Summer Project Diary - Week Three

They say that a scriptwriter's profession is a lonely one and in most cases this is probably true.
I hope however that their will be many more chances in the future when I will get to work with a group whose skills vary substanitally over different media platforms. Having set deadlines and people interested in your ideas is a refreshing sensation and a challenge to try and satisfy the group's needs. Helping out other people with their line of work is also a challenge and is helping me to become more aware and sensitive to the importance of both tv production and interactive media.

All of a sudden I am aware that the script is only a small part of this whole production. I have had to write props lists, shot lists, having to think about exactly how I want this script to look on screen. It is very exciting and also
a new and responsible experience of not only having and writing a vision, but having to make this vision come to life aswell.

This week I have had the fun task of helping out with the interactive media side of things by writing My Space profiles for a few of the short film's characters. I have realised by doing this that writing profiles like these would actually be
quite a fun and effective way of writing characters for scripts - what with all the blog, video, interests and activities options etc, that are set out on the page. It is a challenging exercise as I have to dwell into the mindset of each character and really think about the kind of person they are. I think it is a positive exercise and besides helping our website cause, it is helping to clarify these characters in my mind. I am gradually building up their lives and making them as real as possible which should help transform my vision of them when it comes to filming.

Scripting - Small fish in a big pond

'A camel is a horse designed by commitee.'

Whenever I watch a bad film (their are a fair few out there by my watch), I am always amazed at how anyone can make so much bad stuff and yet still greenlight their various projects. Why don't they realise those lines are awful?, Don't they know the acting looks forced? How can the man in charge of The Godfather Trilogy think that a film like 'Jack' is acceptable etc. Of course I am very naive. Just trying to compile together a short Summer Project, I am starting to realise
just how easy it is for a vision or idea to be altered and compromised in the face of just getting the job done. So far due to whatever reason, the film will alter quite sigificantly from the script that has been written. As Paul Zimmerman said when his script was endlessly revised by his director during the making of 'The King of Comedy' - 'it's like having a baby that looks like Martin Scorcese.'
In that particular case, I think he's being a little unfair seeing as 'The King of Comedy' was actually a cracking film and in De Niro's Pupkin, one of his most underrated performances of all time. HoweverI think his sentiments probably ring true among a number of screenwriters.

Now this blog may sound like I'm moaning which isn't the case. I am optimistic about the Summer Project and hope that everything will go well. But I think I am begininning to learn some important things about the film making business. For example, as good as a script might be, everything else has to be equally as good for it to show up well on screen (would people have been as transfixed to the staggering dialogue in L.A. Confidential, were it not for the fact it featured superb editing and lighting and looked flawless on the screen?) So much depends upon the acting, the camera work, the sound.... I am glad for projects like this for making me realise that the scriptwriter is really a team player and that like in sports games, the whole team must be able to gel and must be on form for the end product to be good.
We all get on very well together in our group and we have all been working hard so far. However with the unpredictable nature of filming and other unknowns like the quality of actors, and the rush to edit and sound check our work, I am very weary of the fact that we could end up with a good looking camelrather than a decent looking horse.

Summer Project Diary - Week 2, Part 2

I have been busy writing scenes for the summer project and also conducting shot lists for each scene. The scene with the father and son is likely to be altered because the rest of the group feel that it should be a somewhat more positive ending. I don't necesarrily think that's true but this summer project is teaching me more about the importance of compromise in group work. Everyone has had to alter some of their ideas to satisfy the requirements of the brief and general group opinion at certain times.
I am pleased with the scenes I have wrote and I am enjoying the challenge of being given deadlines for my work and having a specific role within the project. It all feels quite important and professional.

The majority of our group, including myself have also been scouting locations around the town. It is quite interesting thinking about all the logistics and problems to do with shooting and is making me realise that it's not at all as easy as thinking about ideas and writing them in script form.

Summer Project Diary - Week Two

The problem I had been having was thinking of solid script ideas that wouldn't satisfy a solid website. I had one idea that was loosely based on fact, about a kid losing his empire in the shape of his grandfather. Every other weekend before each visit, the child writes stories to narrate to his pa and looks forward to playing football with him in the park. However on the next visit to his hero's home, the grandfather is dying and can no longer do the things he used to be able to do with his sole grandchild. For example, he has no energy to kick around a ball in the field and he falls alseep when the kid tries to read him one of his stories on the sofa. The kid doesn't understand what is going on and is naturally upset by his grandfather's inability to go through the usual fun activities. I thought this was a nice idea as it showed the empire as being something simple yet enormously important to a young boy's eyes. However I couldn't think of many ways in which it could relate to a website. I thought of a forum option where users could post their own favorite memories and things to do with their grandfather when they were young but that's about as far as I think it could go in terms of interactive media.

Then in the next meeting my fellow scriptwriter came up with an idea about what people would do with their last minute on earth which fitted in well with the website idea. People could say what they would do with their last minute on earth and we could post theories on why the world was ending, video diaries, interviews etc. It was an idea that definitely suited the big project idea that we need to make the summer project a success. In the next meeting we decided that we wanted to show six different perspectives, or six seperate films that might link together to show different emotions of how people feel about the world's end. I will write three as will my fellow scripwriter. Writing is in progress. Watch this space.