Fears-Pre-production role breakdown

During the pre-production of FEARS my role in the team has primarily been script writer and head of cinematography. During the pre-production I have taken a lead role in deciding upon and developing the idea for FEARS and developing the visual aspects of the film, both in terms of overall visual style and in terms of what camera and filming techniques should be used to convey the films message effectively. I have also worked closely with my team member, discussing sound design and making general improvements to the script to make the film more manageable to produce. This has involved meeting with and discussing with my team member and completing relevant pre-production paperwork including script, shotlist and research, I have also dictated what elements of paperwork need to be completed by my team member and adopted a role collating our work. Following pre-production my role as writer and cinematographer will continue into role as director, cameraman and head producer with a creative lead over the film.

Fears: Pre-production research

 A limited level of research went into the pre-production of fears, this is largely due to the main idea's having already been formed in the head of Josh for years. The movie is to be a form of psychological horror that focuses on addressing two questions that form the basis for the films inspiration.
"Why aren't horror movies scary?" and "What are we afraid off?.
It has been observed that, generally, horror movies are shocking but not very scary in modern times, with a small amount of research, largely based upon asking friends and family questions and general observations of the issues raised in mass media, we determined that this was due to fears of the real world being far more prevalent and frightening than fears of ghosts and goblins.
It is much more real and much scarier a thought to most people that they may loose their job, get mugged on the way home from work or the feeling of dread when an envelope with the word URGENT on it falls through the door.
Thus we decided to create a horror movie that sought to raise and address these questions and answers.
To do this the movie would follow a persons everyday life, while presenting usually normal situations that many people deal with everyday, in a dark and horrific light, using classic horror cliche's such as dark lighting, chase cams and other techniques.
These techniques are showy and unmistakable and though they may be comic to a certain extent, we believed it was more important to ensure our audience understood the point being made about the potential fear people feel in these situations as opposed to ensuring the film itself was terrifying.
This is in part due to the difficulty with make a letter with the word URGENT on it seem as immediately frightening as an axe murderer charging towards you while wearing some murdered teenagers face as a mask.
To Further ensure that we would be well prepared to embark on production of the film we viewed several old horror films, in particular the works of Hitchcock, who's focus on the psychological effects of horror is exactly what we have planned. The potential use of unusual and disorienting camera angles and filming techniques has been picked up from this and applied to the script, with light and dark being used to radically alter the appearance of the shots on screen. Darkness in particular is used to help isolate the character during moments of panic and give a feeling that the fears he is facing are so all consuming and overwhelming that they override reality.
Overall in depth research is limited due to the experience and passion that both of us have for horror movies and our experiences with a very fearful, modern age.

Reporting on Politics in the local news.

I am personally interested in looking at the political and economic circumstances faced by people here in Liverpool, especially with the next general election looming on the horizon. I am interested in doing a piece on politics as it is an area of personal interest to me and one that I believe must that I believe needs more done to get the general population interested and involved, especially young people.
Within the most prominent local newspaper in my area, the Liverpool Echo, political reporting is woefully inadequate.
Most stories are short and concise, often giving a brief summary of the issue being explored in the article and little else. Most often only a single primary source is used though there is occasional use of secondary sources to provide opinions or commentary on the issue.
The political coverage is also distinctly left wing with a strong leaning towards labor, though this is to be expected as the Liverpool area has traditionally been a labor stronghold.. This can be seen in the wording of the articles and the secondary sources used that are distinctly anti-conservative. For example MP for Walton, Steve Rotheram was highly critical of the current Conservative governments economic plans for Liverpool, calling the current budget "a Paul Daniel's magic show".
Also notable is the level of coverage given to political news within the Echo, on the front page of their website only a single article, at the bottom of the page, concerns Politics or the Economy. This can be compared to the over half a dozen sports related news stories on the front page. In a time where the general election is only 2 months away this is simply not enough to get the public interested, invested in and aware of their political and economic future.
This is exasperated by the simplicity of many of the articles, giving only a brief overview and a few facts and figures, often from a single primary source, there is a lack of in depth reporting on the current political occurrences at both local and national level. While some most of the articles contain some form of an opinion on how the issues covered will effect the readers, few of the pieces provide fair and un-biased analysis of this.
However the overall short length and low depth of the stories is reflective of the style of article across the site as a whole.

Scriptwriting Module reflection. te1054

Beginning the module at the start of the educational year I had never made a movie nor written a script in my life. I've always been full of idea's but never had the skills needed to turn them into films or proper stories and I've hugely enjoyed attaining those skills.

I have found the narrative theory aspects of the module to be the most interesting and the most useful to me. I've always been fascinated with how things work and how they're made and being given the tools needed to analyse films and scripts and break them down into their components and study how they fit together has been a massive boost to my writing abilities.

Studying Todorov, Propp and Strauss came easier to me than the rest of the module, particularly when breaking down 'The Spongebob Sqaurepants Movie' during our first assignment. The movie turned out to have a much more complex application of Todorov and Propp's theories than I had expected. However I ended up highly enjoying breaking down the film and the way the theories applied. It taught me a lot about how to alter and adjust the way different theories can be used to improve a film without limiting it.

Writing scripts themselves has proven more difficult, however learning proper research and character profiling technique has made this much easier than before, though during the third assignment I had less passion for my script idea's than I would have liked. However this was a good thing as the challenge of writing for a script you are not passionate about is likely to be a part of the industry and proper application of theory, idea and research still results in well written and thought out scripts, even if they lack passion.

The small exercises performed in and out of class; single character break downs, quick script analysis and short research tasks has been very useful in cementing the idea's and techniques in my head and teaching me how to apply these to my own ideas both quickly and more thoroughly.

The technical formatting of the script has also been very easy as it is constant, ordered and sensible and suits the way I work.

I have found some difficulty finding the passion to write the scripts I want, though I enjoy writing, writing a script is very thinned down compared to story writing in terms of what you write on the page and creating scripts that clearly tell the story with the limited information than be put into the script has been a little more difficult. From the second and third assignments I learned how important it was to consider the length of your story and how quickly an idea can be formed and represented in a script.

I used the 'Amelia the Acorn' short as a 60 second script and ran into the problem than my original idea for the story would have involved a script closer to 5-10 minutes in length.

Though I was able to re-tool the story to work in 60 seconds it was still difficult to achieve and I wasn't happy about doing so, so in future careful consideration of an idea and how well it scales to different film lengths is important.

I also had some difficulty with the researching, character profiling and mood board type tasks as, although I have learnt well the importance of these things, before I started I had never really used them before when writing or painting, and I still feel I have a lot to learn about how I am best creating my own mood boards and research profiles to suit the way I work and to improve my ideas.

Overall I feel I have been successful int his module, the work has been enjoyable and interesting to me and I feel I have picked up on many of the important elements of how to write a successful script and have created, what I feel, are examples of work that show that slow growing of my understanding. 

I still have some areas to improve my understanding and practices in but for now I feel greatly improved in my ability.

Basic Script writing guide

Before beginning to write a script it is important to start by deciding what it is you wish to write. A horror movie, a political statement, a simple one liner and jot down this idea in its basic form before you begin to develop it.
Development should be gradual, from the basic idea a synopsis or treatment should be formed and then developed into a rough screenplay. AT this stage correct formatting is not necessary.
Following your writing of the screenplay you should begin to look for feedback, preferably from those with film making and script writing experience themselves though almost any feedback is useful in some form. Use this feedback to inform your improving of the screenplay. A screenplay will rarely be perfect the first time you write it, and while it easy to write stories for oneself it is more difficult to write them for others, always remember you’re writing the story for an audience.
While scriptwriting joining workshops, seeking regular critique and working with others can be hugely helpful as writing is typically a very lonely enterprise. And the more you seek out others assistance and critique the more your story will come to be formed in a way that excites the people you are writing it for. This is especially true if you can find people who are fans of the type of story you are writing e.g if you are writing a horror movie then finding horror fans to critique the script will be more helpful than fans of romantic drama’s.

When creating your idea’s it can be helpful to surround yourself with mood boards, films and other media that is similar to the idea you wish to portray in your script. These things can act as a point of inspiration or comparison for your ideas. When writing a horror film is it going to be supernatural or a slasher, perhaps a mood board of famous serial killers and an evening of watching the golden era of slashers will help to inspire your ideas or assist you in refining them.
While you are writing your script carry a small notebook on you, every time you hear something or see something that you think could be useful to your script then write it down. It could be a potential filming location you would love to set your film in, it could just be a joke you overheard than you think would be great for setting the mood in a particular scene, it could be anything at all, but the more you have to work with the easier it will be to create an interesting, in depth, well thought out script.
However just because you think it would work in your script doesn’t guarantee that it will and learning to cut things from your script is as important as adding them in.

When creating your script it is important to remember the narrative structures of a film and what parts create highly memorable films.
Analysing the theories of Propp, Todorov and Strauss should help to give you a better idea of how to structure your story. Propp’s theories focused on character roles such as Hero, Princess and Villain. Todorov focused on the narrative sequence, beginning with equilibrium and strauss focused on the use of binary oppositions in film. However while these theories are all widely recognized as being at the heart of many films they are by no means rules to be followed to the letter and there are times where breaking away from these theories can result in a better story than if they were followed.
It can be useful to first write your idea and create an un-refined screenplay of the idea and then begin to apply these theories, it is much easier to trim a script down than it is to expand it.

When writing your script it is also important to research the genre and subject matter of your script, for example if creating a short about the struggles of an amateur band then researching the music industry, talking to friends or family who are part of small time bands and going to see local bands play at small venues will build your store of information to draw on when writing your script and allow you to create a more authentic story. Though you should never be afraid to apply a bit of artistic license where necessary. Artistic license should however be avoided as much as possible as though it is widely accepted that this is a necessary part of making any story entertaining it is usually glaringly obvious and immersion breaking when a story has departed from the reality of the subject it is portraying.

Once your idea is properly formed you should beginning to convert your screenplay into an industry standard script. Though there are no official guidelines on how to format your script there is an industry standard that most industry professionals are used to seeing, many will not even seriously read a script if it is not formatted in this style.
When formatted according to these standards it should be easy to see the length of your script one it is converted to a film as one page should roughly equal one minute of film.

Once you have reached the stage of having a fully formatted, completed script it is important to then go over the entire script again, ask friends or family to help you enact certain scenes you feel you may be unsure about, if possible ask friendly actors or film making societies to do this.
Re write any area’s that appear to be obviously weaker than the rest of the script, easy from out of nowhere magical solutions to characters problems should be avoided, as should overly complicating things. Constantly ask yourself, is this scene necessary? Does this character really need to say that? Could this problem be solved with a simpler solution? Why are my characters choosing to do this instead of that? It is important to cut out the unnecessary fluff, both to keep the film at an acceptable length and to ensure that the script is easy to follow and does not confuse the viewer.

 

Script writing assignment-reflection

So this was a tougher assignment than the video production one. I've never been particularly good an essay writer, always had trouble cutting down the words or trying to make sense out of what my heads trying to say. However it was easier than I had expected in the end. The spongebob movie turned out to be pretty complex from a narrative standpoint so it gave me lots to work with when I was covering the three unities and how they could be applied to the script, if at all.
The quotation requirements were also difficult to fill, largely just due to the difficulty of finding reputable source that can back up your own interpretations of theories and the script as well as how to apply theories to that script. In the end I largely relied on very factual quotes, mostly just reiterating the theory itself before going into the in depth discussion.
The script writing itself though is very interesting, I've always loved writing and learning how to go about that with a little more structure and knowledge and learning how to use a wider range of resources to support my writing is really good for me and it's gonna me pretty excited to take part in NaNoWriMo this year.
However trying to apply all of these theories does run into a bit of a roadblock at times since I've always been a pretty individual thinker, I tend away from overly incorporating other ideas into my own, very much a go with the flow writer sometimes. Though I suppose one way to work the best of both into future assignments, scripts and other writing and narrative efforts is to simply write it up as I would ordinarily and then begin to apply theories and narrative ideas afterwards, using them to help bring order and structure to the madness, so to say.

In terms of the classes themselves and all the things I'm learning I'm just constantly excited to be learning and looking for ways to start thinking in a different way and improve myself. The narrative theories themselves are fascinating, as is watching out for how they're actually used in film and other media.
Working at a community cinema is also really helpful throughout this work as it means I constantly have the chance to be putting all the things I've been learning into practice, largely in my own time, to reinforce them in my head and improve my understanding further.
The classes in general do occasionally drag a little and a large part of the time is spent just learning the theories with relatively little time given in class for us to go out and put them into practice. Though this could simply be due to how early into the course we are I still feel that if it carries on it could become a little tedious, alongside the fact that I learn better through putting things into practical use myself.

I'm more interested in putting all these ideas into use in my own films rather than over analysing a dozen other films. I'm a creator at heart.

So on a less work based and more personal note, I think I'm finally beginning to run into how difficult this is all going to be. I' not afraid and I know I can do it, breaking old habits, making new friends, trying to get all the work done. Still looking for a job. The worries of moving out next year, y'know, trying to find a place with people I'll be comfortable staying with. Sorting out my social insecurities.
Which I've been doing great on, I've really surprised myself with how quickly I've settled in and I'm pretty quickly gaining in confidence.
But it doesn't mean my head doesn't still love to over think just about everything.
I guess it's all just a big change, from having nothing and doing nothing to suddenly everything going on in the space of less than a month.
New problems are popping up too, family things and other stuff, and that starting to get to me too, because I've been enjoying all this new stuff, all this change, the chance to finally get on with my life. But it just feels like some of the decisions I'll have to make soon, no matter what choice I pick, none of em are right. It's one path or the other but they both lead to Silent Hill :\