Archive for October 2013
After writing my
script and going over it a few times I’ve managed to refine/tweak it into
a version that I’m happy with.
The main thing that i made sure of when writing my script was that the pacing was correct, considering that its a 10 paged screenplay, i wanted to make sure that i allocated a certain amount of time to each act, giving it enough content so that the audience is able to make sense of what is happening and why it is happening.
Also because i'm looking to show the first opening 2 minutes of my screenplay as my Project submission, technically speaking, i'm showing my audience the first act, which would act as a cliff hanger making them want to view more.
The main thing that i made sure of when writing my script was that the pacing was correct, considering that its a 10 paged screenplay, i wanted to make sure that i allocated a certain amount of time to each act, giving it enough content so that the audience is able to make sense of what is happening and why it is happening.
Also because i'm looking to show the first opening 2 minutes of my screenplay as my Project submission, technically speaking, i'm showing my audience the first act, which would act as a cliff hanger making them want to view more.
- My first draft was just a rough copy for me to get it down so that my script is complete, and also a template for me to work off of, or refer to.
- My second draft I proof read the script making sure it had the correct format and spelling.
- My third draft (below) I went over my story again, adding in or removing detail and characters, making sure that the pacing was ok, and everything was clear and precise.
Although i've finished my script, when i present it to my actors i might get feedback from them, if they feel that they want to change any of the dialogue around to make it suit them.
The Pitch
Depressed, Lonely, an
outcast. A good day is when his not bullied, those days happen rarely. Tripped
over, spat on, slapped, will things ever change?
Synopsis
Phillip, a 15yr old school boy gets bullied
on a regular basis. Because of the bullying nobody wants to be around him,
they’re scared that they’ll get caught up in the crossfire. The main person who
bullies Phillip is a 17yr old boy from his school called Shaun. Shaun and his
gang make it their mission to bully Phillip every time they see him, which
mainly takes place outside a local shop called the Kent Mart. By chance,
Phillip was momentarily saved from the bullying by a random civilian and his
vicious dog; who advised Phillip that he needs to stand up for himself. Up on
taking this persons advice Phillip takes up an online self-defense tutorial
online in order to gain confidence and protect himself. On completion of this, Phillip, faced with confrontation against Shaun once again, stands up for
himself defeating Shaun.
The altercation is recorded and ends up
online resulting in it going viral, loads of people watch the footage of
Phillip defeating Shaun and Phillip becomes an Internet sensation going from a
lonely kid with no friends at all, to the popular boy whom everybody wants to
meet.
For contextual studies
we were set a task to read an extract from 'Codes' taken from the website
'Semiotics for Beginners' by Daniel Chandler and from reading that extract
bring in an example for discussion such as a film still, fashion item, object,
photograph, still from TV, animation still, or theatrical production.
So for this extract I
decided to research further on semiotics and understand what it is, and funnily
enough, I already knew what it was, all of us know what it is but we just take
it for granted and do not know the technical term for what it is that we
understand.
How you ask?
Basically, when we
see/smell/touch/taste/hear something what does it mean? Through what eye are
you viewing it? What is the characteristic of the thing/eyes that is viewing
it? Culture/society/class system, these are some of the things that affect how
you perceive something.
Semiotics is the study
of signs and symbols, but to be more specific, semiotics is the cultural
understanding of those signs and symbols to whoever is subjective to it at that
moment in time. I.E. Take figure 1 for example
Someone from a ‘modern’
civilization would understand that this item is a road sign, even if they cant
understand what it represents, they would be culturally aware of what it is. But
someone from say a culture that has avoided modern civilization like the Korowai
tribe would look at this sign and not have the slightest clue as to what it is
or represents.
Another example is an
ice cream van/truck, from young most of us know that when you hear the music box sound
playing out loud, nearby, an ice cream van is close. A fire bell ringing, you
know straight away that a fire is happening. These signs are habits formed by
our brains that we’re accustomed to as a culture from the society that we’re
living in because we’ve been taught these things throughout our life.
How semiotics is applied within media is, when your creating something, you bare in mind
the audience that your marketing your idea towards. You would employ certain
semiotic codes in your media piece in order to make sure that your audience can
understand/relate to what it is that’s happening or being presented in front of
them.
Take Eastenders for example, one way how they employ semiotics into there
show is through the set design of the Queen Victoria (The Queen Vic), it has an old Victorian style exterior design with a picture of Queen Victoria on the outside of it, also the name of the pub is of a former Queen (Queen Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) of Great Britain, inside the pub, it has a modern Victorian
design with pub chairs and tables which is an accustom to most British pubs,
with this design the audience can atomically establish that it’s a British pub.
For my extract what I
presented in class was a selection of photos and also some sentences/play on
words. Below is what i chose to present for discussion.
What do you see? Do
you see an orange; or the colour orange?
What do you see? A
Rose; or a flower that has rose?
What do you see? A
dog, a Chein(french for dog), or a Perro(spanish for dog)?
Earlier when i mentioned what eye do you see 'it' though, this is a prime example, different cultures will give different names to the same meaning, because it is the systematic code established by these cultures in which these cultures would use to communicate amongst one-another.
What do you see? A
pen; or an expensive asset?
Someone from say a ‘Lower class’ would not have
knowledge of such product where it is not marketed towards them, so up on
viewing this or being given it they would not know the true value of this
product because it is market towards a niche upper class market.
What do you see? A
watch; or an expensive asset? Because this is such a wide known product, both
lower and higher class would be familiarised it. Up on viewing or being given this they would know that it is
an expensive item and only a person with a high wage bracket could afford such
a product. This watch symbolises wealth and importance where not your everyday
person could afford such an item.
For the play on words
I chose:
- Leanne sits amongst the cabbage and peas while she’s doing the gardening.
- Martins rose.
- Sally’s orange.
For the play on words,
to prevent us from having an ambiguous understanding, a technique called
anchoring would be used; in order to establish to us what it is that we’re
hearing or viewing. How? For those play on words, it would be supported with an
image that would clarify to us what it is i.e. Sally would be holding an orange,
or Martin would be getting out of a coffin. Another example of anchoring is in news and sports events. In the news, anchoring is used via the news reporter
explaining what it is that your viewing and also a lower third caption to
further signify to us what it is that’s happening.
For the picture of the
Rose, in Semiotics terms, it would be labelled a Signifier (a noun), Signified
(Verb/adverb) and also a referent, as in what is the real rose? What do we think when
we see or hear the word? What is the context it’s being used in? Again, to stop us from having this ambiguous thought anchoring would be used.
Conclusion
So yea..... From all of this study on semiotics, its definitely helped me to look at things properly in more detail, and i'm definitely applying it to my work from now on. Subconsciously i believe that i was already doing this in my Story-telling unit with the research that i conducted, however, know with this newfound knowledge i will look at things in specific detail to make sure that its fully portraying the idea i'm trying to create i.e. for Phillip where his a school kid who always gets bullied, in my opening scene, i could present him having a split lip or bruised eye, to signify to the audience that he may have been assaulted prior to what they're seeing. I could also give them all (Phillip and the bullies) the same ties to represent that they're part of the same school; to prevent the audience from having an ambiguous thought as to where the other students are from.
Tag :// Course-work,
Tag :// Critical Perspectives: Moving Image,
Tag :// Idea development,
Tag :// Research
So I’ve begun to adapt
my story into a script.
Because in my story in
act 2 is Phillip training himself
up, originally I was looking to have a split screen montage in my script where
by on one half of the screen we see Phillip training and on the other half we
see Phillip getting bullied every day, but when I was trying to find examples
of this either in a script or an actual footage I didn’t have any joy as there
was nothing out there what I could find, however I did come across a few good
examples of split screens and montages in both screenplays and also footage.
The first example of a
split screen I found was one that I’d remembered from a film called Kill Bill
by Quentin Tarantino.
In this scene of the
film we’re watching “Uma Thurman” lying in a comatose state when an assassin
named “Elle Driver’ is in a separate room; dressing up in a nurses uniform and
preparing an antidote. All of this is happening on two separate parts of the
screen at the same time.
To get an idea of the
format of the screenplay and also the pacing of it on film, I read the script
at the same time as watching this scene to see how everything was organised.
The second example I’m going to show you is a montage from the start of a film called “Hot Fuzz” by Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright. With this montage the Screenplay follows a series of shots with voice over narrating the story as their introducing “Police Constable Nicholas Angel”.
Again, to see how they
managed to organise all of this I read the script while I was watching the
footage
This example I thought
I’d add into my research because I found it interesting, seeing a collage of
different types of split screens from a variety of films
While on the screenplay
website imsdb I checked out other scripts to see how the action scenes were
narrated in them, to help me with writing up my action scenes; and also with
general scene description. Some of the scripts that I check out were:
- Kill bill
- The Incredible
- Jason Bourne films
- Rocky films
- Hot fuzz
- American pie
Conclusion
Having done my research i've decided to go ahead with doing a montage in a series of shots structure whereby; it will start off in the morning with Phillip commuting to school and being bullied by Shaun and his gang, and then in the evening Phillip training in his garage, showing an improvement in the training scene as each day goes past.
Websites used for research
These are some of the
websites I used for my research
Kill bill script
The
Idea/Story
Phillip, a 15yr old male school student gets
bullied on a regular basis. Because of the bullying nobody wants to be around
him, they’re scared that they’ll get caught up in the crossfire.
What continues to keep Phillip going is
that because he is in year 11, he only has to put up with the bullying for
another 7 months, which is when he will officially finish school in July 2013;
however, these months are intense as the main protagonist Shaun, a 17 yr old
male 6th form student from Phillips school, does not make it easy
for Phillip. Shaun puts Phillip through the most antagonizing, humiliating
tirade of abuse inside and outside of school, basically anytime he sees
Phillip.
In Phillips local area, he is tormented and
abused on a daily basis outside of school. At Phillips local shop, Shaun and
his gang loiter around there in the mornings before school and occasionally
after school; every time they see Phillip they pick on him. They might spit at
him, Call him names, trip him up, throw water bombs at him or happy slap him
(vine smack cam), basically every time they see Phillip he’s a victim to them,
and most the time they’ll record it.
On an everyday altercation Shaun and his
gang went to bully Phillip as they usual do, but on this instance it was
stopped by a passer by, a 21yr old Mauritius man called Ash, whom was walking
his vicious dog and used his dog, and also his size to intimidate the bullies
resulting in the bullies leaving Phillip alone at that moment in time. Ash
engages in a brief conversation with Phillip encouraging him to stick up for
himself then leaves.
Because of this, Phillip decides to teach
himself some form of Self-defense, hoping that he will be able to build up his
confidence and stand up to the bullying. Unconfident to sign up to a gym with
fear of walking past his aggressors, and also if he would be accepted at a
club, he starts watching self-defense tutorials on Youtube. Every day he is in
his garage after school practicing on his punch bag while watching Youtube
tutorials. While his training, over a period of time you start seeing an
improvement in his techniques, but still his confidence is not fully there as
he is still getting bullied. By the end of the self-defense tutorial course you
can see a change in him, he seems more confident.
On an everyday altercation Shaun and his
gang went to bully Phillip as they usual do. Backed against the ropes with
nothing to loose, thinking he will still get punished even if he doesn’t defend
himself, Phillip eventually snaps, using what he has learnt from the
self-defense tutorials and stands up to Shaun resulting in Phillip defeating
him.
The altercation is recorded and ends up
online resulting in it going viral, loads of people watch the footage of
Phillip defeating Shaun and Phillip becomes an Internet sensation going from a
lonely kid with no friends at all, to the popular boy whom everybody wants to
meet.
Theme
The reason I’ve decided to create this
story is because it touches upon a very sensitive subject (bullying) that a lot
of people have gone through/witnessed in their life and secretly wished that
they had the courage to be able to stand up to their/the aggressor.
My story that I’ve created I feel as if it
covers a few themes, the first and most obvious is:
- Revenge: Phillip is getting bullied and stands up to his bullying, even though it’s in an act of self defence it’s also retribution for what his gone through, like a revenge fantasy for him.
- Good vs Evil: pretty self explanatory, Phillip good, Shaun evil.
- The Battle: Also pretty self explanatory, in order for Phillip to overcome his situation he has to engage in some form of confrontation with his antagonist
- Triumph over adversity: This I feel is the main theme that I like and I at first didn’t realize I’d had in my story, it actually came to my attention after I had written the story; and done some extra research on screenplay themes. How this is in the story is, Phillip defeats Shaun; as a result of that not only does he stop the bullying, he also goes from being a socially withdrawn outcast to becoming a popular internet sensation whom everybody wants to meet.
Structure
I’ve decided to go for
a three-act structure where Act1 the
setup will be the introduction of Phillip being bullied and duct taped to the
pole by Shaun and his gang. Act2
will be Phillip training watching the online self-defence tutorials, and Act3 will be Phillip defeating Shaun.
Characters
This is going to be my outline and also
template. I’m going to use this as a building block to construct my detailed
story off of. Besides my Protagonist and Antagonist, the side characters are
just extras used to build up and help the story, but it can still proceed
without them.
At any time my set location could change,
the amount of characters I include may change, also the age, ethnicity physical
appearance ect may change, however, this will in no way affect the over all idea of “The Meeting”.
Main Characters
Protagonist
Name: Phillip Martins
Age: 15
Ethnicity: Black
Physical appearance:
· Height: 6ft
· Physique: Tall and overweight, some would refer
to him as chubby.
· Basically a school child, even though he may
look older in size, when you look .in his face you can see his still a child.
Martial status: single
Personality trait:
He’s a passive,
sensitive, socially withdrawn individual with no friends and no real care to
the latest fashion, whom occasionally self harms because of it.
Phillips Story:
He’s a year 11 student
studying at the Howards school. He lives at home with his divorced mom. He’s mainly indoors on his own as his
mom works late and is more involved in her work than she is her son. He cooks
and cleans for himself most the time, and spends most his time sitting indoor
on his laptop, which is where he escapes reality.
Antagonist
Name: Shaun Johnson
Age: 17
Ethnicity: Mixed race
Physical appearance:
· Height: 5ft9- 6ft
· Body type: tall, slim/medium build weight
· Hair: shape up, grade 1
· Skin: clean shaved
Martial status: in a relation ship
Personality trait:
Full of himself, arrogant,
Confident, Cocky, loud, disrespectful, aggressive, yob/chav behaviour, dresses
in latest fashion, trendy, cool, a power-hungry, cowardly, nasty piece of work
whom gets his fun out of picking on the weak.
His story:
He’s a 6th
form student studying at the Howards school. He is the alpha male, the leader of his gang of 5 boys/goons including
himself whom he hangs around with. He likes to do stuff to get ratings off of
them, his gang feed towards his ego. He also controls his gang; they look to
Shaun for leadership and direction, also craving for acknowledgement from him. He
is known throughout his school for being a bully as he’s been doing it for
years, picking on those whom are weaker then he is.
Whenever he sees Phillip,
he uses
members from his gang to support him in tormenting Phillip. Shaun will start it
and his gang will usually follow, either joining recording Shaun as he
humiliates Phillip on camera.
Side
Characters
Names/Antagonist:
KASH – Side bully - tall black 15 year old male
EMAN- Side bully - tall black 16 year old male
EJ - Side bully - tall black 17 year old male
with dread locks
Lee - Side bully - tall mixed race 17 year old male
Relation:
Shaun’s Gang
Personality
trait/role:
Arrogant, confident, cocky,
loud, disrespectful, aggressive, yob/chav behaviour, dressed in latest fashion,
trendy, cool, power-hungry, cowardly, nasty piece’s of work whom get their fun
out of picking on the weak and getting praised from Shaun because of it. They
too are involved in harassing Phillip.
Name/Protagonist:
Phillips mom
Age: 38
Status: Divorced
Appearance/Personality trait/role: She works late
and is more involved in her work than she is her son Phillip. We never see her
as she’s always off screen to represent the fact of her being very busy.
Name/ Protagonist:
Ash
Ethnicity: Mauritius
Age: 21
Appearance/Personality trait/role:
Tall Mauritius
wide muscular frame man with a vicious dog
Confident, low
tolerance attitude, sympathetic
Name:
MMA Surge
Appearance/Personality trait/role:
Youtube tutorial that
Phillip subscribes to and follows
Tag :// Project Update,
Tag :// Story telling unit
To help develop my
story further, I’ve been doing some research into what films/stories and video
clips are out there that has a similar theme to the story that I’m creating.
The main video that
has influenced my story is of course the Casey Heynes Story.
What I like about this
Story is that in the video you can clearly see that Casey is backed against the
wall and does not want no trouble at all, but the protagonist, Richard, is
bullying Casey aggravating him to the point where Casey snaps picking Richard
up and slamming him on the ground in an act of self defence; but the story
doesn’t end there. What happens afterwards is Casey, a kid whom had no friends
at all, went from being a lonely kid to an internet sensation gaining thousands
of followers on different social media platforms, mainly multiple Facebook fan pages (click link)
and a fan made website (click link) and having also having a game, remixed video
clips and internet MEMES made
about him.
This is a game created as a result of the incidentThis is a remixed video clip
This is an animated remake of the incident
What really caught my
attention about this story is the major turning point that no one could expect,
not only did Casey stop the bullying, he also gained a lot of friends and
support in the process. As described
in his interview (2.24-2.34) nobody would hang around with him because of the
bullying, and where he was a loner he was an easy target to be bullied. So in a
way the plot to this story is a funny one where by, a kid whom has no friends
and is being bullied, by overcoming the hurdle of being bullied, in the end,
gains more friends and support than he could of ever imagined.
This story and the
character Casey is going to be the template on what I build my story off of,
where the protagonist in my story Phillip, is also being bullied and as a
result of it has no friends because they’re too scared to be around him in case
they too get caught up in the cross fire.
Another clip that I
came across that has a similar theme to my story is this one titled “Yob Chav
Thug Bully Gets His Come-Uppance”
unfortunately the Sun comic book (newspaper) does not allow
you to view online pages (articles) no more so i couldnt include the full story
What I like about this clip is that
the theme again, relates to the story that I’m creating, a protagonist
overcoming the antagonist, the victim beating his bully, a victory theme where
by the protagonist has accomplished their goal and is no longer going to be
bothered by their antagonist.
From watching this clip, we can
clearly see that the protagonist; Jason Smith, 35, does not want no trouble and
is standing his ground against the “local hard nut” protagonist, Les Andrews,
23. When we look at the set location design, we notice that Jason must’ve had
some trouble before, because, the windowpane on his door is covered by a wooden
board (0:53 on footage). As the
footage reaches its climax at 1.15 we see that Jason Smith is left with no
other choice but to defend himself and his home. Unaware of the type of
character that he is because of how calm he’s kept himself, we are unsure if
Jason will be able to beat the antagonist Les Andrews, until, the major turning
point happens when he lands a punch on Les dropping him to the ground.
It’s pretty much a clear narrative,
in the sense that the way how Les is behaving, he did not know that Jason Smith
was actually an ex soldier and an expert in two forms of martial arts, hence
Les having so much confidence because he thought he was dealing with a nobody.
Once Jason stood up for himself you can clearly see that Les’s whole attitude/behaviour
had changed, he was shocked as he crawled out of Jason’s front yard and his
friend closes the gate.
The key thing that I kept my eye on
in this clip is the way that the bully is behaving, its classic bullying
symptoms. The ‘strong’ trying to pick on the ‘weak’ a power-hunger fiend whom
thrives on the fear of the weaker victim, a good explanation I found on a
website that pretty much fits Les Andrews description “self-opinionated and
displays arrogance, audacity, a superior sense of entitlement and sense of
invulnerability and untouchability” we can clearly see this whilst watching the
footage, and its something that I’m going to try and model my bully/antagonist
off of.
The last footage that I’m going to
show you is from an old film called “A Christmas Story”.
I especially love this film because
of the way in which the bully Scut Farkus and his crony Grover Dill, and also
the victims Ralphie Parker and his friends are portrayed; it’s perfect.
In the first footage it establishes
whom the main bully is Scut Farkus, we see that he is predominantly a bigger
lad then the other kids which would indicate that he’s older than all of them,
we’re also introduced to his crony Grover dill whom is Scut’s side kick, always
looking to get some sort of acknowledgment off of Scut and most likely takes
orders from him especially where he’s smaller than Scut. The victims, Ralphie
and his friends are smaller than Scut, which indicates to us that they’re
younger and also inferior to him. With bullying this is a common trait, to pick
on those they assume are ‘weaker’ than them.
On the second footage we clearly see
and understand why the turning point Is happening having watched the first
clip, when Ralphie snaps and stands up for himself, the bullies, Scut and his
crony Grover are shocked, where they’re used to being the aggressor they’re not
accustomed to being challenged as we can see when Grover tried to pull Ralphie
off of Scut and gets shoved away, resulting in him running away threatening to
tell his dad on Ralphie. Ralphie, standing up to the bullying, resulted in Scut
and Grover no longer troubling him and his friends.
The main reason I’ve look at this
clip is because, with bullies, they tend to have a side kick, or a group of
friends with them to help feed their ego and carry out the bullying. Which Is
what I also want to include in my short film, the main protagonist Shaun and
his group of friends/crony’s/side kicks to help him carry out the bullying,
with Shaun being the boss, the main man the rest of his minions take orders off
of, the alpha male of his wolf pack.
Another reason that I’ve took a
liking to this clip is because of something that the narrator Ralphie being
voiced over by Jean Shepherd said at 1.18
"Randy lay there like a slug! It was his only defence!”
I particularly like this specific
sentence because, it’s true to most victims of bullying; they feel as though if
they don’t do anything, it will make the situation eventually go away.
Conclusion
So yea, doing this research has
definitely helped me to build upon my idea and strengthen it in regards to the
characteristics of the characters involved in my story, hopefully from it I’ll
be able to write a decent story.
After sitting down and brainstorming over ideas this is my new pitch that i've came up with for my story called "The Meeting"
Pitch Development Day: Idea Facts
Genre:
Drama
Location:
The main set location is going to be in Borstal Rochester
in ‘Phillips’ local area, consisting of his house, and his local shop ‘The Kent
Mart’.
Characters:
1. Protagonist: Phillip Martins; a
chubby, tall, black 15yr old male year 11 school student. He’s a passive,
sensitive, socially withdrawn individual whom has no friends; and is an easy
target for bullies because of it.
2. Antagonist:
Shaun Johnson; a tall, slim,
black 17yr old male 6th form student, a power-hungry, cowardly,
nasty piece of work whom gets his fun out of picking on the weak.
Goal:
Philip wants
the bullying to stop and wishes to have friends.
Problem:
Phillip does not have the confidence to stand up
for himself. Because he’s always being bullied, mainly by Shaun, nobody wants
to hang around with him incase they end up being bullied too.
Change:
After following an online self-defense tutorial, Phillip
gains a bit more confidence and stands up to Shaun. What happens after he could
not of dreamt of, on top defeating Shaun, he becomes an Internet sensation gaining
a viral popularity; getting support and words of encouragement from everyone,
something his never had before. Also his mom realizing the trouble that he’d
gone through eases up from work and pays more attention to her son.
The
Idea: Phillip gets bullied on a
regular basis. Because of the bullying nobody wants to be around him, they’re
scared that they’ll get caught up in the crossfire.
What
continues to keep Phillip going is that because he is in year 11, he only has
to put up with the bullying for another 7 months, which is when he will
officially finish school in July 2013; however, those months are intense as the
main protagonist Shaun does not make it easy for Phillip. Shaun puts Phillip
through the most antagonizing, humiliating tirade of abuse. Because of this,
Phillip decides to teach himself some form of Self-defense, hoping that he will
be able to gain the confidence to stand up to Shaun.
Backed
against the ropes with nothing to loose, thinking he will still get punished
even if he doesn’t defend himself, Phillip eventually snaps, using what he has
learnt from the self-defense lessons and defeats Shaun.
The
altercation is recorded and ends up online resulting in it going viral, loads
of people watch the footage of Phillip defeating Shaun and Phillip becomes an
Internet sensation going from a lonely kid with no friends at all, to the
popular boy whom everybody wants to meet.
The Pitch
Depressed, Lonely, an outcast. A good day is when his not bullied, those
days happen rarely. Tripped over, spat on, slapped, will things ever change?
Tag :// Project Update,
Tag :// Story telling unit
Task
For todays task we got set lunchtime homework to come up with a short story making use of a technique we'd been taught called "on the nose" and "off the nose"
To give an example of how this would be used in a screenplay, here are some examples below:
On the nose: someone saying i hate you.
Off the nose: someone saying i hate you without saying it i.e. through actions and emotions.
The homework we got set was a scene exercise to create a story using this technique. Below is the story i created
How this helped me?
This technique has definitely helped me in regards to telling a story better where i never knew of this method before. I might of used this method without knowing before, but now i know how to use it confidently when telling a story/screen writing
Since I’ve scrapped my
old idea, my new idea that I’ve come up with is about a kid (protagonist) whom
has no friends and gets bullied everyday, mainly by the same antagonist.
Eventually the protagonist gets the courage to stand up to the bullying which
results in him no longer being bullied.
Once I had established
the outline for my story, I thought that I’d do some research into similar
topics to help me further expand it. Coincidentally as I started to do some research,
a video popped up on my Facebook newsfeed which was a video showing a 15-year-old
kid, Casey Heynes, getting bullied then retaliating by picking up the bully and
slamming him!
When I’d seen this
video, straight away I remembered what it was about and the whole story of
Casey Heynes. When the video first came out in 2011 it was a viral video clip
and Casey Heynes became an Internet sensation, so I decided to use that whole
scenario as a platform/template to create my story off of.
Tag :// Project Update,
Tag :// Story telling unit
At first I was going
to go with my original idea that I had created and pitched (link to original idea), however, after having
a lecture on screenwriting on the 1st October, being introduced to the classic three-act
structure, and shown a good example of this in a film called Witness, it made me have a more of
realistic overview towards the goals that I have to achieve for this project.
“ Come up with a fictional piece focusing on
the meeting of two main characters what should be set in one main location. You
must have your fictional piece properly formatted into a 10-page screenplay,
also, using your script as the blueprint, you have a choice of two moving image
forms to produce, either a two min trailer that “sells” the entire story, or,
the opening two minutes of my screenplay”
To summarize this into
my understanding, I have to create a 10-minute/ 10 paged screenplay FOCUSING on the MEETING
of TWO MAIN CHARACTERS in ONE MAIN SET LOCATION, there must be a set up, confrontation, and a resolution
to that confrontation in order for my story to be complete and make sense, if
I’m following the 3-act structure.
The first idea (click link) that I pitched,
subconsciously without knowing, I had included a set up, confrontation and also
and also a resolution, this was only because most shows and films that I’ve
watched use this format; but at the time of me creating this idea I had not
known, neither discovered the reason behind this format being used.
Upon being taught the
3-act structure and reviewing my first idea, I realised it was too far fetched
for the task that I had been set for me to do it within the time limit given. On
a trailer yea it would look good with the vfx and the mystery surrounding the
characters, but before I could do the trailer I had to write a 10 paged screenplay
that explains the story around the characters which should include a set up, confrontation and a resolution to
this confrontation. When I tried to brain
map out an idea I literally got writers block, I couldn't think of a way in
which I could do all of this within the given time limit that I’d been set for
this project.
Conclusion
Where screenplay
writing is totally new to me, I think that originally I approached my project
with the right intentions, but, the wrong knowledge on how to go about doing it. Now
knowing and understanding the three-act and two-act structure , its made me have a total
different view towards how I should come up with a story and write/pace a screenplay to this story within my given project limitations.
So because of this i've scrapped my idea and decided to go back to the drawing board to try and come up with a new idea/story.
