10 page script development

Screenwriting was definitely something that I was completely terrified of doing. I have never written a screenplay before and only had a rough idea how it even looks like. Throughout this unit I found out that coming up with the idea for a script isn't the hardest part. The hardest part is to materialize the idea into a script and make it 10 pages long.

At first I thought I'd go with the idea of clashes of class which I described in this post, but after trying to write a script about it I realised I had no idea about what I was writing. Thus I decided to go with a very different theme. I was inspired by what happend to one of my friends. However I tried to imagine the story from a guys who asked her out POV and make it kind of rom-com style.

The research I did before starting anything was watching a lot of short comedy films on this website and trying to analyse the pattern and the camera work. I noticed that comedy films have more dynamic camera work than, for example, drama and they're more dialoge based.

I also re-watched some of the rom-coms such as "10 Things I Hate About You" , "The Proposal" and "What's Your Number?" and even though my script is a bit different than most rom-coms I still ended up refering to the way characters are written (usually clumsy, clueless and awkward).

On the day of the first script deadline I didn't have all 10 pages, but it did have an ending, which was one of not many things that i didn't change much after getting the notes on it. However I did ended up changing a lot of scenes, at my first draft my two characters met in park, but after getting the notes Steve suggested to write something more memorable and gave me idea of an accident. Because I knew I couldn't film a more serious accident I decided on a very minnor one which I could easily stage.

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DIRECTIONS

The magic 2 every director has to think about is: 1) what's in front of the camera 2) where's the camera positioned. It's important to read the script and break it down to questions: How? - style, mise-en-scene, mood. Who? - cast, crew, collaborators. Where? - locations, set. What? - production, costume, sound design, editing. Key director moments: How you pesent the character. Where you set the story. How you position the light. How you edit the story (rhythm, tone, mood). For our first Directions unit lecture we had to get into groups and have a go at directing a short scene. I found it to be very difficult to direct my DP instead of handling it myself. I ended up with a lot of spare shots I didn't need or couldn't use (mainly because it was hard to get the ball of paper to land into the bin) but the end result didn't disappoint me.

Camera workshop (coverage)

In one of our camera workshops we learned about the importance of coverage. It doesn't matter that in the end we won't use all of the footage and maybe even end up using just few shots, it's important to have multiple shots from diferent angles so that we would have options while editing. During the workshop we had two exercises. One of which was "The Chair": It ended up being pretty short video and I ended up not using half of the footage I got for it. For next exercise we were given scripts and had to interpret it in our own way. While editing I wished I would have filmed few more close up shots and to have actually filmed the whole scene from fixed camera positions.

Studio Idea

Personally, I found it really difficult to come up with an interesting studio production idea. But because "one idea is not enough" (Brown and Duthie, 2010) I came up with 3 initial ideas: 1) Guess the song type of game show, but instead of guessing pop songs, the contestants would have to guess classical music. I got this idea from a game my friends and I loved to play and the way my music teacher used to test my class. 2) Travel guide about how to make the most of your trip, places worth visiting and places that are overrated and not worth your time. I got this idea from my sister who travels a lot and from the way she does loads of research about each and every place she visits. 3) Debate/Game show where 2 groups of people debate about nerdy topics ( whats better Marvel or DC, which Doctor was the best etc.). The idea comes from noticing how much rivalry there is between comic book lovers and overall 'nerds'. I feel like this idea is the stronge...

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