Creating the Story

            Before a movie can go into principle photography, the screenplay, or script as it is commonly referred to, must be written up. The screenplay will hold all of the actor’s lines, the general locations to film, and practically the whole body of the movie. According to Movie Making Course by Ted Jones and Chris Patmore, there are two different kinds of scripts. One is the A/V Script format, and the other is the Master-scene format. The A/V is usually used for commercials, as its main purpose is for shot references. Because I’m creating a short film, I used the master-scene format which forces whoever is reading the screenplay to read both the dialogue and other technical ideas (20, 22).

           

            The first struggle I had with writing my script was coming up with a title. It’s not extremely important to the story, however I felt as if I should establish what this short film would be called before I started writing it. In my opinion, I feel as if a title has a stronger meaning if it has symbolic meaning, rather than a literal and direct meaning. I eventually came up with the name “Citrus”, relating to how the protagonist explains the behavior of the antagonist.

            In my short-film, I tried to write it up so that it followed the Screenplay Paradigm, or a three-act-structure. This includes the setup, the confrontation, and the resolution (Jones and Patmore 16-17). The setup in my short film consists of a couple fighting, and eventually the man hitting the girl. This establishes an abusive relationship, but also that the boyfriend is extremely hot-headed. It should effectively introduce the characters and their main character traits. The confrontation in my project is when the main character, Violet, stands up to the antagonist in an aggressive manner. The resolution, taking up approximately 30-40 seconds, is Violet escaping the house she was being trapped in.

            When writing my screenplay, I took advice from several passages within the book I’m using during this assignment. The main point I tried to consider as writing this project up was to leave things open. As stated in the book, “An open script challenges the cast to create their own input…. To challenge actors means getting each to work from his own, different, and distinct personal identity rather than taking it from the script’s common pool. The good screenplay leaves the director and players to work out how things will be said and done” (Jones and Patmore 19). Another point that they make that I tried to keep in mind was to create a film that perpetually kept the audience engaged in what the characters were feeling. “In a moving personal experience, one is actively involved and feels the stress subjectively. Screen drama must, however, be structured so that characters’ inner thoughts and emotions communicate to outsiders through the characters’ outwardly visible behavior” (Jones and Patmore 19). My example of doing this is during a scene where Violet is writing out a diary entry. It’s not the best way to show character’s emotions, as I’m going against the “show not tell” rule. However, this scene is able to communicate Violet’s thoughts and how she’s shifting from a passive and naïve character to one who’s actively thinking about the situation that she’s in.

            Through the process of writing this screenplay, I did my best to make it as entertaining and as interesting as possible. I tried to make it open for my future actors to interpret their dialogue and actions in their own unique way so that my style didn’t dominate their parts. From the section of the book that I read from, I learned new techniques that allowed my writing to become more professional, which would in turn benefit my story as a whole. As I grow older and hopefully get a career in directing, perhaps these same techniques will stay with me so that I can create unique and exciting stories that will entertain audiences world-wide.

Now I have a question for those of you reading: Do you think that the meaning of a movie title (literal or symbolic) has an important impact on the story? Or does the title even hold much significance in the minds of the audience?

Jones, Ted, and Chris Patmore. "Good Screenplay Essentials" Movie Making Course, 2nd ed., Barron's Educational Series, 2012, pp. 10-13.

A World Born from a Mind

            In our world, there are set rules that we must follow. Don’t drive over the speed limit; don’t make a scene in public; be polite to others. Our lives are intricate, each person having their own story, their own motives and unique ideas. The same ideas apply to film. When creating an entirely new world, you have to create rules that the characters must follow, create consequences for their actions, and make sure that each of the character’s lives are unique and interesting. Filmmakers are able to do this in a visual medium, making their works some of the most emotional and impacting things people see. Throughout the course of the next two months, I’ll be reading Movie Making Course: 2^nd Edition by Ted Jones and Chris Patmore, and making a short film of my own.

            There are three main stages in filmmaking: pre-production, production, and post-production. However, before anyone can start in pre-production, they must first think of a story. A great way to think of a story is to just write. As stated in the book, giving myself regular periods every day to write can foster ideas, whether good or bad. Then, once I have a good basis of a topic, I can then branch off and delve into deeper and more complicated ideas (Jones and Patmore 10). The question I constantly asked myself was “What message do I want to convey?” All of my teachers have told me that a good story isn’t told unless it means to teach you something. I hoped to achieve that same goal.

            After doing some brainstorming, I decided to create a story around abusive relationships and the idea that looks can be deceiving. To help encourage the details of the story, I wrote down sentences briefly describing scenes that stuck out in my mind. These scenes existed in the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd act of the story.

After thinking about the premise of the story some more, I then created a step outline, as suggest by the book. “By writing a step outline you can see how your script is developing, where rewrites or revisions may be needed to control your script, and check how successful you are communicating your story” (Jones and Patmore 11). By creating this outline, I was able to examine how I could create a cohesive story and how that story would help convey the theme I wanted.

            I then moved onto fleshing out my characters and making sure they were interesting and round, a character type discussed in English class. I wanted to ensure that the two characters, named Noah and Violet, seemed real, with scenes in the film that would show you this. One tip that the book suggests is to think about traits that the characters have, and then to create moments that would showcase these traits to the audience (Jones and Patmore 13).

Another thing I did to help create more realistic characters is to do the previous tip stated, but with the character types we’ve learned in English class. I did this because in my personal experience, a character that is flat and static throughout an entire story is like watching statues exchange pleasantries.

  

            Character development is crucial to a story. Making sure that I know my characters inside and out allowed me to ensure that the story itself would be interesting and captivating, perhaps making me a little bit of a better storyteller. Hopefully I’ll be able to capture the same depth of the characters in-camera. As I finish up this post, I would like to pose a question for those of you reading: do you think that it’s important for a story to tell a message, or do you think that perhaps a story can be good for just entertainment, even without a message?

Works Cited

Jones, Ted, and Chris Patmore. "Where's the Story?" Movie Making Course, 2nd ed., Barron's Educational Series, 2012, pp. 10-13.