Unit 1: Story-telling: Idea Development

As of Friday I decided on the concept of my script for my first unit. I've written a first draft of my idea, however the draft is unfinished as I need to figure out what will happen next. Here is part of my first draft...

"A twenty-something year old man and woman are in their separate homes, they wake up and text about how they can’t wait to meet for the first time. Cutting back and forth from the characters, we see them go through their morning routines. The woman is very organised and timely, everything has its place and she goes through the morning step by step. The man is the opposite; his room is messy and he seems to be a ‘go with the flow’ type. While their mornings are different to each others, they both look excited once they start getting ready to meet up and when receiving/sending texts. We gather from their texts that they are meeting for lunch. They both leave around the same time; she walks out of the house and along the path as he gets into his car. He drives along listening to music, while she continues to walk. He takes out his phone and sends a text saying that he’s on his way, then puts his phone away. Her phone chimes a text tone and she takes it out of her pocket, she smiles as she reads it and crosses the road. We cut to the view from his car and see her come out of nowhere, we see the split second shock on their faces and we hear the screech of brakes. The car is about to collide with her and the screen cuts to black with the sound of a thud and smash.

After a short time of silence, we fade in to the woman lying on the ground with her eyes closed. Blurred in the background we can see the man leave his car to run towards the woman (a slowed down scene). It cuts to her phone on the ground near her with it ringing. The name of the caller is the same of the man she’s been texting all morning, Kyle. As we see the panicked driver without a phone in his hand in a state of shock kneeled over her, it’s clear that he must not have been the man she was meeting. The driver takes out his phone, and there’s a text on the lock screen from the girl that he’s been texting all morning, Lucy. This shows us that he was also texting/meeting someone else. He ignores the text and dials 999."

I know that from this point that I want Kyle and Lucy to meet in the next scene. I just need to decide on a location and how they will meet when they both assume they were 'stood up'. I'm not sure what I want to happen to the man and woman that the script begins with, and if I want Kyle and Lucy to find out what actually happened.

I'm going to take Steve Coombes' advice and try to decide on my ending before anything else, and then I can build up to that.

I may also change character names at some point.

I imagine this with 'Kyle' calling and the woman lying near the phone.

Unit 1: Story-telling: Steve Coombes

We were introduced to the writer Steve Coombes today. He's written for shows like New Tricks, Outlaws and Lovejoy, to name a few. He certainly has an impressive history of being a writer for 25 years as he told us.

I found him talking to us helpful as we got to hear about what it's like to be a writer - the good and the bad parts - first hand. I like that I've got more of an insight into the industry now.

The part of today that I found particularly helpful was the 'moments' topic. Simply put by him, as a writer, you want your script to have at least one moment that the audience will always remember. It's made me really think about trying to create an effective and memorable moment for my 'unit 1: story-telling' script. I'll continue to work out what my moment/s could be.

The Meeting: Celebrity Behaviour

In a pair with Harry, our task was to create a story about two random characters that we were given. The characters are a minor celebrity and a university professor. I loved both tasks given yesterday as I got to have a bit of practice for my unit project and spend the entire day being creative.

Here's our work...

Title: Celebrity Behaviour (Comedy Short Film) 

Character Names: 

University Professor - Philip

- Formal

- Wealthy

- Intelligent

- Psychology Professor

Minor Celebrity – Jeremy

- Singer

- Thinks he's a big deal

- One hit wonder from years ago

- Still clinging onto fame

- Short of money

- Arrogant/pretentious

- Delusional

Main Location:

Posh Bar

The Story Idea:

Two school friends who haven’t seen each other for a while. They meet up once every year. Jeremy always lies he is too busy to meet as he has so much going on.  Philip treats Jeremy like a psychological study looking at how fame can ruin you. Jeremy thinks Philip just wants to meet with a “famous” friend. This film will feature comical cut scenes to reveal their true life. For example, when Jeremy says he couldn't meet as he just had so much going on in his life it will cut to him sitting in his underwear eating a microwave meal and watching cartoons at home.

Opening scene:

Philip is waiting in a bar with a pint of beer for himself and a Martini for Jeremy.  Jeremy struts thinking everyone recognises him and is admiring him. He joins Philip at the table and they begin to tell each other about their year.

Opening line of Dialogue:

INT. Posh Bar, Philip is sitting at a table with drinks waiting for Jeremy.

 Jeremy walks through the main doors into the building and starts approaching random people.

Jeremy: “Don’t everyone rush at once, calm down its just me, please no pictures”

Further Into the Jungle

Here is our image that we feel represents our film:

Our two main characters are the father and the eldest son. Here is the image of how we imagine the eldest son (however a couple of years younger than this):

And here is how we imagine the father (just the look of the man rather than casting Bear Grylls):

Here is our first line of dialogue for In the Jungle:

Father narrating: "It started like any other day. Morning with the family, breakfast at the table. All seemed normal until we heard the sound of our door. How I was I supposed to know that a simple letter would lead us astray from the life we once had."

25 Word Pitch: In the Jungle

In a pair with Lawrence, our task is to create a 25 word pitch about a film that we've thought up.

Our film would be called 'In the Jungle' and would be about a family adventure/safari holiday going wrong when the three children and parents are accidentally split up. They attempt to survive vicious animals at the same time as trying to make their way back to each other. The genre would be action adventure.

Our inspiration came from a news article about a white tiger killing a child at Delhi zoo, we developed the story from there.

So here is our pitch...

"A thrilling safari adventure turns into a fight for survival when a family gets separated. Will nature itself be the source of their demise?"

'Soft' Pitch

So we watched the short film 'Soft' today by Simon Ellis. Great film, I especially loved the camera work. Adding shots filmed on a camera phone to show the scenes from the teenage gang's point of view was very clever and made it feel so realistic. Here it is below...

Anyway, my task is to create a 25 word pitch about the film, so here it is...

"When a teenage gang violently targets a father and son, we see their relationship take a dramatic turn as their bravery is put to the test."

(Okay so it's 26 words but "bravery is" looks a lot better than "bravery's"!)

Megan: A Little Bit About Me

After lots of technical trouble with Adobe Premiere, I finally present to you my course summer project!

Apologies for the appallingly low quality of the video and sound, sadly it had to be filmed on a cheap and old digital camera that should really only be used for taking photographs. I had fun creating this and it's made me even more excited to start my first unit of Television Production!