SCRIPTWRITING EVALUATION
My project
For my course I’ve been asked to produce a screenplay and a proposal for a short fictional movie, I had the liberty to choose my own genre. I had to follow some codes, conventions and a structure when composing both my script and my proposal. The genre I chose to work with was the Crime Thriller aimed at an over 15 audience.
The Proposal
Even before I started to write the script, my first aim was to get the film proposal done. So I had to research how to write proposals and how important they are when it comes to pre-production.
The main features of a proposal are a synopsis, a log-line, a screenplay structure, a target audience, characters and a treatment. These are all the key points that make a proposal efficient to do its job.
Masterclass.com cites “A proposal is the most complete way to pitch a film, containing a working title, a logline, key characters, and a thorough description of all aspects of your proposed film, including the project’s history, the intended audience, the style and approach of your storytelling, visual material, biographies of your chief collaborators, and a plan and budget for completing the work. It will also include a breakdown of act one, act two, and act three and how the film coheres as a whole. Depending on the project, a proposal can be a two to sixty-page document. Often the production company or other funders will dictate the length of a proposal.”, this shows us how the movie pitch it’s very important during the pre-production, this is because you have to be very precise on how to convince some producers to help you in the movie making process. The proposal’s main feature are:
Synopsis:”The purpose of synopsis is to intrigue the reader and to attract them to your movie or a script. Break down the plot of your movie’s first act and open the reader’s imagination of the possibilities of where the story might go next.” - filmlifestyle.com
This source shows us that the synopsis is a really summed up version of the plot of our movie. The importance of it comes when we have to catch the audience’s attention only by introducing them to the first act. And if the investors are not attracted by the idea of your movie only by this part, they most likely will not produce your film. Only after breaking down the first act you should open the reader’s imagination and build tension on what will happen next, if this doesn’t happen, then there is a possibility that the idea of your movie is weak or it will not work.
https://filmlifestyle.com/write-powerful-film-proposal/
Logline:”Your film’s logline should reflect the previously written synopsis and act as a sales pitch for the investors and producers. This is the part of your film proposal where you will be asked to describe the entirety of your script’s plot in 30 seconds or less.” - filmlifestyle.com
If you can summarise the idea of the main plotline of your movie in only one brief sentence, then you have a strong logline that works for your proposal. The logline is just as important as the synopsis is, so both are great to create something that will catch the interest of an audience, which will get investors wanting to read your script.
https://filmlifestyle.com/write-powerful-film-proposal/
Screenplay Structure:”The three-act structure is perhaps the most common technique in the English-speaking world for plotting stories — widely used by screenwriters and novelists. It digs deep into the popular notion that a story must have a beginning, middle, and end, and goes even further, defining specific plot events that must take place at each stage.” - blog.reedsy.com
According to this article, most of the scripts are structured in three acts, this is the most common way to tell a story even if there are various ways to get a screenplay done. This structure is composed by a set up(act one), which is the introduction and how the story telling begins. As it continues we have the confrontation(act two), which is how the storyline develops. In the end we have the resolution(act three), which is how the story ends with the climax.
https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/story-structure/three-act-structure/
Characters:Then you should explain who the main characters are, as the reader of the pitch should be interested in who leads the story and what is about them that we should like or dislike. We should introduce the characters by giving them a brief description on their physical aspect or their personality.
When a character is well developed, when you clearly explain who the protagonist is, who the antagonist is, who the supporting characters are, when they have depth, motivation and charm, you know that the audience will be connecting to them, will feel empathy with them and will understand their feelings and their actions.
Treatment: A treatment is when you breakdown the story of your movie in a way that is even more detailed. When it comes to the treatment, unlike the synopsis which was short, the treatment has to be as long and detailed as possible, it has to be read like a novel instead of using a screenplay format. When the consumer wants to buy your product, he needs the treatment to understand how everything mentioned earlier will play out. The treatment helps to give the audience an idea of what they are going to produce.
Target audience:Identifying who your target audience is, is crucial. This is because whoever will produce your movie, based on your target audience will give you some limitations. For Example: If you’re making a movie that is suitable for everyone you will have to cut out explicit content, while if you don’t want to do that, then you will have to set an age restriction which will cause your movie to have less probability to success, since it will not be suitable for everyone. “Your target audience refers to the specific group of consumers most likely to want your product or service, and therefore, the group of people who should see your ad campaigns. Target audience may be dictated by age, gender, income, location, interests or a myriad of other factors.” - www.marketingevolution.com
My Idea
As soon as I knew that I had to produce a short fictional movie, I decided that the genre would have been Crime Thriller. Obviously after I’ve seen various movies of this genre, I also had to research the codes and conventions of every crime thriller movie, and I also had to follow the same three act structure that Crime Thriller movies follow. I wanted my movie to be as realistic as possible even with low budget, limited resources and locations; but with the right props, the right costumes and some help I know that will be able to make it look like a big budget movie, since I studied all the camera angles and movements to make it look like a blockbuster movie, especially after I’ve seen movies of big directors working today with ridiculous budgets and still managing to keep a really high quality in their work.
The movies that inspired me the most are Zodiac and Se7en by David FIncher, so I did design my storyline, and wrote my characters to be influenced by these movies.
One of my side characters inspired by Mark Ruffalo’s character in Zodiac, while my protagonist is inspired by Zenigata, a character from the anime of Lupin the 3rd, and my antagonist is inspired by Light Yagami, a character from the anime of Death Note.
The name of my movie is “Let Me Go” and I wanted it to build tension, I wanted it to be a Thriller but a Cop Thriller, because the police had to be one of the main themes of the movie.
This also helped the mise en scene, which is crucial in this genre, even if it’s not considered Thriller, the movie that inspired me the most for the mise en scene is The Dark Knight.
The demographic couldn’t be younger than a teen age, because they wouldn’t probably get the full meaning of my movie, this is why I want the rating to be over 15 years old. The lights, the colour, the acting and the way the story is told will build tension towards the end just as all the movies of the genre, this will also bring action scenes and stunts in my movie.
Formatting my script
Nowadays if scripts are not written using the Master Scene Script conventions, producers won’t even look at your script in most of the cases. Celtx is one of the best websites around that permitted me to write a script in the Master Scene Script format, for free. This website helps you to have immediately the same exact format that you’re looking for when it comes to movie writing.
My script has gone through three revisions. Obviously I couldn't get it right at the first time, also because I noticed that some of the main things were missing. I didn’t introduce the locations like I had to, even the characters’s description wasn’t too accurate and I had to make sure that everything that could be seen or heard was written on the mages.
I didn’t give up, and during my second revision my crew was way more convinced on how it looked like, I described every place with as much detail as I could because I had to explain where and how every scene was set in.
Only during my third revision I realised that I also had to add more details in their movements, the way they spoke their lines, that there were too many silent parts. So I had to re-adapt all the dialogues again with all the wrylies and the action between them.
My final submission was way better than my first one, it did meet all the requirements from the brief. Everyone of my friends who read the script until the end, did find it interesting to read and they waited for the ending to find out how it would have happened, since I always kept it a secret, I will let the audience decide their alternate ending especially because it does build tension, so the way I written it, it works.
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