lifestyle SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2017 FEATURE Shonda Rhimes tells all about how to become a screenwriter honda Rhimes, the TV mastermind whose hits and get this education." "It felt like an equalizer to another path, she said. Keep in mind the advantage include "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal," keeps me, and that was great," she said of the project from of writing over other entertainment industry occupa- Sa lid on plot twists. But she's giving aspiring San Francisco-based company MasterClass, adding, tions, Rhimes said. "For young TV writers trying to get screenwriters a behind-the-scenes look at how to "I'm also the child of professors, so it seems to be the in, writing is the only job you can do in this business succeed in her craft. In six hours of online classes, way to go: You teach things." when no one is hiring you to do it," she said. "You can Rhimes offers lessons on writing scripts, pitching The so-called second golden age of television sit at your computer or your legal pad and write a pilots, and how series' writers work together to cre- with its expanded number of outlets, including script ... and have a calling card." And there are jobs ate stories and screenplays. Scripts from "Scandal" streaming platforms, has created new but not unlim- to be had, she assures the hopeful. That includes at and the "story bible" that laid out the characters and ited opportunities. Breaking into the competitive Shondaland, her production company that also is structure of "Grey's Anatomy" are part of her master- field requires creative thinking on and off the page, behind "How to Get Away with Murder." "We're class.com course. So why spill? Rhimes suggested. She went the "film school route," always looking for people not from here (the indus- "I love the idea that for $90, somebody who she said, but there are other ways to get started. try), because they have new and fresh voices," couldn't afford to go to film school would get to take "I would suggest getting a job as a PA (production Rhimes said. — AP this class," Rhimes said. "No matter where you are, assistant), anywhere, because it is a way in and lot of what you were doing, where you were in life, you this is about knowing people," Rhimes said. Entering could stop for a little bit of time and take this class - and winning - the many available writing contests is Graceful in melancholy, rocker Mitski embraces discomfort ith a voice that glides gracefully from short burst of passion as Mitski contrasts her and energy for my art," she said. But Mitski said melancholy to rage, Mitski asks through undying wanderlust with the drabness of daily she was heading in new directions as she writes Wher intricate indie rock about the mean- life and she envisions herself like the crucified new music. ing of home. For the artist herself, she has an Christ, declaring, "Would you kill me, Jerusalem!" "It's very tempting when somebody says they answer-she doesn't have one. Born to a Japanese like this about you, to want to do that over and mother and American father, Mitski spent her 'Great propensity for nostalgia' over. And you see that especially with pop-punk childhood in a dozen countries from Africa to Mitski describes herself as having a "great bands that made it big in the early 2000s and Asia to America. As an artist she established her- propensity for nostalgia" but she rarely returns they're in their 40s now but still dressed the self in New York but feels equally comfortable-or, to the countries her parents took her due to her same way," she said. "I remember David Bowie perhaps, uncomfortable-everywhere. father's job. "Even if I returned, I won't be wel- saying something like, 'If you are in an uncom- fortable place, then that's where you should be.' "So I've almost been trying to push myself to do something I'm not used to, to try to be uncom- fortable. I think it's very dangerous as an artist to This Thursday, April 20, 2017 photo provided by Strategy PR shows director Kathryn be comfortable." — AFP Bigelow at the Tribeca Film Festival Virtual Arcade in New York. — AP Kathryn Bigelow on VR after her first try: 'I love it' s a filmmaker drawn to the most visceral It's not tech first; it's content first. "It opens up forms of cinema, it was probably corridors to awareness and information about Ainevitable that Kathryn Bigelow's high- social geopolitical issues that you would other- adrenaline curiosities would lead her to virtual wise have very little access to," she added. "That's reality. The Oscar-winning director on Friday at the beauty of journalism is to bring you to envi- the Tribeca Film Festival premiered her first VR ronments, stories, profiles of people that you experience, "The Protectors: Walk in the Rangers' otherwise have little or no access to. I think Shoes," an eight-minute, 360-degree plunge into what's beautiful is the piece is that it's very the lives of the Garamba National Park rangers in objective. Here are these men and these are the Democratic Republic of the Congo. their thoughts. It's very intimate and yet what Bigelow directed it with Imraan Ismail, a vir- they're doing is so profound." tual-reality veteran, and the two used the nas- cent, immersive medium to give a full sense of Gaining attention the dangers the 200 ragtag rangers face daily in A number of big-name filmmakers have guarding the Delaware-sized park, including its recently tried their hand at VR, including Jon hundreds of perishing elephants, from the con- Favreau and Alejandro Inarritu, who's to debut a Mitski performs in Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival. stant plundering of poachers and gunmen. virtual reality work next month at the Cannes "The most important thing was to put a Film Festival. But Bigelow, 65, may be the most "I've stopped wanting a home, I think, comed as their own, because I'm still a foreigner. human face on this issue," Bigelow said in an significant of the bunch because of her interest because I've been on tour all my life basically," So there is that strange relationship with the interview alongside Ismail in the back room of a in getting as close as possible to her subjects she told AFP after playing at Coachella, the places I've lived where they are home to me but I Tribeca restaurant. "My hope was that if the eyes and in combining storytelling with journalism. premier music festival that takes place over will never be one of them," she said. of the world realized and recognized the kind of She often works in tandem with journalist- two weekends in the California desert. "I used Her parents collected music from around the sacrifice they're making, then perhaps not only screenwriter Mark Boal, including on their to obsess over where is my home-I need a world which she said influenced her, if indirect- could they be better equipped but it also might upcoming feature film, "Detroit," about the 1967 home, I'm lonely without a home-but now it's ly. She has only performed once in Japan but raise recruitment." riots. Ismail, too, has a journalistic sensibility. His actually very freeing to not have any anchor," found her style in line with Japanese pop's National Geographic will release the film May award-winning "The Displaced," a New York she said. Mitski last year released her fourth emphasis on strong vocal melodies. "Those 1 on the VR app Within, and on YouTube and Times VR film Ismail co-directed, followed three album "Puberty 2," a metaphor-rich, emotional- kinds of sensibilities I still hear in my music," she Facebook360 the following week. It's a co-pro- children refugees from Syria, Ukraine and Sudan. ly searing exploration of identity and longing said. "The chord progressions, and the intervals duction of the VR company Here Be Dragons With "The Protectors," he said: "Hopefully we're that figured on several critics' lists of the top of the melody, are very Japanese." After a year and the film production company Annapurna able to tell some of that story and make this albums of 2016. of touring, Mitski said that she cannot imagine Pictures - making it a kind of fusion of both complex, abstract position something a little At first listen Mitski has similarities to 1990s her life before "Puberty 2." "I think I've stopped worlds. Even in its brief eight minutes, viewers of more granular that you can grasp. And you can alternative rockers such as Liz Phair with a heavy thinking about the songs. They are now just "The Protectors" will readily recognize the same be like: 'That guy, I feel for him." bass leading a jangly guitar. But Mitski-who part of me and when I play them, I am on mus- cinematic command Bigelow brought to her So does Bigelow see great potential in virtual plays guitar, bass and piano-brings a personal cle memory," she said. Academy Award winner "The Hurt Locker" and reality? "Hard to say," she responds. "I think so, if intensity more in line with Kate Bush, delivering her most recent film, the Osama bin Laden hunt the desire to use it is content-driven and you vocals that can build within seconds from Seeking discomfort thriller "Zero Dark Thirty." want to have it be an experiential, totally immer- breathy lightness to chilling screams.