Screenwriting - Week 2


18/02/2019

Class notes
  • Screenwriting is the hardest part of the filmmaking process
  • It takes 15 years to master screenwriting, whereas it takes 15 days to master other aspects of pre-production
  • We will be frustrated and challenged in this class e.g. how will the characters relate back to the theme
  • Sometimes your best work can come out from people continuously testing you and at the end, your work comes out better than when it started.
  • Duncan Sarkies is going to talk about writing for television
  • Film Bootcamp next week
  • Big print screenwriting
  • Remember to ask Duncan Sarkies concerning creative block
  • Screenwriting is about engineering specific moments.
  • Be sure when reviewing something from television, you review an episode, not an entire season because you would be reviewing it overall, not specifics and specifics is the whole point of screenwriting.
  • Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner felt like montages of random pieces of writing with the same plot and characters. People like the visuals more than everything else in these films.
What makes a good short film
  • Theme
  • Character
  • Something that is 'real' and relatable
  • The artist's voice and vision is sincere
  • Authenticity
  • Not cramming too much in. Be concise
  • A slice of life presented by the storyteller, whether it is the director or screenwriter
  • Slice of life is a genre in anime that's more melodramatic than drama.
  • Relationships
  • Conflict
  • Dilemma
  • Resolution
  • Character don't have much backstory or arch
  • Most short films focus on the main character and their point of view or perspective.
Structure - Two Acts?
  • Act 1 - Set Up
  • Act 2 - Complications
  • Act 3 - Resolution

  • New Zealand is famous for coming-of-age short films
  • There have been short films that have broken rules or conventions and yet still work
  • Resolution in film is about if the character or audience has learned anything since the beginning.
  • If the character doesn't learn anything, the audience at least should.
 Signing Off
Theme - Dedication
Authenticity - Use of music and sound
  • Production design similar to French cinema
  • Being fired is the setup
  • Conflict with the boss. It lacks internal conflict
  • Dilemma is about having second thoughts and tough choices to make. This film has none
  • Resolution in this film is brief and done in denouement, which means all conflict is resolved
Two Cars, One Night
Theme - Escape, realism vs optimism
Character - No backstory, but there is a connection by the end
Authenticity - It was something you would see in real life. 
  • It was a slice of life.
  • As children, we all want to be more grown up than we really are (inferiority complex)
  • At the end of the film, the boy became less naive, while the girl became more trusting.

23/02/2019
Fizz
Theme - Fear, technology, extraterrestrial life
Authenticity - the NZ gold coin, the urban setting, the vending machine
Character - A man who is scared about a lot things - juvenile kids and a vending machine
Relatable - We all occasionally use a vending machine 
It's a simple story
The Set Up - the man waiting and goes down to the vending machine and picks it up. 
The Complications - the cat and mouse chase between the man and vending machine. Resolution - the vending machine is allowed to follow the man to his house, making all appliances come to life.
Dilemma - The man thinks about what to do with the vending machine after the chase.


24/02/2019

Cow
Theme - Isolation
Authenticity - Radio talking about rugby
Character - Two old men who have a friendly relationship at the start, but gradually develops into enemies.
The Set Up - Two old men who are friends like playing music and are trying to get somewhere.
The Complications - A guitar string breaks and the other takes one of his guitar strings to replace it. They can stand sleeping in the same boat. One of the old men cuts off all guitar strings of the other's guitar. One of the old men's cuts off bits of the other's beard to replace all his guitar strings.
Conflict - The complications develops conflict between the two characters.
Resolution - They fight each other with their guitar, knocking them off the boat. After they're gone into the sea, the boat is close to land.

It's able to tell a story with no dialogue.
There is no clear dilemma

The French Doors
Theme - fear of the unknown
Character - The man is in a relationship with someone off-screen. He is a smoker.
It's has vibrant graphic design to start with for the opening titles.
Conflict - The man figuring how on earth is it both daytime and nighttime
The Set Up - A man (I initially thought he was a tradie doing his job) spends his day putting up some new doors in a house
The Complications - Something mysterious goes on at night. The man finds it to be daylight at one end of the house and night at the other end, which where the new doors are. The man explores outside his house in the dark and sees someone or something. The man is attacked and taken away by a silhouetted creature.
Resolution - No one is at the house and the man's lamp remains outside in the daylight
There is no clear dilemma.

 Bus Stop
Theme - depression, adolescence, loneliness
Characters - They are all strangers to each other.
  • a depressed bus driver with suicidal thoughts
  • a young girl struggling with young love and innocence 
  • a lonely and elderly factory worker 
  • a young man who gets into party drugs 
  • a young, hyper Asian schoolboy who tried out new clothes 
  • a middle-aged man who is a social outcast, but has a young family 
  • a working middle-aged woman with a creative mind and has found success as a poet.
The Set Up - It establishes characters, but doing so, it combines with The Complications in a non-linear way as we see each character.
Resolution - The bus driver stops and contemplates his inner conflict and dilemma, only to just leave the bus and walk away
Dilemma - The bus driver thinking whether to follow his suicidal thoughts
Slice of life - it tells you about different things about these ordinary people on a bus
  • It has a grainy, black and white look like what is believed to be common in indie cinema. 
  • I also believe this film is a montage of character studies, but done so briefly.


  





  

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