Step 6 - Extended reserach

Primary reserach:
To complete my primary reserach, I firstly asked my parents if they watch a particular genre of film, what would they expect to see. The genres I asked them about were Drama, Romance and Comedy.
This is what they said:
Comedy:

• Main character is usually male
• Can sometimes relate personally to what is happening, making us laugh
• Blatant stereotypes

Romance:

• Main parts played by either genders
• "Boy meets girl"
• The love between two people is usually complicated by something
• Everything is always okay in the end

How the characters lives will be affected by love - Secondary reserach:
After watching an episode of documentary series of wealthy women in Florida, USA, it has taught me they find it very hard to find a decent man, as well as run their own business indepedantly. This is because they very much like to go out with their "girl friends" for a few drinks or do other social activities rather than meet men as they don't have enough time for this. I want to encorporate this into my script. Although my main female character is much younger than the females in the documentary, I want to change this idea of having to focus too much on their business and have it although her parents are forcing her to spend every spare minute adding to their knowlegde whilst still in some form of education.

As for the main male character, I want to use the idea that the boy has finished compulsary education and is now doing nothing with his life. This idea was inspired by the role played by Jack Black in 'School of Rock'. This is because it is completly opposite to how the girl is, creating contrast within the film - and the phrase "opposites attract" is also related to romantic/drama films.

Step 5 - Reading litrature

Unfortuantly, I was only able to find a PDF file for only one publication - Raindance Writers' Lab: Write & Sell the Hot Screenplay by Elliot Grove. However, it did teach me a few things about how to write a good screenplay.

Firstly, it has taught me that there are 7 key points to think about when writing:
1) Entertainment - The primary reason the screenplay has been written/going to be wrote is to entertain your target audience. Although this may be seen by some as a job for the director, the editors and key roles during production, it is the writers role to control the original content of the script. The direct and editor etc are only responsible for how the content is presented.
2) Comerce - "Orson Welles said ‘A poet needs a pen, a painter needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs a whole army’." "Writers who forget the business side of the industry do so at their peril. The bankers and financiers, the marketing and public relations people, the owners and employees of the cinemas, the accountants with their complex procedures, the tax lawyers, the copyright and royalty collectors: these are a few of the silent faces who are employed by the business side of the film industry. Add in the more glamorous roles of the actors, the directors, the editors, make-up artists, scenic artists, lighting and sound specialists and you really do have an army of people involved in the making of a film. Each area is really a sub-industry and the people in each sub-industry tend to distrust, and sometimes even hate the people in other sub-industries. But money and collaboration govern the entire movie business. Therefore a writer who includes camera directions in a screenplay, or is too specific with stage directions, is precluding the possibility of collaboration with the cameraman and the actors – two very important categories of creatives. The trick is to write a screenplay that inspires each and every category of person likely to be involved in the making of the movie." http://escrituraavcontemporaneo.wikispaces.com/file/view/write+%2B+sell+the+hot+screenplay.pdf 

3) Contrivance - As screenwriters, we must learn to fill the void of the screen with images and voices that follow the contrivance in the cinemas. Remember too, that as children we all looked forward to the bedtime stories that our parents told us. Now that we are adults, we still love a good story and go to the cinema to get one. The fact that filmmakers use a series of contrivances to bring us the story is something that we expect and accept.
4) Peeping Tom - "The challenge for screenwriters is to write a script that is so compelling that the audience will find it very difficult to stop following. For screenwriters, the challenge is to create a world that people want to stare at, and to make the screen characters, dialogue, setting and action so compelling that they cannot wrench themselves away from the screen until the very last frame, the very last words in the script."
http://escrituraavcontemporaneo.wikispaces.com/file/view/write+%2B+sell+the+hot+screenplay.pdf
5) Maximise, in minimal circustances - Use every technique you can possible, but avoid using poet techniques such as similes, metaphors and alliterations etc. Also you can only write what is on the screen. For example, you can't say "it's very hot" because how would you show that? Handling your personal life around your script writing is very important too. It is very easy to get distract by the smallest things such as a noise from outside the room you are writing in.
6) Hollywood, love it or leave it? - This is all down to personal opinion. Do you like films that are filmed in major cities and also you special effects and grand camera movements or do you prefer original, independant films? Your own answer to this decides what you include in your own script.
7) Audience - Remember you are writing for only one audience, the reader! You have to impress the reader because they have the one thing you want - a cheque book. The people who are responsible for presenting the film to potentially millions are the film makers themselves.

Step 4 - Exisiting screenplays

http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/graduate.txt - Graduate by Buck Henry (Romance)
Just by reading the first couple of pages of this script, I can see that a lot a detail has been written about. It has taught me that not only does the script have to include stage directions, characters dialogue and location of the scene, but in depth detail about the camera shots too.
Reading further on into the script, I have learnt that when I write my own script, I am going to have to keep the audience entertained from the very beginning. To do this, I am going to have to create a scenario which many things could evolve from. By doing this, it keeps the audience entertained as they are sub-consciously trying to work out what is going to happen in the end.

http://www.zen134237.zen.co.uk/The_Sarah_Jane_Adventures/Sarah_Jane_Adventures_3x01_-_Prisoner_of_the_Judoon_pt1.pdf - Sarah Jane Adventures, episode 1 by Phil Ford (UK Drama)
Because 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' is a television drama, the script is different to a short film drama. This is because in each episode of the series, there is a small scenario which is solved, but the problem which needs to be solved is not very big. Although the problem is not very big, each of the problems in the series have to link which makes it difficult to write a television series. As well as this, most television series' have more than one writer so there are more people to suggest ideas and elaborate on them. By reading this script, it has made me more aware of how good script presentation makes it better as it is much easier to read because of the amount of characters and different locations.
Another difference of this being a T.V drama instead of a film drama is that it doesn't bring the audience is straight away unlike a film. This is because it is able to leave each series on a cliffhanger to make the audience want to watch the next episode, whereas films need to grip the audience from the beginning so that they watch all the way to the end.

http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/40_year_old_virgin.pdf - 40 Year Old Virgin by Judd Apetow & Steve Carell (Comedy, Romance)
Just by reading the script and knowing the general rule of 1 script page to every screen minute, I can understand that this film has around a minute and a half of non-dialogue action. This introduces the audience to a variety of characters early on and gives them a good understanding of what each character is about. The first pieces of dialogue give the audience some more information about their personality on top of what they already know about what they do as their day job. The opening dialogue scenes also set up the rest of the film with the mention of a simple scenario. Again, keeping the audience interested in what might happen in the scenario, in this case a game of poker at somebodys house.

after looking at these scripts, it has made it apparent to me that I need to introduce a simple scenario very early on into my own short film in which I intend to write. The key thing is that you keep the audience entertained from the very beginning!

Step 3 - Initial Research

The initial idea of my screenplay is based on a boy meeting a girl, but all is not as simple as it seems. This basic idea appears in many popular films including 'Shrek', where Shrek meets Princess Fiona and '500 days of summer', for example. With this idea, there are many different things that could happen to make the relationship complicated. How the problem is solved is what keeps the audience entertained whilst watching your short or feature length film. Although I have already developed my final idea, the article written by Christopher Fowler I have looked at elaborates on how a simple scenario can become a big idea.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwYYpg0My8Y - This link is for the trailer of 'Shrek'. The first 15 seconds of the trailer, informs the audience that Shrek is trying to save to princess, a simple fairytale idea of a princess being saved, but there is something preventing this from happening. In this case, the dragon.

http://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/blog/how-to-write-a-short-story/2-the-idea/
This link is basically an explanation/advice on how to come up with a 'BIG' idea for a screen play. Christopher Fowler talks about how it is not an idea as such, but making a simple scenario interesting for the target audience.

Screenwriting reserach and ideas - Step 1 & 2

STEP 1:
IDEA 1:
My first idea is about a man who goes on the run from the police, after playing a key role in a large gang attack in major English city. The man's home has been located by the police so he is unable to go home, so his last resort is to swat in a derelict block of flats, along with a group of people who're either alcoholics or excessive drug users to disguise himself amongst other members of the public. Ironically, because of the fact that the man is not an excessive drug user or alcoholic, he doesn't fit in and there is a personality clash between a few of the residents. Ironically, this results in the man being the victim of a gang attack, made up of people how he clashed with, as well as other contacts they had who were in the same situation.

IDEA 2:
A poor boy meets a rich girl, whose parents aren't too keen on they boys appearance or personality.The parents try to encourage the girl not to get together with him, but her feelings overwhelm her parents opinion. It turns out that it is in fact the girl that has the problems as she is a frequent drug user and the boy is trying to get her to change her ways as he feels deep love for her. It ends with the girl dieing from a drugs overdose as her parents try to blame the boy as they think he was a bad influence on the girl.

IDEA 3:
A talented male musician is on the verge of making the "big-time", but unfotuantly becomes very ill and brings his career to an abrupt end. Well thats what he thinks anyway... Fortuantly for him, he is asked to be the guinea pig of a new medication to bring him back to full health and it works with great effect. He uses this story to restart his career not only to make a living, but to make sure that everyone else who is suffering what he was a victim of receives the medication to bring them back to full health.

The Idea I intend to progress further with is idea 2. This is because it has a basic structure and features which are very common, but also very effective. It features "boy meet girl, complications occur, something happens, everything is okay in the end" structure.

Step 2:
To complete my screenwriting research, I am going to have to look at a range of different sources to collect information from. These sources include:

• The BBC Writers Room - Reading articles, tips and tools etc
• Script Angle
• TV Scripts and Bibles
• Possible YouTube videos?
• Books: 'The foundation of screen writing', 'Rain dance writers lab' and 'Reading for a living'

Step1: Create either a survey or questionaire to find out what different social classes/categories to gain information about their personal preferences.
Step 2: Put findings into a table/graph - quantative data.
Step 3: Look at different sources to gain inspiration for my own screenplay

by using a wide range of different research material, it gives you the opportunity to find a method/style that suits your own style rather than look at one source and feeling like you have to adapt yourself to that particular style.
Whilst carrying out the research, I will be posting my findings on the blog regularly. Also, whilst completing my research, it may give me new influences which we encourage me to change my original screen play to improve it.

Ways in which a writer is employed.

In order for screenwriters to get work, they have to be very pro-active. By pro-active, they have to submit their work to agencies and then have their work commissioned.

The Writer’s Guild:

The writers guild is an organisation created to help all screenwriters break into the market and secure themselves a job. To join The Writers Guild, you have to pay a subscription which is the equivalent of 1.2% of their earnings from writing. To become a full member, you have to gain 8 membership points. You can do this by: [1]

·         For each single piece of written work of any description for which reasonable payment has been received under written contract, in terms not less favourable than those existing in current minimum terms agreements negotiated by the Guild (where such agreements exist) - 8 points

·         For each single piece of marketed written work produced or published other than under the terms of the previous paragraph - 4 points

·         For each completed year of Candidate membership (up to four years) - 1 point.

      Although the guild is able to help writers seek employment, they are unable to offer specific advice on how to gain funding for your production. However, on ‘The Writers Guild’ website, it does   offer you links to places which will be able to offer advice about funding such as the ‘UK Film Council’.

BBC Writers Room:

[2]“BBC writersroom is the first point of call for all unsolicited scripts and writers. All work is assessed primarily for the talent of the writer, and in addition for the scripts suitability for further development.”

The BBC offer many opportunities to amateur screenwriters. These opportunities include competitions (such as a current competition – [2] “Channel 4 Drama are looking for 12 talented writers who currently have no broadcast credit.”) and providing links to agencies such as the ‘Scottish Arts Council’ who offer bursaries to published playrights based in Scotland.

UK Film Council:

The ‘UK Film Council’ is a film delivery agency which is backed by the government and based in the UK. The UK Film Council have been behind more than 900 short and feature-length films which have made £700m at the box office. For every £1m which has been funded by The National Lottery, £5m has been made at the box office.

By working with many UK agencies such as Skillset, BFI and First Light the UK Film Council are able to offer advice and funding to many screenwriters in order to help them kick-start their career in the industry.

Bibliography:

[1] http://www.writersguild.org.uk/join-the-guild/full-membership

[2]http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/submissions.shtml

Screenwriting - Task 1

The writers role in a production

‘Wikipedia’ definition of a screenwriter:

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which films, television programmes, comics or video games are based.

The Profession:

As screenwriting is a freelance profession, they have to be contracted by a production company. Every screenplay and teleplay begins with and idea. From this idea, the screenwriters write the script, with the intent of selling them to be professionally produced. When a script is sold, it is called a spec script.

The difference between a professional screenwriter and an amateur screenwriter is that professionals are normally represented by a talent agency. As well as this, professional writers very rarely work for free, whereas amateurs write for free regularly attempted to get sighted by a talent agency to become professional. There is a group of “wannabe” screenwriters who attempt to get into the film industry, which takes a number of years of hard work, failure and a persistent amount of gruelling work to meet success.

The commissioning editors role in a production

The Profession:

To become a commissioning editor, you must work your way up the ranks, as the role is a mid to senior level position in the industry. Usually, people who want to become a commissioning editor start with a junior position, such as an editorial assistant which can lead their career on further.

Commissioning editors scout media products to publish to help the production company’s list to expand. They commission work by finding the creator of the product they effective “buy” the product. They also make sure the creator of the product delivers to product on time which meets the specification set by the production company.

During every stage of a production, the commissioning editor will be involved at some stage. They are they key link between the initial product proposal and the final product. To develop the product company’s product list, the commissioning editor conducts research in their field to discover treands and gaps in the market.

To find out this information they:

•- Attend film festivals or similar events, including conferences

•- Complete internet research

- Construct and complete surveys to find out what the public demand

The Producers role in a production

Wikipedia definition:

The producer is often actively involved throughout all major phases of the filmmaking process, from inception and development to completion and delivery of a film project. However, an idea or concept for a film can originate with any individual, including a screenwriter, a director or a producer.

The Profession:

The producers first job of a new production is to obtain the rights to create/co-create a screenplay of any type. As it is the producers job to oversee the whole process, it is their job to coordinate, supervise and control all major aspects of the production. It is also their job to raise fund for the production and scout/ hire people to complete important roles such as casting director of film director. They will also have a big say in who gets the job of other roles such as line producer and accountant.

The directors role in a production

Wikipedia definition:

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film’s artistic and dramatic aspects, while guiding the technical crew and actors.

The Profession:

The director has many responsibilities such as overseeing all creative aspects of film under the film producer. Directors often have an intention of how they want the final product will look. It is also their job to turn the script into a sequence of shots. As well as this, they decide on the tone the film/television programme will have and determine what the audience will gain from the visual experience. The choice of camera angles, lens effect and lighting is a big part of helping the audience to gain from the visual experience, which is another one of the directors job, with the help of the cinematographer/camera operator.

Not only is the director play a big role in the production of the film/television programme, they also work very closely with the editors to make sure that their work done during production making sure of what the audience will gain from the visual experience does not go to waste. This is done by ensuring the close ups, mid shots and long shots are appropriate when put together with the rest of the product. The director also gives advice about the colour grading, used to add warmth or any other emotion to the final product. The director may also participate in the sound mix and musical composition of the product.

The script editors role in a production

Skillset definition:

Script editors provide a critical overview of the screenwriting process, and liaise between the producer development executive and the screenwriter. Script editors do not offer solutions, but instead use their analytical skills to help screenwriters identify problems, explain the potential consequences of screenwriters’ choices, and thereby help to strengthen  and develop screenplays. Also, screenwriters are, more often than not, employed on a freelance basis and their fees and levels of involvement are negotiable.

The Profession:

They have a good insight into different structures of screenplays, and what structure of narrative effects the audience in a particular way. The script editor must be able to give a clear opinion on the premise, screenplay or treatment but be able to back their opinion with detailed reasoning. Their opinions must fit with the context of the entire filmmaking process and should be able to help the screenwriters and producers if any confusion about their opinion occurs. The script editor is also the link between the ‘screenwriters creative desires and impulses and the commercial imperatives of the marketplace’. (http://www.skillset.org/film/jobs/script/article_4056_1.asp)

The script editor also hold more of an insight into the structure of the screen play than the actually screenwriters itself, and usually help the screenwriter to experiment with the many possibilities available to them. The script editor is also responsible in helping to develop a route map. In order for this to be effective, they must work closely with the screenwriter and producer.

The readers role in a production

Skillset definition:

Script readers must have specific skills in analysing screenplays. They evaluate screenwriters’ work, and make recommendations about the next stage on the process. They may also work in other film industry roles, script reading to make extra money, and to hone their analytical skills. The work is not always well paid, but can be very satisfying, and is a useful entry route into script editing and script development.

The Profession:

Readers work mainly for publicly funded groups such as the UK Film Council or the Regional Screen Agencies. The script readers used by UK film companies are normally highly recommended by development executives or producers. Screenwriters may also commission script readers to provide valid opinions on their screenplays before they are submitted to the producers. Scripted readers have to write a readers report to assess whether the screenplay has been professionally crafted or not.In most cases, the script is only read once by the script read, but in some circumstances, such as if the producer has applied for National Lottery funding, it may be read by two or even more script writers to ensure the bid meets the objectives. A readers report is typically 4-8 pages long and includes an assessment for the story’s suitability for production and a breakdown of the story itself.

The studio executives role in a production

Wikipedia definition:

The studio executive is an employer of a film studio or a corporation doing business in the entertainment industry. A studio executive may be a chief executive officer, a chief financial officer, a chief operating officer or be employed to serve in a variety of vice presidential captaincies, such as senior vice president of corporate relations. A studio executive may oversee production or may serve in a role identical to a corporation that is not involved in the entertainment industry.

The Profession:

Because of the amount of different roles the EP could take up during the production, it is difficult to identify their responsibilities exactly. Despite this, they usually fall into one of the following categories:

Development: This includes securing the rights of a story and developing the screenplay. After this, the producer is then responsible. The EP isn’t responsible for any part of the physical production.

Packaging: The EP authorises and supervises the packaging of the film. (reference – Skillset)

Financing: The EP is responsible for raising a big proportion of the funding for the production. Is it also their job to assist presales and secure agreements for the distribution of the product. In smaller productions, the main star of director may be responsible for these jobs because their role, which is already significant, will help emphasise the need of funding for the production.

Production: The EP acts as a mentor to the producer and supervises production for the financers. This type of EP is almost always in short film production schemes, where they typically co-ordinate the film’s production from initial financing through to final distribution. (reference – Skillset)

The agents role in a production

Skillset definition:

Agents represent filmmakers who are looking for distribution deals for their films, abd who may be first time directors, or directors who work outside of studio productions. Agents may agree to represent a film based on it’s script and proposal, but usually an unknown director can only acquire an agent when they have finished, or almost-completed film. Agents work with filmmakers to develop a strategy for marketing their films.

The Profession:

It is the agents job to gain new films in order to keep their catalogues up-to-date and appealing to buyers. In order to do this, they have to attend film festivals and screenings and also meet new filmmakers. Agents also attend these types of events and offer free VHS/DVD copies to promote their new films.  If, for whatever reason, the film doesn’t sell very well, a new and improved promotion campaign may be launched. If the agent doesn’t employ their own broker, they will be responsible for brokering deals for filmmakers too. Agents usually work very close with delivery services to ensure that all of the necessary materials are delivered to the correct location. Along with this, they are also responsible for keeping an eye on the financial situation and be able to provide a breakdown of cost and income from each film.

All of the information in this blog post has been interpreted in my own way from either 'Wikipedia' and/or 'Skillset'.