Friday, November 16, 2012

Other Twilight Hotties: We Remember

It's the end of Twihard week here at SSF. While I've yet to see Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 I can assure you that half the girls in my English and journalism class were more than willing to tell me about the "vision" scene that scared everybody to death. Anyhow.

Today we're going to talk about the GUYS of Twilight. Forget Edward and Jacob. Even forget Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. We don't care about those dudes right now.

After all...there are a LOT of males in the Twilight movie series. Let's review the top ones.


Lee Pace as Garrett (in Breaking Dawn Pt. 2): One of the newer vampires called in on back-up. For a rogue, ancient vampire, he isn't too bad looking.



Peter Facinelli as Carlisle (in all movies): Vampire dad is pretty strange looking when he's pale and blonde, but once you remove the makeup...



Yeah. That.

Cameron Bright as Alec (in New Moon, Eclipse, BD Pt. 2): The youngest Volturi, also that evil Jane girl's sister. Doesn't have much of a role but at least he's nice to look at.





Kiowa Gordon as Embry Call (in New Moon, Eclipse, BD Pt. 1 and 2): One of the more forgotten "werewolves" but an attractive one all the same.





Charlie Brewley as Demetri (in New Moon, Eclipse, BD Pt. 2): Another member of the Volturi, this time one of the attendants who's most known for fighting and not for standing by. Though Charlie's character may not be the most attractive vampire, in real life he is pretty gorgeous.





Xavier Samuel as Riley (Eclipse): The motherlode. Though he was a "newborn" vampire and got killed at the end of Eclipse, his scenes were memorable if only because of HIM. I mean, LOOK AT HIM.





Understand now?

Okay. That's it. You can all go home and start preparing for the Hobbit or the new Hunger Games movie.

Later!



Thursday, November 15, 2012

What Twilight Taught Me About Writing (No. Really)

It's Be-A-Twihard-One-Last-Time week here at Some Screaming Fangirl, where we analyze the books, remember the films, talk about the music, and fangirl all over the place. One. Last. Time.

Today, I'm going to talk about a rare topic - how Twilight influenced me as a writer (especially as a teenage writer, because basically EVERYTHING influences your style then).

1. First Person...Rules: I used to write in 3rd person before the Twilight Saga. But after seeing it used playfully well in the books, I made the switch. Haven't looked back since. While the books may not have the best writing in the world, it has a lot more humor and voice to it because it's in first-person - it's the only way I would have ever believe this super-perfect Bella person to be awkward.



2. If you're going to have a mushy romance, back it up with something un-mushy. Like vampire fight, yeah!: If you ever seen any of the trailers for the Twilight films, you know that they spend a lot of time on one particular scene - THE FIGHT. The fight against the werewolves, the Volturi, the newborns, James. Sure, there's about another two hours of dialogue and staring at each other, but who cares about those scenes?

Anyhow, there is a point to this - if you have one genre, especially something heavy like romance, you're going need a few break scenes to pace it. Shakespeare wrote tragedies, but he still had the random "comic relief" scene here and there, right?

3. Voice and dialogue matters: For example, in Eclipse, my favorite scene is where Jacob kisses Bella, hence her punching him in the face. If you've read the scene in the books, you've probably seen how outrageously hilarious it gets. But if you've just seen the movie, then you probably didn't even remember that scene. That's because it comes off as tense and angry, not funny and memorable. The actors took it a completely different direction.




So when you write dialogue, be sure you convey the emotional tone of the scene. Don't be depressing if it's a happy scene; don't be excited and exclamation-pointy if it's a pretty solemn scene. And so on.

4. Be original. Just not too original: Sometimes I like to imagine Stephenie Meyer did research on vampires and then thought, "Hmmm. How can I completely rearrange all the vampire traditions of yesteryear for this book?" If you're writing about heavily popular topics/creatures (Vampires! Werewolves! Angels! Mermaids! Oh my!) you probably know that you have to change it up to be noticed.

However, there is a point where changing it up becomes complete nonsense. No one talks about how Twilight vampires are conflicted between humanity and hunger, how they have certain "tastes" in humans, or the unique way they transform. No. They talk about how they're "sparkly". When you make a traditional monster your own, have a stopping point.



5. Mary Sue, Mary Sue: I had no idea what this type of annoying archetype character was until Bella Swan. And if you don't know, it's time you learned: http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm . Watch out for the signs, because there is nothing worse than a too-perfect character. Trust me.


Wednesday, November 14, 2012

You May Have Twilight, but You Gotta Love the Music

It's Be-a-Twihard-One-Last-Time at SFF. This week shall a) analyze the books, b) remember the films, c) talk about the soundtracks, and d) fangirl all over the place.

 Today I'm going to talk about the best thing about those sparkly Twilight movies - the music. But mostly the first soundtrack (don't get me wrong, I love New Moon's "Possibility" and how Breaking Dawn has BRUNO FRIGGIN' MARS). Anyhow.


The first Twilight soundtrack/score set the quota: a nonsensical/awesome mixture of indie darlings and pop/rock modern icons. They managed to score a lot of big names on their first soundtrack - Linkin Park's "Leave Out All the Rest" or Mutemath's "Spotlight". Paramore got two tracks, since Hayley Williams was a fan, with the woeful "I Caught Myself" and hit rocker "Decode".

Muse also provided the baseball scene music, "Supermassive Black Hole", only a short time before "Uprising" properly introduced them the Brits to American rock fans. Thanks to author Stephenie Meyer's obsession with the band (they even got in the dedications!), a Muse song landed on pretty much every OST after that.

The score is unique too. It had a good number of guitar/rock music, not just the typical orchestra music. Carter Burwell had fun with the landmark scenes like "I Know What You Are" and "Showdown in the Ballet Studio", but added a flavor of emotion to each scene whether it be confusion or anger or happiness.

He also had the honor of scoring "Bella's Lullaby". The track may have gone on to be the background music for a'many poorly made Twihard fan videos. But it is memorable enough both it and Iron + Wine's "American Mouth" returned in the Breaking Dawn Pt. 1 soundtracks. Pretty neat, right?

The best part about the Twilight soundtrack/score though? Why even Robert Pattinson got to do a song.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

SSF's Election Post

It's hard to be a teenager excited about the election, so while I'm happy for tonight I'm also ready for it to be over. Teenagers don't know much about politics, did you ever know that?

Anyhow, just letting you all know that a) I am still alive! b) I will have an EPIC post tomorrow about all the memes/parodies that resulted from the election and c) to remind you all to have fun tonight and relax! And please don't move to Canada if you guys doesn't win. Trust me. Once the zombie apololypse begins THEN we'll all migrate up North.