I have pretty much completely changed my idea for my short film, mainly because I really wasn’t happy and wrote my one-liner very quickly, due to a mounting of stress last week- my cousin (who I love with was in hospital). I decided there were so many flaws in my storyline, especially surrounding character motivation and desire; why would Annabelle want to find the novels she didn’t really care about? I couldn’t really resolve this problem so I decided to start brainstorming again and really think about what I wanted to achieve with my script. My brainstorming was all over the place, so I don’t really want to bore you with the tedious notions of my brain. However, I think I really discovered the best way for my to brainstorm and that is on paper. I know that I’m meant to keep track of my ideas on this blog, but sometimes I need to leave the internet and screen world behind and resort back to that old method of pen and paper. I found the non-linearity of being able to write anywhere and made thinking more spontaneous. As for my new idea…
I started by first flipping my original story to have the person that bought all of Annabelle’s books as my protagonist and have the money-driven greedy Annabelle as the antagonist. This weeks lecture and reading really helped my focus on protagonist and antagonist, enabling me to think really clearly about character and because it is recommended that we only have to characters it really limited your options- one has to be the protagonist and one has to be the antagonist. However, I still didn’t find much conflict in the scenario and then just thought of the idea of the collecter. It’s always interesting when people become obsessed with something that can mean very little to a lot of other people.My first idea was to had a man thats pride and joy is collecting something. However, when a greedy other collecter wants to buy our protagonists collection the protagonist must decide whether money or the collection is more important, especially when the buyer becomes more and more obsessed with buying the collection, really playing on the protagonist’s mind. I was having a little trouble finding resolution in the ending because I had this great visual of just the protagonist sitting in an empty room with nothing, but that creates no resolution what-so-ever and would be highly disappointing to the audience. So, I scraped that idea and started thinking about who else would be annoyed or go against someone collecting something, if the protagonists desire is to grow the collection, who would want to make that desire impossible to achieve? I then thought the envious wife, who thinks their husband likes their record collection more than them. This got me thinking even further, however I wanted our sympathies to still lie with the collector, not the wife. I therefore decided this:
The husband is meant to go out and buy a wedding present for a friend of hers and then when he goes out and spends 200 dollars on a record instead it is enough to send the wife over the edge to the point where she sells his entire record collection. I orginally thought that he forgot to buy her a birthday or anniversary present, however I thought that would elicit sympathy towards the wife instead, I therefore wanted it to be something reasonably petty. Due, to the records being the protagonists pride and joy he packs up and leaves her to re-collect his entire record collection. After he re-collects all the records he finds himself happy with the entire collection, however the subtle irony is that he has nothing else.
I like this because there is resolution but there is something bitter in the resolution, which creates a dynamic drama. There is a really strong desire and a thwarting of that desire. I feel like this has all of the key ingredients to a good story and therefore good screenplay. I decided on records because I wanted to think of something that is logistically in terms of props easy to find a large amount of, it is also nostalgic and people often hold on to things that have a nostalgic presence. I think that I should probably re-create a one-liner:
When Ryan (35) buys a record instead of doing his wife a favour, what extreme will she go to in order to punish him? What will be the ramifications for Ryan and his most valued possessions?
I’m getting the impression that my blog posts for tv1 are only writing so over the next few weeks I’m going to mix it up a bit, add some pictures and videos and everything in between just to mix it up a bit. For this blog post I’m going to focus on the week 2 reading Slogans for the Screenwriter’s Wall. However I will reference tv shows and movies along the way. What I’m really trying to do within these blog posts is a well rounded response to things, which reflect on the reading, find examples that correlate to the reading and the reference it back to how it could be helpful to this course.
I’m going to first discuss sympathy, which the reading says:
Self-pity in a character does not evoke sympathy
BEWARE OF SYMPATHY between characters. That is the END of drama.
In reference to these points I think it is important to think ok sympathy in two lights, firstly the sympathy between characters that is mentioned in the reading and secondly the sympathy that the audience feels towards the character. In year 12 literature and media we discussed this till it burnt into my brain, is the character sympathetic? and more importantly, what makes that character sympathetic? This is really when you need to think about your protagonist, what makes them likable? Interestingly is the television show Deadwood, in which Al Swearenger at the beginning of the show is the most unsympathetic character you will ever come across, especially when he threatens to murder children. However as the show progresses, especially the intoduction of Cy, who is worse than Swearenger you begin to sympathise with Al, when you thought it would be previously impossible. I like characters that play with your sympathies, in which you sympathise with someone that you really shouldn’t , such as Dexter, who is a serial killer in the show by the same name. It is a really strange feeling when you sympathise with someone you never would sympathise with in reality. In terms of my own screenplay I would love to create a dynamic character that you sympathise with when you really shouldn’t. It really flips upside down the protagonist vs antagonist scenarios.
There is heaps of stuff in this reading, especially concerning everything that you should encompass and not encompass in a drama as well as in a screenplay generally. Things like ‘PASSIVITY is a capital crime in drama’ which is really obvious, if you have a passive character there is no motivation and without motivation there is no desire, without desire there is no conflict. Everything in a screenplay is like a chain and to keep the chain extending you need links. This then leads on to what the reading refers to as ‘NARRATIVE DRIVE: the end of a scene should include a clear pointer as to what the next scene should be.’ Without narrative drive the film is just a random collection of scenes and shots that don’t link cohesively to each other, this can work quite well in films like Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994) , however each scene is still losely linked around character.
All in all I really think this reading is highlighting the fact that you can do a lot of things right and you can also do a lot of things wrong in terms of writing a good screenplay. I really like the bit that states:
If you’ve got a Beginning, but you don’t yet have an end, then you’re mistaken. You dont have the right beginning
This is such an incredibly daunting thought, especially when it comes to writing our own screenplays, maybe it’s better to write the ending before you write the beginning. The ending is crucial because it has to come to some form of conclusion and resolution and I think it would be easier to work back from a conclusion than it would be to work forwards towards one, especially when you’re not sure what it is.
The main clue is to not disappoint the audience and to keep them guessing as to what is about to happen, what will come next? How is the film going to end? The last thing you want is something that is so incredibly predictable, because then you’re creating a romantic comedy, where you immediately expect them to end up together in the end. This was the case when I was talking to my mum about (500) Days of Summer and if you haven’t seen it don’t read any further. I got home from the film and talked to my mum about it and she was like but they end up together dont they? That was the expectation from the trailer and everything that they end up together, however it is quite the contrary. She ends up getting married to someone else, something that seems completely out-of-character as she always talks about how she doesn’t believe in love. Therefore the plot continues to keep you guessing right till the very end. This is ultimately what you want to create with your screenplay, something that keeps changing audience expectations.
Reference: Mackendrick, A. On film-making, (p. 40-43). New York: Faber & Faber, 2004.
The lecture for week two was on writing screenplay, with special emphasis on drama, protagonist vs antagonist, genre and character. The example used to highlight each of these notions is a short film from last year called Clown Train. I found this lecture quite helpful in terms of creating our own scripts because it set a nice kind of guideline to how to create a dramatic story, within a certain genre and how to create dynamic characters. The most helpful was the character stuff, where I got the following from:
- give your character a desire, and make it hard to achieve- this immediately causes a tension, and a sense of frustration and angst in the character, they somehow they are being blocked and must get past the block in order to find some form of fulfillment. In this scenario you’ve already created your beginning, middle and end, eg. Character wants something, something/one blocks character from achieving desire, character defeats said block and finds some sense of fulfilment. This already creates the conflict that is prominant in order to create drama.
- use your antagonist in an inventive way- this is more ambiguous, what does inventive mean? In terms of thinking of an inventive protagonist I immediately think of The Joker played by Heath Ledger in Batman Returns. He is so inventive because he has this rather crazy view of the world, in terms of pretty much creating havock, which is the opposite of what Batman is trying to achieve. He’s inventive in terms of the way he goes about it and of course the bizaar costume that he wears that already makes him intriguing, especially with the personality to match. He’s also inventive because he is more interesting (well for me anyway) than Batman, because he’s spontaneous and you never know what he’s next move will be, whereas Batman is more predictable, he’ll be cleaning up the mess, saving the people, etc. I think this is what creates an inventive antagonist, someone that really gets to you and makes you uneasy as to what they are going to do, or how they are going to block the protagonist, to what extreme will they go to? If you create an antagonist that is willing to do whatever it takes to stop the protagonist it makes it harder for the protagonist to reach their desire and therefore makes the plot more interesting.
- put your character under a great deal of stress (with something they don’t want)- a build-up of stress makes everything more chaotic, because when a character is completely stressed it is unlikely that they will act rationally, this then leads to more stress. I like the idea of someone who is compacted under stress to the point that they melt down (well I don’t like it but it is good in movies). It is always great to see how a character will overcome this mounted stress and find some sense of peace. Stress can come in so many different ways. It can be stimulated by the antagonist, as the Joker does in Batman Returns to the point of ridiculousness, or it can be something that the protagonist mounts on themselves because they cannot control their environment, which means that they need to be able to react to situations better and more productively. Often in romantic comedies the protagonist is stressed because they are under a large workload, it is not until they meet said person that this workload becomes less important or they meet another workoholic and then compliment each other.
In thinking about all these character points you will make a really facsinating story because there is so much conflict that needs to be addressed and overcome untill the character can feel contentment and happiness. In Clown Train all these points are ticked off for numerous reasons, firstly the protagonist has a strong desire to get off the train, however that is particularly hard to achieve because a) he doesn’t know where is b) the clown is unhelpful in telling him where he is and then c) the clown makes it nearly impossible for him to escape. The antagonist is inventive because like The Joker his creepiness mounts as the narrative progresses, where at first he seems unhelpful and then just ends up being scary, highlighted through the movement and reappearance closer finally by the quote “see you on Friday.” The thing that also makes the antagonist inventive is because we are unaware of the Clown’s motives, why is he making it so hard for the boy to leave? This obviously mounts into a ridiculous amount of stress for the protagonist because he cannot escape and not being able to do something you want to do immediately mounts you under a lot of stress, especially when this person is a physchotic clown.
One sentence that encapsulates your idea.
For me a good one-liner is something that wants people to know more, almost like a suspenseful and pithy statement that has people wondering what the film is about. I looked through some of last years one-liners and decided to pick a few that I particularly like, and some that I don’t like and reflect on them in this blog post.
Popular yet neurotic Darcy has a problem. He is in love. Not with his gorgeous girlfriend Anna, but his pet fish Wanda.
I like this one more because it seems really quirky and I want to know more. Firstly, the popular yet neurotic line really draws me in because you wouldn’t expect popular and neurotic to be together in a description of someone, also what doesn’t really sit right is that a popular person would be in love with a fish. It’s so quirky and I love it. Except that the Wanda thing has already been used; A Fish Called Wanda. This takes credit away from this one-liner for me a little bit. Yet, it is really intriguing and I want to know why Darcy is in love with his goldfish and more likely why he is popular, yet has these non-popular qualities. It also creates this tension with desire that Christine discussed in the tutorial, because Darcy’s desire to love his fish Wanda would conflict with his desire to be popular. This also creates a sense of a secret; if he tells anyone he will become unpopular. Therefore it is already creating a dynamic storyline only through a few short sentences.
Sofia is beautiful and gets noticed for her looks, but how can she be noticed by someone who can’t see her?
This to me seems like the typical case of wanting what you can’t have or wanting something that you can’t have. Yes, it brings up the idea of thwarted desire but in a cliched sense. Of course the beautiful girl that is always noticed wants something more, someone who doesn’t see her like everyone else. I feel like this has been done over and over again and immediately turns me off this one-line. However, it would be interesting to see if the result of this one-liner is as cliched as I expect it to be.
Patrick snakes through the twilight hills towards home, confident that a days corporate misdealing had resulted in nothing more than dollars and smiles. Meanwhile on a balcony not so far away a darkly clad figure watches the headlights as they wink through the trees growing nearer by the second.
This one is my favourite because of the highly descriptive visual language that draws me into the world. I’m already imagining the setting as it places you right there. Snakes through the twilight hills is such a lovely description, and already releases information about the setting. His confidence already brings up a great scenario clashing with the darkly clad figure that is approaching him, will this affect his confidence? There is so much in this one-line and I feel like every word holds its own weight, there is nothing redundant. I want to know more than anything the relationship between these two characters, are they strangers? Do they already know each other? There’s a lot of ambiguity, which wants me wanting to know more.
In doing this exercise it made me really think about my own one-liner and it was really helpful to read the other reference used in the blog on 1-liner, where the student writing the post really thought about the exercise.
I think the one liner task is highly intriguing as it leaves the audience dwelling in thought.
It talks about an approach to working out a one-liner and that is thinking about a main character and then thinking about another character, which stimulates a change or cause/effect with our main character. I like this approach because it already creates a dynamic relationship between two people, will main character take on this change or reject it? Will this cause conflict between the two characters? It already brings up integral parts of traditional story telling. This student has obviously put a lot of thought into the details of the character and really nutted out what motivates this character, and what would send everything into chaos.
For me I really think it would be worthwhile to nut out a full character and relate it back to the theme of THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS. In what way does my character represent this? I think once I have a character in mind you can really figure out where the conflict lies, because it is something that they are really opposed to or something that would make them uncomfortable. Once you’ve got the conflict I will then be able to nut out the catalyst of that conflict, whether it is another character, an event, etc. This will therefore ensure that the plot is character driven.
I will continue over the next few days to investigate this further.
So I’m going to keep this rather brief as my first blog post in tv1 for 2010. I will start by saying how excited I am about this subject. I have been looking forward to film production for quite some time now, and hooray it is finally here. For TV1 we have to keep a reflective journal that consists of 15 per cent of the course, which is this blog itself. One of or first readings for week one was on writing reflectively, which I will start with for this blog post and it highlighted aspects of reflective writing that we should encompass, especially in the form of description. It starts with a basic outline of what a reflection should have; a purpose, description of what you are reflecting about, evaluation of performance (if that is what you are reflecting about), questioning and challenging of ones self throughout the writing, comparing to others and profound rather than superficial thinking. I found all these quite useful and hope to embed them throughout my reflections throughout the semester, especially when reflecting on work that I have done and my own performance. However, I find the ‘comparing to others’ point not worthy of being within this list. Even though, at times you cannot help comparing yourself to someone or other people I think you need to step back from this and look at your work seperate from those who are you around you, because there is usually someone who is going to be better than you and someone worse. To get a better perspective I find it easier to look at my work away from everyone elses because everyone has different opinions about what is good and what is not, especially in consideration of this subject. For instance, there is no correct script, everyones is going to be different because we all have different writing styles and different capabilities. Other things that the reading points out as relevant factors in reflective writing concerns the following points:
- explore how reactions relate to behaviour (how did that become a factor that changed the outcome?)
- ‘stand back’ from the event (look at it as if someone else did it to distant yourself from it and gain perspective)
- recognise prior experience and the factor of that in your learning
- show evidence of learning (what would you do better next time?)
All these things need to be prominant through the writing of a reflective piece of writing, however what needs to be considered is the type of reflection needed when reflecting on something that has already been produced, eg. a script, film, novel, etc. This type of reflection is not the focus of this reading, however I think it works on a similar basis. The dot points above become something like this:
- What is your reaction and how did those reactions make you feel (and why? Examples that effected your reaction)
- Don’t let your like/dislike of the product cloud your judgement content wise (eg. was it well written, did it have good production values, etc.)
- Have you experienced something similar, how does that change your opinion?
- What have you learnt from viewing this and how will this effect your own production?
They really are only slightly different, but do place reflection in a slightly different context. So, why have I done this? I have done this to give myself some grounding in the way in which I will write within this blog, in terms of reflection. By writing this out and thinking about it, it gives a criteria for my blogging throughout this course and keeps my writing on track. I can look back at this post and consider if I have reached a good quality of reflective writing. Also I will be able to see how my reflective writing has improved over the semester.
Source: Moon, Jennifer, A. A handbook of reflective and experiential learning: theory and practice, (p. 184-189, 204-209, 222-225). New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2004.
Other things that were covered in week one concerned script writing and character development. This was especially considered in the tutorial, where we got our script and short film theme: The Seven Deadly Sins. In the tutorial Christine talked about the style that we should adapt and that is traditional story telling (HOLLYWOOD). This immediately put me in a bit of a pickle because I love a more art-house approach to cinema, such as Jean-Luc Godard, who I really admire. However, I am not completely put off because traditional story telling doesn’t mean boring story telling, especially when you create dynamic characters that drive the story. This was especially relevant when Christine brought up the idea of desire, saying the best and most interesting characters are those that are thwarted by desire or cannot achieve their desire. I love this as well I love characters that are in conflict with themselves due to something that they have done in the past or due to some kind of hidden secret. For example, in one of my favourite movies Garden State (Zach Braff, 2004) where Andrew (Zach Braff) reach what he desires because he has been repressed my anti-depressant medication that has stopped him from feeling, where he cannot remember how to feel. He must overcome this to reach what he desires, being not only Sam (Natalie Portman) but a sense of belonging that he never felt, expressed through his cooky family, his job, etc. It is characters that really drive a story and make it interesting.
In terms of the lecture we read a script and then watched a visual version of that script. This was really interesting to watch as it put things into perspective, that so many things can go wrong in production and that you really have to be prepared for the worst. The script was highly descriptive and visual in conveying the relationship between the two children, which was missing in the final edited version that was interpreted by someone else. I really like the idea that we make someone elses script because it allows for interpretation, yet keeps you grounded in someone elses work. I also like the prospect of someone else producing your script. It would be so exciting to see your script done by someone else and what they did with it, because it could be totally different for better or worse than you imagined it, or it could just be completely different in a really interesting way.
Anyway I am really excited about this semester in tv1 and hope that I can make it a successful one.
