Saturday, 23 November 2013
Tuesday, 19 November 2013
Friday, 15 November 2013
Storytelling Unit - Second Script Overview
Hello, this is my overview of the second draft of my script, enjoy the video! Ensure to follow below with the two embedded items.
Monday, 11 November 2013
Sunday, 10 November 2013
Storytelling Unit - Pre Production, Script feedback
So I did my first draft of the meeting, Simon really liked it! Which is always good, a pleasant surprise to what I was expecting. The feedback essentially says that the script osnt the best but the main story element works great, im happy with that. Heres the link.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z19wf00ljfrypcw/The%20Meeting%20-%20First%20Draft.fdx
Now I can work on tinkering with tbe last parts of the script, and moving on to my video!
Story Telling Unit - Pre-Writing Part 2
I had a tutorial with Simon to discuss how far I'm into my project and how I'm doing on the course. I feel passionate about the course and am enjoying it so far! I definately think that I'm not going to be a screenwriter but as Simon said, there's other units on the course that I may find enjoyable for me than screenwriting. Not saying I hate it, but it's 'not my cup of tea' so to speak. Anyway, to the critique of the project.
I spoke about the overall pitch and it went well, but I needed to make it more believable, so here's what I formulated based on that.
The hook - Two homeless people looking for a place to stay
Problem - They find a woman on the ground,
Cliff hanger - she needs help
Tension raises - billy wants to do something, but jimmy says no and tries to take charge of a situation he can't control, a role-reversal from earlier in the story.
Moment of truth - billy carries it out himself
Climax - they take the woman out and phone the police and an ambulance
Resolution - jimmy respects billy more as a person and vows he'll never underestimate him The rest of the story is essentially the same, except the pair are homeless, gives the vacant house a sense of purpose and believability. One f the two is an ex paramedic, which the other doesnt know, this gives more of an insight into how he deals with the case.
I spoke about the overall pitch and it went well, but I needed to make it more believable, so here's what I formulated based on that.
The hook - Two homeless people looking for a place to stay
Problem - They find a woman on the ground,
Cliff hanger - she needs help
Tension raises - billy wants to do something, but jimmy says no and tries to take charge of a situation he can't control, a role-reversal from earlier in the story.
Moment of truth - billy carries it out himself
Climax - they take the woman out and phone the police and an ambulance
Resolution - jimmy respects billy more as a person and vows he'll never underestimate him The rest of the story is essentially the same, except the pair are homeless, gives the vacant house a sense of purpose and believability. One f the two is an ex paramedic, which the other doesnt know, this gives more of an insight into how he deals with the case.
Tuesday, 8 October 2013
Storytelling Unit - Week 3 Day 1
Today, we are learning about the 2 act structure that we are using for the project.
Simon explained the two acts by relating them to the short film 'Soft' which helped me understand how it all related into it. Basically, the two acts have the following fields in them:
Act 1 -
The hook
Problem
Cliff hanger
Act 2 -
Tension raises
Moment of truth
Climax
Resolution
Adding the context of 'Soft' to these fields it shows how all these fields were implemented:
'Soft' Short Film
Act 1 -
The hook - boy beaten up
Problem - dad beaten up
Cliff hanger - hoodies outside house
Act 2 -
Tension raises - self explanatory
Moment of truth- boy looks at dad for help
Climax - boy comes out fighting
Resolution- boy leaves dad and walks off
Now implementing this into my story, this is how my story fills these fields:
Act 1 -
The hook - a scene that has a cryptic man torturing a women and the screen cutting out
Problem - the two uni students finding this 'body'
Cliff hanger - the body is still 'alive'
Act 2 -
Tension raises - billy wants to do something, but jimmy says no and tries to take charge of a situation he can't control, a role-reversal from earlier in the story.
Moment of truth - billy carries it out himself
Climax - they take the woman out and phone the police and an ambulance
Resolution - jimmy respects billy more as a person and vows he'll never underestimate him
Simon explained the two acts by relating them to the short film 'Soft' which helped me understand how it all related into it. Basically, the two acts have the following fields in them:
Act 1 -
The hook
Problem
Cliff hanger
Act 2 -
Tension raises
Moment of truth
Climax
Resolution
Adding the context of 'Soft' to these fields it shows how all these fields were implemented:
'Soft' Short Film
Act 1 -
The hook - boy beaten up
Problem - dad beaten up
Cliff hanger - hoodies outside house
Act 2 -
Tension raises - self explanatory
Moment of truth- boy looks at dad for help
Climax - boy comes out fighting
Resolution- boy leaves dad and walks off
Now implementing this into my story, this is how my story fills these fields:
Act 1 -
The hook - a scene that has a cryptic man torturing a women and the screen cutting out
Problem - the two uni students finding this 'body'
Cliff hanger - the body is still 'alive'
Act 2 -
Tension raises - billy wants to do something, but jimmy says no and tries to take charge of a situation he can't control, a role-reversal from earlier in the story.
Moment of truth - billy carries it out himself
Climax - they take the woman out and phone the police and an ambulance
Resolution - jimmy respects billy more as a person and vows he'll never underestimate him
Storytelling Unit - Week 2 Day 2
On this day, we learnt about the original 3 act structure that a screen writer should follow when writing a screenplay.
As I said, there are three acts -
Act 1 - Set up (25%)
This is where the characters would be introduced and locations and such, pretty much setting the scene for what is to come later in the story. Also introduced are -
-Theme of the story
-Time scale
-Goals
-Problem
-Tension
Act 2 - Development (50%)
This is where one would develop the characters further and the plot will start to unravel.
Act 3- Resolution (25%)
This is where most of the loose ends will be tied up and the overall conclusion of the story will take place. It is also important to give breathing space to the characters. The protagonist faces their biggest challenge and overcome whether won or lost.
As we are making a short film, the original 3 act structure doesn't apply, we will be learning the short structure next week, which in essence is a shortened version of this structure.
We then watched a film called Witness with Harrison Ford and we then broke it down following the acts and showing how this film follows it. I think this segment of the day was a good learning curve and shall help with my story.
Storytelling Unit - Pre-Writing
So, the three characters are as follows, I'm going to go into depth into the different characters into what I understand about them at these early stages of Pre-writing.
The Pitch
How wil two best friends act when they are met in a situation that could re-define their friendship?
Jimmy
Jimmy is the older of the two uni students that will be featured in this screenplay. Because of his age compared to Billy, in the friendship he is seen as the more 'older brother' type as he takes a lot more responsibility than Billy and this will show in the film. He sees Billy almost as the little brother and therefore thinks Billy is a bit of a loser, so kind of does everything for him like. Besides that in terms of a house, they feel they can share the finances if they both share a house, hence why they contact this house.
Billy
Billy is the younger (as mentioned) and relies on the older brother to 'carry him' in a sense (not physically) through life. Billy always wants to prove himself but he feels that Jimmy overshadows him too much. This makes sense later in the story which then forms the climax of the story and the eventual tie up at the end. Billy and Jimmy get on because they have always been in contact with each other and they are on the next course, so they are both getting ready for the year ahead. This is where the two actually form the plot of The meeting as they are looking for a house they could be renting out.
The Location
The location that I'm using is a vacant house. This is to do with the two characters renting out a house and therefore 'the meeting' taking place. The house is owned by a 'mysterious unnamed person' that is torturing a woman when one of the two boys are ringing to find out about the property. This si where the boys get left with the body, which turns out to be alive in a shocking plot twist.
The Pitch
How wil two best friends act when they are met in a situation that could re-define their friendship?
Jimmy
Jimmy is the older of the two uni students that will be featured in this screenplay. Because of his age compared to Billy, in the friendship he is seen as the more 'older brother' type as he takes a lot more responsibility than Billy and this will show in the film. He sees Billy almost as the little brother and therefore thinks Billy is a bit of a loser, so kind of does everything for him like. Besides that in terms of a house, they feel they can share the finances if they both share a house, hence why they contact this house.
Billy
Billy is the younger (as mentioned) and relies on the older brother to 'carry him' in a sense (not physically) through life. Billy always wants to prove himself but he feels that Jimmy overshadows him too much. This makes sense later in the story which then forms the climax of the story and the eventual tie up at the end. Billy and Jimmy get on because they have always been in contact with each other and they are on the next course, so they are both getting ready for the year ahead. This is where the two actually form the plot of The meeting as they are looking for a house they could be renting out.
The Location
The location that I'm using is a vacant house. This is to do with the two characters renting out a house and therefore 'the meeting' taking place. The house is owned by a 'mysterious unnamed person' that is torturing a woman when one of the two boys are ringing to find out about the property. This si where the boys get left with the body, which turns out to be alive in a shocking plot twist.
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Storytelling Unit - Week 2 Day 1
This day is consisted of expanding on current ideas based on what I wrote about in the blog post 'Week 1 Day 1' when speaking about the potential project brief. If you are unaware, here's a quick recap:
"-I've chosen thriller, something about the connection between thriller and meeting switches on a light in my head.
- Two uni brothers meet at an empty property looking to invest and get themselves onto the property ladder, so they have made an appointment with a local agency to set up a showing of the house
-when they get to the house, it is empty, the door is slightly open, after knocking for a certain amount of time, they enter the house
-inside the house's front room is a dead body with a sack over the head tied to a chair.
-one of the brothers immediately freaks out and checks for a pulse, when nothing comes back, the brother starts shaking the chair in hope that the person wakes up.
-the person drops a phone, with a play button on the screen
-a silhouette of a character tells the two boys 'sorry about this, just at the wrong place at the wrong time' followed by a random countdown, also police sirens are heard.
-unknown to the brothers at this point, fingerprints are all over the victim, but they leave anyway."
We are put into groups to therefore expand on the ideas and to help others, I think I gained a lot of information that I could used in my short.
-I think overall I need to formulate an ending that makes sense, after sharing the story with Simon, he said it was more of a setup rather than a full story, which makes sense.
- Two uni brothers meet at an empty property looking to invest and get themselves onto the property ladder, so they have made an appointment with a local agency to set up a showing of the house
-when they get to the house, it is empty, the door is slightly open, after knocking for a certain amount of time, they enter the house
-inside the house's front room is a dead body with a sack over the head tied to a chair.
-one of the brothers immediately freaks out and checks for a pulse, when nothing comes back, the brother starts shaking the chair in hope that the person wakes up.
-the person drops a phone, with a play button on the screen
-a silhouette of a character tells the two boys 'sorry about this, just at the wrong place at the wrong time' followed by a random countdown, also police sirens are heard.
-unknown to the brothers at this point, fingerprints are all over the victim, but they leave anyway."
We are put into groups to therefore expand on the ideas and to help others, I think I gained a lot of information that I could used in my short.
-I think overall I need to formulate an ending that makes sense, after sharing the story with Simon, he said it was more of a setup rather than a full story, which makes sense.
Friday, 27 September 2013
Storytelling Unit - Week 1 Day 2
Reciting yesterday:
"What we had to do was create a pitch based on a story in recent media. I chose the recent mall siege in Kenya. So I promptly came out with:
'Gritty Thriller based around a know terrorist group holding up a popular mall, with hostages including the Kenyan President's family."
We recapped the pitch, with Simon going round the room asking what everyone's pitches were, then it came to mine. The feedback is positive, but needed more of a punch to it, more eye-catching, more of a sell than before. Also, it would have been more beneficial for the pitch to have a more so I came up with another pitch which I think is vastly improved over the last one:
" Tensions run high as a Kenyan mall is taken over by a powerful street gang, with hostages including the President's family."
This detaches itself from any sort of real life event, giving it a more unique feel, plus it included the Presidents family. It was short, punchy and detailed enough to be presented as a pitch.
The rest of the first part of the day comprised of coming up with a story that related to two characters and a location that we picked out of a hat. The three I chose were:
-Beach
-Beach Bum
-Professor
I think I got it a lot easier than most people, but I think I went a bit too overkill in the story. It was meant to be a short story but I carelessly overlooked this key fact. Anyway, here's the story:
It is all based around the Professor having a weird fascination with marine life on the beach and creating the 'breathing man in water'. He can't get the funding for testing like big corporations so goes out of his way to therefore do the research himself.
He finds a beach bum and offers him the world; hotels, food, water, clothes, as long as he can take part in his small experiment. As he is an irrelevant beach bum he agrees and for the next few days enjoys this new found freedom to do what he likes all expenses paid. After the beach bum 'stops drinking the kool aid' and realises, the professor then carries on his mad experiment to therefore create this 'breathing man in water' and ultimately kills the bum. This causes the professor to change his schematics to therefore do it on himself, successfully He then jumps in the water to live out the rest of his life in the water.
Aside from being a 'stoner story', it was the most creative i've been in a while. Although it was pretty much laughed out of the class, it still got an applause, which I was thankful for. I can make the most pointless, completely random story, but as long as people appreciate the work at the end, it doesn't really matter how funny it came across, that's the beauty of this course.
I did think of a better story in the evening, in synopsis, the professor basically ridicules a beach bum for making nothing of his life, and being an irrelevant part of society. This caused the bum to be horrified and moves on, shrugging off these insults, a short time lapse later, a bunch of youths attack the professor, with the beach bum coming to the aid of the professor, with the aftermath of the beach bum letting the professor know that everybody is relevant regardless of social ladder, followed by the beach bum walking away with a smile on his face.
This fit the brief a lot better and therefore would be more acceptable to be pitched.
"What we had to do was create a pitch based on a story in recent media. I chose the recent mall siege in Kenya. So I promptly came out with:
'Gritty Thriller based around a know terrorist group holding up a popular mall, with hostages including the Kenyan President's family."
We recapped the pitch, with Simon going round the room asking what everyone's pitches were, then it came to mine. The feedback is positive, but needed more of a punch to it, more eye-catching, more of a sell than before. Also, it would have been more beneficial for the pitch to have a more so I came up with another pitch which I think is vastly improved over the last one:
" Tensions run high as a Kenyan mall is taken over by a powerful street gang, with hostages including the President's family."
This detaches itself from any sort of real life event, giving it a more unique feel, plus it included the Presidents family. It was short, punchy and detailed enough to be presented as a pitch.
The rest of the first part of the day comprised of coming up with a story that related to two characters and a location that we picked out of a hat. The three I chose were:
-Beach
-Beach Bum
-Professor
I think I got it a lot easier than most people, but I think I went a bit too overkill in the story. It was meant to be a short story but I carelessly overlooked this key fact. Anyway, here's the story:
It is all based around the Professor having a weird fascination with marine life on the beach and creating the 'breathing man in water'. He can't get the funding for testing like big corporations so goes out of his way to therefore do the research himself.
He finds a beach bum and offers him the world; hotels, food, water, clothes, as long as he can take part in his small experiment. As he is an irrelevant beach bum he agrees and for the next few days enjoys this new found freedom to do what he likes all expenses paid. After the beach bum 'stops drinking the kool aid' and realises, the professor then carries on his mad experiment to therefore create this 'breathing man in water' and ultimately kills the bum. This causes the professor to change his schematics to therefore do it on himself, successfully He then jumps in the water to live out the rest of his life in the water.
Aside from being a 'stoner story', it was the most creative i've been in a while. Although it was pretty much laughed out of the class, it still got an applause, which I was thankful for. I can make the most pointless, completely random story, but as long as people appreciate the work at the end, it doesn't really matter how funny it came across, that's the beauty of this course.
I did think of a better story in the evening, in synopsis, the professor basically ridicules a beach bum for making nothing of his life, and being an irrelevant part of society. This caused the bum to be horrified and moves on, shrugging off these insults, a short time lapse later, a bunch of youths attack the professor, with the beach bum coming to the aid of the professor, with the aftermath of the beach bum letting the professor know that everybody is relevant regardless of social ladder, followed by the beach bum walking away with a smile on his face.
This fit the brief a lot better and therefore would be more acceptable to be pitched.
Thursday, 26 September 2013
Portfolio - Scrapped project from 2012
This is not necessarily to do with the current unit I am carrying out, but worth mentioning as it is media oriented. It was meant to be for my ICT project when I was on my previous course at college. Due to this not fitting the brief, I couldn't carry it out so it was scrapped. It was to be a feature length documentary about the events surrounding 9/11. Here is the link. You should be able to view it as i've opened the privacy settings up to enable this.
9/11 - The day the world stood still.
I did enjoy the project as I was interested in the events of 9/11, I just never got round to finishing it off. One day maybe.
9/11 - The day the world stood still.
I did enjoy the project as I was interested in the events of 9/11, I just never got round to finishing it off. One day maybe.
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
Storytelling Unit - Week 1, Day 1
This was my first official day on the course, ridiculously excited for the day ahead! I got there on time, the buses are a pain, but I'm pretty confident that I know the routes now.
So, the first topic that we started on was a very big open question; what is a story? This is not a question I'm very good at answering, so I didn't have many ideas to submit to the rest of the class, as this was in the conference room (I hope this is the name of the room!) but anyway, a story is a telling of an event, whether fictitious or not. This would be the cornerstone for the unit (storytelling). Simon then went into the Script and Story ingredients, which we would then use later in our own story, with the project brief that we were given. From the initial introduction I know I will like this unit, plus the fact that if I need any support on the course in terms of this I can be helped, Simon is a pretty black and white stand up guy, he won't beat around the bush if my work is crap, which I like!
We then went further into the different ingredients that would be in the story. Simon said (haha, Simon said, that's amusing) about different factors such as the goal, problems to overcome and change. The key to great script writing is by including and implementing these factors effectively.
We were then introduced to the unit handbook that we would follow through the next couple of weeks that included all of the information that we would need for the unit. The most important part for me was the project brief, as this is what the unit will be focusing around. This unit is entirely portfolio based, and I shall be including a lot of the different areas I cover such as research and production in this blog. Here is the overview of the brief.
It is split up into two key parts, screenplay and the visualization and re-write:
The title of the screenplay is 'The Meeting'.I was set different parameters that I would follow to create what I desired. This included:
Focusing the meeting of two main characters
Set in one main location
A fictional story but can be sourced from factual material
Can be a comedy, thriller or drama
All to be submitted on the 21st October, which is about a month, it is then preceded by the visualization and rewrite, which shall be my favorite part, the production. As long as I document everything I do, I shall be fine. I will then rewrite the screenplay based on feedback and submit both products on November 25th.
Overall, I will enjoy this project a lot, as the course in itself lets you take the ball and run with it so to speak, I just can't wait to start it!
The next part including watching the award winning short, Soft, and then making a detailed analysis of the story breakdown and creating a script that would therefore be added alongside to 'sell' the film off.
Soft (Short film)
It was surprising how many subliminal messages was actually included in this short film of around just 15 minutes long. Credit to Simon Ellis for creating such a masterpiece in such a short amount of time. Anyway, after discussing the different plot points and devices used to immerse the viewer, we went on to the pitch, here was my pitch:
'A realistic, hard-hitting drama that follows the path of a timid father and son due, dealing with intimidating youths in the local area.'
I thought it explained the story rather well, Simon did too.
After all of the different ingredients were explained, we were set a class task that we would then work on the next day. What we had to do was create a pitch based on a story in recent media. I chose the recent mall siege in Kenya. So I promptly came out with:
'Gritty Thriller based around a know terrorist group holding up a popular mall, with hostages including the Kenyan President's family.
I've also thought of ideas for the 'The meeting'. I thought I might post my inital thoughts here:
-I've chosen thriller, something about the connection between thriller and meeting switches on a light in my head.
- Two uni brothers meet at an empty property looking to invest and get themselves onto the property ladder, so they have made an appointment with a local agency to set up a showing of the house
-when they get to the house, it is empty, the door is slightly open, after knocking for a certain amount of time, they enter the house
-inside the house's front room is a dead body with a sack over the head tied to a chair.
-one of the brothers immediately freaks out and checks for a pulse, when nothing comes back, the brother starts shaking the chair in hope that the person wakes up.
-the person drops a phone, with a play button on the screen
-a silhouette of a character tells the two boys 'sorry about this, just at the wrong place at the wrong time' followed by a random countdown, also police sirens are heard.
-unknown to the brothers at this point, fingerprints are all over the victim, but they leave anyway.
That's how much i've thought of! Hopefully, I can shape these ideas into something more stronger and thicker.
That concludes this day, I'm really enjoying this course and the studios in general (apart from the travelling on buses there and back), I can't wait to dig my teeth into the unit and the meeting project and look forward to tomorrow!
So, the first topic that we started on was a very big open question; what is a story? This is not a question I'm very good at answering, so I didn't have many ideas to submit to the rest of the class, as this was in the conference room (I hope this is the name of the room!) but anyway, a story is a telling of an event, whether fictitious or not. This would be the cornerstone for the unit (storytelling). Simon then went into the Script and Story ingredients, which we would then use later in our own story, with the project brief that we were given. From the initial introduction I know I will like this unit, plus the fact that if I need any support on the course in terms of this I can be helped, Simon is a pretty black and white stand up guy, he won't beat around the bush if my work is crap, which I like!
We then went further into the different ingredients that would be in the story. Simon said (haha, Simon said, that's amusing) about different factors such as the goal, problems to overcome and change. The key to great script writing is by including and implementing these factors effectively.
We were then introduced to the unit handbook that we would follow through the next couple of weeks that included all of the information that we would need for the unit. The most important part for me was the project brief, as this is what the unit will be focusing around. This unit is entirely portfolio based, and I shall be including a lot of the different areas I cover such as research and production in this blog. Here is the overview of the brief.
It is split up into two key parts, screenplay and the visualization and re-write:
The title of the screenplay is 'The Meeting'.I was set different parameters that I would follow to create what I desired. This included:
Focusing the meeting of two main characters
Set in one main location
A fictional story but can be sourced from factual material
Can be a comedy, thriller or drama
All to be submitted on the 21st October, which is about a month, it is then preceded by the visualization and rewrite, which shall be my favorite part, the production. As long as I document everything I do, I shall be fine. I will then rewrite the screenplay based on feedback and submit both products on November 25th.
Overall, I will enjoy this project a lot, as the course in itself lets you take the ball and run with it so to speak, I just can't wait to start it!
The next part including watching the award winning short, Soft, and then making a detailed analysis of the story breakdown and creating a script that would therefore be added alongside to 'sell' the film off.
Soft (Short film)
It was surprising how many subliminal messages was actually included in this short film of around just 15 minutes long. Credit to Simon Ellis for creating such a masterpiece in such a short amount of time. Anyway, after discussing the different plot points and devices used to immerse the viewer, we went on to the pitch, here was my pitch:
'A realistic, hard-hitting drama that follows the path of a timid father and son due, dealing with intimidating youths in the local area.'
I thought it explained the story rather well, Simon did too.
After all of the different ingredients were explained, we were set a class task that we would then work on the next day. What we had to do was create a pitch based on a story in recent media. I chose the recent mall siege in Kenya. So I promptly came out with:
'Gritty Thriller based around a know terrorist group holding up a popular mall, with hostages including the Kenyan President's family.
I've also thought of ideas for the 'The meeting'. I thought I might post my inital thoughts here:
-I've chosen thriller, something about the connection between thriller and meeting switches on a light in my head.
- Two uni brothers meet at an empty property looking to invest and get themselves onto the property ladder, so they have made an appointment with a local agency to set up a showing of the house
-when they get to the house, it is empty, the door is slightly open, after knocking for a certain amount of time, they enter the house
-inside the house's front room is a dead body with a sack over the head tied to a chair.
-one of the brothers immediately freaks out and checks for a pulse, when nothing comes back, the brother starts shaking the chair in hope that the person wakes up.
-the person drops a phone, with a play button on the screen
-a silhouette of a character tells the two boys 'sorry about this, just at the wrong place at the wrong time' followed by a random countdown, also police sirens are heard.
-unknown to the brothers at this point, fingerprints are all over the victim, but they leave anyway.
That's how much i've thought of! Hopefully, I can shape these ideas into something more stronger and thicker.
That concludes this day, I'm really enjoying this course and the studios in general (apart from the travelling on buses there and back), I can't wait to dig my teeth into the unit and the meeting project and look forward to tomorrow!
Saturday, 14 September 2013
Summer Project
Hello, welcome to my first blog post! As part of my summer project I had to make a video pretty much about me, below is the finalised product, made with Sony Vegas Pro 11.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVg_UCLL-N0&feature=youtu.be
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