ID2: Engaging Through Industry

Module Introduction

The main focus of this module is to prepare me for my future career and the next steps to take for me as a filmmaker after finishing this course. A research-based module into the possible options for me as a “want to be” writer/director in the contemporary filmmaking industry. To do this, I will be undertaking a professional development plan to support the tradition from education to employment. To also figure out a refined strategy to cultivate an audience, networking within industry placement/mentorship that correlates with my progression plan. To also produce a professional standard, digital portfolio or website to support my transition into a career path.

To start the refective process, I will be identifying three personal goals for this module that I feel would reflect my current vision of success…

1. My first, main goal is to work with an acclaimed mentor, whom I look up to. Networking to not only learn from them for creative pursuits but also help me to understand how to enter a contemporary writing landscape, either that be within theatre or screenwriting.
2. The second goal is for me to create a plan that is realistic for me to pursue within the next 3-5 years, help me feel confidant enough to move out of my home town and to place myself as a professional into a competitive industry, whilst remaining financially stable.
3. Finally, my third goal is to use this time wisely and polish-up/finish my website/digital portfolio. Adjusting it to focus particularly for me as an inspiring writer. Also to make it look more professional from a student filmmaker to a graduate and specialising as a writer ready to work professionally within the industry.

Just as important as the goals, it is important to identify how I might find evidence or measure my success in meeting them, and my engagement with the module. Therefore, I will be making weekly entries evidencing my progress and reflecting upon my development and at the end of this module I will be reflecting upon my three goals and whether I have achieved them or not, and why.

Design Thinking

Within this session, we were taught to implement useful tools when making our business plan. One teaching which we were introduced to, was to consider identifying why when planning my career and to do this effectively we were also introduced to a tool called ‘Design Thinking’. This way of thinking refers to a ‘cognitive, strategic and practical processes by which design concepts (proposals for new products, buildings, machines, etc.) are developed’. However, this way of thinking can be and often is, applied within the making of more creative projects too, by ‘problem-solving offers the potential to all you to identify solutions that you may not be aware of at this time’. The process of design thinking is to approach a problem that involves dissecting it and then generating various ideas, then executing experiments/prototypes to test the said ideas. Then once those tests are complete, the design thinking allows you to then test and test again until it leads you to the best solution possible. Design Thinking looks like these steps below:

1. EMPATHISE
2. DEFINE
3. IDEATE
4. PROTOTYPE
5. TEST
6. IMPLEMENT

One of the key elements that make this tool work is how reflective you have to be when implementing it. To explain why professionals need a “why” when starting a project, Simon Sinek states “People don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it”. Therefore when applying this thought process to my practice as a class, we were tasked with answering the following questions of ourselves… 

It is important to remain constantly refective within the creative industry when waiting to progress and evolve as an artist. But even more so within this module, when planning my creative career path and identifying my core values as to why I want to pursue a creative career in the first place. To do so we were also given various ‘tools’ to do so…

 

Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle: As another exercise, we were tasked to apply this technique onto an unfavourable situation we encountered with other individuals and how we could have handled it differently if we had applied this method of thinking.

‘It is a ‘cycle’ because the action you take in the final stage will feedback into the first stage, beginning the process again’. Now with this new method of thinking, hopefully within the future, it will help resolve instances in a more progressive manner and can be used as a guide for analyzing a critical incident or for general reflection on experiences. When participating in this exercise, it helped to think about incidences more in-depth and to remember that others have their own perspectives and reasoning why they do what they do. In the future, I think that when occurrences like this happen again, either that be inconveniences or disagreements, it is important to reflect on what could be done better and how. Especially within the workplace and other professional environments. 

Another element of design thinking is to understand that there can be many versions of what success could look like and mean for an individual. But to even think about what the different versions of success might look like for me it is important to identify my core values and how they correlate with my preferred career paths. Another exercise is done in the session to delve deeper into reflecting. To do so I answered these questions individually to help identify what is important to me as a writer/filmmaker and define what success means to me right now…

Using these questions to ask myself as a creative, is something that, admittedly, I should have done before. When asking myself these questions I knew I would of thought about the answers before, but never gave myself the chance to put them into words. They were just these vague ideas I had hopes for within my future. But in giving myself the chance to think about my individual ideas of ‘success’ with more detail, it helped me to visualise what I want to do. Thinking about my whys, in turn, make it clearer for me to plan how, when and what the next steps are in achieving this idea of success. And this is so useful when figuring out a plan for my career as a writer and what I must do next.

Approaching My Career Development with Design Thinking

The purpose of engaging with this module is to help develop a variety of realistic and thorough business plans for when I leave university, using such thinking techniques like design thinking. The idea of using design thinking in when planning a business plan is the use of data/information about myself/my idea of success/core-beliefs/skill sets. Then, after gathering said info, applying feedback from others and so on in supporting more informed choices. These days someone’s career path doesn’t have to be so linear, ie working their way up through a company or so on. These days one’s career can branch into different areas of work at different times. This can apply to what I want to do. Within my university experience, I originally wanted to specialise in the more visual areas of the film industry from set design to camera work. But now I want to focus on the writing/directing side of production. This nonlinear approach to future career paths is only natural when figuring out what one’s goals are, and not only when they leave education too. This can, and often does more commentary, happen at all stages of a person’s career.

Below is an example provided to us to demonstrate how Design Thinking was incorporated by other professionals when planning out their career…

I Used Design Thinking To Reinvent My Career and Here’s Why It Worked

‘A former lawyer explains how the methodology led her to try out life as a pastry chef before getting a master’s in psychology.’

I also researched other professionals, more relevant to my field of interest, that have applied this technique to their work… Firstly, is an English teacher looking for a writing technique to assign to his students and teacher, R. Ben Beach, came across Design Thinking. Making points in the article why he was attracted to the way of thinking because of how he “was astounded to see the way it parallels the writing process”. When talking about the empathetic stage of the design thinking he shows an example of how this technique parallels writing when “ In writing, your user is the reader, so this stage focuses on your audience, as well as the tone of the content you plan to write.

Some questions that you should ask at this stage:

• Who will be reading this?
• Where and when will they be reading it?
• Why will they be reading it?
• What do they want to get from it?

…If you do not reach your reader, what you say and how you say it will not matter in the least.” He continues to use the Design Thinking stages and applies it to the writing process. Such as solving ‘problems’ to solve when faced with the subject matter and also the different methods to use when approaching writing a first draft such as, free-writing, mind-mapping, and outlining. When looking through this article I agree with his stance that the use of Design Thinking is to solve other types of problems, being “the important thing is to find an ideation method that works well for you. Get as many ideas as possible recorded before you begin picking and choosing the best for the text you are writing. Writing can benefit from other aspects of a Desing Thinking stage, such as testing your work, either that be out loud and to others and remembering that it’s NOT a linear process, the key to Design Thinking, as stated in the article. “The most important aspect of Design Thinking is that it is not just a set of steps to complete once. At every point, but most especially when you get to the Test stage, revisit the others…Each draft will get you closer to a solution to the problem you defined at the second stage. When reading this article, although I will be focussing mainly on my career path when applying the design thinking process. It is intriguing for me to see design thinking within my fields of interest, and how it is incorporated into creative work such as writing too. If as a writer you incorporated each of these stages of Design thinking as you wrote, the writing you produce will be much better designed than that of the other works that don’t do so.

Other similar fields to screen/playwriting that apply the design thinking to their process are filmmaking in general. An article written by Nilofer D’Souza talked upon ‘A design thinking approach to film making’. Within the article, it talks about how filmmakers mix both principles of filmmaking and business. “Both [filmmakers, Rishi Bhilawadikar and Rucha Humnabadkar] apply human-centred design thinking in their day to day jobs… how they applied some of those principles—lean startup, design thinking, usability testing—in creating the film. As Rucha says, “The challenges of an independent filmmaker are very similar to those of a first-time entrepreneur.” The filmmakers go into using said principles applied to raise funds and producing the film, such as using a concept video to raise funds and build their film’s profile, then anonymous feedback, a progress video, and an audience response video. This use of design thinking for making films, I think works so well as a solid structure to filmmaking. Such as with the conducting of interviews (empathy stage), the concept video (Prototype stage), Feedback (testing stage), etc. to produce the film.

In my personal view, most movies are taken based on the director/writer’s “deep attachment” to the story. However, the audience may not be able to see the interrelation between the actual film and the story. This could be paramount to the retrieval of the film and the objective, ie, is it a good film or a bad film. To take away from this, regardless of the format of the art, it is the audience that live vicariously through it. Therefore, it is the creator’s goal to fulfil the desires of the said audience, rather than their own.

Now, when applying this design thinking to me, it is critical that I gather as much understanding/information about myself as possible… ‘Understanding yourself, your skills, desires, needs: (Empathy)’ And to help do so is participating in personality tests.

Starting in the 16 Personalities test, “Often the very first question people ask after completing our personality test is ‘What do these letters mean?’ We are of course referring to those mysterious acronyms like INTJ-A, ENFP-T, or ESTJ-A. As you may have already learned from the Type Descriptions or articles on the website, the five letters of these acronyms each refer to a specific trait, with certain trait combinations forming various types and type groups.” Considered to be one of the more accurate of tests, informing the participants on how their personality types inhabit the workplace but also what their future goals typically look like/their typical versions of success looks like for the said individual. And my results were…

Typical traits of this personality type, are that they tend to be ‘natural born leaders’, that are good at drawing crowds together to achieve a common goal. Showing popular figures that have the same personality type as Steve Jobs, Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Ramsey. The majority of people with this personality type tend to be more ‘business-minded’, with the traits of being the ‘ruthlessly rational’ making up only 3% of the population.  Based on how my personality type correlates with the industry I want to go into; writing, I am not sure how a more ‘leadership’ role will fit with this environment. In terms of the hierarchy of film production, the screenwriter is not in control as the producer or director and they tend to work alone. However, I feel the traits of the Commander personality type such as being strong-willed/efficient will help me when working alone to self motivate. When working alone with such a personal practice as writing it might be better to do so, mainly due to weaknesses of the commander personality traits, as people with this personality type tend to be headstrong when it comes to their ideas and intolerant of others that they feel are more ‘unskilled’. But, if I were to work with other writers for one project in a team as a leader, then I would be best suited within this environment.

To continue to reflect deeper, the next task to do is to further ’empathise’ by identifying with the problems and issues when working to self-identify my goals within the industry by answering the various questions below for the next part of research…

Before going into more detail about what the instruct I’m choosing to go into looks like exactly with the help of some questions given to us…

What I know for sure is that I definitely want to start to go into the writing arena of film production rather than anything else. But I am open for that to include some theatre work too, and hopefully, with the future of my career, I could get some opportunities to direct one of the films or plays I write. But that is after all the experience I want to gather before anything like that happens. Mainly due to my feeling that at this moment I don’t feel confident enough in my skills as a well-rounded filmmaker to do direct a whole production at the moment. But more importantly, I am more drawn to the field of writing anyway, and this offers me to create contacts within the field in a more accessible way than the competitive role of the director.

• Do you want to:
  • Work for a company with a regular salary
  • Work freelance as a sole trader on a range of projects.
  • Set up a company of your own.
  • Pursue further study?

Out of all the possible opinions available to me after I leave university, I think I will have to say that working for a company with a regular salary looks the most attractive to me at the moment. As this could lead me to work in more assisting roles in this particular time in my career, and the opportunity to work under professionals within the industry sounds more exciting to me for this offers me the chance to learn even more about the industry, gaining more experience whilst staying financially stable.

• Identify a version of a successful you.
  • What are the roles you’re doing?
  • Who are you working for?
  • What do you love about your role?
  • How do you know you’re successful?

Looking at these questions I have to look in more detail, as to what my career will look like when I leave university. What I know at the moment is that the roles I want to pursue will look like more assisting/mentoring/apprenticeship roles. This is because I still think that there is a bit more to my craft and I need a more solid portfolio/CV before I try to pursue a professional writer’s job. I’ll want to work remotely for either an established writer that I admire the work of or within a production company near where I would be based.

What I love most about writing either that being for film or theatre is that when writing there are so many opportunities for me to express all aspects of myself through other characters. Leading me to think through all sorts of perspectives. What I have noticed most about myself recently is that I have a love of words and how people use them in their ordinary lives and this realism within cinema particularly is rarely depicted, either that being how people stumble over their words or repeat themselves, they don’t tend to be their most eloquent. Rather in films, people speak perfectly most of the time and unless used for stylistic purposes, I am not the biggest fan of seeing this within film or theatre as I find it harder to belive characters who don’t talk like anyone I’ve ever met.

And, finally, I’ll know I’m successful when I can learn from the best and they help me develop/improve upon my work and my contacts at the same time as being financially stable living in Bristol. Leading me onto other steps within my chosen protection.

Map paths for how you got to work in that role…

Knowing Your Industry: Writing

Below are some various pathways for me post-graduation:

• Education: Find a masters https://www.findamasters.com/about/about-findamasters.aspx Post Graduate Search: https://www.postgraduatesearch.com/
• Employed: In a film making related role by a company.
• Self Employed: Working as a sole trader selling specific service
• Limited Company: Working as the director of a limited company, also providing a creative service:

For me personally, I think that employment by a production company will be best for me after university. This is due to me not feeling that I am experienced enough within the industry to go freelance or being an entrepreneur to a limited company. However. I do feel confident within my work to want to go into the industry right away. To learn from experience. Therefore, I feel that working for a company with a salary will help me to gain said experience while being financially stable, living in a fairly expensive city to live in, Bristol.

To look further into the possible opinions to be within the Bristol area, below I will be identifying more about the roles and structures of the UK creative and film industries, particularly within the areas I will be located:

Writing for film, more indie work…

Options available to me within Bristol/Cardiff area…

• Work as an assistant or shadowing writers within film production companies, based in either the Bristol or Cardiff area. Such as https://omni-productions.co.uk/. This is a company,  now based in the beautiful Underfall Yard on the Bristol Marina. Founded in 2002, Omni Productions have gone on to win numerous awards for its hard-hitting dramas and brand campaign films. Although the amount the many production companies based in the area, this one in particular for the heavy reliance on narrative would be my first choice to want to work with. However, I think I think that most production companies have a reliance on working to produce content for brands as a priority for funding. Whereas, for me, I don’t see myself wanting to work within advertisement/branding etc. At this stage within my career, I want to focus on creative writing without the restrictions of working with advertising for corporate clients.

Or writing for theatre… 

• Working as an assistant or shadowing writers within theatre production companies, based in either the Bristol or Cardiff area. Such as https://lightboxtheatre.co.uk/ or https://www.steppingouttheatre.co.uk/. The Stepping Out theatre company formed in 1997, based in Bristol, and with seventy-four productions to its credit. As stated on its site “Stepping Out Theatre is the country’s leading mental health theatre group. It has produced a wide range of work on mental health themes and is open to people who have used mental health services and their allies.” This production company interests me out of the many within the Bristol/Cardiff area due to its focuses on young people and their mental health. A lot of theatre companies do a lot of different work but lack the main focus unlike this one and this niche is relevant to the work I make. LightBox theatre company is another intriguing one for me to work with. As stated within their about page the company works to try to ‘discover and bring to life stories that are untold or overlooked.’ This priority of illuminating realistic stories that are often neglected within the cinematic landscape is also a priority to my own practice. As I often write stories that try to celebrate the mundane. They also go on to say “We love connecting with real people’s lives and stories and reaching new audiences. We also believe that theatre has the power to create a connection and give voice to people who feel unheard, which in turn reduces isolation and disadvantage.” For this reason of the theatre company to have priorities so close to my own as a writer, I feel that this would be the first choice when wanting to work within the area.

Introduction to Mentoring, Planning for Mentoring 

One of the main elements of this module is a mentoring scheme. Mentoring is an opportunity for me to network with a specific writer I admire or organisation of writers that I feel that can offer me an insight into either theatre or filmmaking industry and then reflecting on my mentor experience and documenting it on my blog. One of the main goals of mine, going into the process at the end of this mentoring experience, I hope that I might develop a professional relationship with my chosen mentor that may extend beyond the mentoring. Of course, this is not guaranteed so I will be continuous of making the most of the time given to me. (Rural Media can fund up to 10 hours of mentor contact at agreed rates.)

The mentoring might look like some of the examples below…

• Five one-hour conversations with your selected mentor. (They may claim time to prepare for the conversation)
• Two extended visits supported by a number of email conversations.
• Online email conversations supported by several Skype conversations.
• A short placement working a few hours a week.

Selecting My Mentor:

When selecting my mentor, it is important to have more than one opinion as a possible mentor for me as no one is guaranteed as we are dealing with busy professionals working within a competitive industry. All the possible mentors I have chosen below correlate with the roles/post-uni career path I am working on planning to go into. Either that be working as a writer within theatre or film. The skills/knowledge I hope to gain from this mentoring experience is one that also correlates with the skill set needed for me within the realm of writing. Either that being having the confidence to offer my work up for industry professionals and the opportunity to take their criticism within a professional manner. Then taking their critique and applying it to my work. Or possibly gaining their contacts, to other writers, directors or producers that make the work that I am interested in.

My first choice was Alice Birch. A British playwright is best known for the acclaimed playbook, BLANK and the winner of BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer for her work writing the screenplay for Lady Macbeth (2016). I chose Birch due to how she depicts British realism mixed with such tragedy and humour is something that influences me and what I try to capture within my work too. However, after a couple of weeks of trying to contact Birch through her agent, she is, unfortunately, taking maternity leave at the moment. But her agent did say that I could contact them in the future for a mentorship opportunity, so that could be a possibility within the future.

Another choice for a mentor was Britsh film writer/director, Clio Barnard. She won widespread critical acclaim and multiple awards for her debut, The Arbor, an experimental documentary and feature The Selfish Giant (2013). This feature that Barnard wrote and directed is one of my favourite Britsh films to come of the 2010s thus far, mainly due to the amount of realism it portrays, either that being from the accents/slang used to the subject matter at hand, the manipulation of child labour within the poverty-stricken areas of Britain. Barnard is a mentor I’ll hope to have, not only due to the subject matters within her film but also her background of writing and directing her own films which is a possible avenue I hope to go down in terms of my career in the future. So having her talk about how she ‘craked’ the industry will be of importance to me. Especially due to her background with more indie productions with subject matters of more ‘untold’ stories within the cinematic landscape, so in hearing how she got the production funded and her contacts etc would be very relevant to help my future productions too.

Jimmy Dean is an award-winning director whose short films have screened at international film festivals. His latest short film V had its World Premieere at the BFI London Film Festival and was funded through Film London’s London Calling scheme. Dean is more of a less experienced filmmaker, due to him just graduating from university. However, his films have received wide acclaim in the last year or so. I came to know his work from seeing his short horror V on ‘short of the week’, a site showcasing the best short films being made in recent times, produced by Sundance. I loved it due to the naturalistic Britsh, working-class dialect and applying that style of realism to a supernatural setting is something I have never seen before and after watching this would want to try out other genres other than drama in my writing now too. I am not sure if I will approach this mentorship alike to the other is offered the chance, for the reason that I don’t think that Dean is as experienced enough in the professional work to learn so much from him. However, I think there are other things to be learned from him such as how to successfully produce a short film and how to go into the festival circuit successfully too. I could also show him some of my work and gain his opinion due to the writing style of his films being very similar, or put me in contact with his writers as networking also.

Kate Cheeseman is a BAFTA-winning director working in both film and television.  She has just finished as lead director on series 9 of Call the Midwife and before that directed the finale of season 8.  She has also recently directed her fifth short film and is developing several feature film projects one of which has an interest in the States for production next year. Keith my tutor is currently trying to put me in contact with this writer as a mentor. He also bought to her work to my attention, although Call The Midwife isn’t a series I’ve seen or typically been interested in, her previous works of Pig Hearted Boy adaptation and What Happened To Evie television series, that works handle topics of youth culture within Britain is something that I gravitate towards. So her opinions or critiques of my work would be very beneficial to my practice. 

Mentor Learning and Goal Setting:

It is nice to talk to industry professionals, this mentoring process will be goal-driven. Once I have selected a mentor, I will be asked to identify a range of goals that I would like to meet through my experience. I will need to keep a record of my mentor interactions, and utilising a reflective practice technique, document what I feel I have learned.

Contacting My Mentors:

Initially, when it came to establishing contact with my possible mentors it was said to be done professionally through Rural Media. For the reason, as they’re a media charity, they are able to gain access to mentors who might not respond to an individual request. However, after some trials and tribulations Keith, an established writer within the British television network might be able to put me in contact with some other British writers.

Branding myself and developing my online presence…

Website Development

When making websites for creatives it is important to consider what the role of my website is. For a creative, a website is considered to be their shopfront, an online portfolio and for the most part, is a more refined and cultivated version of oneself as a professional, that clearly defines them and their identity their creative voice. At the moment I haven’t updated my site in a while, therefore there are some things I need to include.

Firstly, I need to update my about page, unlike my current status of being generally an overall filmmaker, now I am specialising in writing. I also will need to make my “why” more clear for the audience or possible employers, to get who I am and my voice as a writer. Then, I need to update my contact information, I am not to be located/based in Hereford in the future and create a separate work email, not to include my university email anymore. I will also consider making a blog to link on my site, due to both keep up with personal writing at the same time as trying to gain an online presence. I think that some would be interested within the behind scenes of writing for film or theatre, highlighting the journey from university into the professional world. This would also help to add a more personal element to my site. An important element I also need to add to my site is e-commerce. Mainly for the purpose that if I needed to send scripts to clients, then I need an online proving patrol/where to pay/sales platform. Lastly, I need to update the overall website design. I want it to be slicker/professional looking rather than the cluttered mess it is currently. What I like within a site for creatives, is a lot of white space with the occasional dark small text, letting the work showcased speak for itself alike to what Chloe Sheppard does on her site, below. Although Sheppard is primarily a photographer, I feel that it is easier to design a site for more visual arts rather than writing.

For this reason, I’ll need to research specifically websites for screenwriters and how their design showcases their work in particular. Most writers I admire, don’t have a direct website more just links to their page on their agent’s site, with a downloadable CV and a list of works they’re done/currently working on alike to the example below…

However, due to my not having an agency at this time of my career, I have looked further into other writers that only have a website as a platform to network with employers. I have not managed to find many sites for writers, so I will message Keith to see if he had any advice when it came to websites for writers specifically. He states that it is never a good idea to publish entire scripts online incase of plagiarism (especially if those scripts haven’t been made yet) etc, however, it is common use to publish excerpts or passages. Therefore, when it comes to my site I will add another page just for passages of my scripts that are already in the making or postscripts that are password protected (as I’ve seen this done with other writers sites) and I will give chosen people the access to them either that be employers or other filmmakers. As can be seen below, in the final outcome I just screengrabed a passage of some of my best scripts to add to my site.

The main things to include/update on my site are:

• Update information about myself/my practice, about page etc.
• Update contact information.
• Add in my recent work.
• Add my CV/education.
• Link social media accounts and/or blog posts.
• Make an online proofing portal/e-commerce.

Ever since I made my website, I have never thought to do an audit, updating or reusing it further. To help me perform one for the first time, I used the article ‘How to Conduct a Site Audit’ Written by Andrew Ansley, containing instructions on how to do so. Stated in the article “No matter how well optimized your website is, there’s still likely to be some issues that need to be addressed.” My site is currently unpublished as there are projects I want to add to it, but they aren’t finished yet and due to me not being settled in a permanent location it would be hard to state clearly where I’m based. However, when the time comes that I do in fact have a fully functioning site then I’ll make an effort to perform audits regularly (every 6 months or so).  When I do so it is advised within the article that I use an audit tool. There are many different ones to be used online such as Ahrefs has its own version, SEM Rush has their own auditor, and then some more niche-specific tools like Screaming Frog and Sitebulb exist as well that exclusively provide audit services too. Unfortunately, all these audit tools are paid but are so because of their reputation for being thorough, accurate, easy-to-use, and comprehensive. “It’s important to keep in mind that the difference between a free site audit tool and a paid version is massive in terms of capability and reliability.” 

These site audit tools allow you to:

• Scan your website for any technical problems
• Identify on-page and off-page SEO issues
• Check for broken files and internal or external links
• Find weak or duplicate content
• Assess page errors, page load speed issues, and pages blocked by robots.txt
• Generate a checklist of problems to fix

Most tools will create a digital report for you to check off online, along with basic instructions on how to fix the issues. Having a checklist of all technical, SEO, design, and content issues make it easy to keep track of what work needs to be done. This way, you will have an agenda for where to focus your SEO efforts and can be sure not to miss any important details.

But what wasn’t mentioned in the article is to perform audits on whether the sites are mobile-friendly or not. Wix, the website making software I’m currently using as I feel that I find it more user-friendly than most of the other competitors, has the option to design the mobile format as well due to wanting my site to be accessed via mobile devices as well as a desktop. For the reason of some traffic to my website might be from links I post on Instagram and for the most part Instagram users often using the platform are on their phone. Previous to this audit, I completely forgot about the mobile design there for all I will be talking upon within the audit I’ll be applying to my mobile site format as well.

However, I will be doing my best to performing a manual audit myself before I chose to publish my site. Therefore, what aspects of the audits I will be focussing on before I publish my site is the analysis of the site’s design and UX. Many SEO site audit tools will analyze your website’s design and overall user-friendliness (UX). Both of these are important when it comes to how users interact with your site, how user-friendly a site is, will not only help me to look more professional but also keep people staying longer on the page. Especially important when it comes to people needing to stay on the site to read my scripts or watch my films. Components such as site Navigation and Page Depth will indicate whether your site is easy to use and how easy it is for them to find information on your site. For instance, it’s recommended that the majority of your content be accessible within 3 clicks away from the Homepage.

Here is a screengrab of the Home/About page of the previous site I made a couple of years ago…

And here is now the site I made after all the improvements made to it…

And I also improved the mobile format too, something that I forgot to do when developing my older website, as can be seen below…

Above is the finished site after all the improvements I made, compared to my initial site. By far, this one feels more professional, a site of a writer. After taking inspiration from the other sites, by using a monochrome colour palette, letting the visual work I have to speak for itself, and by making the fonts slicker looking. After the audit, I worked on a new design making the site clearer to navigate, having particular pages for grouping work together for films I have made and other scripts. Also by making my contact information and name an anchor on the webpage so its always accessible to the site visited. Although the previous site showed more of myself as a brand/personality, I feel that it’s more important for there to be breath and more of the use of negative space to let the work show that personality for itself rather than the site trying to portray it. But to keep a sort of ‘quirk’ to the sites aesthetic, I included some of the text within it as my handwriting in the about section, making that bit have a more personal touch too. Other plans I have for this site is to, obviously keeping it up to date with my recent works/collaborations but in the next few weeks try to book in a photoshoot with a professional photographer to get some images of myself to put in the site’s about section.

Other good practices for SEO content that I can include:

• The content adheres to the overall page goal and purpose
• Content is concise and helpful to users
• Content has well-researched keywords that match search intent
• Content is well-organized and structured according to SEO best practices
• No spelling or grammar mistakes
• No “filler” content (i.e. all content serves a purpose)
• Content includes helpful bullet points, numbered lists, and pictures as needed
• Content is optimized for mobile (short paragraphs with white space)
• Include internal links to relevant pages and external links to reputable websites
• Content is unique and isn’t duplicated or plagiarized

To conclude, a regular site audit is an important responsibility when it comes to optimizing my website. Also by identifying all website issues as they come up, I can stay on top of my website maintenance before it becomes too much to manage. This way, I can tackle any problems, one issue at a time and be sure that my website is set up for SEO success and by not addressing some issues that could come up, could mean a plateau or even decrease in traffic, or a decrease in conversions. Either that being technical SEO issues, slow page speed, duplicate content, broken links, or anything else that could be preventing my website from getting all the traffic in its potential. By conducting a site audit is the first step in identifying any website issues that I may have.

Social Media

My approach to an online strategy when choosing platforms will depend heavily on the audience I’m trying to engage with. Before, going into this module I did have an idea of what my target audience is for work. Always in mind when writing is who is going to listen to this and the same goes for my social media. My films tend to be about and for young adults/teens/coming of age themes within my work, working-class dramas. Therefore when looking into the best social media platforms for my work, I’ll be socially focusing on Instagram as in terms of demographic with 500 million daily users, and such a large audience aged 18-29, it is a great platform for regularly connecting with a younger demographic.

• Social media platforms account for roughly 50% of all time spent online.
•  37% of the entire world’s population uses social media, that’s 2.8 billion people. 
• And Instagram has around 800 million monthly and 500 million daily active users. 

From these stats, it is clear that social media provides us with an opportunity to reach an extremely wide audience to discover my work. Therefore, I will have to work on how I approach my social media because right now my Instagram isn’t as focussed on filmmaking/writing as I like it to be, it’s more just for me socially. Although I think that this personal touch is important for me to keep within my socials, the main goal for them is to show the behind scenes look to the work I produce. Therefore, from now on the content I post will either have the theme of writing/film/art/ things I’m interested in general, to create a sense of a more cultivated representation of me for future employers/audience members to go to and understand me as a creator more. Because right now, it’s all just a mix between selfies and random days out etc.

As mentioned before, the works and marketing strategy of Chloe Sheppard is a career I admire. From her website to her Instagram profile. The content she posts are all consistent, either that being their soft, muted colour pallet or the subject matters of body positivity and acceptance. Though from her work into her grid profile, all that is there has a specific ‘look’ of vintage, nostalgic aesthetic. Just by looking through a few of her posts you see a clear reflection of who this person is, the art they make and why. The kind of content she posts are mostly self-portraits, promotion of her past work and current art projects she’s working on (currently selling her self-portraits as postcards, and 100% of the profits going to a charity fighting the COVID-19 pandemic). She also manages to keep up to date with current topical events and comments on the importance to the subject-matters of her work regularly in her Instagram Stories. Showing another way to stay relevant to her followers in the platform, and asking them their opinions on the matter at hand etc. The use of all the techniques she used above shows why she has gathered a following of 52.2k followers. Therefore, when applying this inspiration to my grid, I’ll try to make sure that all the content I post will look of the same aesthetic, either that being of the subject matter of British youth culture or muted colouring. But whatever that may be, making my identity as an artist on the platform more clear to my audience.

Another film director/photographer’s profile I admire is of Petra Collins. Her profile is full of more ‘behind the scenes’ of her film/photoshoots she does, and the promotion of her current works, ie editorial shots that’s upon release and snippet teaser trailers of her upcoming short films. I like this approach to using social media due to her audience becoming more engaged with the outcome of her work once produced if they are in a sense apart of the making process when she brings them along on the shoots she goes on. Mainly by her posting on her stories of the current shoot, she’s working on, by showing the audience her dressing the sets/adjusting the lighting or working the fans etc. This is where I feel that her social media is unique compared to most filmmaker/photographers that post, unlike so many others there is a variety in the content she posts. As many other creators just reupload their work, Collins and Sheppard show different aspects to them as creators either that being their opinions on topical issues or what they like to do in their free time. I feel that social media is a unique tool that can be utilised better by creators, for I see mostly that they just used differing platforms as another website for them to just post their old work to. However, I feel that such platforms can be used as a chance for the artists to give a glimpse to their audience into the magic of making films. Offering a strong and unique selling point to gain more of a following as many people don’t get to see such work being created normally.

An element to keep in mind when posting work as a photographer or filmmaker is how Instagram’s aspect ratio changes the work you upload along with the crushing of the quality of the images. This is mainly due to Instagram seeing tens of millions of pieces of content uploaded every single day. Each of those pieces of content needs to be stored on their servers. This represents a huge cost. Therefore in order to limit this expenditure, they have added a video compressor. This reduces the quality and storage space of each video uploaded. However, you can easily limit the effects that Instagram’s compression has by uploading a higher quality video to start with. By shooting in 4k or upscaling 1080p into 4k you force Instagram to use a much higher bit rate. This results in better video quality. Secondly, bad compression can completely ruin detail in the shadows. So what you want to do is to raise the shadows to introduce a little light. Finally, if you edited your videos on your computer, send them to your phone with one of the following methods to ensure you don’t lose any quality:

• Mac to iOS – Use AirDrop straight from the desktop to your phone
• Mac to Android – Use DropBox or Wetransfer
• Windows/Linux to iOS – Use the VLC App and enable “Sharing via WiFi”, then drag & drop through a web browser
• Windows to Android – Just use a USB cable and transfer the file as you would to a USB stick

Another element to keep in mind is that when posting is the different devices the content might be viewed on, either being on a tablet, desktop or mobile. With Instagram, the majority of users tend to access the platform on their phones. ‘Less than 1/4 of Instagram users use a desktop when viewing the platform, with the remaining 3/4 using their mobile phones.’ Therefore, bolder/simpler images are going to be more favourable rather than complicated detailed oriented ones due to the significantly smaller size a mobile device screen is compared to a desktop’s. One other thing to bear in mind as a filmmaker using Instagram as a platform showcasing their work is the maximum length of time for a video to run is 60seconds. Making a perfect place to premiere trailers for work but not whole films.

However, through research of such article (https://sproutsocial.com/glossary/link-in-bio/) and what I have seen filmmakers/YouTubers do to overcome this is to post links to their latest videos embedded in their bios on their page, and state to their audience where to find these links in the caption of the video post. The term“link in bio” is the clickable URL that visitors use to visit what you deem to be your most valuable online real-estate. For some it’s a product page, for others it’s a landing page or “about us” section. But what to remember is to if you may have changed the URL in your Instagram bio to promote a special campaign or promotion at some point. After that campaign is over, you need to change the URL again so people don’t get confused or think you’re still running an old contest or promotion.

Instagram does this due to the average user spends 15 minutes a day on Instagram. Similar to Facebook, Instagram has a good average usage duration. 15 minutes is enough time for a 1-minute short film to not heavily impact their time. But this could work in a filmmaker’s favour due to it being best to have their video’s watched on only one platform, making their overall view count larger rather than having it and likes/dislikes or comments spread practically across several different platforms.

Instagram Analytics:

Although there are fewer users, to other social media platforms, they are more frequently accessing this platform. Therefore, with Instagram, you want to stay relevant and be posting frequently. Below is some research I’ve done into the analytics of Instagram for the most effective ways to post to cultivate a larger following.

Below is a screenshot of some tips for when posting content to Instagram made by a local influencer. I find these random little things to do when so call ‘tricking’ Instagram’s rather more useful than most of the advice you will find online to help with growing your following. Especially due to this coming from a real person I know who has found out these tips through their own primary research of trial and error.

Therefore, to experiment if these tips will work for my own profile, I will be posting every day for a week conducting all that is advised above to see if this helps me to grow a following for my page…

What I will also do to make my Instagram account as productive as possible is to perform a social media audit. “A social media audit is the process of reviewing what’s working, what’s failing and what can be improved upon across your social media channels.” To help me perform one, I looked at some online articles for advice. Such as, How to Perform a Social Media Audit written by Dominique Jackson. To do an audit it is fairly simple these days due to the amount of all the social media analytics tools available to help you Instagram and google provide. With audits on social media they only have to do a social media audit monthly, or even quarterly in some cases. Within the article, they state that in order to stay organized, you’ll need to create a social media audit template, a spreadsheet of sorts. Mainly made if your audits need to be accessible for everyone on your team as well as having data to be able to track and compare down the road. However, instead of having to make my own spreadsheet, the article provides its reader with a free social media audit template for me to use. With some basics including…

• Profile information (name and URL)
• Engagement metrics
• Publishing metrics
• Audience demographics
• Referral traffic
• Channel specific metrics

A next step is to analysis how your existing profiles are performing. Important to do, because it shows you what’s working, what needs to be improved and your biggest opportunities. To do so the template given provides me to identify how my profiles are performing such as engagement, link clicks, shares, referral traffic, impressions etc.

Once I start entering the data, it should be pretty obvious to see how my profile is performing throughout the month/year or years. For the reason to see what times of year outperform others, for the opportunity to see what times my profile requires more time and effort.

To start with, instead of using the spreadsheet given to me within the article, I’ll use the ‘Insights’ tool available on Instagram. ‘Instagram Insights is a native analytics tool that provides data on follower demographics and actions, as well as your content. This information makes it easy to compare content, measure campaigns, and see how individual posts are performing. To access Instagram Insights, you need a business account.’ As stated in an article I used for advice on the matter. After making my personal account into a business one will help me to identify what’s going well and what’s not going so well. Below is what my current Instagram Insights look like…

What I can conclude from looking at my current Insights is that I don’t have a high enough reach (reach meaning the number of unique accounts that have seen any of your posts). Most of my following is locally located and a very small percentage is international. So to expand my reach I should use more trending hashtags and for me to follow more like-minded profiles to mine. What I also found out that usually the posts that do well are my more fashiony ones, where I post outfits etc. And the posts that don’t do so well are the ones where I post stills from films I like and talk about them in the captions. Therefore, it might be difficult to centre my profile in a more filmic theme when these posts don’t do so well. However, I could somehow combine the two. For instance, I could post content to do with how I costume my films or me replicating costumes from films I like etc. To both combine the fashion posts that do well in terms of engagement with my followers, whilst still keeping my content focussed on me being a filmmaker, my brand. In terms of my follower’s demographic, they are what my target is when making my films, 66% are between the ages of 18-24 and majority being women at 64%. It states that my following spend the most time online on Thursdays at 6-8pm, making this the best time for me, specifically to post.

Another step to take is to identify what posts do better than others, helping to improve my social media content strategy. “If your posts aren’t engaging and resonating with your followers, you won’t succeed.” I can do so by comparing likes/comments etc. If you want to go a bit more in-depth, you can categorize your top posts:

• Videos
• Promotional
• Educational/information
• Entertainment
• Rich media (images and gifs)

This will give me a clear picture of exactly which type of content is working for my audience. From there it’s just a matter of fitting more of that type of successful content into next month’s ‘social media calendar’.

Some other advice given in the article is that my brand should be immediately recognizable from my website to my social media profile. Consistency is crucial. There’s a section in the social media audit template given for branding. Including…

• Bio: Enter in the bio for each profile
• URL in bio: If you have a URL in your bio, add the link here.
• Verified: Is the account verified?
• Matches style guidelines: If your brand has style guidelines in place, make sure all your social profiles follow them. From your cover photos to profile image and any other visuals associated with your profile, check it all.

As stated before, I have a strong idea of my chosen demographic. Due to Instagrams average user age being fairly young, that’s why I chose it. However, sometimes the people that end up following and engaging with you will be completely different than what you expected. So for this step, it is suggested that you want to audit your followers too. You can get this data a variety of ways. Some networks such as Twitter and Facebook give you information about your audience but as far as I know, there isn’t such tool on Instagram that I can find but there are some other third-party sites that help to gather data about your followers.

After gathering all this data in front of me, the point of the social media audit is to give me a better understanding of where I currently am and to make plans for the future. What is going well on my social media and what is not going so well. Whether it’s growing my followers on a certain profile, getting more engagement or broadening my audience, I have all the data I need to make informed decisions on how to reach my new goals with the right social media analytics tools.

YouTube Vs Vimeo

YouTube is one of the more popular social media platforms, boasting 1.8 billion monthly active users. With a older audience demographic of users aged 35-44 years old. With a staggering 2 million video views every minute. YouTube is a great place for your film to be watched, there is certainly the constant and regular audience for it. When comparing it to Vimeo, that has only 170 million monthly active users. It is a fraction of YouTube’s monthly active users, but it has 90 million registered users under its various different subscription plans. But when it comes to marketing my videos, which one is best for my business? Here I’ll be exploring the pros and cons to using Vimeo vs. YouTube for marketing my films/work.

YouTube is by far the largest video sharing platform on the internet. With millions of videos spanning many types of content and themes. There is no limit as to what you can find on YouTube. Therefore, anyone with access to the internet and a camera is able to upload their own content. And alike to YouTube, Vimeo is a video sharing platform that was started back in 2004 by filmmakers that wanted to share their creative work and personal moments from their lives. The idea caught on and attracted like-minded people. Today Vimeo is the preferred tool for 70 million creators such as film artists, animators, and musicians. Vimeo, while smaller than YouTube, has built a community geared towards a more “artsy creative” niche.

As mentioned above, when it comes to audience reach, YouTube has the most monthly active users. Furthermore, YouTube is owned by Google and is the second most searched site just behind Google itself. YouTube is also available in every country and in more than fifty languages. While their reach is limitless, the size of YouTube is also negative. There are so many options for viewers and the competition is extremely high. Even if you’ve produced an amazing, high-quality video, there is a high possibility it may get lost in the thousands of videos uploaded everyday. Because YouTube is so big, free, and has so much competition, its viewers are not always the most professional, constructive people either. However, today there are 240 million active monthly Vimeo users. Because Vimeo is smaller and more niche, your videos have a better chance of being found and followed within their community-driven platform. There is less competition than on YouTube and sometimes quality over quantity is better. Unfortunately, Vimeo can’t keep up with YouTube’s constant growth in users. You’re more likely to have more video traffic on YouTube. Because Vimeo’s audience is smaller and has more of a community mindset, the user interactions tend to be more constructive and less aggressive than in the YouTube comment section.

Another comparison to make is the pricing of both websites. YouTube is a free service, literally, anyone can upload and share videos without having to pay anything. Businesses can also take advantage of using YouTube for free. For those with budget constraints, like me, YouTube is a clear winner here. However, Vimeo offers a basic version for individuals but with limited features such as 500 MB of storage per week. There is a 30 day free trial for business plans which are paid in annual subscriptions based on a tiered pricing model. Although more expensive, I think this would be a preferred route for me to upload my films due to all the points mentioned above, the audience I’ll be cultivating will me more like-minded professionals. And there are some advantages to Vimeo’s paid subscription model, for instance, you don’t get any annoying popup ads, unlike YouTube who makes their money through advertisements.

A valuable element to mention is that YouTube has 300 videos that are being uploaded to YouTube every minute, and they need to be processed before they can go live. Compression speed and quality must be balanced in order to successfully handle that upload volume. Because of YouTube’s size and business model, it is often associated with quantity over quality. YouTube video quality is good, but due to its sheer size and volume, it’s not the best. Whereas, since Vimeo has restrictions on their upload quantity and size, their Plus, Pro, and Business subscribers will have much higher quality looking videos due to a higher bitrate. The same video uploaded to both YouTube and Vimeo will be higher quality on Vimeo.

Here is an example posted on Medium.com of Vimeo vs. YouTube’s video quality.

For most of the reasons above, I feel that Vimeo is the best choice for my chosen career. Mainly due to me wanting higher quality videos without any ads and my target audience is comprised of creators and artists, Vimeo would also be the preferred platform for my video marketing strategy.

Top Tips for Vimeo Marketing:

As I prefer Vimeo over YouTube, it is certainly a good option for marketing my videos within a specific niche and I prefer quality over quantity.

• Know Your Target Market: Because Vimeo’s audience tends to be a more niche group it is extremely important that I understand who my target audience is and what they will want to see. Because there are fewer people on Vimeo, you need to be strategic on what you upload and who you are uploading it for in order to make the most of your content.
• Engagement: Since Vimeo’s audience is tighter knit than YouTube’s, engaging and responding to viewer comments is very important. When people comment and provide feedback on your videos, respond and start a conversation. By actively interacting with Vimeo’s community you will be able to build a network and loyal following.
• Promote: Due to the fact that Vimeo has a smaller community, it is extremely important to cross promote your Vimeo videos on your website and social media channels like Instagram. The best way to include your Vimeo videos on your website is by embedding them with a social media aggregator. A social media aggregator will automatically cluster your Vimeo videos daily to the feed and show your viewers’ comments. Luckily this is an available option to embed your videos hosted by Vimeo on Wix.com. Viewers can enjoy your videos without ever having to leave your website.

Similar to what I did for my Instagram profile, I’ll also make an effort to apply theses techniques mentioned above when uploading my future works to Vimeo.

My Mentorship

Another part of this module is the mentoring scheme. An opportunity for a professional in my field of interest to offer insight into the filmmaking industry. After some trials and errors with picking a particular mentor for me, Kate Cheeseman is the one to respond. Rural Media can fund up to 10 hours of mentor contact at agreed rates.

Before I go into the first meeting with my mentor I’ll need to Identify 3 goals you’d like to get from working with them…

1.  I would like some advice for my next steps as a writer after leaving university and entering a professional workplace, as I have never done that before.
2. Also if they could give me some pointers on how/where to start, mainly within writing for indie films or theatre productions.
3. Other advice I would like to have is ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ when approaching the industry. And just technical firsthand advice when it comes to writing for the screen.

And keep a record of meeting these goals, through my mentor interactions, documenting what I feel I have learned from each session. Below are some notes I’ve taken/ emails written from each session and tasks set by my mentor to follow up on. And after each of these sessions, I’ll be reflecting on my thoughts.

Before the Zoom meeting, we also exchanged a few emails planning what this mentorship might look like, what I want to get out of this mentorship. Then other email exchanges, getting to know Kate as a filmmaker, what I’ve done in my degree, what I’d like to do in the future and my own writing style in general.

Kate is promptly a writer for T.V. and had an interesting perspective on what the difference of the television industry looks like now compared to film. There is a lot of money now being used to fund television series instead of a lot of indie productions. She states that the gap in budgets for indie cinema to Hollywood is getting larger and larger. With a lot of filmmakers that would be making exclusively films in the past, utilise the money now being invested into television series to tell their stories. I never really saw myself as a writer for T.V. but as she says, this could lead to opportunities for me to gain experience before I get to write explicitly for the film. Theatre could be another way for me to enter into the industry too, so she encouraged me to look further in those avenues also. To conclude this was a good starting session for me to learn to look at the industry with a broader horizon rather than focusing on just film, as there is not really any money in this when starting out and it’s good for me as a writer to be well versed in every sort of format when building my career.

For my second session the time was split into two half, first was her giving feedback on my script, Little Angel. For the reason to polish it up before entering it to festivals/competitions so I could get some awards or acclaimed under my belt to put on my resume. Tasked for next week to edit the script and find more compositions to enter it into, like the BBC Writers Room hold many competitions for young screenwriters. One of which I’ll hopefully, with the help of Kate, wanting to apply to. The other half of the time we talked on advice to help build up my resume for the future and how to get into the industry as a writer and what these first steps could look like.

This session was full of great advice on how I can start to get the ball rolling for my career. To start networking and taking those crucial first steps to enter the screenwriting industry. One of the main takeaways of it was that my scripts are not going to get much attention just sitting on the page, they need to be made. So after completing all my tasks what Kate gave me for next week, I’ll also take my own initiative to contact some fellow filmmakers and see if they’d be willing to develop one of my scripts and then subsequently enter it into festivals.

After these 2 meetings via Zoom there were other emails and phone calls exchanged, some giving me feedback and advice for other scripts I can polish up before sending them out to festivals. Others were to organise a reading with my script, Little Angel, with the actors I intend to cast. Mainly for the reason that at times my dialogue can be a bit stiff, so in having it read aloud with the actors advice on the matter on how we can make some lines flow more naturally. Kate also got me in contact with a script editor, Marigold Joy (worked on many BBC productions such as Call The Midwife). For the reason that I’ll hope to get an entry level job in the script department, and has worked as the head of such department can help me with advice on my CV, in interviews or help with my networking in general.

This mentorship looks to carry out after this module deadline, however, I can see countless benefits of my mentorship already. Not just through technical feedback on my work as a writer, but also an insight into the world of the script department of television productions. She has given me the motivation to ‘get out there’ and put my foot in the door of other writers/production companies, in having me set goals of building my network and work experience by contacting various industry professionals in my field of interest. In just my sessions thus far my mentorship has given me more of an insight as to what the landscape as a writer looks for me post-university and helped realise some of the knowledge and skills I need for my current version of success.

Preparing a CV and Preparing for Interviews

As another step to prepare me for finding work after university, making a polished CV is crucial. Therefore, I’ve taken to seeking some advice from industry experts on the matter, specifically for filmmaking.

Rural Media have many CVs being sent to their inbox, some good but the majority are not so good. But the main deal-breaker was that it was apparent that these not-so-good CVs did not make the effort of customising their CVs specifically before applying to each job application. “On average 15 people each day apply for our jobs, 10 of those will not have made an effort to customise their CV or researched the role. That leaves you a 1 in 5 chance that your CV will catch the eye of the recruiter.”- Dan Haworth-Salter

Film is a notoriously competitive industry. But to stand out compared to other counterparts is to understand that those who have thoroughly written an rewritten a polished, tailored CV made for each application stand a higher chance of getting an interview than someone who doesn’t make that effort at all.

What should my CV look like for an inexperienced Screenwriter?

For some advice as to what my CV should look like as a writer, I read some articles below to help me plan mine with pointers specific to me as a screenwriter that’s just starting out.

Script Angel’s Jay Harley writes that “Your writing CV is like none other you’ve had before. It’s not about buzz-words like time management, team-player and self-motivated…” However, things keep in a writer’s CV is to Prioritise your portfolio and concentrate first on credits, scripts that have been produced (in any format, stage, web, radio…) followed by less formal productions such as rehearsed readings and workshops. As for my own credits, I can include that I’ve worked with younger actors within readings/workshops when creating productions with my own work at HCA and working with budding filmmakers in BFI and helping them create their own scripts. It also states that as a writer you should ‘emphasise prizes and awards’. However, I have none of them right now for my writing. I think that before sending my CV off to future employers, I’ll make more of an effort to keep nominating my scripts for competitions to give my CV more of an edge, that’s if I win.

Next, it states to take a look at those projects that are already in development. From those that are ready to go, to undeveloped ideas such as treatments or pitch. However, editing is key. It’s better to include five full scripts than a dozen entries which are under-developed.

Finally, the articles asks you to think about relevant experience and how you can include that. “If you’ve ever written copy, social media, journalistic articles or any other kinds of writing, include a brief section about how that helped you.” For instance, use skills learned such as creativity, writing to deadlines, taking notes and only those areas that are specifically relevant to my writing career. Therefore, this is applicable to me as I don’t have much experience in the workplace. However, I could add my experience with other forms of writing, such as not only my university scripts, but past poetry I’ve written and entered into competitions. And my high marks for my blog work in my past modules. Furthermore, I will mention this success in my future applications.

However, what to keep out of my writer’s CV, as stated within the article is other work experience such as, your day job, unless it’s relevant, i.e. you’re already working as a writer, or perhaps a script editor/dramaturge. But keep that information for the discovery process of getting to know your agent or producer etc. To help fill out my CV with more relevant work is an opinion to spend a week or so getting work experience at a theatre, or script-reading for a competition. As this could be a way to demonstrate that you have a passion for the industry and an awareness of the field.

Regarding including an image of myself isn’t relevant, unless you’re applying for a job as an actor, model or presenter, CV etiquette suggests you don’t need to include a photograph.

Things to focus on when making a CV is the flowing…

Genre – when adding my polished scripts onto my CV, I’ll make an effort to include the ones that best represent me a as a writer, either that be in terms of the genre I mostly write in/hope to work in ie drama, or themes/types of stories I hope to continue telling, the female experience/British youth culture.

Format – the portfolio I make should show my preference for TV, features or theatre, but even if you’re totally devoted to a career in film, a very polished television series is a great way of showing you can complete a fully-rounded project with a beginning, middle and end.

Tone – the tone of my pitches should fit the brand of myself as a writer. For instance, as it states within the article, “if you’re a comedy writer your mini-pitches should be funny, if you’re a thriller or espionage expert, your pitches should be hooky and dramatic.” To do so make an extra effort to polish these very short outlines constantly.

When it comes to the design of my CV, its worth mentioning that there are many paid templates to buy. Although, these can look very visually appealing, its best to let the work speak for itself, in terms of showing my personality as a writer. As these paid templates tend to be more distracting. Less is more when it comes to the design of a writer’s CV. A simple CV template (in Word, Pages, etc.) will more than adequately do the job. And an important factor is to create a pdf to send, rather than the original document, so the formatting can’t shift when opened on a different machine.

The basics in terms of the autonomy of a writer’s CV…

• Name and contact details
• Produced writing credits
• Unproduced portfolio of writing including awards and development status
  • Complete scripts – list projects and status, e.g. ‘pilot script and bible’
  • Incomplete ideas – list projects and status, e.g. ‘treatment’, ‘outline’
• Other writing experience, social media, copywriting…
• Script/writing courses
• Industry-related work experience in brief
• Other work experience, very brief
• Writing-specific referees

For right now, I’ll be making a basic CV applicable for many of the entry-level positions in the script department. Either being assistant script editor/researcher/reader. As this is where I see myself most likely applying to after this degree. Below is a link to the finished document…

CV_Meggie Parker – 2020

Below are examples of other screenwriter’s CVs of more experienced and established industry professionals and how they compare to my own I’ve just made.

Comparing the CV I just made to the ones above, the format straight away looks more refined. They both use a rating system, working to measuring their skill set, Marijan Banic uses out of 5 marking whereas Marshall Shepherd uses a bar to measure their strength underneath said skill. I think this style of formating my skills in terms of measuring them somehow is a more insightful and honest approach when adding said skills. For instance, I consider myself to be more skilled/proficient in software such as Adobe Premiere Pro than I am with Premiere Rush or Final Cut Pro X, therefore I’ll measure that skill higher than the other. This is a good system to use as I can highlight ones I feel more confident in, especially in case it seems I’m equally as good in all of them when I feel there is some work to be done in one area. My preference of CV is the first as I feel the choice of font, layout and use of icons/images work to create a more interesting application to look at, helping to stand out to employers. My current CV looks more like Sheperd’s as I previously was inclined to use more negative space as I thought this looks more sleek and professional. But reflecting on mine compared to Banic’s, my lack of relevant employment history makes my CV look too sparse and now seeing the two together, I like the more compressed look of Banic’s. As it seems more impressive of an application compared to Shepherd’s even though their content/experience is very similar. 

In terms of their content compared to mine, it’s clear that they’re more accomplished than me with a lot of relevant employment history. That’s not something I can currently change but to take away from looking at Marijan Banic’s CV is including other valuable additions such as hobbies, certificates and volunteering. These are all things I can continue doing as a student or do straight away when I leave university to help build a more impressive CV in the meantime before it comes to applying for jobs in my field of interest. As an effort to do so, I’ll include such things as looking to do more short courses (that offer a certificate when competed) and/or volunteering work with indie film productions or theatre companies to my Business Plan.

Cover Letter Advice

Once, I’ve polished my CV as best as I could, now I have to work on writing my cover letter or email. As this is my opening pitch, an opportunity for me to display my personality and tie in my experience with the requirements for the role on offer. For some extra advice on the matter, I looked into the article by The Muse ‘How to Write a Cover Letter: The All-Time Best Tips’

1. To begin with, tip number one is that, again make a tailored cover letter for each job application, most employers want to see that you’re truly excited about the specific position and company, you’re applying for. To add an extra personal touch, consider how to greet said employer. It states that its best not to use generic salutations like “To Whom it May Concern” or “Dear Sir or Madam” as they seem less human and more robotic. If the place your applying to is a more casual work environment then use a first name, if its more formal look into alternatives such as, using the title of the head of the department etc. So when I write my cover letter, I will make an effort to find out the name of the person who will be reading my application. And then depending on what type of work environment it is, I will use their name, or their title.
2. The next thing to consider is the opening line. As my name is already on my resume, there’s no need to repeat it here. It is best to mention here the job I’m applying for, to make thing easier for the hiring manager. The article gives an example of the following “I am excited to apply for [job] with [Company].” But to show my personality from the get-go is to consider introducing myself with a snappy first sentence that highlights my excitement about the company I’m applying to, my passion for the work they do, or my past accomplishments.
3. A common issue that many job seekers may run into is that they use their cover letter to regurgitate what’s on their resume. Don’t just repeat yourself. Instead, expand on those bullet points to paint a fuller picture of your professional self and your prior achievements, and demonstrate why I’d be perfect for the job and the company.
4. Another important factor when it comes to writing a cover letter when I’ve come straight out of university is to consider not hyper-focusing on my educational backgrounds. Because the majority of hiring managers mostly care about your work experience, either that being volunteering/apprenticeships. That being said, I am fresh from university without much experience. So it best to try not to apologize for my missing experience. As stated in the article, “When you don’t meet all of the job requirements, it’s tempting to use lines like, “Despite my limited experience as a manager…” or “While I may not have direct experience in marketing…” But that isn’t going to help your case. Instead of drawing attention to your weaknesses by apologising, emphasize on the strengths and transferable skills you do have.” When it comes to writing my cover letter, I will refrain from apologising and highlighting my insecurities. Instead, I will write to come across as the perfect candidate for the role, regardless of skill.
5. Another edge to gain on competitors is to add testimonials, either that be from tutors/mentors or colleagues. But in the article, it’s advised that to use this sparingly and gives an example of how to include such a sentence within the cover letter…“When I oversaw our last office move, my colour-coded spreadsheets covering every minute detail of the logistics were legendary; my manager said I was so organized, she’d trust me to plan an expedition to Mars.” As I have no workplace related experience, I will probably use a testimonial from my mentor and tutor. As they can give a good account of my work ethic and such.
6. More advise given in the article is that it stays “Don’t Let Your Fear of Bragging Get in the Way” As I tend struggle writing about my own achievements, what the article suggests I do was to write about myself from a different perspective, either that be from a favourite boss, best friend, or mentor say about you? I could ask a tutor to help out if I need that extra help too.
7. When editing its key to keep the cover letter short and sweet. With some exceptions, the rule is to not go over a page. As stated within the article “In one survey, more than two-thirds of employers said they preferred a cover letter that’s either just half a page (around 250 words) or “the shorter the better.” To tailor to the company reading my cover letter, I will try to keep my letter as short and sweet as possible. However, I won’t let this hinder my opportunity to show off. So regardless of length, it will get my point across.
8. Ending with the obvious, remember to spell-check and check your grammar, either that being through a computer scan or getting another pair of eyes on it. “Remembering that even one spelling or grammar mistake can be all it takes to turn off the hiring manager—especially if writing skills are an important part of the role you’re applying for.” To ensure that I have the best spelling and grammar possible, I will use software such as Grammarly. Furthermore, I will run it past another person, such as my mentor. To ensure that everything is in order. As to not set myself up for failure.

But before I send off my CV, its important to make an effort to give it to another person I trust to give it an extra look over it with a fresh pair of eyes and give me their feedback, either that be with an industry professional or a friend/family member. For now, I’ll be asking Kieth on advice and feedback on my writer’s CV I’ve just made.

Below is my finished CV after taking all the advice above on board, with the added comparisons I made earlier to the other industry-standard applications.

Megan Parker CV (1)

Above is a link to a PDF of my amended CV, I have changed it based on Marijan Banic’s CV. I prefer this compact and graphic design compared to a more standardised ‘list of achievements’ spanning a few pages. In my own personal opinion, I feel that those kinds of CV’s are seen as too much information and a chore to read. Personally, I prefer setting the CV within a few pages as possible, with graphics and rating systems to convey things that would otherwise take up space with needless writing.

Interview Advice

Another aspect to remember when preparing to find employment after university is that after my CV gets me through the door, there is the interviewing process. Things to bear in mind before the interview is, who is the interviewer? How long will it be? Is there anything else I should take with my CV?

For more advice on the matter, specifically the interviewing process within filmmaking, I looked to a video on the site ‘My First Job in Film’. Some advice in the video was to absolutely make sure that you do the research for the job your applying in. To have extensive knowledge about the company and role that I’m going for, as this will help me to feel more confident when being interviewed. Another way to research for the role that what to apply for is to use a site like Creative England, who provide a break down of all the different roles within film and how they work. However, a site that was more useful to me, was My First Job in Film’s resources to look at a breakdown of the role of the assistant script editor as an example of a possible option for me to take as my own first job in the film industry.

As stated on the site the assistant script editor role can be found on “one-off and long-running episodic television series, sitcoms and children’s television. The entry-level role in this department starts with the assistant script editor.” It provides me with a breakdown of the whole department, list of the responsibilities for the role/qualifications needed. The article is jam-packed full of useful information to learn before I go for a position in said role. https://www.myfirstjobintv.co.uk/resources/careers-guide/detail?page_id=30 And from reading this I can gather what my future employers might be looking for when hiring for such a role, I can also use all this information to make a sort of template of questions they might want to ask. Such as…

From also reading “Top 10 Personal Attributes of the Assistant Script Editor” and what the department is like to work in, it’s also important to think about how I’ll come across when being interviewed. Will my personality fit within the type of department I want to work in? And how I can best display these valued personal attributes within the interview? For instance… +2

I want to look into the general rules of thumb when heading to an interview, the basic dos and don’ts that can be applied to any professional industry. To help me, I looked at a video talking about the matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thzOhKXRETw Within the video it gave basic tips such as…

• Prepare to dress in the appropriate clothing attire, no hoodies/ripped trousers.
• Tips on body language, a firm handshake and sit up straight, not to slouch or angle away from the person interviewing you as poor posture can make you appear to be disinterested or defensive.
• Have a friendly demeanour to everyone you’re in contact with at the company, retain eye contact making you look interested at what the other person is saying whilst looking more confident and smile regularly to create a warm impression.
• Remembering not to fidget, as this could distract the interviewer from your answers and/or make you look nervous.
• Speaking in a clear, articulate, well-paced tone will also help you not to look too nervous.
• When answering questions, don’t go off on a tangent about an un relevent topic, make all your answers to the point, but thorough enough to not be too short that will leave the interviewer guessing.
• Even when taking on negative experiences, either past jobs/bosses remain positive and constructive about the experiences.
• Always be punctual, never late. But if there is no helping it, be polite and contact them to let them know.

Finally, advice that had always been given to me when going for an interview is to always have questions prepared for myself to ask the interviewer at the end, as this makes you look keen and interested in the position. To do so, I have looked into some more advice online, such as the video ‘Questions to ask at the End of an Interview | Career Interview Tips’ by the channel Cass Thompson Career Advice. The main tip I got from watching the video is to prepare at least 3 questions for the end of the interview. As if I only come with one prepared and it gets answered during the interview I’ll be stumped to ask one on the spot. But make sure that I do ask questions I generally want the answers to, either that be concerns with the position or just things that I generally what I want to know.

One question is a success-driven one. A forward-thinking question about your own success at the company, for example, “How have past employees been successful in this position?”. Or ask about past challenges in this position to show that I’m not afraid of them and could easy problem solve, it shows how am I going to do well here and my best for the company. The second question should be one that’s more culture related. What is the environment of the company like to work in, this helps for me to see if I would actually fit/work well in the department I’m going for and if it’s right for me. An example of a culture question would be “Tell me about the typical workweek in this position.” The third, and arguably the hardest one to ask is the feedback question. “Based on what we have talked about today, is there anything that leaves you with hesitancy with hiring me for the position?” The reason to ask this is that when the answer, it gives you the opportunity to fight for why you’re right for the role. If they say that you lack experience is this area etc, I could say that I love a new challenge and having the opportunity to learn something new. This question also gives you the opportunity to show that you can handle criticism too.

Business Planning and SWOT

One of the most important parts of this module is the planning and development of my business model. To help me start to figure out why, when and what my next steps are when business planning, the School for Creative Startups has developed some key questions when creating your own:

• The proposition: What do you do that people want? How do you know that your product is answering a need or fulfilling a desire?

Relevant to my filmmaking, I think my unique selling point to the sort of films that I write/ make is that they offer a realistic and relatable portrayal of the everyday British person. Arguably, this hyper-realism style and sincerity is wanted more within today’s landscape of cinema, since the turn of the century, due to the success of films being made like Moonlight/ Marriage Story. As more emotion-driven films, rather than relying on other aspects such as effects.

• The customer and market: Who are your customers and where do you find them? What are their attributes and what are your market segments?

As found in some of my research on various social media platforms and their demographics, Instagram and Vimeo are my chosen platforms to gain the most following from audiences that my films are targeted towards the most. With that being a younger demographic, mostly women with similar politics to my own and the themes I write about.

• The competition: Who are you up against and what can you learn from them?

Filmmaking is a very competitive industry. However, I feel that most filmmakers in my area particularly, want to go straight into producing and directing, which in my opinion are more competitive roles in the industry, to want to start out in. However, I want to focus more on my writing before I start to focus on directing my own work. Even though I feel this is a less popular approach to starting a career within the film industry. Other writers/filmmakers that I have discovered tend to have a large following by maximising the potential of the online market and in doing so, they are constantly generating work to promote, and in doing so creates traction and interest from larger audiences.

• The industry: What do you have in common with your competition? Which trends are impacting your industry? How can you predict future trends?

What I have in common with my competitors is that I have a strong aesthetic to my work, and I remain consistent throughout all the projects that I write. Trends within the screenwriting practise these days, tends to be writing snappier, shorter scenes. This might be due to people having a shorter attention span, with less of a need for drawn-out, long scenes or need for too much exposition. To look at future trends within the industry, the development of new technology has an important part to play with the content people want to consume. For instance, interactive filmmaking is becoming more and more popular, with shows on Netflix, such as Black Mirror’s ‘Bandersnatch’.

• The channel: What are the different routes to finding customers?

Routes other than social media would be collaborating and working for other filmmakers, or production companies. This way it gives me the opportunity for their audiences to look at my work and vice-versa. It also networking and putting my name out there in the industry more, and this might give me other opportunities for collaboration.

• The relationship: What financial relationship do you have with your customers? Do you want to sell your product by subscription, via a payment plan or as a product people buy at a fixed price?

When it comes to working on short films at the moment, the work I produce is available free online. Either that be through services such as Vimeo or YouTube. However, when working with other filmmakers/ writers on larger projects, I will be paid for my services.

• The pricing model: How much should you charge for your product or service? What are your customers willing to pay? What are the other business costs to factor into your pricing model?

As a screenwriter, unless I’m apart of a production company, there are no fixed salaries. I will be paid from project to project. Of course, the more notoriety I get, the more I can charge per project but starting out I will have to begin at the lower end of the pay scale. Some online guidelines provide insight into average numbers for this work. For instance, Chron.com states that “Earnings for a script from a novice writer will likely be an estimated $56,500 for the project… with proven writers earning upward of $106,000 for a finished script.” 

• The key partner: Who is your key partner? How can suppliers, distributors and marketing companies become one? Who can you bring on board to help you deliver your product or service?

N/A

• The asset: What is your key asset? What do you have to your advantage, to help you win customers? Is it physical, intellectual, human or financial?

My asset as a screenwriter would be my unique insight into the themes and scenarios of which I write about. My written work is very personal to my life and experiences as a young woman. This allows me to write realistic and relatable content for my desired audience.

• The key competency: What activities must your business be good at in order to prosper? What skills and experience do you bring to the business?

As well as staying true to my personal values and aesthetic, I also have to remain flexible when it comes to collaborating with others and be sensitive to their artistic vision. As the film is a very collaborative industry, it is imperative that I should have good communication skills and a friendly demeanour. As it is also an industry where the work and projects that are undertaken are very personal to those that participate in creating them. It is also important that I have good time management as the manner of filmmaking, as a creative practice, usually consists of many people working alone, but alongside others to reach a mutual goal. Therefore, it is important to keep up with scheduling and deadlines, as everyone’s schedule lines up with each other.

These set of questions helped me to think of my writings/skillset as a product. Helping me when trying to sell myself to employers in the future. In terms of helping my business plan, outlining key elements of my individual practice helped break down the fundamentals of my brand. However, it was hard applying some of the questions to my writing practise as it is not a physical product to sell.

What is SWOT?

SWOT Analysis is used to assess where you stand within your current career before you decide on any new strategy. To find out what’s successful, and what’s not as successful. Ask yourself where you want to go and how you might get there – and what obstacles may hinder your progress. This article I looked into, from Mind Tool.com, helped me go through my own SWOT analysis, provides a video and infographic to help me do so… https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm

What SWOT stands for is Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and then assessing these 4 aspects. Mainly used to “reduce the chances of failure, by understanding what you’re lacking, and eliminating hazards that would otherwise catch you unawares.”

 

How to Use a SWOT Analysis?

Once all four aspects of SWOT have been analysed and examined, there will be a subsequent list of possible actions to undertake. Therefore, your strengths have to work upon, as well as your weaker aspects. Furthermore, any threats have to be dealt with in order to progress and any opportunity has to be taken advantage of.

Before any advancement is made, you should analyse whether there are any correlations between the areas of the SWOT table. For example, could some of your positive aspects, such as a strength, be used to open up an opportunity. Furthermore, could opportunities arise due to the erasure of certain weaknesses.

Below I found some other examples/templates of SWOT being done…

 

After doing my own SWOT analysis, below…

I found it to be most helpful when I was being really honest, realistic and rigorous with myself. Although I didn’t find anything out that I didn’t know about myself before, it was helpful for me to see everything written out in front of me. Mainly for the reason that this helped me to build on my strengths, boost your weaker areas, but to look for potential connections between the quadrants of the analysis. Either that being that I could use some of my strengths to open up further opportunities alike using my resources to the best of their advantage. For instance, I could use the network of my tutor’s, Keith’s contacts to the number of writers and filmmakers he knows to give me opportunities to apprentice them/shadow them that might lead to making even more contacts and work. Also, would even more opportunities become available by eliminating some of my weaknesses? All in all, this process was very valuable in the sense that it makes clear to me what I need to be doing and why when moving forward in my career development and business planning.

Personal Development Planning

The Personal Development Plan (PDP) is a key element of the module assessment. The importance of creating my own PDP is to clarify what I’ve previously researched the screenwriting industry and how I’m going to plan my next steps when entering into the professional world.

To help me get started when making my PDP, I’ll research into how others make theirs.

“A Personal Development Plan is a written account of self-reflection and improvement, which doubles up as a detailed action plan used to fulfil academic, personal, or career-based goals.” As stated by reed.co.uk. They believe that what should be included when writing the report is an accurate account of my personal goals, why they are important to me and how I plan on achieving them. The plan is a detailed account of my ideal future, either that be based on my short or long-term ambitions. And a must is to analyse what potential problems may come and how to solve them, either that be through self-improvement etc, with the purpose to help keep my career plan moving forward.

I’ll be using my plan specifically as a device to help my own career progression after university. However, the use of such report can be useful in any stage of a person’s career either that be used when changing one’s career, moving into further education, or to organise the actions needed to gain a new skill for your own self-improvement. So in researching and teaching myself to properly utilise my own PDP, will help me at any stage of my future career. But for now, the use of such a report is best to prepare myself for when I’ll be between roles of a student to a professional. And with this clear set of objectives, I’ll note down, I’ll be able to make the most of the rest of my time at university and add some more value to my CV. 

Below, I’ll be filling in a template of what I want my PDP to look like. But before I do so, I’ll look back at a site I used when making my CV, My First Job In Film. This site provides me with a detailed breakdown of the role of assistant script editor, an entry-level role in the writing department, perfect for my own first job in the film/tv industry. The site also informs me about the other roles in the script department and career paths in the department too. As stated on the site, “When you start out, there are a considerable number of choices open to you. You may decide drama isn’t for you – so you could switch to factual or documentary research, working your way up to assistant producer, then producer/director then series producer/edit producer. You may decide that after reading thousands of scripts: you want to peruse a career as a scriptwriter or diversify your knowledge to the role of script supervisor. These roles are highly sorted after and will take a good number of years of production experience to reach. It does vary of course – it usually takes 2 or 3 years of working as a script editor before you are running a department – at the very least. For most, you’d expect to be a story producer or series script editor as a third or fourth job – say on a 4-year trajectory.” Therefore, when I’ll be starting out within the writing industry the idea of me going freelance/finding an agent willing to sign me right away is not realistic. And one of the most important elements when making an accurate PDP is to compromise on what my feasible short-term goals are, to be honest with myself as to what I’ll most likely my options are when I leave straight from university. From looking at this site and researching other roles within the writing department, the entry-level ones I’ll be hoping to apply for after uni as an initial step is the following…(that can be most likely found on one-off and long-running episodic television series, sitcoms and children’s television.)

• Script readers. Read tons of scripts, score them and provide written reports (usually three pages of notes) assessing: premise, characters, dialogue, format, structure, plot, descriptions, pace, originality and theme.
• Assistant/Junior script editor. Reports to exec producer, and works closely with producer, scriptwriter and script editor to provide editorial and research support.

Some other advice I’ve found on this site was a step by step guide as to how to start within the industry, as seen below… This gives me a little guidance in the sort of things I must be doing to start developing/building on my knowledge and abilities as a writer and extra steps to consider in my PDP.

To conclude, the benefits of completing this report are mainly to refocus on building on my current skills for my future career. Either that be through learning and developing, that may include things such as workshops, independent study, networking, on-the-job training, joining a club/support group etc. As all of these opportunities will allow me to gain new skills and knowledge and could be paramount in the future concerning the completion of my targets and goals.

Above I have completed my PDP report with the help of using a template available on Reed.co.uk. What I liked most about this template is it offered a section of the report that I didn’t think to add to mine at first, at the bottom of the template was a progression table. To include an option to help track my progression is so helpful because keeping up with your progression is a good way of measuring your success. Not only is it a way to layout your newly learnt skills and knowledge, but it also acts a motivation to succeed and allow you to sit back and contemplate your progress and change and adapt the plan if things aren’t progressing as planned.

All in all, it helped me to give myself thought-out goals that can be achieved realistically, that help me stay motivated with a sense of achievement through the succession of completing short term goals. Creating a Personal Development Plan has also provided me with an easy to follow structure and counsel I need to be driven and actually advance in the direction to fill my capabilities of being a writer.

SFM11: Defined Portfolio

Ideas development

As this is the final film I’d be making on this course, I feel it should be the one that focuses in the direction of where I’d want to take my career within the film industry. Therefore within this module, my specialism will be within the script-writing process.

Back in my second year I made a film called Little Angel. A film about a teenage couple stuck in the bathroom, waiting for their pregnancy test results. Unfortunately, the film didn’t go to plan as last minute one of the actors pulled out. leading me to have to act, direct and be the camera operator. In the end I feel that the film came out subpar due to the fact that I feel that I didn’t have the vital crew needed to make this a higher quality film that I’d hoped for initially.

However, even though I wasn’t happy with the final out-come of the production, the script was one that I was pleased with and wanted to pursue again. This is because I felt that it show cased the style of filmmaking I wanted to pursue, naturalistic dialogue within British culture and contains themes of trials young people face when exploring their sexuality. Back then I decided that I’d wait for another opportunity to remake the film when I feel like I’m a more confident filmmaker and give the script justice.

In the time between making the first Little Angel to now, I feel that I have progressed largely from back then. As I’ve roughly made 5 films and been crew for 5+ others since then, I feel more confident on set, directing and more technically competent in the post-production too. Therefore I feel like this would be the right time to come back to this project and make a film out of the script. More recently I worked with young actors, making films based off the playbook [ BLANK ] by Alice Birch. I was tasked with choosing a play within the book and making a film based upon said play. This was a project that I found really beneficial to me as a director for this was one of the few times I got to work with professional/semiprofessional actors rather than non-actors or myself. Learning to work with actors when building characters was something I’d never done before as I’m primarily a writer that works alone. However when doing so, together the characters we made have a rich backstory that lead them to this moment in time within the play. We had to sort of work backwards from dialogue then character. The plays I chose was one called Doll and another called Pram. Doll is about 2 people kidnapping a baby and naming it Doll. Pram being about 2 people’s frustrations with a baby leading them to kick over its pram. We decided to keep the characters the same within both plays, and have them take place within the same day. Then we worked on a backstory for these characters with both actresses present…

Both girls go to the same school, are best-friends but one is in love with the other, and tries to take care of her after an abortion leading them to kidnap a child they can call their own. Even after working on this project with the 2 actresses, I felt that there was so much backstory that was never delved into enough within the 2 short film we made that maybe I should take these 2 characters we make into another project, like a prequel of sorts.

Then after looking into a photographer I like, there was a sort of ‘light bulb’ moment. Derek Perlman’s photo shoot for the look-book of clothing brand UNIF’S ‘Too Kool For Skool’. https://www.thecoolhour.com/2014/12/obsessed-unifs-latest-kool-skool-lookbook/ The location of the shoot is in a 90’s aesthetic looking high school. A couple of photographs caught my attention as I could see the characters of Mia and Agnes as the models in this location…

Importance of Location

When writing a short film there are many decisions to make to better the story I’m telling, and one that I could easily overlook is the best choice of the location for the scene. Within an article written by Brad Riddell, it states an important reminder when writing for film “cinema was about images long before it was about words. We go to the movies to see brand new places, or, to see familiar places in new ways and to feel a strong sense of mood and atmosphere in every shot of every scene.” I want to make strong, clear, well-considered choices of location when writing this scene, and to do so there are questions within the article to ask myself when deciding where to set the film. Although I felt that most questions were geared towards how important the location was to the visuals of the film, rather than the script there were a couple that were relevant to me when deciding the location for Little Angel. One question “how could you maximize the cinematic elements of your location? What is going on in the background, and what can you show us through the business of the location that makes even a mundane space feel cinematic? Bring the place to life as a character.” I had the idea of having the characters set waiting for the pregnancy test results within a school toilets from looking into the ‘Too Kool for Skool’ look-book. And referring to what Riddell stated before this in setting it here leads the audience to see familiar places in new ways. Most people have been to some sort of public bathroom many times, and can relate to the fact that although an intimate place, its not the most private of locations. So the situation of the girls waiting for the test, will offer the audience to observe the school bathrooms through a different perspective, than one normally does when visiting a school bathroom. The situation of the girls within this scene makes the location feel less mundane. Leading onto another question I found interesting to ask myself within this article. “What’s the best location for a scene is often the worst location for your character to do what it is he or she needs to do? Discrepancy heightens conflict.” As I mentioned earlier the best worst place to stage my scene would be in the girls’ school toilets, as this is the least private place to do a pregnancy test. Both girls are attending a catholic school, a religion that sees the life of a child to be at conception. So this could be considered to be the worst place to talk of a possible abortion. The article goes on to mention successful examples of films to use this technique of locations within scenes such as When Harry Met Sally. “Harry gives us the exposition about his coming divorce while doing the wave at Giants Stadium. Sally fakes an orgasm in a crowded restaurant. Harry encounters his ex again while singing karaoke at Sharper Image. And the two protagonists have a massive falling out at their best friends’ wedding.” Leading me to think that scenes with high tension, like within Little Angel work best when things don’t happen when, where or how they are supposed to. In setting it within the girls bathroom, this add element of ‘running out of time’. For instance a bell might go off for them to go back to class at any minute, making tension of having footsteps of classmates above them. And adding to the tension could be the fact that anyone could come in at any moment, having a lack of privacy within a school bathroom. Adding these elements within the location for this film would help to create urgency, that will help keep the audience suspended as the plot itself isn’t is very simple.

My previous Little Angel film had the dynamic of a boy and a girl waiting for the test results in the girl’s parents house and having the danger of the parents finding out. However now I prefer having the parents of the possibly pregnant girl absent from her life. Adding a dynamic that they’re not that close so maybe the teens want to have a go at raising a kid themselves. I also didn’t want the possible father being in the film unlike my first script, this is because I want to add an air of mystery around the topic of who the farther is, not present and not supportive. Instead having the film focus on the nature of the relationship between two girlfriends, leaving more for the audience to understand their relationship as the film goes on.

I wanted to rewrite the first script for two girl characters mostly as I feel that bi/gay female relationships are rarely portrayed within films without fetishising lesbian relationships. From an article discussing such topic it stated “Out of 109 films released in 2017, 14 included LGBTQ characters” It continued with criticized 2013’s highly acclaimed Blue Is The Warmest Color. “This movie is worthy of the praise it earned for the beautiful performances by Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos, but is also worthy of significant criticism for the 10-minute long sex scene that male director Abdellatif Kechiche orchestrated. The explicit scene was clearly designed from a male perspective and understanding of (or lack thereof) lesbian sex. It was denounced publicly by both actresses for making them feel extremely uncomfortable. Using lesbian bodies to please heterosexual male viewers is completely invalidating. Instead of representing queer women, movies that oversexualize Lesbian or Bisexual women are taking advantage of the fetishizing of lesbians to service a heterosexual audience.” My goal when rewriting Little Angel is to portray a sort of innocence that comes with learning about love/relationships at a young age. Not knowing how you feel about best-friends that are of the same gender, learning the difference between love of a friendship and love in a romantic sense. And the added shame that comes with fancying someone of the same gender within school as there is a lot of name-calling/bullying from others while figuring all this out within high school. There’s no sex or indication of such between the characters as I feel it isn’t relevant to the plot or their relationship at this moment of time as they are treading on eggshells wondering if the other is feeling the same way as them.

A filmmaker that I think balances both of presenting sexuality within young women but never overtly sexualises them is Catherine Breillat, especially within her 2001 film Fat Girl. One of the most influential films to me as a filmmaker, “Fat Girl” is the brutally truthful story of the first sexual experiences of a 15-year-old sexpot and her pudgy 12-year-old sister. Her characters may talk of love, but they rarely feel it and are not necessarily looking for it. the women within her film as well as men, have a frank curiosity about what they can do. Young love is idealized as sweet romance, but early sexual experiences are often painful and clumsy and based on lies. It is not merely that a boy will tell a girl almost anything to get her into bed, but that a girl will pretend to believe almost anything, because she is curious, too. Therefore within the writing process Fat Girl will be a film that I’ll look further into for further more inspection.

Super Dark Times (2017)

Written by Luke Piotrowski and Ben Collins. It is a film about two teenagers Zach and Josh, who have been best friends their whole lives, but when a gruesome accident leads to a cover-up, the secret drives a wedge between them and propels them down a rabbit hole of escalating paranoia and violence.

I consider this to be one of the most influential films to me as a writer initially due to the realism. Complimented by the production, for instance the set design being set in the 90s but the film remained humble in the sense that it was never obtrusive. And complimented by the chemistry of the two actors of Zach (played by Owen Campbell) and Josh (played by Charlie Tahan). They made me believe in their friendship, due to such natural dialogue. Dialogue like this is realistic in the sense that lines like this is actually what young boys talk like with one another in regular life. And senses like this would only be possible due to the naturalistic dialogue written within the script.

The written relationship between the two characters of Zach and Josh is in my opinion what makes the film so great. Lifelong friends that do everything together but within the 1st scene we see of the two of them talking about a girl they both have a crush on. Brushed off at first but this theme remains as a subplot through out the rest of the film. It is not the main focus of the film but it is always there in the atmosphere together, the audience can feel this tension from their first scenes to their last. As we see their friendship fall apart due to the guilt they both carry after the death of friend Daryl, by not hanging out as much and only talking when arguing about what happened to Daryl. This use of a strong subplot is a narrative device that I would want to include in my script too. As I wanted to change my main characters to be both girls that are lifelong friends, like this film, I want their relationship to have the same level of chemistry. The script has to feel like the two of them have a history, an underlying subtext driving both of their motivations. When writing I want the film to be about more than just two friends waiting for some test results. The dynamic is that there is some romantic love there that they’re not willing to admit, either because of fear what others my think by Mia or for fear of rejection by Agnes. I want to include this subplot as it adds a level of tension between each character, not only do they have tension from awaiting the results but also there’s an unspoken jealousy that Agnes feels for Mia’s boyfriend that creates more tension between the two. I’ve noticed within short films that they often don’t make use of subplots, either that be because of limitations of time, therefore not being able to expand upon it etc… However, I do want to add subplots into my short’s script due to my subplot not being explicitly said out right/made obvious but more hinted through subtle clues. Included to add to the atmosphere and creating the sense that the characters have a history to each-other rather than as a plot device itself as I feel that within my 15-minute film, I also wouldn’t have time to expand upon it too much.

To do so successfully, I feel that there are some techniques used within Super Dark Times to also utilise. Another one being is the subtlety this film has, making the audience work harder to understand the characters within it as there is very little exposition. I feel this works so well when trying to write within a hyper-realistic setting. For instance there are little clues placed before Josh becomes a killer answering the questions as to why he does. Contrasting many of the other characters, Josh’s parents are never seen and rarely talked about, his younger brother is meant to be some sort of ‘prodigy’ and his older one is in the Marines so they both get attention from their parents but he doesn’t seem to. This is never said but it is noted in the audience’s subconscious. The film starts with an injured deer breaking through a school window, asking the question of weather Josh in-fact started torturing animals since that is a common precursor for serial-killers to do. The script also does this with other character’s too, alike to Zach when we know he tries to reach out to people as he needs to talk about what happened but can’t. When we see him in the bedroom scene with Alison he doesn’t say much other than nodding a couple times but with this minimal dialogue and his inability to tell the truth we see that this guilt is eating him up inside, more so then we would if he were to just say whats on his mind. I would also like to write dialogue similar to this, not necessarily minimal but the use of the characters talking about something completely different to avoid or to talk about something that they want to express. Shown within this film and is true to life that this happens within conversations between teenagers. Or even lack there of, as this film has tons of awkward silences between the characters emphasizing their struggle to communicate to one another. As they are less emotionally mature enough to successfully talk about what they feel.

How To Use The Subplot Device Successfully Within Short Film

Most shorts don’t fracture the subplot device as they tend to focus on the core idea within the story. As stated within an article written by Kathryn Burnett, an award-winning screenwriter, who has worked in film and television for 20 years. Within a short film… “Multi-layered stories aren’t going to work and neither are stories, which rely heavily on the main character’s back-story. You simply will not have time to explore back-story. It’s also best to avoid subplots, numerous characters, multi-protagonists, expensive set pieces, and stories set in two or more different time periods.”

However I feel there are some short films that do use subplots successfully, like short Cecile on the Phone (2017). https://vimeo.com/244727829

Written and directed by Annabelle Dexter-Jones, the film is about a character named Cecile who “wants answers, but, actually, she doesn’t. After her ex-boyfriend’s return to New York triggers overwhelming feelings of doubt and confusion, she embarks on a series of telephone conversations, all of which ultimately only distract her from the one conversation she really needs to have.” We see from the first conversation on the phone that this woman is beginning to become obsessed with her ex. Not only that but she notices a cold sore on her lip. Through out the rest of the film, with a runtime of 11 and a half minutes, we she her obsession growing, much like her cold sore. By either calling everyone who knows the ex or frantically Googling her symptoms. While all this time the conversations are about her breakup the ever-present cold sore is looking worse and worse on her face as we see her constantly picking at the wound. This subplot isn’t in the way of the core plot as it helps to visually illustrate her fixation of the breakup. like a metaphor the cold sore is a physical wound she picks at whereas the breakup is more of a mental wound that she keeps picking at also. In using the subplot more subtly like this helps to better understand the character and their backstory without having to state it outright. The use of smaller subplots will help the audience to believe in a fully fleshed out character that has a backstory, within a short length of time as there isn’t enough time to fully explore characters.

But when writing I think that it’s best to have the character’s backstory and even their future stories already figured out. As I feel that having it already thought through helps to create a feeling that they are fully dimensional people when writing. Even if its just an inside joke mentioned within the dialogue. This helps to create a world that feels real for the characters. Therefore when rewriting Little Angel I think I should keep the dynamic between the girls as semi-romantic. I feel this creates a tension between the characters at this moment of time. With the subplot being that Agnes has her own agenda by being jealous of Mia’s boyfriend and therefore doesn’t want him to be apart of the possible baby’s life.

Alice Birch’s Pram

Above in the quote made by Burnett, it mentions that it’s best to ‘avoid stories set in two or more different time periods’ within short films. However I want to challenge this point in my 15 minute short for this project. When I made a short film Pram from playbook [BLANK] by Alice Birch, I was proud of the final out come. However due to technical difficulties I lost the final piece. Recently I wanted to remake the short, then I wondered whether this 2 minute piece could feature within the Little Angel film. In the playbook it was a very short play (only half a page long) and when making the film I had full creative control of who I wanted the characters to be. Therefore when making the Little Angel script, I want Pram to be how the story ends.

Pram is a short play, with out dialogue, unspecific characters or time/location. A baby in a pram crying extensively and two other teens there are panicking not knowing what to do, until a burst of anger leads to one of them to kick the pram really hard. 

Keeping the characters who commit this act as Agnes and Mia, I want to convey the length that Agnes would go to make Mia happy and the length Mia would go to get her baby back. I think it”s best to leave the time in between the scene that takes place within the toilets to this ending to be more ambiguous for the audience, leaving the audience to figure out what could’ve happened in the time in between. For instance maybe Mia was forced to have an abortion, or lost the baby or even had to give it up for adoption? All the audience will know is that they some how got a baby and couldn’t cope with taking care of it. Keeping in mind the advice of Burnett, there will be no words spoken to one another, so this might help with not over complicating the plot too much or adding too many pages onto the 15 minute script either.

I wanted to add this as the ending scene for Little Angel as it raises the stakes for the characters. One of the most influential film to me is Fat Girl (2001). Directed by the controversial directer Catherine Breillat, her films are know to include themes such as young girls dealing with their sexuality. And Fat Girl was very controversial due to the graphic scenes, especially the ending. The film centres on two sisters… ‘Elena is the gorgeous fifteen-year-old who is forced to drag along pudgy twelve-year-old Anais as she trolls for boys in the cafes of a seaside resort where their family is vacationing. Treating Anais with casual cruelty, Elena smooches a handsome young Italian as her sister gorges on a banana split and later, in their shared bedroom, commands her to sleep as the twenty something Lothario climbs in through the window. As Elena is deflowered–in an extended scene of wincing black humor and exquisite accuracy–Anais writhes in fascination, envy and her own budding desire. When Elena’s transgression is revealed to their parents, their furious mother breaks off the holiday and embarks on the long drive home with the girls in the back seat. The summer vacation is over, but, as they discover on a tension-filled journey that leads to the story’s startling conclusion, the family adventure is not.’

Alike to another film that’s influenced me within the writing stage of this project of Super Dark Times. Both films are genre bending, turning from a coming-of-age film to a thriller/slasher film. The ending of Fat Girl while shocking to the audience, there was an underlining tension that was building through out the car journey, there was a feeling that something bad was going to happen. Within a review of the film Roger Ebert stated  “Fat Girl, seemingly more innocent, at times almost like one of those sophisticated French movies about an early summer of love, turns out to be more painful and shocking than we anticipate. It is like life, which has a way of interrupting our plans with its tragic priorities.” I feel that this ending worked perfectly in conjunction with the realism the rest of the film as this feeling of doom raises the stakes of how the characters are feeling from the start, with the crescendo at the end. Therefore by including Pram as the ending of Little Angel, hopefully this will also leave the audience in shock or even angered alike to the ending of Fat Girl. But have the audience consider how it works with what went before, and with the influence of Breillat’s work. As stated by Roger Ebert “This is not a film softened and made innocuous by timid studio executives after “test screenings.” There is a jolting surprise in discovering that this film has free will, and can end as it wants, and that its director can make her point, however brutally. And perhaps only with this ending could Anais’ cold, hard, sad logic be so unforgivingly demonstrated.” Alike to European indie films that have this freedom to do as it pleases, short film does also. Therefore, now is the best time to be making shorts that handle more socially challenging scenes.

Genre

To research further into what sort of genre I want to portray when writing, I looked into Genre Theory itself. The word ‘genre’ is French, meaning ‘kind’ or ‘class’ ”. Genre Theory involves classifying a film into a category that contains other films that have similar aspects. These conventions can be broken down into four sections… Character and story, set, technical and audio. When writing all I’ve got to focus on is the storyline and the characters involved. Each genre has its own set of storylines for example one storyline for a romantic comedy would be boy loses girl, boy tried to get girl back. And the characters within them are often sort of the same within a genre, the young woman who doesn’t trust men falls in love with her nice-guy friend that’s been there all along. However, British philosopher Stephen Neale argues that ‘genres are instances of repetition and difference’ He adds that ‘difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre’: mere repetition would not attract an audience. Texts often exhibit the conventions of more than one genre. For audiences not to become bored of specific genres thence they must evolve. Leading there to be many films that strictly don’t fit into one of these genres, therefore lots of film are more fitted into ‘sub-genres’. Sub-genres are more specific versions from the main core genres such as romance, horror or comedy etc. Some sub-genres include fantasy films, film noir or supernatural films. Alongside these sub-genres there are also ‘hybrid-genres’, a hybrid of core-genres/sub-genres. And alike to some of the films I’ve mentioned before, Super Dark Times and Fat Girl, these films I consider to be more hybrid, from drama to slasher. And I see this as the path I want to take for the tone of Little Angel, from a relatable/coming-of-age drama alike to Dark Times and Fat Girl and then taking a dark turn within Pram like these films do too.

In my last module, I did a presentation about my filmmaking practice. In it I mentioned that in future projects I wanted to experiment with making films of other genres, to test myself as previously I’ve just been making dramas. I want to expand expand the genres I usually work with. For instance I’m a huge horror film fan but have never had an idea for a concept for a horror film or thriller. As I feel that having a filmography showing a variety of films within it will help my experience as a filmmaker, whilst testing my limits.

Character Biographies and Backstories

As I mentioned before when talking about wanting to include a subplot between the characters of Agnes and Mia, about them having feelings for each other. Before I start to rewrite the Little Angel script with these new characters I think its best to write out their backstories to understand what motivates them, forming their experiences/values/beliefs, together with their own perspective of life before/after what takes place within this scene. Ensuring, the audience believes and cares for them even after the film is over.

To help me when creating these bios/back stories I used Linda.J. Cowgill’s character questionnaire from her book ‘Writing Short Films: Structure and Content for Screenwriters’. I read the book within the writing process of my other projects called Pavement Princesses for SFM7: Refined Storytelling. I found it particularly helpful due to it being specifically written to advice when writing short films, and being more detailed than other articles or forums online. I also used this character questionnaire when writing Pavement Princesses and this helped when defining the character and using these questions as a reference when writing the script. Therefore I will be using this technique before I start rewriting Little Angel as I also what the characters within this to keep the characters actions consistent with who they are within this script too. Cowgill states in her book that for this to be effective then it should not just state the character’s motivations, but also why they are in a predicament. If this is not done then it is simply useless information. When used correctly, the character bio will lead to answering the important questions which will be asked when writing.

After writing out these bios for both character of Agnes and Mia, alike to what I did when writing Pavement Princesses I want to look into the characters core motivations. To do so, I’ll look back into Cowgill’s chapter ‘Character & Emotion- Who Does What and Why’, refers to the backstory “How the character’s current behaviour relates to his past life?. As in many cases we don’t need to know all this information; we just need to feel it’s there.” Pavement Princesses is one of the scripts I’m most proud of for I felt that I created fully dimensional characters that have lived their lives before what was saw on screen. Therefore I want to do the same within this project as making these backstories helps me to understand my characters, how their pasts have affected their present. Knowing my characters so intimately teaches me their motivation for the choices they make. Cowgill believes that questions to be answered to really discover who a character truly is; their wants/whys/needs. The “why” is their conscious motivation and their need is their unconscious reasoning, their inner force that compels a character to act without understanding the reasons why. The need is there to drive the story forward, inner meaning. (link below)

The final Character Bios here…

Because I’m going to be rewriting my Little Angel script and not starting from scratch, there are still some lines of dialogue from the original script that I want to keep in that can translate to the new characters. Therefore it’d be best to look back on how my original characters communicated with one another and see if this could translate to the characters of Agnes and Mia. Having some of the dialogue already written is a good guide for me to work on when working with the new characters. For I believe the characters of Kate and Julian’s dynamic is similar to the one of Mia and Agnes. Either that be because of a power dynamic or one clearly caring for the other more. However, as useful as this maybe, I want Agnes and Mia’s relationship to be less straight forward. Agnes with her own agenda of wanting Mia to not go back to her boyfriend and Mia using Agnes. I want to create the feeling that there’s a lot more to their friendship that meets the eye, a past. Whereas, I feel that in the original script of Little Angel this sense of history was missing, the characters seemed too simple to be real. This maybe because when initially writing I didn’t think though each character’s biography or backstory. And I lack of knowledge was apparent within the script.

As motioned before I have worked with my actors for a previous project on the same characters that I want to include in this film script too. Therefore when making these bios/backstories the base for these characters are already laid out, so it was more like building upon what we already talked through, i.e the character’s past and why this motivates them… The last project I worked on with my actors was making some of Birch’s plays into film, one of the plays I chose was called Doll. A play about two young people that steal a baby and name it Doll. The characters we made for this play, Agnes and Mia, in my mind would be a perfect fit into this project. Maybe these girls stealing a baby would be something they’d do in the future. So I worked backwards to figure out why/how theses characters would do such a thing when writing the girl’s backstories.

Character’s Dialect/Dialogue

I admire Birch’s use of realism within the dialogue within playbook, [BLANK]. A series of 60 scenes about adults and children impacted by the criminal justice system. And how this in turn affects the lives of adolescences when adults are absent from it. What I want to take influence from Birch’s writings is that Birch has a similar writing style to mine in terms of dialogue within this playbook. The characters within it have a very British style of talking with slang and swearing. I want to translate this into how I write my characters of Agnes and Mia too, they are young and in an intimating situation, therefore their dialect would convey this immaturity and stress with how they speak.  This is an aspect I’m influenced by from Birch’s work, how she manages to capture how young people really talk. Personally I think this sort of writing of dialogue is harder to find within cinema. For example Birch’s characters seem to be between the ages of early-late teenagers, and they swear a lot. Like most people at this age being able to swear is a new concept to them so they rely on it to prove a point, emphasis what they are trying to say. The characters are sometimes vulgar or stumble upon their words. Not everything they say has to be poetic or even eloquent and this is what I love about her work. It’s like real people are talking about their real lives. Her writings work to highlight the poetry within, not only the tragic but the everyday too. I gravitate more to this sort of writing style as the more false or contrived dialogue sounds within film, detaches me from the characters at hand. If I don’t talk like that or no-one I know does then these are not characters I’d ever come across in real life, I find it hard to believe them.  As example of the sort of back and forth dialogue within Birch’s work…

“A: And my secret was that Aden fingered me at a party on Saturday and it was literally the most heinous experience of my life. He jabbed upwards like he was directing traffic Northbound on the M6. So. I trust you.

…B: Why the M6? You said M6 yesterday as well, what about his technique made you think of the M6?”

In my opinion this is the sort of humour that could be easily said in an everyday conversation between friends and this realism is something that I’ll try to incorporate within my script’s dialogue between Agnes and Mia. To do this I will be trying to keep the dialect realistic to help convey Birch’s sense of honesty through dialogue.

To add to my research into writing dialogue, I narrowed it down for screenplays specifically. Within the article ‘8 Rules for Writing Film Dialogue’ written by Amanda Pendolino for FilmUp.com it stated that there are eight essential rules and examples to help improve the dialogue in your screenplay. The rules that I find important to me specifically when rewriting Little Angel is ‘enter late, leave early’. “You don’t need to show every character entering or exiting a location… Think about what the true purpose of the scene is and eliminate small talk that isn’t essential to this purpose.” Relevant to Little Angel, like the original ending was to cut to black when the timer goes off for the results for the test. Originally I ended it here because of time restraints of directing a 5 minute film. However now having the flexibility of 15 minutes, I still want this to be the initial ending for it creates tension of the unknown for the audience. The results don’t need to be known at this moment, they don’t need to see how the scene ends. Same goes for the short Pram, it’s not important how they got into the situation but more so what they do in the moment.

However to challenge the statement of “Think about what the true purpose of the scene is and eliminate small talk that isn’t essential to this purpose.” I want to write even more ‘small talk’ between the characters between Mia and Agnes. Much like the purpose of another rule ‘remember what characters DON’T say’, I feel that people generally don’t say exactly what they’re thinking and feeling. At times that might talk about something seemingly entirely different, but this avoidance to talk about the more important things shows more about how the character is feeling. “You can imbue your scenes with tension, subtext, and nuance if your characters demur, change topics, and avoid talking about things directly. Let your characters struggle to communicate.” The article gives an example of such a scene of characters Benjamin and Elaine within The Graduate not needing to say a single word within the final scene. Within Little Angel, I feel that the characters of Mia and Agnes do struggle to say how they actually feel to one-another. But like most teenage girls, they aren’t conformable within the silence so they fill it with ‘small talk’ covering what is truly on their mind.

The article also states another rule for dialogue ‘use long speeches or monologues sparingly’. I agree with this statement in the sense that I feel in reality, most people don’t talk like this and makes dialogue feel less natural. However at times the use of them in contrast of scenes where characters find it hard to communicate can “effectively build up to direct, powerful confrontations if previous dialogue is less direct by comparison.” As said within the article, giving the example of the final sequence of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, in which the characters finally confront their feelings for one another. When rewriting Little Angel there is a sort of monologue said my Mia when she is talking about whether of not she will or cares to keep the baby or not if she’s pregnant.

“Babies’ hearts don’t matter that much anyway… Too small. It’s just a fetus, just a cluster of cells… isn’t she?… And I do care. I care a lot actually. What’s the date, again? Doesn’t matter. I cried again today, anyway. Can’t stop. And being sick. Everything’s just getting worse and worse. And every minute- every second counts and it’ll just keep growing bigger and bigger…and bigger and Aden will dump me if I get fat. Won’t he?”

She says this at the sort of crisis point of the scene. In contrast to the previous moments of the scene, she starts to say how she is really feeling. I feel that this monologue fits with the rest of the more natural language because within the monologue its more like Mia’s stream of consciousness. As for it’s not scripted or even thought through by the character, remembering that people often speak in choppy, incomplete sentences and interrupt one another or even themselves.

An article that eloquently describes how this use of realism within dialogue is done, is ‘Screenwriting Advice From LADY BIRD Writer/Director Greta Gerwig’ By Ken Miyamoto. Here it explains that Gerwig’s background in screenwriting began with her collaborations on many mumblecore films and how her style of writing dialogue developed from there. (Mumblecore is a sub-genre of the indie film market that is often defined by naturalistic acting and dialogue — often improvised — in low-budget productions. These types of films put emphasis on dialogue over plot and usually focus on the personal relationships of people in their 20s and 30s.) Advice presented by the filmmaker within this article is how she “writes words that don’t look like they’ve been written”. While she was “brought up” in mumblecore films that often utilised improv, Gerwig’s screenplays are actually very set pieces that only sound like improvisation. To her, it’s about using her improv impulse to write dialogue that doesn’t sound like writing. Those impulses is the tone and enters I want my characters dialogue to have. This is particularly of influence to me after watching her 2017 film Lady Bird. Set in the early 2000s “Christine Lady Bird McPherson, a teenage girl faces a lot of ups and downs in her relationships during her senior year in high school”. What I liked about her use of this time period was not only the nostalgic element it brought to the film but also another aspect of comedy, the cringe slang used by the characters. For instances when love interest Kyle Scheible says “hella tight”. For the audiences it brings back the embarrassment we feel when looking back on our past, when we said such cringe things to a crush to act cool, but in a more comedic light. We empathize with the characters rather than pity them, as we’ve all been there. 

It has also recently come to my attention that there is one inaccuracy within the story if I were to set it in modern times. It has also recently come to my attention that there is one inaccuracy within the story if I were to set it in modern times. This is because in 2015 the Shadow Education Secretary denounced nuns from teaching in an academic environment. This has an implication to my script as one main element of the characters of the girls is that they attend a Catholic School taught by nuns. For the reason that I feel this adds extra conflict for Mia not only being sexually active before marriage but also dealing with the possibility of abortion or Agnes coming to terms with her sexuality also. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense for the film to take place in present day. So then I took this inspo from Gerwig and decided to set my film in the early 2000s. Not only due to making my film more accurate, but to add an element of empathy for the audience. You were probably here doing similar things in the school bathroom at this moment of time too. If the audience consists of 18+ year-olds, as researched in previous modules, I consider my demographic. I want to also, like Gerwig, use this nostalgia to bring some comedic light into the script. To do this I looked into popular British slang words of the time using websites like this https://palejacket.com/2015/12/03/early-2000s-slang-you-probably-forgot-about/ and by talking to people were teens of the time, like my sister as a reference. What I decided to include in my script for purpose of setting a tone of this film being taken place in the early 2000s, is insults words like ‘minger’ and calling girlfriends by ‘dude’. Also the problematic behaviour of calling someone a slur such as ‘slut’ or ‘retarded’ is very reminiscent of school in that time. But though the shock and absurdity of the use of words like these I want for this to be an opportunity for the audience to have some comedic light among all the heavy themes. 

Dynamic Between characters

When rewriting Little Angel with these new characters of Agnes and Mia, what I wanted to work on how I write dynamics between characters. To help me do so, I looked into other films that have interesting relationships between female characters. One of my favourite films because it examines such a relationship between two close sisters Anaïs and Elena Pingot within 2001 Fat Girl. As mentioned earlier, this film is influential to my writing, especially within Little Angel. What draws me to this film mostly is with how it examines the complexities that come with relationships between sisters. “The private scenes between Anais and Elena are closely observed. The girls say hateful and insulting things to each other, as young adolescents are likely to do, but they also share trust and affection, and talk with absolute frankness about what concerns them.” As said by Roger Ebert within his review of the film. And I absolutely agree with this statement. Alike to most close relationships between young girls in the formative years, there are a lot of mood-swings and petty arguments that move from 0 to 100 really fast and for not seeming no reason. However underneath all that they can speak with such ‘frankness’ because they love each-other and know each-other so much. And this sort of sisterly love is something that I want to convey between my characters of Agnes and Mia too. For instance they argue a lot within the scene but this is because they can be so honest with each-other, harsh at times but always because there’s love there. Within Agnes and Mia’s dynamic there is more confusion/frustration there because they aren’t sisters but best-friends who are more unsure of their dynamic because there is romantic love there that gets pushed down/ignored by one. However, I want there to be this sisterly bickering between balanced with ‘trust and affection’ because they know each-other so well, being life-long friends.

To look into further of how some of my favored films have portrayed young female friendships when writing. I looked at short form to see how successfully to portray a realistic dynamic within a limited amount of time. Real Life Exp. directed by Kristoffer Borgli is a Norwegian 10 minute short that captures the time where two girls find themselves locked in an Oslo public swimming hall and bond over school gossip, boys and dancing to the psychedelic music to pass the time. The writing within this piece creates an atmospheric slice of teen life from the rebellious to the mundane. After being trapped within the swimming baths for hours the audience through this idle time spent together can fully see all aspects of their relationship. Alike to Little Angel, the film isn’t set through a long period of time and the plot is very simple. This was what initially what was of influence to me, of how the directer managed to depict a realistic relationship within a fragment of time so successfully. I think it does this though the choice of what moment of time the film captures. Being stuck in a swimming bath over a long period of time, in this extreme scenario the audience can see a lot about characters. That’s how I want to portray the relationship between Agnes and Mia too, within their extreme situation of waiting for pregnancy test results too.

Advise I seen in the past for writing is to write in the voice of each character in different scenarios. Richard Curtis said within an interview with Bafta that his main writing trick is that he writes so much within the voices of his characters. Stating that for example if one of his characters had a sister and that sister had a key part for the script then he would write 20+ pages of him talking to his sister and then the characters and their  relationship between them will start to emerge through the dialogue. He’ll only then come back and read though what he wrote to see if he came across anything interesting and develops the rest of the story or characters from there.

A writing exercise like this is meant to help when getting to know your characters, what they would say/react in different settings, under different circumstances? But also to have both characters together again in a different time and place and how this affects their dynamic with one another. Therefore, I wrote another scene/short film with both characters but also seeing Aden for the first time too. This is because I needed to write him as a real, fully dimensional person before I could accurately capture what both girls feel about him. In this scene called Girl, Boy, Girl, its photo-day at school and two schoolgirls are sitting in a field at break-time talking about boys and makeup before one girl’s boyfriend comes into the conversation. I called it Girl, Boy, Girl as I wanted to highlight how Aden comes between their friendship within this scene. This acts a prequel to Little Angel as I wanted their to be extra context of why Agnes doesn’t like Aden so much. Below is a link to the script…

Girl Boy Girl

The purpose of doing this writing exercise was to also thing and write in how the character actually talk their own mannerisms or they way they talk to one-another etc. For instance, within this script and Little Angel their are some similarities in their dynamic, like the way Mia often ignores Agnes and how Mia shuts Agnes out “I don’t want to talk to you” from this film is a similar line to one in Little Angel “Can you be here for me and not talk?”. In this script I also wrote a line of Agnes insulting Aden staying he’s like a cockroach. This is similar to Little Angel when Agnes compares Aden to another animal, a snake. We also see a similar dynamic between the girls, Agnes’s love and patience for Mia. And on the other hand seeing how mean Mia can be to Agnes, how she uses her power over her. What I discovered when writing this script is how when confronted with someone that isn’t Mia, someone she doesn’t particularly like, she can get just as sassy with her comebacks. Apparent to the heat of the argument with Aden. What I also discovered is that this dynamic that Mia has with Aden is paralleled to the one she has with Agnes. He uses Mia in a similar way to how she uses Agnes. This gives more of an insight into why Agnes has so much patience for Mia, Agnes feels that she is just reflecting what Aden does to her back onto Agnes. She doesn’t see it as she’s the problem but Aden is. Giving more of a backstory as to why Agnes resents Aden so much in the first place. I also wanted to get used to how the girls talk though doing this exercise, their dialect. I discovered that I feel Mia talks more ‘straight to the point’ in sharp and short sentences. But also quite manipulative in what she chooses to say. An example of this is when Agnes has opened up about how she feels about Mia, Mia ignores this notion until the end when Agnes has has enough and leaves Mia still dangles a carrot in-front of Agnes so that she comes back. In a joking tone after Agnes says ‘see you in hell’ Mia replies with “Are you asking me on a date? I accept.” Mia could pass this off as a joke but she knows that Agnes will some what take is seriously considering she said this after Agnes opened up about her feeling for Mia. On the other hand Agnes talks in long, wordy sentences to Mia. Maybe because she just wants to fill the silences of their relationship, but also I feel that she just says whats on her mind to Mia because they know each other so well. Or maybe no one else would listen as she can at times be a bit weird because she doesn’t have a filter when she talks. But there’s a shift in how Agnes talks when Aden is around she has mean/witty comebacks and her sentences are more snappy. Maybe she’s emulating Mia here as this is a tactic Mia uses to deflect and Agnes feels like when Aden’s there she can’t get hurt if she puts a wall like like Mia does. Ultimately I have discovered a lot but doing this writing exercise, about all three characters. And this will not only help with fleshing out characters, by knowing how they talk but also realising why motivations behind it. Now when rewriting Little Angel, I’ll have these character motivations as a reference of how they would talk or react to each-other. For instance, we see the way Agnes talks about Aden, in to the point sentences, like “What? He’s a snake, Mia. And a slag.” Saying Mia’s name here to be more stern with her like Mia can be at time to Agnes. With Mia after the relations I’ve had about her character when writing Girl, Boy, Girl is that without being mean, reflecting how Mia feels in her relationship with Aden onto Agnes, she is quite venerable as a person. And this can be translated to another line I wrote in the rewriting of Little Angel after I did this exercise is the ending where she says “Can I have a hug?” but quickly sees that she’d being too weak so she then says “Don’t touch me actually.” Putting up a wall so she can’t get hurt.

In conclusion this was a very helpful exercise for me as a writer to write in character voices in a different time and place to see if that changes anything and why? It could be the different people around or not around? Or how settings also effect how people talk to one-another? Either way in writing Girl, Boy, Girl it taught me a lot about my characters, though the comparison of the two scripts. Their similarities and differences helped me to understand the character more and their motivations because of all the experiences they have.

1st Little Angel Script

Little Angel (1st DRAFT)

Above is the first draft I wrote within my second year of uni for Little Angel. The initial idea for the piece was to show how scary your changing body feels as a teenage girl, and understanding the responsibility that women have from a young age when being sexually active. And the shame and fear that comes with that too.

The biggest change to the original script compared to the latest draft is having the 2 main characters be female best friends rather than a boyfriend and girlfriend. The reason for this is because I loved my initial script but felt that I wanted to explore different themes. Such as teenage jealously, confusion in sexuality and how girls can treat each-other within school. I wanted there to be a more complex dynamic between the 2 main characters, and explore the complexities of female friendships in school and also how mean girls can be to each other but still have this love for one another like sisters. Within the context of one helping the other with a pregnancy test, seeing friends judgments of one another’s lifestyle and jealousy too. Although changing the characters being friends instead of boyfriend and girlfriend, there are many similarities  between their dynamic. In the original script, having the girlfriend, Cate. being the strong/hot headed one and the character of the boyfriend, Julian, be more sensitive and laid back. I wanted to keep this dynamic of having the one character act superior and controlling to the other, but instead have it in the context of a sort of high school ‘mean girl’ instead. Because of the similarities between character’s dynamic, I kept a few of the lines the same, such as one character trying to comfort the other with “In English class last year, you weren’t there for this lesson but we read a poem about a woman who had an abortion. Shall I read it too you, I think it’s still in my bag if-” Then the other snapping back with “This is no time for poetry.” And when one character starts to open up about how their feeling explaining the situation that their mum makes them feel ashamed…”She makes me feel so dirty.” etc. I kept these lines the same because I feel these lines and other I’ve kept the same between the two scripts do well in creating a sense of how these characters interact, what they do and don’t want to say to one another. There isn’t much dialogue I took out from the original script but within the latest draft I just added upon and expanded some lines. For instance, when one character asks another if they should be smoking if she might be pregnant, she says “Should you be doing that if you’re going to have a baby with Sir Sleeps Around A Lot.” A little snarky comment like this adds to the feeling that she’s in-fact jealous of the other girl, either that be because she wants attention from boys too or that she’s jealous of the boyfriend. Another line I expanded upon from the original script is the line “Everything hurts and everything feels bad. I feel like there’s a fucking demon in me.” Within the latest  version of the script I added after this line, “Everything hurts and everything feels bad. Is it supposed to feel this painful? I feel like there’s a fucking demon in me. Wish you could have the baby for me. That can happen, you know? Surrogates init. It could work. You’ve got similar insides to mine. And you’d be a way better mum than me…more soft.” Here within the context of the character being best friends, I wanted to show how scared the girl is, being unsure of the future of whats going to happen to her and wishing she could just give this mess to her friend to clean up or do for her. I feel like this highlights how much she relies and uses her friend to look after her as she can’t rely on her mother to do so. This also occurs at the end, within the original the last line was “She makes me feel so dirty.” and then the boyfriend comes to comfort her. However, within the latest version of the script, after she says that her friend replies with ” Like you’re some sort of broken toy.” Connecting with her and her then asking “Would you hold me?” Having the friend go to hold her but having the one girl change her mind, flinching away whilst saying “Don’t touch me actually.” Showing that there’s a wall between the two, one uses the other and exploits their friendship for her own gain.

Another change made to the script is the names of the characters. Originally I named the character of the girlfriend as Cate and the boyfriend Julian. I decided these names for the reason that their both Catholic names, suiting the background of each character. The name Cate literally means either ‘pure’ or ‘blessed’, used in different context. I wanted to use this name originally for I liked the sort of contradiction of having her being named by her parents as ‘pure’ but her feeling dirty because her choices don’t align with her family’s and religion’s view of what innocence is, by having premarital sex and possibly wanting an abortion etc. The meaning of the name Julian is youthful. I felt that this suited the character of Julian as he was the more naive of the two, more childish within the situation. When renaming the characters is was fairly stumped as the dynamic of the characters changed slightly and I wanted the new names to reflect that new dynamic. To do this I looked into the importance of character names. So to help me do this I looked at article ’10 TIPS FOR CHOOSING CHARACTER NAMES’ by characternames.com. Her it gave some advise on where to get started. “One major mistake writers make is thinking that they, the author, name their characters. They do not. So, if you don’t choose the character’s name, then who does? Well, go inside your fictional world and ask the question again. The answer: your character’s parents choose the character name. So you must give some thought into the character’s backstory (and his/her parents) before choosing a character name.” When deciding my new characters names I’ll think about their family’s ethnicity, history, and geographic location. Even if it’s a minor character in your story, take the time to figure out their own backstory, ethnicity, parents’ backgrounds, the parents’ personalities, and a name that fits. And I’ll also consider location of birth and generation. “Decide the age of your character Deduct that age from the year your story takes place.  For example, if your story takes place in 1960 and your character is 25, she was then born in 1935. If your character lives in the United States, use the U.S. Social Security site to see the most popular names for that year.” When selecting my character’s names I took all this in mind. And with the help of looking on various baby naming sites I decided on the names Mia and Agnes. Again, like the original names of the characters, they are both Catholic names. Suiting the backgrounds of their parents and their religion. Both characters come from London, Kent. They come from a mostly white family, well-to-do sort that have enough money to afford private schooling. Traditional. Therefore the children’s names should reflect this. The character of Mia is the more, hotheaded of the two, more controlling of the other character. Popular and considered a ‘mean girl’. She uses Agnes to her own advantage. I chose the name Mia also for the meaning, its Latin origins mean “mine” or “wished-for child.” Or within the Bible the name means, the Hebrew name it descends from is Miriam, a name that means ‘beloved’. As a common diminutive of Maria, Mia can either mean ‘bitterness’ or ‘loved one’, and the name is also associated with the Italian word ‘Mia‘, meaning ‘mine’. I think this suites Mia’s character as quite literally in one moment of the script she wishes for her child, she’s quite bitter but Agnes feels that she is hers. Because of the relationship they have, childhood friends. I chose the name of Agnes for the other characters, the supporting one that helps her friend get the test and results. Agnes is a given name derived from the Greek Ἁγνή Hagnḗ, meaning ‘pure’,’holy’ or ‘lamb’. I think the meaning of this name is appropriate for the character of Agnes as she is the more ‘innocent’ one of the two, the one that is more religious and in a lot of ways like a sort of lamb. Naive and a follower like a sheep. Good names can suggest some primary value, core essence, or narrative function of a character. Even if that character is a minor character like the one of the boyfriend, Aden. I chose Aden another Catholic name meaning attractive; handsome; pleasure given. I think this is relevant to the character of Mia’s boyfriend for the reason that their relationship id just that shallow, face value and their isn’t anymore to him than that. I also think that it is vital that her have a catholic name too, as they would all go to the same school. Another aspect to remember is how popular their names would be within the time and location…  Regarding the name of Agnes, it was the third most popular name for women in the English speaking world for more than 400 years.

Less popular in modern times, however this could suite her more traditional family background. In regards to the name of Mia (right)and Aiden (left)…

More modern names, this could maybe parallel how their lifestyle and beliefs are arguably more modern to Agnes’?

Pacing and Structure

“Much depends on the length of a short film in understanding how best to structure it,”- Cowgill (2005). The main difference between the first draft of the script and the rewritten one is that the first is considerably shorter, of 5 pages. And the my film for this module has to have the runtime of 15 minutes. Therefore the pacing is going to be much different when writing the longer script and needs adjusting. To do so I’ve done a little research into how to fix pacing. The plot structure needs to become more complex within the extra 10 mins, as there needs to be a strong-midpoint to keep the story interesting. Here is a template given to be from one of my last modules to help with the planning of the structure, specifically for short films (10 minutes):

I tried to fill this out as a plan for the structure of Little Angel. Ensuring this acts as a blueprint for keeping me on track when rewriting. However, I found this difficult to do as Little Angel is different from most in the plot, not much happens. Also for the reason that the majority of the film takes place in one set location. And a scene is a unit of story that takes place at a specific location and time. If one of these changes, you have a new scene, but of course within Little Angel nor the time or location changes until the ending. The main crisis is that the girls are waiting for the results and the climax will come at the very end when one girl kicks a pram. Other than that there aren’t many twists or turns, or more than one and a half acts. I feel that this script has more of a structure similar to a scene rather than a whole film. So, I did some more research into how to pace a scene instead…

Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker Susan Kouguell, writes within an article ‘Top Five Scene Pacing Tips: How to Pace the Scene’ for The Screen Lab. That a successful scene need to have both Scene Arcs and Scene Objectives. Stating “Scenes must have a complete arc—a solid beginning, middle, and end. Characters’ journeys drive the script’s narrative, and each scene must steer their journey forward.” Scenes must have a clear arc too, like mini films. And I believe this is how to best approach structuring Little Angel too.

So then I looked into film I mentioned previously, Real Life Exp. A short film with a similar runtime to mine that takes place in one location, to see how the writers tackled the story structure/placing. This short film of 10 minutes, only takes place in a swimming baths in the period of a few hours. What influenced me most about the pacing/plot of the film is the fact that alike to Little Angel, not much happens. The girls fill the time up by dancing, gossiping and throwing things in the pool, and that it. However, by each passing comment reveals something about the characters, their relationship and why they might be stuck there. It comes across that the girls don’t know each other that well but might attend the same swimming class. Through subtle clues such as they both talking about how their teacher is “grumpy” and know of the same people, but don’t know much else about one-another. For instance, “What are you learning these days?” said by one of the girl regarding the other’s drama class. The ‘these days’ phrasing in this moment implies that they might been close once but don’t talk as much anymore. And these passing comments are unobtrusive to the structure of the film, they aren’t told right away, they are told sporadically though-out the none liner structure of the jumping timeline. This forces the audience to work harder to figure out what might be going on and why for themselves. Real Life Exp. uses shared moments between the characters to piece together the story like a puzzle. Unlike this film, Little Angel is told in ‘real time’ rather than jumping around the timeline. Still I want to keep the pacing slow and include this technique of leaving little clues for the audience to figure out the plot, characters’ history and what might happen to them. As this dropping of subtle hints will keep the audience engaged in the story, which is important for a slower paced film with a simpler plot. Below is where I’ve done this within the rewritten script…

Another aspect of this short film that I could use as inspiration to my own is the fact that their are only 2 characters within the whole piece, other than an extra or 2 or the other characters mentioned within the dialogue. When writing a film with minimal characters its vital that they’re fully dimensional people and that their dynamic is interesting enough for the audience to be invested in the story. To help me understand this better I looked into ‘character roles’ within storytelling. What I’ve read within most of the articles on the matter is that their are roughly 12 types of characters featured in almost every story, not matter the genre, theme or period. There are certain types of characters needed to keep the plot moving and audience interested. To help me figure out which ones I need, how they relate to one another, and what purposes they can serve within my script, I’ve looked into all of the possible character roles out their to see what characters serve what tot the story.

The role of a character refers to the part that one plays in the story. The most important character being the protagonist, meaning that all other roles stem from their relationship to the protagonist. These types define how characters interact and affect one another.

Types based on role include:

• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Deuteragonist
• Tertiary
• Confidante
• Love interest
• Foil

Some of these roles can overlap. For instance, the antagonist might be their foil. Or the antagonist might eventually become the protagonist’s love interest, etc.

Another aspect to remember when figuring out what characters do what is the ‘character quality’. This has to do with what kind of character someone is, not so much their characteristics though more their nature within the story, such as being dynamic or static. What their purpose is, a dynamic character has a completing arc to follow and a symbolic one represents some underlying theme or moral.

Types based on quality include:

• Dynamic/changing
• Static/unchanging
• Stock
• Symbolic
• Round

Again theses could also overlap too, though less so than the roles.

When applying all I’ve learned here to the characters I’ve already made within my script, their is a difference to consider and who this affects the character roles/quality. There are only notably 2-5 characters mentioned within the script. The main characters of Mia and Agnes. The possible farther of the baby, Aden and a couple of extras of a schoolgirl and nun Sister Mary. However, I still think its important to categorize what character plays what role within my story as knowing what role your characters play in your story helps you to refine your plot, choose your narrative style, and tighten your prose.

Aden: The Antagonist. If you’re an antagonist, simply put, you antagonize. Specifically, you undermine, thwart, battle, or otherwise oppose one character: the protagonist. Typically the protagonist is good and the antagonist is evil, and such is the source of their conflict. This isn’t always the case — especially if the protagonist is an anti-hero who lacks typical heroic attributes, or the antagonist is an anti-villain who has noble characteristics. In the case of Little Angel, Aden serves as Agnes’ antagonist, he is the main person in the way of her and Mia’s relationship. He helped create the problem at hand and is takes Mia away from their friendship. Through out the film we see Agnes try to infact battling Mia to not go back with him, undermining him as a boyfriend. I tried not to write him as ‘evil’ but just a regular teenage boy. But we only see him though Mia and Agnes’ perspective as he is never in the film himself. But because Agnes sees him as a threat to her and Mia’s relationship, she choices to paint him as a villain. As we never see of hear his character in my mind that means he takes on the qualities of the symbolic character. Symbolic characters are used to represent something larger and more important than themselves, which usually ties into the overall message of the story. This type must also be used sparingly — or at least subtly, so the audience doesn’t feel like the symbolism is too heavy-handed. As a result, the true nature of a symbolic character may only be fully understood at the very end of a story. In my story the character of Aden symbolises this block between Agnes and Mia’s relationship, the boy that comes in the way of the girls, either that be because Agnes is jealous of him and his relationship with Mia or Mia using him for her social status, to cover up the relationship she has with Agnes. Either way within the script when mentioned, he is always the block of her ever revealing anything intimate with Agnes. For example of this can be seen here when in the end when the rejoice together, and Mia suggests going to class together, Aden is the person who she has to talk to over going anywhere else with Agnes. In the end separating them.

Schoolgirl/Sister Mary:Tertiary characters. The reason that tertiary characters aren’t called “tertagonists” is because they’re not important enough to really agonize anything or anyone. They flit in and out of the MC’s life, perhaps only appearing in one or two scenes throughout the film. However, a well-rounded story still requires a few tertiaries. We all have them in real life, after all — the barista you only see once a week, the random guy you sit next to in class — so any realistic fictional story should include them too.Within Little Angel I added these two character within it as I though it would help to add to the world of the film, rounding it out, making it feel more realistic. Schoolgirls do bitch and make fun of their teachers in everyday conversation and a school toilets would have random students coming in and out of it at times. I think this helps to brake up the scene a bit, and not only that it adds tension to the pace. By trying to do something extremely privet in a not-so-private place like a communal bathroom, having strangers intrude on such an intimate situation adds conflict to the scene. I guess both these character’s quality would be of the stock character. Stock characters aren’t necessarily flat either, though you do have to be careful with them. The trick to using this type is to not just rely on their archetypal features. So when planning a character, you might start out with a stock, but you have to embellish and add other unique elements to give them depth.

Agnes: The Deuteragonist. Most stories have a primary protagonist and a secondary deuteragonist. This is the character who’s not exactly in the spotlight, but pretty close to it. In comic book terms the ‘sidekick’. They’re often seen in the company of the protagonist — giving advice, plotting against their rivals, and generally lending a helping hand. Their presence and close relationship to the protagonist gives the story warmth and heart, so it’s not just about the hero’s journey, but about the friends they make along the way. Of course, not all secondary figures are friends — some are arch-enemies — but even these less-friendly deuteragonists still lend depth to a story. Deuteragonists can still have a significant role in your story, even if the story doesn’t fully revolve around them. I feel that the character of Agnes definitely falls into this category, she is very much a vital character to the plot but Mia is the character that goes through an arc of having her walls shes built up be broken down. Agnes is the character being used by Mia (only there when Mia needed her) but Agnes herself doesn’t go through much of a change that the audience sees, like this abuse of their friendships is a recurring occurrence to her and shes doesn’t do much to change it. For this reason I like to think that the character quality of Agnes is more of a static/unchanging character. A character that doesn’t do much changing throughout the whole story. Many static characters are simply flat, and having too many is usually a symptom of lazy writing. However, certain kinds can serve a larger purpose in a story. These static figures tend to be unlikable, such as Cinderella’s stepsisters and Harry Potter’s aunt and uncle — their ignorance to how they’re mistreating our hero makes them people we “love to hate,” and boosts our sympathy for the protagonist. However, I wrote Agnes as a person that isn’t unlikable but just weak. Shes used to being used and doesn’t know how to change her situation with Mia. She doesn’t want to sacrifice her friendship with Mia so she just goes along with whatever Mia wants.

Mia: The Protagonist. This is the person the story revolves around. “Every single story has to have a protagonist, no matter what. Simply put, no protagonist = no plot. Remember, all other roles are defined in relation to the protagonist — so if you’re currently planning a story, this should be the very first character you flesh out.” ( by reedsy blog) The majority of films only have one protagonist. But it is possible to have more than one, but you need to be incredibly organised if this is the way you want to go. Because in a way Agnes is the protagonist too. Most of the action centers around Mia, but I want the audience to care about Agnes the most. I wouldn’t say that Mia is an antihero as such but she is definitely as hard character to like. Shes the typical archetype of a meangirl, she has her flaws but what I wanted to do with her character is to give the opportunity for the audience to see a glimpse of her soft side, with the help of Agnes’ character and the high-pressure situation she is in. I didn’t write her as a ‘good’ person like most protagonist’s because I felt that there was more to her as a character if I wrote in the context within a school setting. People here are less emotionally developed at this age, they lash out, deflect insecurities and are mean to one another. I wanted to show a troubled character before their emotional maturity and how this effects their relationships to others, particularly Agnes. In my opinion this make Mia’s character quality a round character. A round character is very similar to a dynamic one, in that they both typically change throughout their character arc. The key difference is that the audience can intuit that the round character is nuanced and contains multitudes even before any major change has occurred. The round character has a full backstory (though not always revealed in the narrative), complex emotions, and realistic motivations for what they do. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a good person — indeed, many of the best round characters are deeply flawed. But you should still be interested and excited to follow their arc because you can never be quite sure where they’ll be led or how they’ll change. Needless to say, the vast majority of great protagonists are not only dynamic, but also round.

It was difficult for me to determine who the protagonist were as I feel that both Mia and Agnes where both main character in their own right. But after some thought and research into the matter I think the story works best with the protagonist being Mia, shes the one with the are within this particular scene and parallel to her own life and the story at hand both can be seen to revolve around her and Agnes and all the other characters have to fit into her life and deal with the after math.

Mentorship

For another module I’m currently doing about planning out my next steps of my career in writing, one of the segments of it was to organise a mentorship to help with advice on our business plans. My mentor is Kate Cheeseman, a BAFTA-winning director working in both film and television.  She has just finished as lead director on series 9 of Call the Midwife and before that directed the finale of season 8.  She has also recently directed her fifth short film and is developing several feature film projects one of which has an interest in the States for production next year. As apart of my mentorship also was for her to give her opinions or critiques of my work also as this would be very beneficial to my practice. Therefore, I gave her my 2nd draft of my script Little Angel for some notes.

Below is my notes from the session and her feedback of the script…

After taking all of this on board, I edited the script and experimented with how the ending could go, take a look at some of the dialogue and pacing. To do this I gave the script to a few people, one to a friend who has a sister the same age as my characters to see if they think that this is actually how people that age group talk. They’re feedback was mostly positive, but I remember reading somewhere that giving work to close friends is a bad idea as they typically won’t be a hundred percent honest with you. So then I also gave my script to a family friend who works with troubled teens and has often herself been in similar situations with them as my characters. She is a bit more of an to-the-point woman so this time I feel that the feedback I’ll be getting will be more honest. Below is her notes…

The notes given to me here, where more focused on the stage direction not being as clear as they could be or a lack of them. Which is something that I’ve never really given much thought into. Therefore, I did some more research into the matter and if there was any interesting advise I could find. Using Film Daily’s article ‘Why does some screenwriting include stage direction, but not always?’ I discovered a-lot of useful notes to help me include the write level of stage direction as a writer, not director. Considered not industry standard to include aspects such as camera angels and shots within scripts for the reason of not only stalling the pace of the script but also stepping on the toes of other peoples job. The article then goes into explain the different types of scripts such as Production vs. spec. The scripts I’ve read online often include production notes. These are what’s known as shooting scripts, as opposed to the spec script. The spec script is “speculative” because you’re working purely off your own means. A shooting script is analysed and has been rewritten into a watertight screenplay while being taken all the way to production. All the relevant parties in the production team use the spec script as the blueprint for the film. And its advised for writers to not write a shooting script as doing so only makes it harder to read for the production team. And this is the main consensus for the most part when writing any sort of direction within the script as a writer. However, I’m also going to be directing this film also for this module so there will be no repercussions if I over write some direction. Especially considering that both actors I’ve casted are inexperienced when it comes to acting on film. Therefore, I have included a little more direction to the actors, explaining how a character feels at a point in time or actions a character might make to help the actors understand the blocking of the scene. I also make an effort to schedule in a date in the location before filming to have a whole session helping the actors understand the blocking within the space we’ll be filming in. Although I think the advise given to me via the email was good advice for this particular production and something to consider more when writing in the future, I think it’s important for me to write as close to a spec script as possible as this is the industry standard as a screenwriter and I’ll be considered none professional if I try to do the job the director. It is the job of the writer to be a wordsmith and write a story and then having the trust of the director to in-vision the film. 

My mentor Kate also suggested we organise a read through with the actors I’ll be casting for this film. Saying that such exercises are good to help hear my dialogue out loud in the voiced they’d be actually spoken in. In doing so, it can help me figure out whats working and not working as much and gives me the chance as a writer to solve those problems before the shoot. We set up a video chat with me, Kate and the 2 actresses, then read though the script. The read though or ‘table work’ is common place in the pre-production within the industry. With the participating members being the cast members with speaking parts, the read-through is usually attended by the principal financiers or studio executives, producers, heads of department, writers, and directors.  It is often the first time that the script has had a life beyond the written word, and it is also an opportunity for everyone involved in production to get at least a partial insight into the way the actors may approach their roles. In addition, a read-through is often a surprisingly powerful tool for identifying problem areas in the script. Wooden dialogue, unbelievable situations, or boring sections of the film which have not been addressed during the script development process often become apparent during the read-through. Again this is so helpful for me to participate in as an aspiring writer as it will help give me more insight into the purpose of table reads within the industry and what is required of the writer in these sessions, how I take feedback from the actors at these sessions and respond to it through my editing. For instance it was good to hear the script being read with actresses that are a similar age to the characters. As they probably would have more of an understanding of what feels right to say as a teenage girl and what sentences/phases don’t feel as though a teen would say. In particular, there was the line that Agnes says when talking about how many girls Aden has slept with “every girl in school with a pulse, and then some”. Both girls didn’t understand what the phrasing ‘and then some’ meant. So that was an indication to me that piece of dialogue needed to be changed as if the actors don’t believe that is something their character says or even understands to say, then who could the audience? Therefore, I looked up some synonyms for the phrase ‘and then some’. As a team we all concluded that we should either change it to “and plenty more than that” or in having her say “maybe more”. All in all it gave me, as the write, the opportunity to listen to the cast’s initial interpretations and thoughts of the characters and situations. I could listen for how lines sound, how jokes land, how words might be mispronounced, and how they react to the script. I may’ve also noticed potentially difficult or problematic scenes to block or choreograph and gave me the opportunity to rework them. In doing this read through it also gave me the chance to explain my vision for the screenplay, and answer any questions that the actors had about the script too.

Also another thing to mention is that this is where Kate and the actresses saw my ‘new’ ending for the first time. In this 3rd draft I changed the ending to have the test come back negative, less ambiguous of an ending. As Kate felt that the original ending felt cut short, without a solid resolution. And I ultimately decided that giving the audience an answer of a negative test and then having Mia ask Agnes to leave her alone talking to her boyfriend after, helps to enhance how the dynamic of their relationship. Agnes is now thrown away with the test now Mia has her answer and doesn’t needed them anymore. And I, Kate and both actresses feel that this ending is more impactful. The ending how highlights what I wanted some of the main themes to be. When looking into the importance of rewriting and feedback as a whole, the main consensus is that all the rewrite is about is to refine and highlight what I’ve already discovered. And what I want to refine and highlight within Little Angel is the dynamic between friends Mia and Agnes and the struggles of a confusing sexuality within friendship. What helps with the rewrite is the fact that now I have a solid idea of the themes of the story are and who the character are and what purpose they serve to the story. And I’ve used the info on a blog by American screenwriter John August to help me as best I can.

August put it in his blog, “Decide out what you want to accomplish, then figure out which scenes would need to change.” August goes on to say: The biggest problem with most rewrites is that you start at page one, which is already probably the best-written page in the script. You tweak as you go, page after page, moving commas and enjoying your cleverness — all the while forgetting why you’re rewriting the script. Instead, you need to stop thinking of words and page and focus on goals. Are you trying to increase the rivalry between Helen and Chip? Then look through the script — actually printed script, not the one on screen — and find the scenes with Helen and Chip. Figure out what could be changed in those scenes to meet your objectives. Then look for other scenes that help support the idea. Scribble on the paper. Scratch out lines. Write new ones. The first draft is always considered to be the worst, and rewriting scripts is an art within itself. And with all the advise and feedback given to me helps me to rewrite my screenplay and attack my pages with emphasis and direction. So to tackle this rewrite even more i’ll be starting backwards. Making a list of goals of what I think the end of the rewrite should look like. Once I have the shell of what I think this story should be, then I make a list of what needs to happen inside for thee goals to be achieved. I have already refined what I want my themes to now I need to rewrite the script so it communicates those themes efficiently. Outlining is not easy – you can get lost and forget the structure. But what works is to think about the conflict in every scene. An interesting video I watched about the writing of the film Gone Girl, explains how screenwriter Gillian Flynn accomplished such great conflict in her script for Gone Girl. What was interesting that the video made a point of is Flynn’s use of action lines. Action lines are also where the tone, pace, visual and visceral experiences of your screenplay are established. They can be used to create atmosphere, for example, through location or the use of natural elements. For this we want to describe not how something looks but how it should make us feel. This is something to take note of as I’ve already been tasked to write more descriptions/ques in my script to help my vision to the readers and director. Within Gone Girl, Flynn doesn’t over step the mark when she uses action lines. She writes them as a guide. An example given within the video is the action line “ugly pause. DESI shuts the door on NICK.” Flynn“has set the tone of and pace within just two words”. Action lines like this help to translate whats on page to screen, and to also give the reader the context and intention of each line if changes are made later on. Simple, useful depictions like this help to communicate clearly the intent whilst still being about to write a spec script. Looking at great examples such as this one will help me within my rewrites to write more descriptions to do as mentioned above but also help my actors understand my intent for the scene also.

The video goes on to mention a technique that Flynn utilizes so well within this script. The last line is this point of the scene. Such technique is written about in John Truby’s book The Anatomy of Story, stating “The beginning of the scene should frame what the whole scene is about. The scene should then funnel down into a single point, with the most important word or line of dialogue stated last.” He uses an upside down triangle to demonstrate his idea. After watching this being utilized in such a effective way like Flynn has within Gone Girl many times, makes me want to use this technique within Little Angel also. To help with pacing and momentum as at times I feel my script being too slow. Within the rewrite of Little Angel, as it is 10 minute scene all set in the same location I’m going to treat it as one long scene with both girls keep getting at each other until Mia’s breaking point where she shows her vulnerability to Agnes, how she really feels. This rewrite I’ll be tacking inspiration from Flynn’s Gone Girl to make my script funnel to a single point.

And after all this research, advise and feedback I now have the foundation of my goals for the film laid out, I know what I’m writing toward and ready for the final rewrite. Below is the finished script Little Angel.

Little Angel (13)

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EP2: Serial and Interactive Storytelling

This module focuses on interactive storytelling within the short form. We have been tasked to do so, using cutting edge technology; the 360 camera. As a team, we have to create a 6-minute film, in a total of 3 x 2-minute shorts. They have to seamlessly fit together, however at the same time, they also have to convey our own personal voice. Personal goals I’m going to set myself for this project are:

1. To produce a film that expresses my personal signature as a filmmaker, a piece I am proud of so that I can include in my portfolio.
2. To gain confidence as a leader to direct a crew for my 2-minute segment of the film. I’ll try to accomplish this by communicating clearly to others my vision of the short.
3. To learn how to use this niche camera, work independently and hopefully include this as a skill to apply to my film-making CV.

360/VR Narrative short films

Dinner Party (2019)

This is a VR film that takes place in a couple’s home when hosting a dinner party. They try to tell their friends about their experience of an alien abduction. This film was made for 360 camera, due to the position it puts the audience members in. As the VR headset puts the viewers in control of what they see, they become observers like the aliens themselves. Because of this extra layer to the VR experience, having the audience as a character, I feel that it makes the 360 camera relevant to the story and not just a gimmick. It was clear to me that the audience was the aliens due to the amount of control that was given to them and not just because of the 360 camera. The camera movements were very controlled and almost ghost-like or otherworldly as they swept across the set, lingering above and around the actors as if it were observing their every action in almost uncomfortably close detail. The transistors which were used to change locations either to another universe or another moment in time felt very seamless. The production design really aided these transitions, for instance, a flashback started to happen by the camera moving into a window, then out into a road where the couple’s car was driving, then again back through the car window. The transitions act instead of cuts, this was impressive due to other comparisons of VR film cuts which tend to be more awkward or clumsy to look at. I don’t think that this technique is possible with our low budget, to build sets or manoeuvre the camera on a crane. However, I think it’s important to keep things creative in problem-solving like the filmmakers have done here when it comes to this VR practice.

From looking at the film’s website, this film (with the run time of 13 minutes) it is a pilot episode for a soon to be coming series. I felt this film had an attention-grabbing motive to it, not so much a well-developed story by its self. For instance, it is more like a teaser trailer rather than a developed short film.

The Invisible Man

This short film was premiered at The Loft in Amsterdam but now is available online. It’s one of the most popular narrative-driven 360 short films and is always one of the top few trending videos under the VR film hashtag.  It was made when 360 technology was in its very infinitive, therefore experimental phase. However, because of this, the film did lend itself to some complications. One of them was the “fisheye” effect on the zooms, they did this to focus the viewers’ attention on the important actions. I thought using this was unnecessary as it wasn’t as if there were lots of things for the audience to be looking at, it also looked very amateurish making me think it was a choice made in post-production, not something done with a great amount time or planning involved. As mentioned, there is not much to look at throughout the film, making the 360 elements of the film feel without purpose. This is due to the only action within the film is in one part of the frame and apart from this one occasion, I didn’t need to move my head from the one spot. The camera is static throughout the whole film, as the audience act as the invisible man sat in the chair, as revealed at the end. I also thought that the whole VR element was held together just because of this, therefore the story didn’t support the 360 enough. In fact, the film could have been made better without the 360 camera, as they could have added cuts to help the slow pacing, etc… just be more creative within the edit without the constrictions that come with making a VR film. However, they could have used other 360 technology such as amber sonic sound. Using this could have highlighted the 360 aspects, making heads turn with sounds coming from all-around or in shocking the audience with noise behind them, adding to the suspense. What worked within the production was the lighting, even with the 360 cameras (that tend to have a more video look to them) I found the film had a cinematic aesthetic. Using practical lights that really worked in their favour, as the overhead light, casting harsh, exaggerated shadows. It also seems that they really hid other light sources effectively, adding to the ambience. It is incredibly hard to light a 360 film without seeing the lights, the only other option is to use practicals within the set design. Like they have done here, we have to approach lighting with creative thinking and problem-solving. To do so it is vital that there’s heavy consideration when creating the floor plan for the lighting.

In the end, I just felt disappointed with this film, there wasn’t much to the story other than cliché. Comparing this VR film to others like The Dinner Party, I found that where The Invisible Man failed The Dinner Party was executed much better. For instance, in making the audience a character, what felt like a gimmick in this film the Dinner Party did so with subtlety. Telling the audience with voyeuristic cinematography rather than having to outright say it to them like the Invisible Man did.  

Research & Development

When developing the story for our 360 short films, the first thing we did was to just generate some ideas regarding the genre, plot and characters. It was agreed that we all wanted to make a horror/thriller as the VR experience lends itself to this genre very well. This is due to the whole VR experience being so isolated when a person watches a VR film, they have to do so alone. Within the moment, you have no one to confide in if you feel scared, horror films like The Caretaker use this element to their advantage. “At a creepy hotel on a cold winter night, a couple stops to rest. But something is amiss.” When watching this short, I really felt immersed in the main character’s loneliness, she is separated from her partner and alone in a hotel with only strangers. The filmmakers throughout the whole film make it feel like you’re in this strange hotel, and all alone too. They do this, firstly, through cutting into new locations before any characters enter or before any action takes place. Giving the audience a chance to wander around the space. This is not only good for the audience’s viewing experience of not getting distracted with looking at a new space and missing something in the story, but also for people to look about like most do when getting a tour of a hotel for the first time. Other cinematography techniques used within this film add to the surreal quality that the VR experience offers, at the same time being essential to the plot. The girl in this story is in a dreamlike state, unsure of what is real and what is not, much like how the audience feels when watching a 360 film. Adding to these surreal qualities, camera angles such as the “bird’s eye” view and Dutch angles were used effectively and at the right moment to use these angles. For instance, when she’s waking up from being drugged to then running, while still drugged up, through the maze-like corridors of the hotel.

This film in comparison to others I’ve seen is that it has a solid structure, with a twist at the end. Unlike the other 2 films that were quite predictable, this one took the audience on a journey that was unexpected. When writing our film, we need to think about the viewing experience at all times. If our film is a thriller/horror then it needs to be full of suspense. The audience needs to be at the edge of their seat and there’s nothing more boring than having a formulaic ending.

Ideas Development

As a team, after watching relevant 360 films to get to know the format, we started to develop ideas based on the elements of those films that we felt worked well.

The elements of these 360 films that worked well and that I’d want to include within my films; one is the looming presence of the audience within The Dinner Party and The Invisible Man. The fact that the audience is as much as a character within the piece as the others, lends itself to this medium of film-making. I would want to use this technique as a tool for my film, for I think its the essence of the interactive film. An idea I had when watching the VR content is that it makes me feel like I’m a ghost, haunting the characters within the film. So, an idea we all agreed upon, is to base all of our films on the death of the main character. Then, as the ending film, I’m going to have this portage be the ghost as the audience. My idea was to set this film at the wake of their funeral, again adding to how 360 makes the audience feel, isolated+overwhelmed much like how a ghost would feel at their own funeral.

After mapping out these initial ideas for where we wanted the film to go, we then proceeded to develop with the following questions…

• What’s the overall story about? A story about male mental illness, and how this affects his perception of reality within an abusive relationship.
• Who is/are the protagonists? Mark, a 30 something IT freelancer who works from home. An ex-patient of a mental institute, when being treated for Schizophrenia he met Claire. His girlfriend Claire, is a nurse of a similar age with a dark past to be speculated.
• What is the key conflict in the story? The abuse has done at the hands of Claire.
• What is the inciting incident – How do you reveal the conflict? We see Claire lie to Mark and throw away his pills.
• What is/are the protagonist(s) character flaws? Mark can be seen as someone who suffers from mental illness but rejects his friends and family, and other sources of support. Leading the audience to feel frustrated at his actions for refusal of help.
• Why would this work as a 360 film? I think this film would be perfect for the 360 format due to the element of fully immersing the audience within the P.O.V. of Mark. Literally putting the audience in his shoes, seeing the world how he does with mental illness. Like him the audience can not separate reality from fiction, making the experience richer in empathy for the main character.

WHAT? Happens in each act and WHERE?: 

We worked as a team to map out what goes where, why and the allocated directors to acts…

• Act 1? – Inciting incident

This is Amy’s film. As she wanted the theme to be the feeling of being trapped, the film opens in a morgue with the camera in the dead bodies P.O.V. watching as their autopsy takes place. This tells the viewers that someone has died, possibly the main character or a character that is going to drive the rest of the film’s plot. The gore and concept show the genre straight away as a horror or thriller.

• Act 2? – Resistance / Acceptance of challenge

This is Lina’s film. Here she wanted to show the dynamic of abuse within the protagonist’s relationship. She wanted to do this through something like a time-lapse of all the arguments that were happening with the couple. Within this time frame, we thought we’d also show how good to him she was at the beginning. Then show the emotional manipulation Mark endured to end up in the state that he was in at the end of his life. It was then the plan for my film (the 3rd act) to show their final argument, the one that would kill him. In this I would include elements of surrealism, to reveal Mark’s hallucinations. I was going to do this by having multiples of Claire coming in around Mark/the camera’s perspective, all of her arguments happening at once until it gets too much. However, it was agreed that the time lapse would be dragged out too long to fill the 2 minutes. Also, the last act would just be repeating the 2nd one, not revealing anything new to the audience. Therefore, as a team, we decided to merge both of the 1st and 2nd act, then create a new twist for the end, one that could be more shocking to the audience.

• Act 3? – Resolution

This is my 2-minute film. The element I wanted to include within my piece was the ghost-like atmosphere the VR creates. So, my first idea was to show the aftermath of suicide but have this set within the location of the ghost’s funeral. When developing this idea, I took a more drama based genre, including themes of grief and denial of mental illness. Of course, this would not suit the prior films as they are more horror based. After having abandoned this funeral setting and developing the plot now in the 2nd act, I wanted to revisit this concept. What I felt worked within The Dinner Party, is at the beginning when the audience had the opportunity to eavesdrop on the guests’ conversations like a fly on the wall. However, I felt that this film didn’t utilize this technique to its fullest potential. For instance, they could have scripted dialogue full of subtext, reflecting the characters relationship to the couple. Or in giving the audience a more immersive approach of having the choice of what conversation to listen to. Like a dinner party, a funeral would be the perfect setting for this, full of all the people Mark would have had in his life. To speculate what did or did not happen. To make this film more horrific I want to take inspiration from the first act of our film in having the camera be placed as P.O.V. of the dead body, however, this time he will be in an open casket. To add the ghost-like element to it, I want the camera to move away from the P.O.V. perspective and move the camera around the room, reminiscent of The Dinner Party in a looming and atmospheric way. However, I can see this being a technical problem due us not having a big enough budget to build a set or buy a crane, making movement with the camera limited. But the core idea was to have a final twist to this film, clearly, showing the reality of the situation. Now Mark is a ghost he can see things for how they truly are; Claire is the killer, that disguised her abuse as Mark’s mental illness. She killed him, and she’s capable of it again.

As individual development, I used the Muse story structure as a blueprint for my film to flesh out my 3rd act. Muse is a company that claim to be “Experts in the art and science of storytelling.” It teaches filmmakers some story structures that work within short form content. Some criticisms to be made regarding following this structure and also trying to fit the key points in the specific locations could stunt creativity of free-flowing thought etc. Another, point to be made when using these blueprints could be that stories that follow their ‘rules’ are formulaic, therefore predictable or cliched. However, Muse has said that all stories have to follow some sort of formula for them to resonate with the audience, and I have to agree. Especially when it comes to more complex storytelling like the nature of VR and the nature of a more episodic film, to over-convoluted the story structure will confuse the audience too much. To keep all of the directors on this film on the same sort of three-act structure will serve to keep the story tight. Below is a step by step guide made by Muse on how to make an impactful story structure…

Above is my own blueprint of the Muse 3 act story structure, personalized for my final act in the film. Even though altogether these films follow the 3 act structure, it is important that my act follows it too. As this makes a cohesive story, and in having each episode follow a similar structure, it will make each act stand out as a completely developed 2-minute film by itself. I also used this as a reference to the next stage of development, the beat sheet…

Before I start the 1st draft of the script, I researched into short horror/thrillers of a similar nature to use as a reference. This is helpful to me as I have never written horror before, and need help to figure out how other successful shorts scaremonger and build suspense. The thrillers I’ve looked into below were not shot in 360 but what I wanted to take from them is how well they crafted a tone/atmosphere within both pieces, as means as I’ve only ever made dramas in the past.

The Shift by Francesco Calabrese is a short set in 1960s America. Where a husband returns home from work to find that his wife isn’t the woman he left. I found this film’s character of Betty reminiscent to the one of Claire within my film. They are both controlling psychopaths, that cover their motives with superficial pleasantries. They use their roles as a doting wife (Betty) or a caring nurse (Claire) as a mask to hide their sinister plans for their pray (Betty’s Joe or Claire’s Mark). Instead of a shape-shifting alien like Betty, however, Claire is a monster that is apparent in more human societies. Like Betty, Claire uses the weakness of people in her life to give her the control she craves. Drawing these similarities of both characters helps to imagine how Claire would talk. For instance, Betty is overtly polite, bordering on disturbing. The way she condescends her husband through language is what I want to channel in Claire, showing her emotional manipulation. A review by Rob Munday says it best “…with snippets of dialogue suggesting things may not be exactly as they seem, anyone familiar with The Stepford Wives or Invasion of the Body Snatchers narratives will start to suspect something a little more sinister is occurring.” What also serves as inspiration from this short for mine is the specific set design. The aesthetic created is unsettlingly perfect, through the use of the location of an idealistic American suburb, carrying this into the costumes and cars. Even the colour grade was slightly too saturated for my eyes to register, visually telling the audience that this house is a little too bright/happy. All this adds to the concept of these characters trying desperately to fit in. To apply this particular aesthetic within the production of my film, I’ll make the funeral home look too polished, bright and cheerful and the same with Claire’s costume too. Again to make things too perfect and to make her character look like they are trying too hard to look like the caring nurse when she’s everything but.

Another short thriller I watched was called Exit by Daniel Zimbler. This film relies on the suspense it builds to scare. Written with subtlety, making the watch more cerebral than shocking. The reason why this film is relevant to research when making mine is the use of the same set location. It uses this one set as a tool, it builds suspense as the characters don’t move or leave this room. Everything seems claustrophobic. This makes the audience feel that escape isn’t an opinion. I found this film’s use of this was impressive, using only dialogue to drive the story. These techniques are something I must keep in mind when writing my script as my film is a single set production (Mark’s P.O.V. in an open casket) with heavy use of dialogue from the people at his funeral. Elements I want to include within my short is how the sound design aided the protagonist to take control of the room, when he talked all the atmospheric sounds quietened, in the climax, it was the only thing you could hear apart from the, appropriately, haunting score. His voice was in the foreground of everyone’s mind, and the audiences too. I also want to use this with Claire as she has all of the control, and like Mark, I want the audience to only be focused on her voice alone. Especially due to the nature of 360 where the audience can get distracted, this technique will work perfectly with this VR format.   

Watching these films in comparison to the 360 thrillers I analysed earlier, I became aware of how detached from the experience I felt. Whereas within VR it was as though I was actually in the film with the characters. This justifies our original motive of wanting to make a VR thriller, that the viewer feels more anxiety from fear watching compared to traditional films like the ones just mentioned.

Script Development

To prepare for the 1st draft, the next step is to outline the beat sheet. ‘Blake Schneider’s ‘Save The Cat’. A book that is focused on story structure using beat sheets. It says that beats are simply plot events that drive a story forward. Every story has events that direct the story toward its eventual end, so every story has beats. There’s a variety of beat sheets with differing levels of complexity such as…

• A Basic Beat Sheet: 8 beats (can be stripped down to 4)
•  Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering Beat Sheet: 10 beats
•  Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat Beat Sheet: 15 beats
•  Master Beat Sheet (combines Larry and Blake’s): 23 beats

However, these more complex sheets tend to be designed for a feature-length film, rather than short. As recommended by the author, the basic beat sheet will be best suited to shorter stories. The Basic Beat sheet includes:

• End of the Beginning
•  Midpoint
•  Crisis
•  Climax

When applying this tool to all of our work, we found it harder to fit all plot points in the right space, leading this to stunt our creativity. Therefore, we started to just map out some of the key plot points on a blank whiteboard. Then, we took what structure we had and applied it to the beat sheet to create a more solid structure. In doing this, I felt that all of our stories now fit a proper arc, turning points in the right places (no missing or misplaced beats), asking if the beats follow a cause-and-effect chain? It helped us to just check the pacing in general.

However, when using this beat sheet design to my act, I felt that some of my turning points didn’t hit the suggested beats exactly. But keeping in mind that these beats are just guidelines and shouldn’t come before the story’s flow, as this is more important. So in those places, I just merged beats or added them to fit within the context of my film. To keep in mind for the future, when using these tools, is to not get too caught up in having events happen in specific places. I feel that if I try to fit the story around the structure, then this makes work more formulaic, not the three-act structure itself.

BASIC BEAT SHEET for Clair’s Mark

Character Development

Below are some exercises I did to figure out who Mark is as a real person. It was important I did this before I started my 1st draft, as to write the dialogue and his motivations in a believable way. From reading articles such as The Ultimate Guide to Character Development: 10 Steps to Creating Memorable Heroes, it has taught me to ask provoking questions to delve into why he is the way he is…

Other research such as videos like Four Character Development Exercises by ShaelinWrites, showed me how deeply you need to know the characters you write to make them believable and 3 denominational.

Through other research into What Makes a Great Villain? Your Checklist for Writing a Good Bad Guy, I have learned that just as much development has to go into the villain too. In this article it states that a bad guy can’t just be bad for the sake of it, everybody is the way they are for some reason or another. To help make these characters be more human, its good practice, as a writer, to look further into them, their motives and reasoning why. And the best way to do so is to write about them, asking questions about who they are and why?

Doing these exercises in character development helped prepare me for writing the first draft, as I always have these answers to refer back to if I’m unsure about what a character might say or do, when and where.

The names are just as important to the characters. They can be used to leave little clues that the audience might find. I feel that these details elevate a script from a mediocre one to a higher standard.  

So below are all the names, their meanings, and why that’s relevant to the characters…

Mark: This is a very average name, it coveys the mundane or every day. When developing Mark we wanted him to appear as normal as possible, like he is trying to hide something. Within this story, Mark is prey. He is a target; Claire’s mark if you will.

Claire: We initially chose this name due to we all have bad experiences with people with that name; it just felt right. However, the meaning of this name is “bright, clear”. This character is anything but, she is dark and also tries to hide many sinister things in her life. The name serves as who she really is, in the contrast of having her appear to be helpful and caring but really she is manipulative abuser and murder.

Mary (Mark’s mother): When deciding what to name Mark’s parents, I started researching popular names in the ’50s, due to that decade being around their age. Mary was one that means “bitterness”. The mother is bitter about Mark’s death, embarrassed by him and his illness. It also means “wished-for child” maybe his mother wished for a different child, instead of Mark.

Richard (Mark’s father): This name was also popular in the 50s, and means “strong in the rule” and “hard”. I imagine this character to be hard-headed, and stern and this meaning support that. As a father, he might have been firm and not so loving towards Mark as a child, thus leading him to have no support from his father when it comes to his mental illness. His father would be the type of man, to keep his feelings to himself.

James (Mark’s friend): The name means “supplanter”. (A supplanter takes over or takes the place of someone else, usually on purpose. If usurping thrones is your thing, then maybe you have a future as a supplanter. A supplanter takes the place of someone or something that was there first.) This character is the next victim of Claire and is, in fact, the supplanter of Mark.

At the last session, we had a group critic on our 1st draft of the script, after noting these annotations I made some slight tweaks, to make the dialogue feel like a genuine conversion and making some of the character’s actions feel more true-to-life. Having the group read through was a necessity when working on such a collaborative piece. Communication helped us in making changes to the story and characters, so it feels like a coherent story.

To write the script, it was a group decision that we use a software that we were all familiar with, Celtex. Here we could write collaboratively, viewing each other’s work as we do it. This helped our communication as some of us couldn’t attend all the sessions at uni. It also worked as a good reference when writing my own script, looking at how the other writers wrote a character dialogue so that we could match the dialect as best we could. However, in the future, when collaborative writing, I think it would be best to spend more time outside of uni for writing sessions, so we could all work together if either person is struggling with problems, such as the plot timeline like I did. What lead me to this confusion was that there was an issue with the script being complete before the artificial deadline we set ourselves. And I found it hard to write the ending before the beginning was written.

EP2 – Claire’s Mark – ACT III

Research into VR Technology

After watching this video tutorial, I downloaded the GoPro app. Using this app, my phone acts as the monitor for when we film, there’s also the option to not only control the camera using my phone when recording but to review the footage after recording too. This is extremely useful as the camera doesn’t come with a viewfinder or display.

To research into what this camera is capable of and it’s limitations, I read a few reviews. Compared to previous 360 cameras produced by GoPro this one is the most sturdy, able to film underwater by 16ft and easy to pick up and shoot with. The Fusion is also very good at stabilisation, this is great as I want to mount the camera onto the actor, so the footage might not be too steady. However, this shouldn’t be an issue due to how compatible the footage is with the anti-stabilisation tools in post. GoPros have a reputation of producing footage with a distorted effect, warped around the edges. When people have tested this on the Fusion, even when a subject is 30cm away the distortion is minimal. I’ll have to test this myself as the camera is going to be placed very close to the subject due to it being mounted on their chest.

An issue with this camera is that they can only offer very basic manual controls, however after reading these reviews, apparently, the camera does a nice job auto-exposing. There have been mixed reviews about the camera’s dynamic range, some say that it produces too much grain in low light, therefore lights are vital on a shoot with this camera. Others disagree saying that the camera works well in low light, even at an ISO of 1600 and with an F.2 aperture, the footage is still usable. All of these issues have to be tested and addressed within the recce shoot, including a sketch of a lighting floor plan.

The main issue with the camera are the lenses as they aren’t replaceable, therefore any scratches or if it falls and breaks, the camera cant is repaired. We need to bear this in mind, inuring extra care and security of the camera when shooting. I’ll have to select a producer to be in charge of looking after the camera on set.

Ambisonics is a full-sphere surround sound format, it covers sounds from not only left to right but also above and below the listener.

We are going to be using the Zoom H3-VR, as stated on their site a…” virtual reality audio recorder is the complete solution for capturing and processing spatial audio for VR, AR and mixed-reality content. With a built-in Ambisonic mic, recorder and decoder, the H3-VR puts 360-audio in the palm of your hand.” Online, there are positive reviews about this device, what’s great with this equipment is that it is simple to use. As we are beginners when it comes to VR tech, therefore the easier, the better. The body has clear controls, including a single knob mic gain feature, it ensures that all mic levels are even. It also calibrates the audio, so its automatically all aligned in post, leaving us with less more complex manual work. This is also great as we are on a tight schedule with the edit.

Doing this research was vital in getting familiar with the 360 equipment available to us before we start production. In understanding what it’s capable of and its limitations, will guide choices I’ll make when drawing the storyboard too.

As this is new territory for all of us three directors, learning together, asking each other questions and accumulating each other’s research, made the task of understanding this equipment easier on us all. Now we can work as a team when it comes to the shoot, ensuring that we have more subject knowledge about 360 filmings.

Getting to grips with this kit has opened my eyes as to what is possible within this new landscape of film-making. Even though this type of film-making and the kit itself is still in its experimental phase, researching this will only improve my practice as a filmmaker in future projects, by improving the breadth and depth of understanding different types of film-making practices.

Storyboard for VR

When drawing up the storyboard for this film, I tried to apply standard storyboarding to this 360 medium, as VR storyboarding isn’t a technique I’ve learnt. This couldn’t work due to multiple actions happening at the same time that can’t be shown in one square frame. This storyboard needed to show multiple actions going on at the same time. Therefore, I called upon a friend’s help, who has experience in perspective drawing. However, they’ve never drawn by hand in 360 before either. So for them to know what I wanted, I had to provide them with examples…

https://uxdesign.cc/virtual-reality-planning-staging-and-storyboarding-a01cd883e7ff?fbclid=IwAR1bbcu2VUIwnLW10ASRx6L-5GPkNQlBjIcfDKdeT1EeHXKNB8v12ABIRlI

They decided to use the latter example as their template, as this one “gave me a clearer idea of how to transfer a 3-dimensional medium into a 2-dimensional medium”

When describing how I wanted the framing to look, (a P.O.V. perspective of the corpse in the coffin) I wanted this visual constriction of the walls of the coffin to serve as a direct contrast to the previous freedoms of the viewer’s visual movements of the other 2 acts. I feel that this contrast conveys how trapped Mark is within this relationship with Claire, living and dead. However, I still wanted the visuals to be interesting to look at, leading me to experiment with the distancing and blocking of the characters. Through research, I found that the closer the subject is to the camera the more warping there is, like a “fish eye”effect. Instead of having this as a hindrance, I want to use this effect to convey how unsettling the situation is. The closer Claire moves to the camera (Mark’s perspective), the more distorted her face becomes, making the audience feel at unease as it’s “too close for comfort”, much like the character’s relationship. Below are screen-grabs of the warped effect applied to my film.

When planning the shots for a 360 film, I found it difficult to visualise on paper even with this new storyboard formatting. In future, a better way to visualise a 360 storyboard might be to take panorama photos of the scene. As when drawing I didn’t have an understanding of the space the scene would be located in, therefore, I felt like the frames couldn’t be accurate.

Pre-production

I need to organise the next steps ASAP, as gathering these things on the list will take the longest to lock down.

Firstly, I contacted possible funeral homes within Herefordshire…

After conversations with various funeral homes around Herefordshire, none were able to accommodate the time needed and when we needed to shoot. Moving on, Lina’s living room could be a good location. Due to the camera position, the audience won’t be able to see a lot of the room. Adding in some set dressing, I think we could manage to make the living room look like a funeral home. Leading onto the next step which is gathering the props.

We made lists on Basecamp, in case the others had/were able to get any of the props needed. Having to make lists on this app was useful in the beginning, helping each other out with their tasks and making sure everyone was on track. However, the days towards the shoot it got a bit manic as everyone was talking at once, it was hard to find the information needed. When using this app in the future, its best to keep all lists and important information in specific places, so that people aren’t having to repeat themselves and information can be found easily.

We all have a budget of £100 for each of our films, however, a big portion of this will be paying for the lead role expenses (train tickets and costumes etc). This leaves us with about £50 for props and catering. After extensive looking online coffins are too expensive to buy (ranging from £170-£400), and after emailing and ringing, it is unlikely that I can rent one either. Leading me, having to make the interior of a coffin myself.

I gave the task of making a coffin to a friend, as they have experience with making scale models and sculptures with cardboard. To begin with he made a maquette out of card, as a test, to see how it would look and to secure the measurements.

The DIY coffin was made with free cardboard and cheap bedsheets, under £20. Leaving £30 to budget for flowers and food for the cast and crew. Below is the finished result… Having the coffin made, went well on the day, the actor fit perfectly within it and in the end, it looked well on film. The only issue was that the table the actor was lying on wasn’t very sturdy. But we put that hazard into the risk assessment and warned/tested the actor lying on the table and in the end, luckily nobody got hurt.

Processed with VSCO with hb2 preset

Processed with VSCO with hb1 preset

To dress the set, making it feel like a real funeral, I also want to buy flowers, fake ones keeping it within my budget.

Talent is another priority for us at the minute. We have a possible Claire and Mark, but my act is the one with the most characters in, therefore I’m going to outsource them all.

Due to the shoot being in a week’s time and there being not a big enough budget to pay for professional actors, I’m going to have to rely on none professional actors. As the shoot takes place in the Easter holidays, no drama students are able to attend either. So, calling upon my tutors, and others such as friends or family, anyone that looks the part and can get to the location on the date/time. However, I need to have them confirmed by the end of this week, 5th April Friday, as we need to provide the call sheets not long after. Below is an email sent to the outsourced actors.

Casting Claire, 4th April: Even though we only managed to get one actress to audition for the role, this was still good experience into how these things take place. Remaining professional, and creating a safe space where the actors feel free to give their best performance.

Claire, who was auditioning for the role of Claire, was ideal for the part, she comes from a theatre background, therefore this lends itself perfectly to the single take element of this VR film. Her speech was very loud and clear, this is great due to the fact that we only have fixed sound, it can’t move to follow her talk so will have to be as loud as possible for the dialogue to be audible. She also gave a very superficial performance, making Claire, the character, feel all the more false/creepy. And that was exactly the sort of tone we were looking for, a reference to compare her performance to would be like Misery’s Annie Wilkes.

Pre-production Pack

On Basecamp we all worked on our production folders, making group chats so that we can all contribute to receive the information ASAP. We all had individual folders for our own shoot. However, I and Lina did collaborate a lot due to our shoot being in the same location on the same day and sharing 3 of the same actors.

To help me and Lina source information, I made an announcement on the message board… This post helped to keep all of the information for the call sheet in the same place, so there’s no confusion. The comment section also allowed for me, Lina and Leanna to communicate effectively on what else needs to be added to the call sheet and edits needed to be made. I prefer this method more than posting on the group chat as it felt more organised this way, and I can see myself using the message board on Bacecamp in future projects also. Production-packs includes…

1. Synopsis (360 VR film).

2. Administration Checklist, provided by Rural Media.

3. Budget, the money not spent of talent, props, location or equipment will be kept as a float for the day in an envelope.

4. A script of ACT III, and a couple of spares for the actors.

5. Storyboard, to visualise the scene for crew and actors when blocking.

6. Risk Assessment form (360 film) Identify the risks so you can mitigate them.

7. Thursday Call Sheet – Clare’s Mark 11th April 2019: Detailed breakdown of the day, communicating who is where and when. 

8. Shot List (360 film): Detailed shot by shot breakdown of your production

9. Shoot Log: Detailed information on how each shot went

10. Production Feedback Form: Make sure everyone is happy with your production

11. Float Sheet: Keep tabs on your petty cash.

12. Location Release form (No Fee): Location Release forms are critical to ensure you can distribute your film.

13. Contributor Release (No Fee): Talent releases form for none paid actors.

14. Contributor Release (Fee): Talent releases form for paid actors.

Making this pack ensured that all important documents needed on the shoot day were organised. Even though I wasn’t in charge of producing on the day it was still a useful insight into how professional productions are produced. This will advance my professional film-making practice in the future from a student to a more qualified production.

Recce Shoot

We set a pre-filming visit on Tuesday 9th of April, at the locations of act 2/3 to determine its suitability for shooting, including access to necessary facilities and assessment of any potential lighting or sound issues.

Firstly we started to clean the location, set up the actor’s green room, move the bigger pieces of furniture and identifying possible risks.

As far as technical issues, we did a test shoot of my act, with the wall of my coffin interior to give me an idea about how much of the set would be seen by the camera so I could effectively dress all of it and to help choreograph the blocking of the actors. Then we gave this footage to a tutor to learn how to sync the ambisonic recorded sound with the 360 footage, she did have some trouble with the syncing initially, but this was fixed as she was getting used to the software. Therefore, this recce was vital practice with the kit, becoming familiar with it ensured that all went smoothly on the day of filming.

Regarding lighting, we are relying on practicals, lamps and ceiling lights. Taking inspiration from the VR film The Invisible Man, I wanted to create a cinematic effect with overhead lighting casting harsh shadows onto the actor’s faces, complementing to the harsh words being said by the characters in the scene. One reason the test shoot was important to do a couple of days before the actual shoot, was because we needed to see if the shutter speed and the lights matched. If so we needed to buy/replace all of the bulbs in the living room, this would take extra time/money that would be extremely hard to fit into the already tight schedule of the shoot day. Luckily there was no flicker on the test footage, so this is an issue solved.

It was a relief that we did this recce, as on the day of the shoot we were running to a very tight schedule. I believe that if we didn’t do the recce then we wouldn’t have had enough time in the morning to thoroughly set up the location before the cast got there. The recce was an important element in our professional practice as it helped unload some of the tasks when shooting, leading for the filming to go smoothly.

Fish In a Bottle Workshop

As said on their site, “We’re an award-winning digital production studio.
We create digital products and platforms that entertain
and educate people in the connected world.” This company specialises in cutting edge technology, this includes VR experiences. This was the topic of the workshop, the development of an interactive film.

To start with, there was a seminar on the different types of storytelling in VR. The structures differ from linear to branching. A linear story structure in interactive film-making is a story that starts from point A to point B. Google has researched where audiences were looking and at what time, for instance, most people look at the main action, but there are the few that always look the opposite way. Because of this, they developed experiences that have the main action happening in one area of the 360, but then have a subplot action happening on the other side. To also contradict this issue of people missing important pieces of action, there are some VR experiences that have trigger points. This is where the story only continues once the audience has looked at the main action.

The linear structure has the least amount of interaction for the audience, making this a more passive viewing experience. Relevant research as the 360 productions I’m currently following this structure, as I want the audience to feel as trapped as Mark is in his dead body, putting the audience in his shoes; having no control over his life. And after this workshop, now I see the importance of catering for all of the viewers, including the ones looking where they shouldn’t. Important to consider when storyboarding is there should be little clues or details everywhere around the scene, not just in the main action. As for this is the nature of VR film-making, giving the viewers information everywhere around them. However, remember to balance this by focusing the attention of the audience, not to confuse them or sacrifice the plot.

Another type of structure in VR is ‘string of pearls’. Meaning that the story is still linear but in different acts of the story, there’re user choices. This gives the audience a feeling that they have a say over the story, but without the narrative getting too out of control.      The last type and the most interactive structure is branching. This structure gives users the initial choice at the beginning, then they are given several options, and those options lead to new choices, which each then lead to new choices…this can go on forever, but there is a point where all of these branches become too expensive because this is the most complex structure, it also takes the most time to film. Due to these logistical reasons, the last two structures are unfeasible for this module but interesting to see what’s possible within this medium and how it’s done within the industry.

After this, there was a discussion on narrative. It was said that the most successful films use the tech to enhance the story, as the story comes 1st and foremost. The sensory experience is what divides the VR from the traditional film-making, this includes sound design. In VR it’s the audio cues that come first, then comes the visuals. Sound engulfs and engages the audience into the experience. After this session when directing our own 360 film, in order to use this tech to its potential then we need to make use of sound. This could be used to directing the attention of the audience. In Lina’s act, there’re multiples of Claire all around the viewer, adding to the overwhelmed experience Mark was feeling. We could use, not only multiples of Claire visually but with sounds as well diverting the audience’s attention constantly back and forth, making them feel as disorientated as Mark’s character does.

Another element to fully immersing the viewer into the experience is the P.O.V. camera angle. Mostly used in VR games, the use of the viewers perspective is key in giving the audience the effect of actually being there in the film’s universe. The use of reflections in water/windows/mirrors can add to these immersions and when the user is looking down, they see their character’s body. This technique is relevant to the film I’m making as in 2 of the 3 acts are going to be in this P.O.V. perspective. However, due to time and money limitations, digitally removing the character’s head in place of the camera perspective will be unfeasible. Therefore the P.O.V. in our films will still have Mark’s head in the frame, just closer up so the rest of the frame will still have his perspective.

The key to using these tools is knowing that success comes with the detail within the world, if there is no added information for the audience to see in 360, then there’s no point in making the film in 360 at all. All of these creative tools don’t work in isolation, but all together. It’s all about the user’s journey.

After, this we did a workshop where we developed our own VR experience, for research to idealisation then to storyboarding. Then, we got the chance to play with all different levels of interactive software from most affordable to most expensive. In taking part in this workshop helped me to understand the industry level of VR experiences companies like FishInABottle produces. In how story and creativity must always come before the technology, asking yourself as a filmmaker why must this film be interactive, what does this 360 camera add to the story? Then applying these tools to our own films within this module and working to elevate this production to compete with the level of quality VR production companies provides.

Reflection of the shoot

Within the module, we were tasked to make a vlog to talk on any element of the process for this project. I chose to use the vlog format to reflect on how my shoot went and some of the preparation we did beforehand. Before I started to make the vlog, I needed to look into this short form further as this content is completely new to me.

To begin, I looked around for some advice on where to start. Tips given in an article (https://www.thesitsgirls.com/vlogging/how-to-vlog/)I found about the subject matter was that the equipment you use is not as important as what you actually say. This is helpful due to me not having access to expensive equipment at the moment. When filming its useful in knowing the most important aspect of making a vlog is to remain authentic in an honest review of how the shoot went. As this will make the video the most engaging to the audience as people can’t relate to or care about the opinion of someone they feel is being fake. 

Another piece of advice was to prepare before you go on camera. As I don’t find speaking in front of the camera easy I thought it best to write a script for myself so that I don’t lose focus or forget what I’m supposed to say.

Here is a script/preparation for what I wanted to say/show within my vlog… Reflection of the shoot (script)

Then I filmed my 1st attempt at the vlog. However, after reviewing the footage it was over 10 minutes long, just of me rambling in front of the camera. And when I didn’t know what to say I used to refer back to my script at the end of each sentence, leading me to look down all the time. This made the vlog feel rigid, awkward to watch as the words coming from my mouth seemed false. So keeping in mind the tip about authenticity being key to a well-done vlog, for the 2nd attempt I condensed my points into bullet-points, an outline that I could refer to during filming like the article had originally suggested leading me to speak more freely.

Even though the script helped me to talk upon all the topics I wanted to discuss in the 1st attempt, the 2nd worked well in me talking straight to the point in a more engaging fashion, even if I had to cut some information out. Within this vlog, I feel that I ‘warmed up’ more leading me to become more comfortable in front of the camera.

Meaning that I have never had to edit in a vlog style before, I looked into how other vloggers have done so successfully. When watching these vlogs a tip I got from them was using visuals when you can as this just makes the viewing experience more stimulating to look at, rather than just watching somebody talk. Visuals can also aid the story you’re trying to tell, if a viewer is a visual learner then they could find it easier to understand what you’re talking about if you use these visual aids. When editing my film I’ve included as many pictures from the shoot as possible. In adding these pictures helped to complement what I was saying as sometimes my descriptions were too vague for the audience to visualise. I’ve also included titles on the screen to clearly convey to the audience what I’m talking about with each topic.

Jumpcuts is also a common trait in vlogs. They are used to speed up the pace someone is talking at, cutting all the unnecessities out, either that be sentences not adding to the point your making or unwanted pauses/umms+ahhs. I’ve applied many jumpcuts in my vlog as my speech isn’t doesn’t always flow nicely, so adding this cut helps me to get to the point.

When making this vlog I think it has taught me to really consolidate my points. This helps me with other public speaking or presentations I’ll make in the future reflecting on my practice. Not only that but it’s a goal of mine to put a behind-the-scenes type of content on my website and social media too. In giving visitors/followers a more intimate look at my practice. And in learning how to make vlogs will only be an addition making my practice stand out from other filmmakers.

My finished vlog… https://vimeo.com/337970631

Password: HCA EP2

The Edit

When it came to the edit, we firstly got taught how to do the stitching with GoPro’s own software, Fusion Studio. The footage was pre-rendered prior to the session due to how long it actually takes to render, for our 6-minute film it took two days. Then you take it into Premiere Pro to edit the rest. The only conceivable changes when editing was the audio. The channels needed to have four tracks rather than one, to create the amber-sonic sound. The other was the use of the ‘toggle button’ so you can move across the frame to see all the 360 degrees.

When editing the grade I wanted to keep it dark, with high contrast, sharp and with blue undertones to convey how cold people are towards Mark. The following film grades are what I used as inspo for the colouring…

I was mainly inspired by thriller/horror film grades such as It Follows (2014), as I feel this will convey the tones of my film the best. Even though there’re comedic elements to my film, I still want the overall atmosphere to be uninviting and eerie.

One problem that occurred when editing, was that the take with the best performances from the actors, and a slip up with the lines. This means that you can’t cut like a traditional film and it was difficult to solve this problem. In the end, I had to cut into the film with flashbacks of the protagonist being killed, to cover where the actress said a wrong line. This turned out to aid my whole film, as when reviewing the footage it seems that the pacing was too slow, so these contrasting quick cuts acted to quicken the film, making it more visually interesting too, giving it more dimension. I’ve never seen these sorts of quick cuts/flashback elements in any VR film before. This will help in making what it did here,  feel more innovative compared to other VR counterparts, elevating our film from the rest. This might be due to the filmmakers not wanting to jar/confuse/disorientate the viewers. However, this is exactly what I wanted to achieve within my viewer’s experience. I want to make the audience uncomfortable with the whole scene, I want them to feel like they’re trapped within this world and they can’t escape. VR fits perfectly with my motives for the film, as the audience watches the film, isolated from their surrounding and alone with nowhere else to look.

Challenges that came with this was matching the front of the camera, where the audience is looking to the next scene. This was adjusted so that it would ensure that the viewers would be looking in the right direction within the cuts. As if they had to keep turning their heads back and forth all the time then that could give them motion sickness. It was simple to change, just adjust the degrees where the front of the camera is in the effect controls, these little adjustments just aid the viewer’s experience making the film feel like a higher-quality production. A note to take from fixing my mistake in the future is that when shooting 360 its best to watch the best take multiple times before ending the shoot as I failed to notice a mishap in one of the lines.

When we all reviewed the film, with all the acts together, we noticed that there was a flaw in the story structure; it was obvious that it was a murder right away in the first act. To make the film more suspenseful with more twists we decided to move part of the 1st act later on in the film, the scene where Claire is being interviewed by the police as a suspect. With this new structure, it leads the audience to think for themselves rather than just giving them the answers, did she kill him? And/or was it an accident? When working with multiple writers in future projects, I think it might be best to write acts together, collaboratively, rather than individually  As then there won’t be as much confusion with figuring out what we want the audience to know and when. Below is the 1st edit…

The final edit included only minor changes such as adding some more soundscaping and embedding titles into frames rather than title cards that we had originally, as we feel this made the film feel of a higher quality.

Final touches for my film included adding atmospheric organ, funeral music, setting the scene more and compositing a floral bouquet onto the frame to cover the tripod. Usually, within 360 editings, the clone stamp would be used to edit out the tripod. However, in my case, an actor walked behind it. The clone stamp is only effective when the camera is static and with no motion around the area. When working with 360 in the future its good practice to block the actors more accurately, so there is no movement near the camera’s stand, avoiding this issue. After adding all these adjustments, it elevates the film from amateur to a more experienced production, as these details aid the viewer’s experience, making the world of the film more believable. Below is the finished film…

Reflection of this Project

At the beginning of this project, we were tasked to set ourselves with some goals… The 1st was ‘to produce a film that expresses my personal signature as a filmmaker, a piece I am proud of so I can include in my portfolio’. I do feel that I have conveyed my personal style through the film, with odd cinematography and dark humour within the script. However, this film doesn’t convey the same tones as the other films I’ve made, I feel it will stick out too much in comparison to put on my website. Even though I do want to show variation within my work, this film doesn’t suit my film-making ‘brand’ (depicting girl culture within the 21st century). I’m proud of what we’ve achieved within this project, but I don’t think this film conveys my film-making signature enough to put on my portfolio. However, I think its good for me to branch out and experiment with different types of subject matters within my work as I’ve done in this project. In developing what films I actually want to be making as a filmmaker. 

The 2nd goal of mine was ‘to gain confidence as a leader to direct a crew for my 2-minute segment of the film’. I feel like I have achieved this goal within the entire course of the production. All we 3 directors worked well to have clear communication, on Basecamp, keeping everyone up-to-date with the progress of pre-production. We worked as a unit when shooting as supportive crew members and within the edit, we all contributed to work on the film collectively, not just our own acts, ensuring that it is a well rounded final piece, working well as a whole. At the end of this production, I feel that we have achieved a dependable relationship as filmmakers, leading there to be more opportunity to work together as a crew within the future. I’ve also never worked on one of my films in a crew+cast this big. It was a challenge for me to step out of my comfort zone and lead everyone when shooting my act. However, with this extra support from Amy and Lina and the producers, I felt that everything was under control leading me to feel more confident when shooting.

The 3rd goal was ‘to learn to use this niche camera work independently, and hopefully include this as a skill to apply to my film-making CV’. After making this VR film, it was important for me to do as much research into the medium as possible, as I think that it would be a unique skill to learn when going into professional work. Having plenty of time to play with the equipment, understanding how it works was useful in knowing how to use this medium to its best advantage. Much like the 360 film-making landscape at the moment it is still in its experimental stage, this film worked as an experiment for me too. It is definitely a skill that I wish to put on my CV, however, there’s still plenty of refinement to be made to my 360 practice.

SFM7: Refined Storytelling

Starting Out (what’s it about?)

Ideas Development

At the beginning of projects, I find it useful to make mood-boards; gathering pictures and objects to inspire me to develop ideas into stories. The board below shows images I was most drawn to, mainly containing group girl photos. I wanted to demonstrate how I portray youth; growing up with other females who are going through the same experiences as I did in order to teach me female empowerment and the importance of female relationships. As, in a world that tends to pit other powerful women against each other, I think it is important to tell a story of companionship, unity and female love. I also wanted to establish a tone from this mood board, that energies girlhood with them being soft/romantic but also showing naivety.

Before developing my story, it is important to determine what I want my film to portray and the underlying ideas I want to reveal, such as bringing attention to the struggles sex workers face but showing the significant theme of female friendships. As in Linda J. Cowgill’s book, she states “Themes grow out of who you are and what you believe. The best come from your emotions, experiences and insights about people and the world.” I feel that the most effective films are the ones where the writer has a clear idea about what they want to portray, giving the film a more powerful pull. To help me develop a deeper meaning within my story, I am going to use some of the questions in Cowgill’s book to define and clarify a theme.

After the initial ideas have emerged, I will expand these abstract thoughts into key elements that will contribute to the story…

Research Into The World of The Story

Ensuring that my film feels authentic, I want the film’s world, what the audience sees to extend beyond what they actually see. Due to my film being about UK sex-workers, I needed to thoroughly research the laws and legislation surrounding this topic such as the effectiveness of the justice system and legislation. The research I found states that there are laws to criminalize sex-workers and their clients. However, Prostitution within the UK isn’t regulated thus preventing sex-workers from safety. Which in turn pushes this unregulated industry into the shadows, making prostitutes vulnerable. Therefore, I wanted to highlight that sex workers should not be exploited in order to trade safely.

One of the girls whom I write about is a trans-sex-worker and these females are even more venerable (stated under the Equality Act 2010). A documentary made by CBC ‘One Leg In One Leg Out’ follows the story of Iman a transexual sex-worker who has worked in this industry for ten years.  Iman speaks about the struggles trans people face and what turned them to this work. As, for most trans people, there are difficulties in finding other sources of work due to this country’s prejudice, leading them to either be on-the-streets or drug dealers. With Iman stating “If I get a job the way I am, without changing my looks…be myself and get paid for it, you don’t understand what that means to me.”  From this documentary, I felt that trans sex-workers find companionship, protectors and family, in this job despite its dangers.

When researching female friendships, I asked my female friends about their most cherished memories with their girlfriends. To give me inspiration of what impacts women by asking about feelings and emotions. This will add antidotes to my story ensuring my character’s relationships are realistic.

Seashells (2014)

Is a film about a young girl who reluctantly takes her first steps into adulthood by receiving her first bra. Natalie Neal the director, manages to convey the universal pre-teen angst we all feel before letting go of our childhood and facing growing up. Doing this all in under 10 minutes – the same duration of my film. So I felt it was important to analyse this venerable topic in a very limited space of time.

Though the protagonist of a girl growing up in the 90s, we see Neal subtly convey themes like what it is like having societal pressures pushed onto girls at this impressionable age. We see the main character not connecting to her friend when they take out a candy cigarette; “plus you look like Marilyn Monroe” says her friend, but she doesn’t take it. This communicates how she doesn’t want to be these hypersexual women she is expected to be; with big boobs in lingerie. With the use of this subtext, the film conveys how the protag is feeling without out-right saying it. The dialogue shows the separation of the girl within her world, desperately trying to cling onto her childhood when everyone, including herself, is changing around her. We see her anger towards feeling detached from her own body and then we see her accept/learn to love her new bra and growing boobs, through her positive female role models, like the Spice Girls and mermaids. I wanted to achieve a similar tone in my film, using techniques like subtext. The characters don’t need to over explain how they feel, as we need to see it through great acting+Neal’s great cinematography. The only criticism of the film I have is that the character of the mother feels very one-dimensional and is there to be the protag’s mother and nothing else. Within mine, I hope to make all characters feel like they have a backstory, even if they are minor roles. I feel that in doing so makes the film’s world more authentic, that it could exist beyond what we see in the frame.

Other films I’ve been researching for inspiration into a tone; is 90s/2000s coming of age teen films are films like The Craft+The Sisterhood of Night, these immerse the audience into the lives of these girls. It is even said with narration in Sisterhood “this is our story”.

Sisterhood: is about a group of girls with their own problems finding comfort in one another, but their late-night meetings and Pagan rituals get misconstrued by the suburbs where they live, into something evil/satanic/cultic. The concept of having a girl looking for a group of friends with mystery and wanting acceptance is something I want to include in my film.

My film is going to be centred on a girl who wants to be welcomed into a friendship circle. However, these friends instead of cult-leaders are sex-workers. These girls are also villainised by society, therefore they come together to find comfort, this also happens within the film The Craft. 

Like Sisterhood, ‘The Craft’ focuses on 4 girls against the society they live in; outcasts. It also starts with a newbie that comes into the world of 3 friends missing a fourth. These films tend to have other traits such as voice-over narration and stylized introductions of the main characters. The only problem in taking inspiration from these films is that there’s a possibility that my film could feel stale/done-before or even cheesy. To solve this problem when writing, I need to balance homage-without-parody. To do this I’ll try to avoid cliche lines and happy-ever-afters. To compare these films to Seashells, I feel that the friendships within them are dependent upon each other, they grow through their relationships, whereas within Seashells the main character is detached from all the women around her. Even though I want elements of detachment/loneliness within my film, they’ll be towards society rather than other girls. I ultimately want my protag to find support within her friend-group, like a sisterhood.

Much Loved (2015)

‘Much Loved’ is about 4 friends making a living as prostitutes in Morocco, exploring the dangers and stigmas attached to this profession. I used this film as an inspiration due to how it conveys similar chosen topics. With ‘Much Loved’  portraying the uniqueness of female friendships, relying on each other in the harsh reality of their world. The women experience rape, violence, exploitation and the corruption of the police. Due to these experiences, paired with the bleak ending of having to go to another “party”, left me feeling hopeless. I feel this film shows the universal and honest depiction of how sex-workers are treated in society. There is no remorse/justice for these women and its a tragedy.

Nevertheless, I argue that although Ayouch developed the female characters well. I did feel the protagonist and other characteristics fell on the back-burner. For I couldn’t understand the character’s motivations, why they were placed in these circumstances. Despite this, I felt that the acting saved it as I truly believed/empathised with the main charter – Noha (Loubna Abidar), who cared for the girls like sisters, although they couldn’t save her. This film achieves a great balance of hopelessness and friendship, just enough to compliment each other, which I want to achieve in mine.

For my film, I do not want to romanticize the tough realities of sex work, but I want to show small positives which they have in modern society, such as highlighting attributes like looking out for each other. I want this theme to be running in the background as in the foreground, I want the girls and their individual stories to shine, but most importantly I want their sisterhood to stand out. This film carries themes like The Craft/The Sisterhood, however, the reality of the film is much harsher and true to life. I want to apply this sort of gritty truth in my film also, not sugar coating any of the struggles these women face.

Character Development

I want my characters to be ‘fully fleshed’ people before I start writing the script. I want this film to be character driven, with them driving the story forward rather than the other way round. Sex-workers within film tend to be stereotypical such as portraying them at rock-bottom/need-to-be-saved, in films such as Pretty Woman and Taxi Driver. I want the characters in my film to challenge these assumptions. To do so, I want to develop them by creating backstories to understand what motivates them, forming their experiences/values/beliefs, together with their own perspective of life before/after the work. Ensuring, the audience believes and cares for them even after the film is over.

“The writer does not copy his originals; he takes what he wants from, a few traits that have caught his attention, a turn of mind that has fired his imagination.” -Somerset Maugham. A significant point being made here is about using people in our lives to inspire us. But instead of just focusing on one person per character, use the people in your life as a pick and mix of qualities/flaws that can be applied. During discussions in lectures, it was said that when writing about characters, to place yourself in their shoes. But, to remember the balance of who the characters are, “As a writer, you don’t have to write characters you like, but characters you believe in.”- Keith Temple. 

I’ve drawn inspiration for the girls I going to write about from females in my life, ie friends with troubled upbringings or protective, head-strong family members. There are also aspects of myself in the characters, for if I can’t relate to them then I’ll find it hard to care for them.

Below is the character biography I made of the protagonist.

In order to give my characters a backstory, I used Linda.J. Cowgill character questionnaire, defining the character and using these questions as a reference when writing the script, keeping their actions consistent with who they are. In understanding my character’s motivations,(knowing them inside and out) will, in turn, help me to develop my story. Cowgill states in her book that for this to be effective then it should not just state the character’s motivations, but also why they are in a predicament. If this is not done then it is simply useless information. When used correctly, the character bio will lead to answering the important questions which will be asked when writing.

Below is another bio I made for my antagonist and the bottom 2 are for the supporting roles…

The Backstories

Cowgill chapter ‘Character & Emotion- Who Does What and Why’, refers to the backstory “How the character’s current behaviour relates to his past life?. As in many cases we don’t need to know all this information; we just need to feel its there.”  I take from this, that to create a dimensional character, they need to have lived their life before what we see on screen. This is the first time I’ve used this technique and making these backstories has helped me to understand my characters, how their pasts have affected their present. Knowing my characters so intimately teaches me their motivation for the choices they make. Without them, would make my story too fixated with the plot, forgetting that these girls are the story. When writing in the future, what I found useful to my practice is in remembering that the characters are what is driving the story. In not giving them the consideration they need, is where the audience loses interest, therefore not caring enough about what happens to them.

Backstories (SFM 7)

All characters must have an inner and outer goal, more than something going on internally. When talking about a character’s wants and needs, Cowgill says that in order to make a character+story, the audience needs to be invested, stating “The protagonist must be committed to something and forced to take action because of that commitment.”

Questions to be answered to really discover who a character truly is; their wants/whys/needs. The “why” is their conscious motivation and their need is their unconscious reasoning, their “inner force that compels a character to act without understanding the reasons why. The need is there to drive the story forward, inner meaning.

Character Roles

As said in post https://stielfilmstudiesrbhs.weebly.com/archetypes.html.

An archetype is a typical character, an action, or a situation that seems to represent universal patterns of human nature. Examples include the following templates, which we were given in a session on characters…

Within my story, all four girls have a purpose to drive the story forward. My protagonist, the hero, is going on a journey – the focal point of the story with Cowgill stating “one character usually emerges out of the group as the true protagonist.” To do so, it’s ideal that the protagonist is intriguing, sympathetic/empathetic, in order to keep the audience caring and invested. With Rachel (the main character), I want her to be apathetic towards life. I want people to connect with her longing in wanting human companionship.

The antagonist works as the opposition to the protagonist ‘The antagonist doesn’t have to be a ‘villain’ to be effective.”In my story Lex is not the ‘bad guy’, she actually wants the best for Rachel as the ‘protector’ “In many shorts, the protagonist/antagonist connection is the primary relationship explored.” Rachel the ‘protagonist’, has never had a parental role-model, so when she finally does there’s friction between them. I see Lex as the mentor and Rachel the student, like Clause Levi Strauss’ Binary Opposites. Whereby posing two binary opposites against one another it forms the strongest kind of conflict to build a story upon. This could be applicable to my character’s situation, the struggles between naivety and brutal honesty.

The supporting characters, Baby and Stella act as catalysts for the protagonists to take action and involve them in conflict. They help Rachel to move out/into their new home, encouraging her to be like them as if they are the helpers/donors to Rachel journey or even false heroes as they lead her down an idealistic path.

Nevertheless, I found difficulties in applying this theory to the characters, as I feel that each character doesn’t have a clear-cut role. This led to me placing more than one character in an archetype and vice versa.  However, it was a good exercise in teaching me that a character must serve the hero’s journey in some way, or else there is no reason for them being here.

Structuring My Film:

“Much depends on the length of a short film in understanding how best to structure it,”- Cowgill (2005). When planning how to structure my film, it’s important that I remember that this is the longest short film I’ve written, as I’m used to writing 3-5 minute films. The plot structure needs to become more complex within 10-20 mins, as there needs to be a strong-midpoint to keep the story interesting. Template examples were provided. 

Narrative Theory is braced within Structuralism, it is the study of narrative structure and the ways these affect the audiences prescription. One of the key theories is Tzvetan Todorov’s theory of Equilibrium. He believes that there are 5 stages of the narrative.

Tzvetan Todorov’s suggests; all narratives follow a three-part structure where they begin with equilibrium, where everything is balanced, progress as something comes along to disrupt that equilibrium, and finally reach a resolution when equilibrium is restored.

This structure has been done so many times before that it’s easy to write a story to be formulaic. However, there are other ways to subvert audience expectations other than structure. Because my film is only 10 minutes and a lot happens within it, a complex structure will be too confusing to the audience.

I feel that this three-part structure would best suit my story, for my key plot points fit into these 5 stages, as Todorov’s believes characters must have a transformation within the new equilibrium, like the transformation my character faces.

Finally, below is my plan for the structure of my story. Ensuring this acts as a blueprint for keeping me on track…

Script Development

To prepare for the 1st draft, the next step is to outline the beat sheet. ‘Blake Schneider’s ‘Save The Cat’. A book that is focused on story structure using beat sheets. It says that beat sheets Beats are simply plot events that drive a story forward. Every story has events that direct the story toward its eventual end, so every story has beats. There’s a variety of beat sheets with differing levels of complexity, such as Master Beat Sheet (combines Larry and Blake’s): 23 beats.

However, I argue that these complex sheets tend to be designed for feature-length films, rather than short films. As recommended by the author, the basic beat sheet will be best suited to shorter stories including:

• End of the Beginning
•  Midpoint
•  Crisis
•  Climax

When applying this tool to my work, I found it harder to fit all plot points in the right space, leading this to stunt my creativity. Therefore, I started to just write some of my key plot points on a blank page. Then, I took what structure I had and applied it to the beat sheet to create a more solid structure. In doing this, I felt that my story now has a proper arc, turning points in the right places (no missing or misplaced beats), asking if the beats follow a cause-and-effect chain? And helped me to just check the pacing in general.

When using this beat sheet design, I felt that some of my turning points didn’t hit the suggested beats exactly. But I’ll keep in mind that these beats are just guidelines and should never come before the story’s pacing, as this is more important. Therefore, for future reference when using these tools, I will not get too caught up in having events happen in specific places.

BASIC BEAT SHEET for Pavement Princesses

Writing Techniques

Before writing, I looked at some techniques from the BBC’s Writers Room ‘Writer’s Essentials’ One of the steps is how to construct a scene. In scenes, they state that something significant must happen, however seemly insignificant?: “So ask yourself – in what way is the scene moving the story forward? What purpose does it have in the story? If you can’t answer either question, then does it need to be there?” This is important for me to think about as one of my concerns with this script is that the story has too much in it for its 10-minute duration. Therefore, if any of my scenes cannot answer these questions then I’ll have to scrap them completely ensuring I ‘trim the fat’. It also states that great scrips have subtext, showing underlying emotions not told explicitly. Silent conversations being had that exist below the surface and beyond what is being ‘said’. There’s a lot of backstory to my characters, but its key that I keep in mind that not everything has to be explained, using subtext is a great way to show this without telling the audience. The subtext is a valuable essential to consider when writing dialogue, it’s about what the characters don’t say in conversations. On the site, it states that this is a good way to avoid ‘on-the-nose-dialogue’ or being expositional.

When applying this to my script, I need to remember there are many characters+it’s important that they are distinguishable on the page, “Great characters have an identifiable voice – they have tone, in-flexion, their own grammar, their own tics and traits and ways of expressing themselves.” knowing how each character is individual will only add to them being three-dimensional people. To do so, I’ve given my characters accents, where they’re from. For instance, Babydoll puts on a childlike voice and is well spoken at times. Stella has a dialect that you can’t place, adding to the mystery of where she comes from and Lex+Rachel have more ‘common’ accents as they’re from the area. This just adds to their backstories, this is how they speak because of their environments.

These techniques when applied, are vital for my professional practice, as falling into bad habits such as useless scenes/expositional dialogue are dealbreakers in identifying an amateur script from a professional one.

Refection When Writing the Script…

To help when developing my professional practice, I looked into how to format at the industry standard, by reading various film scripts and online resources…

I know that at the start of the script, I needed to hook the audience’s attention. As said in the Writers Room “starting the story straight away by showing characters in action, and by showing who the characters are by what they do” I decided to start my script immediately by showing who my protagonist is. She’s childish, with her running away from her problems. I wrote the opening scene with the protagonist storming out of the house in the midst of an argument with her foster parent. It also states on the site that “Don’t worry about prefacing the story, or trying to ‘set it up’, or introducing the characters artificially” in saying that, too much set up doesn’t feel true-to-life. Therefore, instead of writing the whole argument into the script, I decided to just open at the end, as the argument isn’t relevant to the story, the audience just needs to see this conflict.

When it came to writing the middle, my beat-sheet came in the most useful as I had all my ‘pinch points’ planned out prior. It was important to write in conflict, keeping the audience’s attention raised, avoiding a ‘sag’ in the middle. I did this by having my protag moving out of her foster-house. By her running away emphasizes the fact that my character doesn’t have anywhere else to go thus, raising the stakes, making the ending have more impact.

It is said on the BBC Writer’s Room that the best endings are the ones that feel inevitable, but not predictable. I found it hard when writing, to balance that, as I don’t want the ending to feel jarring but at the same time, I want there to be a shock element to what happens. The only way I can check to see If I’ve managed to write an ending that can satisfy the audience is to show the script to another pair of eyes…

Pavement Princesses (script)

Feedback

After the 1st-draft, I gave the script to a none-filmmaker so that  I can see how the story reads to an everyday audience-member. The feedback received was that they didn’t know enough about the main-character to fully-understand/empathize with her. Therefore, finding it hard to follow her perspective. It was a challenge for me to write so many characters within the 10min time-frame, in the future projects I’ll need to consider the set-time when developing my story as I feel that the plot is convoluted. To solve this problem I reverted back to my inspiration for 90s-tween-films+their characteristics, including use voice over-narration. If the main-character can voice her feelings, this will give the audience an intimate look into her inner conflicts. Therefore aiding a connection between character and viewer. However, to make sure that this doesn’t seem cheesy/gimmicky when writing the 2nd draft, I’ve got to avoid ‘on-the-nose-dialogue’, not just saying exactly how she feels.

Pavement Princesses 2nd DRAFT

I then gave my script to an industry professional screenwriter to look over, seeing if there were any issues with pacing/dialogue etc… The only notes I got back were various issues with the formatting, placement of stage directions and adding abbreviations. Another note was that the script felt Americanised. This was an issue as it was important for me to make this a British film, as I feel sex-work in this culture is pushed more into the shadows/hidden from society. The goal for this film was to shed some light onto this topic within British culture. It is likely that the dialogue will feel more British when actors say it with a British accent, however, I’ll add in some British slang or references to make the film feel as though it is set in Britain.

Pavement Princesses 3rd DRAFT

The Pitch

I’ve been tasked to pitch my script as if I was talking to industry executives. Below is how I was going to approach making a pitch…

I was given a ‘crash course’ video on how to create a sold pitch. They define a pitch as to try and get people on board for your project but also to break down the film to help figure out if it actually works, as it can be argued that ‘Stories get better the more you tell them’. Therefore, a response can help alter or rethink the film in terms of what does and doesn’t work.

The picture of rules to follow (above) also advised as to what makes a great pitch. I tried to follow said advice but noticed that it takes practice. In this session, as an exercise, I was tasked with pitching an already made film that I know. Some of the constructive feedback I was given was to stand tall and be authoritative ensuring my eyes do not wander as eye contact ensures confidence. Another point was to keep my points clear, not to ramble and try and predict what questions may be asked to improve preparation and keep focused.

I’ve never given a film pitch before so I did external research into preparation for film pitch also…

A ‘Five Finger Pitch’ is another way to breakdown my film into the most important/concise elements to convey exactly what it’s about. Michael Lengsfield describes his Five Finger Pitch technique as one way to quickly summarize your story, so you don’t keep it too conversational by saying things like ‘this happens, then this happens’ as this has the potential to bore the audience, and lose sense in what you are trying to portray.

 

Below is my example of this pitch, hoping that this will prevent me from ‘waffling’.

As preparation, I have also made a script for the pitch, containing all the above details, including some visual aids/soundtrack to fully immerse the audience to vividly imagine the tone/feel.

Talking Points for My Pitch

Pavement Princesses  (visuals for pitch)

Below is an estimate of the budget for the film, by researching costs online.

Reflection of Pitch

Before I started the pitch, I made the decision not to read from my script to make it feel less rigid, I just used the topics as talking points instead. This led me to give better eye-contact. In reflection, I did leave out key talking points that were important. Therefore, in future, I’ll rehearse more before-hand in front of others to ensure I don’t ramble but also don’t forget vital elements.

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