LO3 — Task 1: Five Pages of Short Film Script

LO2 — Initial Ideas

Here is a screen cap of three different mindmaps as to what script I should do.  In the end, I went with the Concept Science fiction movie (the Twilight Zone-ish) 

LO2 — Target Audience Profile

Julian is a 21 year old man who studies Computer Science at Lincoln.  He lives amongst 4 others in a house, all of which are who he considers close friends, all they they are not in STEM fields like Julian is.  Julian, as a way to achieve money, is creating graphics for Youtube Channels to make quick money until he finds himself an software engineer job.  Not the biggest fan of loud social gatherings, he's more of a 1 on 1 restaurant meal than 20-man clubbing nights. He, in his spare time, loves to indulge in movies, tv shows, and books.  
He usually enters his entertainment around Science Fiction genre fiction.  Such as military science fiction, concept science fiction.  Favourite films include Looper, 2001 Space Odyssey and Predator.  Most searched websites include Vimeo, Verge and Reddit. 

LO2 — Moodboard

LO2 — Group

For this Unit, I will be working on my own script for my own Short Film in tandem with Unit 41:  Production for a Short Film / Documentary.

Tutor Feedback

Alicia Edward's (Unit Tutor) feedback sheet:

And here is my feedforward sheet, the corrections are now uploaded to the task in question.

LO1 — Task 3: Comparing the Scripts

STYLE AND CONTENT

All the scripts above are presented in 12pt Courier, the status quo of the written text's appearance. Originally, this font was created to impersonate the visual output from typewriters back in the day when these were the primary writing platforms.  However, scripts are the only ones today that still remain exclusive the format. Technical documents (like Government documentation and legal emails) used to be Courier 12pt, but changed the norm to 14pt Times New Roman.  

There are many commonalities in all screenplays in terms of formatting.  For instance, in screenplays, all character name tags (attached to following dialogue) will always be centred.  There’s not a lot of use for bold in scripts, any emphasis done by actual formatting is considered cheating in some way.  Italics aren’t recommended either, however sometimes action writers will CAPITALISE SPECIFIC POINTS OF ACTION. 

LETHAL WEAPON

Shane Black's Lethal Weapon is a shining example of a writer who isn't afraid to let his unique voice on to paper. Shane Black believes that there aren't much rules to screenwriting despite what educational bodies and accomplished 'gurus' tell you, other than keep to the layout and to entertain the heck out of whoever is reading. 

Yes, he did stick to the standard conventions to scriptwriting, but the way he wrote the description (or ACTION) was empowered by swagger and bravado. It's formal, with the air of stylish colloquialism. 

"Imagine God in Monte Carlo.  Tossing dice the length of a craps table.  Now, imagine the dice are BURNING CARS."

This is how Shane does his description. It does what it's supposed to, inform you what is happening, but he's exercising your ability to visualise the action with entertaining prose.  He could be doing just as well in the novel industry, but whatever, he made a million dollars off the first draft of the first script he ever did (which was Lethal Weapon).

In this sense, the film is addressed to everyone who, for whatever reason, is reading it.  It reads well for the film execs who are funding the movie, it works for the director, it works for the entertainment and learning of now students of screenwriting. 

Like any other 90-minute action film, it has a beginning, middle and end. It doesn't specify with technical terms where the acts end and begin (unlike most TV scripts).

BIOSHOCK

The Bioshock script follows a set layout that is very much familiar to that of a stage pay. The second page contains a list of all the chapters (or, levels) indicated by their debut page number. 

It isn’t in Courier 12, instead it’s in a Serif typeface.  Purpose wise, it has nearly all relevant dialogue (leaving out collectible items and optional quests) spoken by characters, and the prose details the average on-rails experience of the player (necessary actions to complete sequences).  

With this in mind, it’s probably a draft that indicates the midpoint of the scripting process. It seems detailed enough to not be a first draft, but lacks all the details found in the retail version of the game. 

BREAKING BAD

Breaking Bad reads like your run-of-the-mill screenplay, however, due to it’s TV nature, it contains underlined text informing what ACT of the story we’re in. It breaks up the episode into TEASER, ACT 1, ACT 2, ACT 3, ACT 4. 

This is necessary to highlight where Advert breaks should come in (as required by the network), so that they’re able to create suitable moments that allow the audience to take a break, without feeling incredibly forced. (Though, watching these shows without interrupting ads also slows just as well.) 

Like Lethal Weapon, the prose of the ACTION possesses some style to it. In this case, it gives emotional context to the characters within the words, as opposed as writing just bare-boned stage directions. 

EXAMPLE:
“Walt considers it for a moment, f**k it.”

PARKS & REC

Single Cam sitcom, so it has a lot more unique style and identity to it and multi-cam laugh track sitcoms. Unlike multi-cam sitcoms, where dialogue must be as sharp and short that it can be, without line spacing that leaves loads of white space for the purpose of leverage, this script looks like a standard screenplay. Like BB, it indicates where acts begin. The prose is written in a more raw standard style, and reads more like technical stage directions. 

NEWS STORY

TV Scripts come with their own technical elements to help anchors and producers.  These specific technical details include:

'SOT' means 'Sound On Tape', this is a short part of an interview (around 5 - 15 seconds), for example, SOT will be found in the script of a news broadcast as there will be vox pops or interviews in the show.

'N.I' is news item, there is no video support, this lasts around 30 seconds and is generally found only in news broadcasts.

'SILENT' means you can hear the presenters voice only with visuals, this is often used in documentaries and news broadcasts, the presenter narrates what is happening in the visuals, this appears on the script of a documentary frequently, an example of a documentary would be your run-of-the-mill David Attenborough documentary or Horizon. 

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

There’s a multitude of different structures found in these scripts. 

Obviously, it can boil down to beginning middle and end. 

Lethal Weapon follows the standard movie-screen play structure. 3 Acts, and preferably, Act 1 ends at page 25, and Act 2 kickstarts at 30. (those 5 pages are usually the reaction and decision made by the protagonist about what needs to be done).

Multi-stranded, linear. 

Breaking Bad does four acts, which is the belief that it’s Act 1, Act 2-A, Act 2-B, Act 3 (Act 2-B is where the conflict ramps up in favour of the antagonists, so essentially it’s where things are looking less and less bright. However, Breaking Bad also has storylines that aren’t just tied to the confines of the episode, they have on-going conflicts that may last the season OR the entire show itself, so the show must contain elements that flow well into other episodes despite not being resolved immediately. 

Multi-stranded, linear. 

Bioshock does follow three act structure of shorts, but unlike the movie, the first act lasts only 10 minutes whilst the average game time is 10 hours (going by that average, it’d be 9 hours of Act 2, and fifty minutes of act 3). 

It is single-stranded and linear.  Though players can diverge from the path to find secret items that give insight into the backstory, so some players can learn more about the story than others. 

Something like this would require a flowchart in the outline process.  As would many video games, because the game can’t purely depend on the player exploring every story option, therefore, writers and designers approach with a ‘What if’ or ‘Incase this happens’ etc. 

Single-stranded, linear. 

Parks & Rec follows the standard sitcom structure, where there’s a tease of the episode’s conflict before the intro rolls, and the episode is essentially one conflict the cast deals with and resolves over the episode. 

Multi-stranded, occasionally non-linear for flashbacks and interviews. 

News

There isn’t much Narrative Structure in a News presentation, other than what is contained inside the anthological factual stories happening around the world (or local depending on the station).  In this case, it isn't referred to as a narrative strand, instead, it will be called a RUNNING ORDER:

The show itself will have a structure, but for a different purpose rather than the building blocks of a story itself.  News presentations will have segments, rather than acts. Unless breaking news comes in during the podcast, presentations will be linear and single stranded (though you could argue multi-stranded if they’re showing heated interviews).

GENRE

Fiction is something that is invented in the form or untrue.

Non-fiction is informative and factual.

Fiction's purpose is to entertain. 

Non-fiction's purpose is to inform. 

From the examples I've uploaded; Lethal Weapon, Breaking Bad, Parks & Rec,and Bioshock are all fiction pieces.

The RPS Interview is an event that took place, and it's been written down word for word. 

TARGET AUDIENCE

Target Audiences can be nailed down to a few factors:

• Age

• Gender

• Interests (do they have preferred niches)

• Power

• Lifestyle

Ideally, people want to consume a mixture of escapism and any form of learning. People on both extreme ends of that spectrum (escapism / learning). 

LETHAL WEAPON (BBFC Rating: 18+)

Lethal Weapon was written for the wave of action movie goers that bought out every cinema seat at the apex of the Eighties. The majority of these movies carried an 18+ / R rating due to their cocaine infused gun-on-gun violence, complimented by the crude back-and-forth sailor dialogue between the characters. 

So, mainly, middle-class males 18+up. 

BREAKING BAD (BBFC Rating: 15, Strong Violence, Injury Detail, Drug Reference, Suicide Scene)

Breaking Bad happens to have a surprisingly wide audience. It seems gender wise to be 50/50 or 60/40, and ages are all up and down the spectrum. The show deals with themes that most ages (though not under the age-limit) can relate to. Mid-life crisis, naivety of the young, tax avoidance, petty crime etc. The show tugs at the dark desire to see what it’s like for a completely innocent man turn into a utter monster, and that arc is what one of the most enticing elements of the show. To see a man act with cold command over the course of six years of run time injects a sense off ‘man that felt good’ with the viewer. 

But because, the show follows the theme of Ozymandius, the show plays with the idea that the viewers are getting a kick out of the power play, and exploit it by letting it crumble all down in the last episodes. And due to it’s acclaimed status, it can be imagined that prestigious names in the writing/directing celebrate this along with the consumers of the show. Which denotes a ABC (more likely a BC class range.)

15 - 50+ Male / Female,  BC Classes. 

BIOSHOCK (BBFC Rating: 18, Very Strong Violence & Strong Language)

Bioshock was designed for the onslaught of gamers looking for a great new single-player adventure for the generation. Ken Levine (the head writer) used to create games during the age of where the most acclaimed video-games were mature first-person shooter adventure titles (i.e System Shock, Half-Life, Deus-Ex, Thief etc.) In a way, Bioshock continues the bloodline of those games, just with a decade-long delay. 

So, gamers who’ve had experiences with those decade old titles would be able to dabble with nostalgia intact. This game has mechanics that orbit around the one-man-army style of play. So this game isn’t just great for that sense of wonder when experiencing this unique twisted world, but it also works as a pseudo ‘let-off-steam’ experience, though that’s dependent on the difficulty. (higher difficulties exercise discipline and resourcefulness).

But due to the story-heavy nature of the game, this isn’t a game one just sits down to play and brush it off after completion, it’s a game that requires your attention in order to really experience it. So for this, it requires the audience to not be as casual as usual, and to be disciplined in order to appreciate bioshock. 

Male (though there is female presence in the fanbase), 18 - 40, BC Class. 

PARKS & REC (BBFC Rating: 15, sex references, bad language, drug references)

Parks & Rec is another gold-mine of comedy for the SINGLE CAM Sitcom audience. 

I can’t speak much to it’s general audience seeing I’ve only seen an episode. 

However, like with most PG-13 sitcoms, the show possesses a host of characters that all have points about them that the audience can relate to. However, due to the nature of where the characters work, ‘A government established Parks & Recreation centre’, this shuts out the interest of those under 18 and also people who don’t live in america.

Based off this, it can be assumed it’s probably Male / Female (50/50), 20 - 50, BCD class. 

NEWS STORY

News Presentations appeal to a large audience, just because of its form and its frequency in which it broadcasts.  Parents and children getting ready for school will probably be watching it on the Kitchen TV at breakfast.  There are plenty of scenarios for literally every type of person to watch the news.  

However, with the apparent uses of the internet, news station viewership declines, as the internet provides the younger generations (or older generations who realise the perk) with unbiased and without the cons of 24-hour news broadcasts. 

The average news audience member are probably older (45+)  and arguably equal in gender.  Some news stories will recommend children don’t tune it if they plan on showing graphic images. 

Male / Female (50/50), Ages 40+, BCD Classes. 

LO1 — Task 2: Five Examples of Scripts

BREAKING BAD, TV Drama, Episode #301, Vince Gilligan, Production Draft

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lqseyk2nw2oet6o/Breaking_Bad_3x01_-_No_Mas.pdf?dl=0

LETAHL WEAPON, Action Film, 1986, Shane Black, Revised Final Draft

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mr2jf058f4hgnyx/Lethal%20Weapon%20-%20Revised%20Final%20Draft.pdf?dl=0

BIOSHOCK, Adventure Game, 2008, Ken Levine, 2nd to last draft
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i5y1rle78plflo7/Bioshock.pdf?dl=0



PARKS & REC, Single-Camera Sitcom, 2009, Rachel Axler,  Table Draft
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sj6y2wjrnc9orad/Parks_and_Recreation_1x02_-_Canvassing.pdf?dl=0

BBC Radio 4 News Excerpt
https://www.dropbox.com/s/18zq5cpiqaqa47n/Radio%204.pdf?dl=0

LO1 — Task 1: Assignment Brief Scenario

For this assignment, our (me & Dominic Duerden) tasks for this Unit will be based around Unit 45: Pre / Post—Production for a Short film as opposed to writing for factual news based television.

Because of this, our work process will have a more creative approach, instead of researching for facts, it will be drafting outlines, characters and the setting.  It will require more imaginative discipline.