Matter...
9 tags
Your Mission, should choose to accept it (Lighting...
In my third year at Columbia I took the class Lighting I. I didn’t do so well & that’s when I found out that being on a set wasn’t really for me (too much math involved on set in your head for me… :| ) We had to write a final that was comparing different lighting styles & contrasting their use. Since Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol was coming out that December I...
5 tags
Lilypad Love (Story in Fiction & Film)
Here’s another story from my Fiction in Film class. After watching another film & reading another story we were to write a piece that involved a location as a character. Thinking simplistic I conjured up this love fable of two frogs who always meet at the lilypad foraging area to see each other. I recycled & updated it to be included in my Short Forms class my third year as...
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Carrying on Regardless (British Post-War Cinema)
At the same time as when I took my British comedy class I took the class British Post-War Cinema. These two classes went hand in hand as they both referenced & taught about the Ealing Studio comedies. For the final in the Post-War class I choose to write about how British humour was developed on screen in the post-war settings.
Carry On Regardless:
The British Sense of Humor
In...
5 tags
A Polyandrious Woman (Story in Fiction & Film)
Again, in the Story in Fiction & Film class we watched a film & read a story where it the storyline kept shifting from each person’s point of view. For example, one person in a story might have a take where the man was wearing a black tie. It switches to another viewpoint to where the man was wearing a polka dotted tie. & another point of view of the story the man wouldn’t...
March 2012
8 posts
4 tags
Master Mike (Story in Fiction & Film)
In my Story in Fiction & Film class we talked about the Unreliable Storyteller. Essentially that is a storyteller who tells an unbelievable or far-fetched tale & keeps reiterating that it is true, even if it isn’t. To demonstrate this I did a first-person narrative revolving around a horn-dog who calls himself “Master Mike,” because he’s a master in bed. My friend...
7 tags
Dream Writing From Story in Fiction & Film
In Spring 2010 I took a class called “Story in Fiction & Film.” It involved watching a film & reading a short story that had a common element & then trying to write our own piece with that element. I’ll probably be posting more from the class as the days go by. But in this entry the element was surrealist & dreamlike. At the time I was enthralled with Norwegian...
11 tags
British Comedy Final
In Fall 2011 I decided to take a course that interested me called “British Comedy.” Sure enough, I enjoyed it to the max! It was there that I was was immersed in Ealing Studios & Monty Python. Previously I had only seen Monty Python & the Holy Grail (along with a good majority of kids) but here I finally saw the TV show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. For our final paper...
caughtintheantimatter asked: Rywannnn! I'm surprised you actually made one to be honest ha. Okay, now back to FRINGE because it's finally back on after a month :D
midnightchance asked: Did I take that photo?! Probably not since it's not blurry... haha
7 tags
Dramatic Monologue
In my Exploring the Goddess class we were instructed to make a dramatic monologue of a goddess of our choice. I choose Ereshkigal, the Hades of Mesopotamia, since I had previously read up on her. I turned it in & people who wanted to read it for extra credit read it for the class. Two weeks later as she’s handing it back to us & she makes me read it in front of the class because...
6 tags
For my Short Forms class...
In my Short Forms class I had to find an experimental film & write a critical Analysis Essay upon it, five pages long. I simply went to Youtube & searched for “Experimental Short Films” & found this by an animator James Lee from March 2011.
Purged http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp4NRvydU5I
I thoroughly enjoyed it, the music was especially nice. & I wrote this in...
