Week 8 - What Is A Sequence?

1. 2. 3. A. B. C.

1. Research;

"Part of the storyteller's task is to keep us from getting bored; to maintain, use, and stimulate our curiosity about the story."(Cooper & Dancyger, Writing the Short Film) I think this partly comes from the original idea and partly from how the story is then told. With Pat (working title) I have a clear narrative structure that builds on the tension as the story unfolds. The married man and his hooker, the married woman flirting with a colleague, the hooker's unexpected natural death, the wife giving into temptation, the couple reunited. I like my structure but feel some details might become too much; the marriage of convenience is, for example, anti climatic. I feel I need to be less precious about my idea and let it evolve and be more malleable. In Writing Short Scripts, Phillips advises writers to experiment; "Those who remain open to possibilities, seek options, and try out many of them usually write more powerfully than those who quickly zero in on a story and stick with it," he knowingly suggests. I can recognise this within my original pitch. Like a fine wine, giving an idea room to breathe is important. When writing the first scene I turned off the light and just imagined myself as the characters in the situation, then described what I saw and heard in freehand. "In a good screenplay, both dialogue and physical action flow from a character's dramatic action (or want or need).."(Cooper & Dancyger, Writing the Short Film). I kept this in mind when writing my dialogue as it was important for me that everything feel natural. I want the audience to feel that what is unfolding before them is the truth, is reality. If I didn't feel that when working on the scene I changed it.

2. Feedback;

Here is the first scene of my script Pat. I feel, within my pitch, I've covered all three different relationships between audience & character knowledge (though honestly this was unintentional), examples below;

• A. Mystery - The audience do not know that Lana and Stuart are married.
• B. Identification - Pat is a hooker that Stuart has paid for.
• C. Suspense/Dramatic Irony - The audience knows that Lana has kissed Eddie

The feedback from the class was mixed. Again they said the characters were defined but the dialogue didn't always ring true. For example they rightly asked wouldn't an experienced prostitute get her money up front? They also suggested that Pat should die right away. They argued that because it's the inciting incident it should happen quickly rather than two scenes later. I agree with this because having her death at the end of the first scene would keep the audience guessing; what happened in the bathroom? Is she dead? What will Stuart do? They did like the 'Stuart Little' joke and some people laughed. They also enjoyed the dynamic between the two characters. I'm still playing with several ideas for the conclusion which will be decided upon by next week. I'm still trying to make the marriage of convenience work but may have to let that ship sink. Other possible outcomes are the couple rediscovering their love (aww), finally excepting that the marriage is over (sniff), domestic violence (boo) or crazy anger sex (wink, wink). I'm not going to let the class decide this one though as Crank 2 was briefly mentioned in class.... enough said!

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3. Brief for Week 9

First draft of script

Week 7 - What Is A Scene?

Been there? Done it? Scene it!.

Looking over my first pitch idea I found it to be a bit flat. The twist at the end was fine but it was more an accumulation of the British social realist ideas that have already been overdone in the past; male rebellion, teen pregnancy, absentee father, educational ambivalence etc. The idea needs some work to become rounded. I thought about maybe Frankie telling his Mum and his Mum suggesting or paying for an abortion. My idea is almost the start of a feature film, setting up the characters to be more than they seem. Phillips warms in his book Writing Short Scripts that "Your scripts should imitate life, not someone else's imitations of it." He advises that writers should create from there own knowledge a story and/or characters to help make informed ideas. With Government Baby I'd done the opposite, thought of an interesting concept then made characters to fit within it.

For one of my other modules we have to interview someone whom we do not know. I've chosen my house-mates mother Karen. At dinner (sort of a pre-interview) Karen and her friend told me about an experience they had as receptionists at a hospital. An woman in her 50's had died and her body brought to their desk. She had no bag or belongings and all that was know about her was that she was a hooker called Pat. The story had a kind of dark humour to it. How did they know she was a hooker? How did they know she was called Pat? Suddenly I was intrigued by the mystery of the woman. I thought what if she died whilst at 'work' and her client had to call 999 but didn't want to be implicated because he's married. The character grew the more I thought about her. I didn't want to give up on my first pitch so I thought writing another and then letting the class decide which they preferred was a safe bet. After all they are my initial audience and critics.

Here's my 2nd pitch idea;

Pat by Tom Stock

Stuart relaxes in the hotel bedroom. He hears Pat humming to herself in the bathroom. Singing a few lines she puts on her silk nightdress. The bathroom door opens and with a lit fag hanging from her mouth she huskily asks Stuart (who is old enough to be her son) if he likes what he sees. He replies by asking her if she has to smoke in the room. She stubbornly asks him the same question again. He says it depends on how much she charges. She slowly struts up to him and whispers ‘half price because you’re my favourite Stanley’. He tells her his name is Stuart and she says she knows and asks him to pour her a glass of wine. She states the room is a bit French and that she always wanted to visit Paris, but cuts herself off to ask him what size condom he needs. He tells her to come and find out and then pulls her onto the bed.

Lana is talking to someone on the phone. We can see by the ring on her finger she is married. She puts down the phone and shouts out into the waiting room ‘Mrs Morris the Doctor will see you in Room 5A’. She repeats herself. Frustrated she turns around to ask her colleague to try, stating that people sometimes don’t understand her accent. Her colleague tries and is successful. Eddie, standing behind her, tells her he understands every word she says. Without turning around she tells Eddie that he seems to be the only one. She turns and smiles whilst catching his eye. Keeping eye contact she asks him how she can help and he tells her he’s the porter for the night. She tells him she’s glad she has a real man tonight. Eddie retorts doesn’t she have a real man every night, which makes her blush and giggle.

Laughing loudly Pat lights up a fag and tells Stuart that he’s a dirty fucker. Whilst going to the bathroom to freshen up she asks ‘Stanley’ to pour her another glass. This time Stuart doesn’t correct her instead he asks her how much for another go. The bathroom door opens slightly and Pat says ‘Ah so you do like what you see darling?’ and winks at him, before closing the door and singing to herself. Seconds later Stuart hears a loud gasping and then a giant thud and runs into the bathroom to see Pat dead on the bathroom floor. She’s been sick and there’s severe bleeding. He checks her pulse and notices a tattoo of a heart on her thigh. Around the heart in a scroll is the name Stanley. Stuart panics and goes to ring hotel reception but hangs up. Then rings 999 and tells them what has happened. They ask for her details but all he knows is that she’s called Pat. They ask if she has identification so he looks through her bag. All he can find is a purse with Pat on it. Stuart opens the purse and inside it over a thousand pounds cash. No ID. The voice asks him for the address and tells him that the police will be around to inspect the body shortly. He hangs up and quickly gets dressed and grabs his belongings. On the bed he sees the purse. He grabs it and takes out his money leaving the rest. He opens the door to leave the room but pauses to take his wedding ring out of his pocket and place back on his finger. He then looks at the purse open on the bed one more time.

In a quiet side room Lana and Eddie are aggressively kissing. In-between breaths he tells her that he has wanted to kiss her for months but he held off because she’s married. She immediately stops, fingers her wedding ring and tells herself, ‘yes two years’. Without looking at him she whispers she’s sorry, grabs her coat and bag and runs out of the room. Before he can run after her she calls to her friend and together they leave the building. Eddie angrily slams the door and slumps to the floor. Outside Lana is asked by her friend if she needs a lift and tells her that her husband is here. She then gets into a nearby car. Lana greets her husband Stuart and asks how his day was. He says shit but would rather not talk about it. Lana says her day was the same and asks him if the letter came. Stuart looking pensive just nods. Lana asks him if they’re having a visit and he nods again. Visibly shattered she replies ‘shit’ He tells her that it’s next Wednesday and asks if she can make it. This time she just nods. After a pause Lana informs Stuart that she’ll now have to meet his mother. The car is silent and the couple stare uneasily forward.

The class almost unanimously voted for my 2nd pitch saying they liked the characters and found the story interesting. However they didn't understand the scene at the end and found some parts confusing. When I explained that the marriage between Lana and Stuart was one of convenience (so she could obtain a British passport) some said that it subtracted from the tension created by their individual affairs. Others commented that they liked the narrative of the scenes and how they cut away at important points making them want to know what happened next. Cooper & Dancyger state in Writing the Short Film that "...one of the tasks of any narrative, whatever the medium, is to engage the curiosity of it's audience." I'm pleased that the characters are very visual though the class said that I should make the difference between Eddie and Stuart more noticeable. They also felt that Pat was important enough to be the name of the title and that Lana and Stuart had a more intreiging presence. I agree with all of these points and can see how I can put skin on the bones of my pitch. In the lecture we discussed Stanislavsky's concept of 'beats' within a scene which I think easily applies to my pitch. When writing the scene for next week I will explore how I can move forward with the narrative but still keep some mystery. However the resolution between the couple in the last scene needs to be handled delicately so not to turn into melodrama. As critic David Lodge states in The Art of Fiction, a writer should interest an audience by "...raising questions in their minds, and delaying the answers,". I can see my problem being too many questions, not enough answers.

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Brief for Week 8

Write a scene involving the protagonist of your film scenario in which something changes.

The scene does not have to include dialogue. The scene can be of any length and should be written in correct screenplay format and style.

Bring it to class next week on paper.

Week 6 - Ideology

The right way to see things.

This week was a bit manic because I didn't decide on which idea I wanted to present until last minute. I kept changing my mind; is it good enough? Too messy? Uninteresting? Is it boring? In the end I went for the idea that I'd enjoy to watch as a film. I got the idea from the term 'Government Baby' which is used to refer to a baby that is born to a parent or parents that cannot afford to raise it themselves. The parent(s) then require to live off the government for food, welfare, housing, and/or medical aid. At the moment the idea has more of a reveal narrative which I intend to work on. As David C says if it's not shit you have a problem. Here's my pitch;

Government Baby by Tom Stock

Frankie is asleep in his mate’s car. Ben beeps his horn several times at the traffic. It jolts Frankie awake. Ben takes the piss out of Frankie for being hung-over. Frankie looks out the window and sees a gang from the rival college and asks Ben to pull over. Frankie shouts at them to come over and they exchange playful insults. Frankie, to gain power, spits in one of the guys faces and Ben bolts the car down the road. They stop at a local shop and Frankie shoplifts, while Ben buys fags.

We then see the boys leaning on the car and smoking next to the ‘Williamson College’ sign. A generic speech about ‘their bright futures’ and ‘successful careers’ is told by cutting between several different teachers standing in front of the class. Frankie lazily puts up his hand and the teachers (in unison) ask him what he wants. He asks them what the point of the speech was and in doing so gets sent out of the class. Walking down the hallway, Frankie sees Tiff and struts up to her and asks if she got his text. She finishes her conversation with her girlfriends before she turns to Frankie, looks him up and down, and asks him if her slept with Chelsea a month ago. Frankie sweats for a bit while she loudly chews her gum. Tiff asks him to be honest for once. He sincerely tells Tiff that he likes her and that he and Chelsea just kissed and he hasn’t seen Chelsea since. Thinking he’s sorted the problem he leans in to kiss her. Tiff slaps him. She tells him the reason why he hasn’t seen her since is because she’s dropped out of College. Frankie looks confused. Tiff bluntly informs him that Chelsea is pregnant and he’s fucked.

At home Frankie walks into the living room bewildered. Whist Frankie turns on the telly his Mother coos ‘Who is it?’ from the kitchen. He states to her that it’s not going to be his Dad and she makes the excuse that he knows his Father is very busy at the moment. She then calls to him to put the news on, asks how his day was and states her desire for Mr Croft to be behind in the polls, all in the same breath. She then walks in, sits down next to him and hands him a cup of tea before commenting on how quiet he is today. She moves a photo of Frankie’s Dad and David Camron shaking hands outside the ‘Williamson College’ and places her mug next to it. They both sit in silence for a moment. The telly informs them that Croft is ahead of Williamson in the polls. She then tells Frankie to drink his tea to make him feel better.

I wanted the idea to be a reaction to the negative portrayal of today's youth throughout mainstream media in much the same way anyone from Iraq or Afghanistan has been tattooed as a terrorist. Short films like Steve Looker's Sacrifice and more shockingly Brian Percival's About a Girl almost play into this generalisation that with each generation society becomes a little bit worse off, more segregated, more dysfunctional, than before. You could say this trend of film acts as a cerimonial passing of blame from societies fault onto the parents and then finally the kids themselves. Even I feel like a visual tourist watching films of this niche and I grew up on esates much like those shown. I guess you could say that this is my controlling idea; to suggest that working class problems are not exclusive to the working class.

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Brief for Week 7

Draft a treatment for your short film idea.

A treatment is a summary of your story written in paragraph form in the present tense. It may contain the occasional significant line of dialogue. Unlike a script, a treatment should only include major scenes. It should give a good sense of character and the central conflict, and may suggest the visual style.

The total length should not exceed 1200 words.

Bring it to class next week on paper.

Week 5 - Fantasy, surrealism, mysticism

Saying it without saying it.

It would be naive to assume that fantasy has no place in a short film grounded in British social realism. Fantasies can easily convey aspirations for the future or longing for an unobtainable lover. Surrealism could convey a perverted mind or drunken fumble in the bushes. Mysticism can imply segregation by lack of heritage or someone knowing more than they let on. I watched Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's deliberately blasphemous surrealist film L'Age d'Or which emphasizes how symbols can be used to create a feeling of unease. For example the scene in the garden with the couple who are passionately (and awkwardly) sucking all of each others fingers at once. He strokes his lover on the cheek and his fingers disappear revealing a deformed hand as if she's just eaten them. My first reaction was horror and then I questioned myself why I found the image so repulsive. I found it a really responsive moment that brought to my attention my prejudice against ugliness and how I equate it with negativity. This is hopefully something I can aim for in my final script; an audience reaction.

My brief idea this week came from an unlikely source; my mother. My Nan had visited a ghost whisperer to speak to her relatives whom had passed. Mum said that at some point during the session my granddads mother (who had treated Nan like an literal slave) came through asking for forgiveness because she was in a 'bad place'. Shocked my Nan simply replied that there was 'nothing to forgive' and that she doesn't hold grudges. Strangely all this happen before I realised what this weeks lesson was about. Couldn't of been more apt. My scene, involving two characters and including a reversal of status between them, is called The Good Women

In today's lecture we looked at the power of the unconscious and talked about Freud's structural model of the psyche;

Id - "It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. [It] produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle."

The Id could be likened to the over-riding desire of a character to maintain equilibrium.

Ego - "The ego separates out what is real. It helps us to organise our thoughts and make sense of them and the world around us. The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions. But the super-ego is constantly watching every one of the ego's moves and punishes it with feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inferiority."

The Ego is perhaps a characters sense of practicality over desire or even the acceptance of life as is.

Super-Ego - "The super-ego retains the character of the father. Under the influence of authority, religious teaching, schooling and reading, the stricter will be the domination of the super-ego over the ego later on—in the form of conscience or perhaps of an unconscious sense of guilt."

The Super-Ego could be seen as the consequence of a characters actions or the resistance of action.

In the lecture we discussed the way in which a characters psyche both affects and effects how a narrative plays out and how surrealist ideas can visualise those outcomes. We used an abstract method to create ideas in our seminars involving a person taking notes on two others having a conversation whilst they read a news paper. From the record of the conversation we then took an moment and embellished it into characters and a short narrative. My experiment resulted in to school boys talking about batman on the bus and then showing off to a girl they like - hardly Scorsese but it will do. I guess the most interesting characters are the ones that are recognisable to us in some respects but unpredictably volatile in others; the same applies to to real people I guess.

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Brief for Week 6

Write a PITCH!

Week 4 - Genre shorts

One person short.

Even though I missed the lesson due to illness I took the free time and brainstormed some possible ideas for my script. I'm currently playing with social realism and kinda reacting to the conventions of the movement which ironically is how the movement started. I figured it would not only be realistic to film due to the abundance of interesting natural locations within north London but also it keeps the cost down and allows me to focus on character over aesthetics. I re-watched Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank along with the more traditional A Taste of Honey by Tony Richardson. A few scenes in particular convey not only the desperation of the characters situations but also the possibility of hope and the beauty of the locations. These are both important to think about when writing;

Fish Tank - Mia goes for a walk

A Taste of Honey - Jo & Geoff visit a graveyard

Last weeks brief asked us to use memory to relive an incident that made us feel a strong emotion. I chose to use an early memory involving my little sister Sarah. It was the first time I remember being strongly self aware and thinking about others to the extent that I behaved differently.

Memory by Tom Stock

I remember not liking the fact that I had a baby sister. I remember hating her because she had stolen not only mummy and daddy’s love, but also my old baby toys that had suddenly become interesting to me again. Sarah didn’t help herself though as she had an awful wail, that only reinforced my hatred for her, always cried and had the most putrid nappies. I recall finding it strange that someone so disgusting was dressed so prettily. I remember being roughly four and my sister one. Mummy had taken us into town and as normal Satan was wailing her head off in a pink frock. I remember standing in the square, by a small kid’s park, beside Mummy with Sarah in her buggy. It was mid afternoon and there were only a few people walking by us and the shops all around. It was noisy but not scary and I recall it being a bright white day, though this may be added texture. Mummy had just told me off for some reason so I decided to leave her and my sister to be annoying together and wandered away. I think I must have walked into a shop or bumped into her because suddenly an old lady asked me where my Mummy was. I remember she smelt of lavender and bad breath and that I wasn’t scared because she reminded me of my Nanny. I stubbornly pointed to Mummy and Sarah because I knew she was going to take me to them. She turned and saw them and then asked me if that was my sister? I said yes. Then she replied to me, ‘I bet you love your sister so much that you deserve a sweetie’ and before I knew it I was overcome with such pride to have a sister that got me sweets that I screamed at the old lady, ‘My names Thomas and my sister is called Sarah and I love her loads and loads!’ I ran back to Mummy and gave my sister a big kiss (naturally she started crying) and then ran back over to the old lady who gave me a humbug which I quickly spat out. I’m told that for the rest of the day I kept running up to strangers in the hope they would give me sweets. I don’t recall if any did but Sarah’s had all my love and attention since.

Keeping memory in mind will explore some of the aspects of my working class background that may appeal to an audience. Issues surrounding race, class, sexuality all make interesting subject matter though that could be applied to anything that counterbalances the norm.

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Brief for Week 5

Write a short (2 to 3 page) scene, in screenplay format, which involves two characters, and which includes a reversal of status between them – one starting high and ending low, the other vice versa. The shift does not need to be large, so long as it's clear, and the scene doesn't have to involve spoken dialogue, although it can.