D1: Script evaluation

Strengths

I think that looking back at my script a little, it's not half bad as I feel like I managed to incorporate all the fundamental elements I wanted to be in it, the characters are written well, the dialogue complements their beliefs and attitudes plus the scenes make sense. I’m happy with the fact that the film is going to look very similar to what I envisioned when I was about to start writing the screenplay, I’ve done a good job at sticking to the two sole themes and developing them as well as creating the sort of atmosphere between the characters and the audience that I wanted. It'll now be down to the actresses, with the help of my directing and editing to translate this into the finished product. The final screenplay is slightly different to the developed idea I did before I started writing the screenplay but in a positive way as I’ve included Sam’s Voice over as a bridge between the audience and herself to explain what she’s thinking and the reasoning to some of her actions. However, this might still not be enough to show Sam's intentions and actions, therefore portraying her in a different light than what I intended. Considering that I only had an idea of what the middle of the film will look like, I reckon I did well in fleshing out the rough ideas I had for the beginning and the end, especially since I didn’t invasion an ending until I was about to finish the first draft. Although some aspects of the character description can’t be fulfilled - like Sam’s tattooed arms because I couldn’t find any suitable fake tattoo sleeves – I’m extremely happy with how close each character will look almost exactly how I want them to. By far the best part of my screenplay is some of the dialogue that I inputted simply because it either comes from or was inspired by people that I interviewed about their views on homophobia and racism. The authenticity of the comments and character actions makes the film more balanced as it is essentially a film highlighting both sides of each topic and issue raised. This also did give me a lot of pressure as I had to pick and choose what should and shouldn't be in the film as well as being able to make the characters really seem like they believe in what they are saying but also not contradicting themselves at each point. Creating such heavy and well throughout characters with strong personalities and opinions - with some that I don't agree with - was a difficult task but from reviews of the script, it seems like I did a good job with it. I put a lot of attention to the little details of each character and at times it was a bit too much which is why some lines in the first draft are removed for the second draft, most notably the line that insinuated that Sam was abused when she was younger, but I think the depth in detail that I put into writing the characters' dialogue and attitudes was amazing, but obviously this is a biased opinion. Once I managed to get the characters exchanging dialogue, they became more realistic because the dialogue was more solid, convincing and realistic. This meant that the conversation just flowed and moved the story on well which will hopefully seem natural to the audience after I finish editing. Because this film can mean a lot to a lot of people, I gave the actresses minimal room to change the dialogue as I wanted to make sure that the meaning of the dialogue doesn't change or get misinterpreted.

Weaknesses

I think I missed a lot of opportunities to add more content because I wanted to meet the 10-minute target, so I ended up cutting out a lot of potential dialogue and scenes which I think would've made the film a lot better. One of my biggest issue personally, is the fact that one of the first scenes - where Sam goes to the bar to confront Laura before she arrives - may not actually make much sense to the viewer as they will need to read into a bit too much to understand Sam as a character. Sam's voice over might not be enough to help to explain her actions and certain parts of the movie, mainly the beginning when Sam goes to confront Laura. I didn’t describe the setting too well in all the script drafts as I continuously described the main setting as “A Bar” with no description with what it’s intended to look like or the type of atmosphere I wanted it to create. Another big issue I had when writing was my grammar, when filming we noticed multiple paragraphs and lines of dialogue that didn't make sense, so we had to tweak them to fit the rest of the script and still make sense. My poor writing skills and constant cheesy lines became apparent when I went over my first draft a week after handing it in. I realised that it wasn't getting to the point and a lot of the dialogue was unnecessarily long so this lead to the continuous editing and changing, including changing the layout of the script by moving a whole section earlier that it was initially. Looking back at certain points of the dialogue it does seem like I tried to input as much philosophy and ideas as possible which can make parts of the screenplay denser and more complicated than I wanted.

Threats

One of the biggest issue that could arise is that the characters aren't as fleshed out and developed as I’d like, resulting in the audience not being able to sympathize and connect with the characters, and therefore making the film feel not as appealing. Because I am only from an ethnic minority and not homosexual, I can’t fully understand the actions that Sam does and her responses to Laura's comments.  Therefore, despite all the research I did before writing the first draft, I might not be able to truly portray the opinions and beliefs of either character, especially since the characters do look at two different sides of society for both homosexuality and racism. When first developing the idea, I was determined to avoid including religion for anyone’s opinions, however as I did more and more research and interviews it quickly became apparent that I a lot of the reasons for certain opinions was the persons religion. So, because of this, I felt the need to include religion but not mention which ones as I was trying to stop offending anyone with a religion. from time to time the dialogue is weak, a little cheesy or just simply confusing to the audience without some context especially at the beginning, this does hinder the overall film and characters' portrayal as it makes them - especially Laura - look like basic and shallow characters, which the opposite to what I wanted the characters to be. Another issue that occurred during writing the scripts was that I ran out of ideas at a point so it does seem like a section of the screenplay is forced, this was because I didn’t have a set idea of how I wanted everything in the film to be.

Conclusion

I think that overall the script went very well especially as I am working alone on this project. I reckon that the audience will respond positively, although I am ready for the inevitable issues that people will have with it. However, if the issues that the audience have with the film come from the topics raised and some of the reasons of the characters' actions, then I know that the film would have done what I intended it to do from the beginning: get people talking about the social issues mentioned in the film. My biggest regret is that I didn't put more depth into some of the ideas and thoughts of the characters, I know that if I was to explore the ideas of each character in more depth the film would be a lot better off. When comparing my short film to the brief, I believe I've done two thirds of what the tasks I was asked to do: develop a script for a short film, the script must be part of a recognised genre and a maximum of 10 minutes. I managed to write a screenplay for a short film that would be shown at the INDI film festival with a strong connection to the drama genre. I created the screenplay after several weeks of toggling around with ideas and concepts as well as nine different variations and drafts of the final screenplay up until I was content with the screenplay. I believe that I managed to implement the codes and conventions of a drama in my script, this includes elements such as the film having a clear and recognisable beginning, middle and end, there being an issue for a character or characters to overcome and a resolution/new equilibrium. I tried to end the screenplay in the best way I could without causing offense to anyone as I wanted the resolution to be that people can still get along even with their varied views on life. As a result I made the two characters set their vast differences aside and focus more on what they love and discuss their viewpoints rather making it lead to conflict. The only part of the brief that I may not have met was making the film no longer than 10 minutes as the film itself was under 10 minutes however after editing in the credits and and intro the timing went just past the required 10 minutes. Despite this I am very happy with the overall product I've created, especially the script.

P4: Final Screenplay

P4: Draft 2

P4: Draft 1

Unit 22 - Conventions of my script

The first page always has to be able to make the reader of the script know: who wrote the script, the production company, the name of the film and what the text is based off of/inspired by. This helps with identifying the script. A sulgline/scene heading is used to set the scene and help the prop team, editors and everyone else involved in making the film aware of what the scenes will need to look like.

It was incredibly hard to write my script in a way that my characters would be convincing, especially when there's very little action in the film between the characters and they spend the majority of the time sat at a bar table arguing. The hardest part of was making the characters believable with their opinions and dialogue, so to combat this I went around and asked various people their thoughts on the topics that were going to come up in the film just so that I could get more that one opinion - my own. Once I asked all the people and collected a good amount of varied responses, I started writing the script only to realize that all the content I wanted to put in the film wouldn't fit within the 10 minute time period that the film was meant to be within. After trimming the content to just 2 topics - racism and homophobia - I also had to strip the development of the discussions so they would still be interesting when translated onto screen.

Usually when writing a script, a page of screenwriting is equivalent to about a minute of film, however with a dialogue heavy film like mine, it's not the case because my script was 14 pages long but after filming and editing is likely to be a lot shorter than the 14 minutes it'd usually be.

I tried to make sure that both protagonists fit their character descriptions through their use of dialogue with each having strong opinions on their believes and making them seem intelligent but realistic so they don't start using sophisticated words mid-sentence. I think this is vital for the characters to be believable and relatable to some of my target audience, hopefully all this can be translated into the film.

The film will only have three characters in it (Sam, Laura and the waiter), so to add a different aspect of the film I added Sam's voice as a voice over (shown as SAM (VO) in the screenplay) to fill the quiet moments with some dialogue, tell the audience what Sam is thinking and more especially is used to give reason for Sam's actions otherwise the film would be a lot harder to understand.

The script is written in a linear storyline with the conflict starting very early into the film and unlike normal dramas isn't caused by an action but is instead triggered by the dialogue of one character. The script has minimal twists or plot points because I wanted to focus more on what the characters were saying and trying to make the viewer question themselves rather than focusing on the actions that happens.

Parenthesis are extremely important in certain situations and scenes because they let the director know how each character should be acting and performing in a scene, this is even more important if that action they are doing can/does affect future events.

I used the same "Cut to" transition feature throughout the script because I felt it was the best choice when comparing it to other transition types because it shows that something else is happening straight after the scene that the viewer has just seen. The other option that I could've used was the "Dissolve to" feature which would be very effective at the beginning of my film after Laura leaves Sam on the bus/bench because it would symbolise a passing of time and I wouldn't have to explain it to the audience as a subtitle or as a voiceover.

There's no shot types on my script because I didn't want to restrict myself to certain angels and shot types when filming, plus I hadn't done the storyboard at that point and I was still writing so I didn't want to end up using the same shot types over and over again, so choosing angles would be hard to do.