Evaluation

During this project I have learned the process of script writing including workshopping.

At the start of this project we looked at loglines for film in which we had to partner up and pick 5 films to read the loglines from without giving anything away as the other person has to guess what film its from. We also looked into loglines for news articles and rewrite them. Both types of loglines are very similar to each other as they are there to Draw you in with little information as possible as a way to make you open up the article and read it or go to the cinema to see the movie. From this I learned that to make something interesting and intriguing I would also need a logline that tells so much information but so little at the same time to get people interested.

Leading on from loglines we had to pick out a movie and rewrite the plot by changing its style and the genre. I chose , ‘The Lion King (1994)’ and changed the title to Exile and turned it into crime drama. I rewrote it so that the premise is the same as the original film itself except its more adult and dark. In this version its all about human beings. Scar pushed Mufasa (his brother) off a building but blamed Mufasa himself that he died causing his son Simba to run away in fear. Scar was also apart of a massive drug ring as he was the leader. Doing this task helped me dive into more genres and styles of writing this prepared and helped later on in this project because we had to write a short film script.

After this we looked into the three act structure and different script writers. Learning about the three act structure was really helpful as its treated like a blueprint and an outline for different scripts. However a lot of scripts won’t have the three act structure implemented, this is common for most musicals whether its a movie production or a stage production. This isn’t saying they don’t follow an act structure at all, they mostly follow a two act structure. For example the ex Broadway show ‘In The Heights’ follows a two act structure, in the first half its all light and bubbly but in the second half its more hard hitting as the characters go through a lot of grief, obviously this isn’t the same for all musical and broadway shows. Going through this was very helpful because even though we had only a 10 minutes timeframe for the film itself we could structure it in a way that it would include the three act structure.

The Script

The process of writing the script itself wasn’t difficult and it didn’t take me that long. I had the idea of doing it in a documentary style but it didn’t know what It would revolve around. From scriptwriting I have learned how helpful workshopping a script is because you listen to the script being read out and you can pinpoint big and little changes wether is a small little bit of stage directions or a big chunk of dialogue that needs improving. I have also learned how to write the script in the time length of a short film so thats it flows well and its not too clunky and messy.

This helped me get the script together and work on improving the overall flow of everything including the dialogue and the stage directions. My script itself is supposed to be fast paced so the flow will be a little bit faster, however this could have been a problem as it might seem too quick and everything is happening at once which wouldn’t be too fun to watch as the audience might feel lost in the chaos.

If I were to do this again I would focus on a different genre and maybe delve into something more personal so its more relatable and write things from others peoples points of view. I would also include social issues in my scripts.