Water

Inspiration

To ability to produce something completely new and original in the 21st century is almost impossible. For whatever reason, we have developed so quickly we are now turning around in circles trying to figure out where the next exciting new direction is.

This applies most acutely to the screenwriting industry where even our teachers have said "Don't try to be original" meaning it'll only be another version of something that already exists. This statement is extremely true which is what's sad. However, I looked at that more as a challenge rather than permission to admit defeat.

To help me with my mission, I looked at a couple of different texts which I knew dealt with the issue of infidelity. The movies Fatal Attraction and Unfaithful were the two that sprung to mind. I watched both to gain a bit of insight into how you would write the ultimate confrontation that occurs in these types of films.

Honestly though, I realised that neither film was particularly helpful in illustrating the type of conflict that would occur when one individual finds out his partner is cheating on him whilst IN FRONT of the other man.

I then decided to just have a stab at writing the scene based on my experiences of conflict when I have spotted somebody lying to me which is ultimately what this scene is about - Sally has been lying to both Matt and Simon about there being another man either by ommitting the truth or just simply lying about the multiple flowers and presents that litter her house.

I hope the end result is believable as I'd hate to hand it in only to have Christine turn around and say something like "Why would the characters do that though?". It would honestly be my worst nightmare.

Action/Reaction List

One of the biggest problems I have with scriptwriting is not the beginning of the film, nor the end but all the stuff that happens in the middle. It's almost like my brain gets so excited about what I'm going to reveal to my audience at the end that all the stuff in the middle gets muddled up. So, to help myself out, I thought I would make an action/reaction list.

Basically, it's just a table with two columns, one labelled Action, the other Reaction. In the Action column, I write what my characters do and then in the Reaction column, I write how they react to that action. Surprisingly, the whole process was a lot easier to finish then attempting to write out the script straight off. This is what I came up with:

Character Profile - Matthew Cullen

This is the final character profile for my film's characters:

Matthew Cullen
Age: 19
Height: 181cm
Weight: 82kg
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Hair Length- Short, spiky
Hair Style: Slightly messy, usually just rubs his head when he gets out of the shower
Eye Color: Brown
Skin Color: Dark Tan
Usual dress style: jeans and a t-shirt, big fan of Cologne and loves Diesel Fuel For Life. Likes to dress up when he goes out on the weekends.
Teeth: Had braces when he was 14 till 16. Knocked out a tooth during footy when he was 18 so has a replacement now.
Activities: Footy, Surf Boats, Surfing, Skating, Wakeboarding, Anything to do with water.
Favorite Music: Powderfinger, MGMT, Bloc Party, Kings Of Leon
Favorite TV Shows: Friday Night Lights, Entourage, Arrested Development
Favorite Movies: Shooter, Love Actually, Bourne Identity, Remember The Titans
Greatest flaw: Thinks he’s better than he actually is
Best quality: Funny and makes people feel comfortable. Winner with the ladies.

Bio: Matt is a country boy through and through. Before moving up from Geelong with his best mate Simon to Melbourne, he used to live in Echuca which is where he spends most of his holidays if he can. He loves the water and will embrace any opportunity he can find to hit the beach which is why his favorite season is summer. His physique also reflects this lifestyle as he is constantly tanned all year round from chasing the sun and hates being indoors too much. He too has been seeing Sally now for 3 months but his ability to get her to commit to their relationship was a lot easier than the ordeal she put Simon through. The reason for this is because Matt wouldn’t have any of her games and so she eventually gave in after just 3 weeks.

Character Profile - Simon Westfield

This is another character profile for one of the male characters in my film:

Simon Westfield
Age: 19
Height: 178cm
Weight: 80kg
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Green
Skin Color: Sandy tan
Hair length: Short, almost crew cut
Usual hair style: little product, slightly rough
Usual dress style: jeans and a t-shirt, loves to wear his Reeboks, favorite item of clothing is his Fat Monday jeans.
Teeth: Has naturally straight teeth and uses a teeth-whitening gel once a week.
Activities: Football, Clubbing, Pub Crawls, Tav Times
Interests: Socializing, Partying, Comedy, Sports
Favorite Music: Ministry of Sound etc, Most Rock, Justin Timberlake, Assorted Rowdy Music
Favorite TV Shows: House, Scrubs, Becker, Family Guy, NCIS, Numbers, Two and A Half Men
Favorite Movies: Iron Man, Ace Venturas, Indiana Jones, Animal House, Assorted Action, Comedy
Favorite Books: Classics, Harry Potters, James Patterson series
Favorite Quotations: "Were on A Mission from God" "I Pity the fool"
Greatest flaw: He can be slightly arrogant at times.
Best quality: He is very generous and will always help out a mate in need.

Bio: Simon is what you would describe as your typical Aussie bloke. He loves his football, supports the Cats like there is no tomorrow, and coaches the under 9s every Thursday. He is currently studying Commerce at Melbourne University in the hope that one day he will take over his dad’s financial auditing business when he graduates. He is also planning on doing a Master’s in Commerce Management. For the past 3 months, he has been seeing his girlfriend Sally. At the beginning of their relationship, she played very hard to get so that he had to spend a lot of his time wining and dining her before she would commit. Simon also has a best friend, Matt who is studying law at Monash university. The two boys grew up together in Geelong before they moved to the city to study at Scotch College for highshool. The boys see eachother on a regular basis particularly at their footy games on Saturday where Simon plays for South Melbourne and Matt plays for Swan Districts.

Character Profile - Sally Meyers

From school, we were always told it's good habit to write out the backstory to all the characters featured in your film. That way, you know the full reason for their actions and you can justify them much better as well. This is what I came up with for Sally, my film's protagonist:

Character Development:

Sally Meyers
Age: 19
Height: 165cm
Weight: 65kg
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Skin Color: Fair to light tan
Hair length: mid – long
Usual hair style: side swept ponytail or half-up, half down
Usual dress style: Skirt and a singlet, baby doll dresses. Favorite item is her silk nightgown
Teeth: used to have braces from yr 8 till yr 10. Now have perfectly straight white teeth
Habits: goes for a run every morning, does yoga twice a week, plays netball on the weekends. Eats a healthy diet of 2 fruit, 5 veg. Favorite food is sushi and mango juice.
Greatest flaw: the inability to connect to the people in her life on a deep level
Best quality: her ability to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.

Address: 62 Surrey Rd, Toorak.

A typical week:
Monday: Get up, run, shower, dress, eat. Ride to school on the train. 5 hours of classes. Meet up with friends for coffee. Go home. Have a snack and watch the news. Do an hour of homework. Yoga. Dinner. Read a book and fall asleep.
Tuesday: Get up, run, shower, dress, eat. Go to local café with mum. Come home. Do homework and hang out with Simon. Go to uni at 2pm. Classes till 4pm. Come home. Matt comes over for dinner whilst her mum goes to her single-parents workshop. Matt leaves around 10pm. Reads her book and then bed.
Wednesday: Get up, shower, dress, eat quick breakfast. Have uni at 9am so no time for run. Uni till 1pm. Meet up with best friend Melissa for shopping. Go over to Simon’s house for “sexy time”. Come home. Do some homework. Go for a run. Have dinner with mum. Watch Lost. Go to bed and read a book.
Thursday: Get up, run, shower, dress. Meet Matt for breakfast on Notre Dame campus. Go to work till 4pm. Come home. Do homework and watch TV. Do yoga. Have dinner with mum. Chat to older sister on the phone. Bed.
Friday: Get up, run, shower, dress, eat. Go to uni till 12pm. Meet up with her friends for lunch. Go over to Simon’s house till 4pm. Come home. Get ready to go out. Head to Chapel St with her girlfriends.
Saturday: get up at 9am for work. Work till 2pm. Play netball from 3 till 6pm. Head over to Matt’s house for the night.
Sunday: Rest and relaxation day. Usually, whoever’s house she has stayed at on Saturday night will be the person she hangs out with all day. Get home around 6pm. Do homework. Have dinner. Sleep.

Family:
Dad: Sally’s dad walked out on her mum in 2004 after she discovered he had been having an affair with his secretary for over 9 years. The conflict was very straining on all members of the family but none more than Sally who not only lost her father but also her older sister who blames Sally’s mum for her dad’s infidelity. Sally no longer speaks with her father as she blames him for her mother’s depression and her sister’s absence.
Mum: Sally’s mum is a slightly neurotic, kind individual who cares for her daughters deeply. After the divorce, she went into a deep depression as a result of the fall out and because her oldest daughter refused to speak with her anymore. She now works full-time as a Clerk at the Melbourne Court House and has recently started dating Max from her single-parents workshop.
Emma: Emma is Sally’s older sister who moved out after her parents divorce. She was extremely close to her father and never really got on with her mother and as a result, moved out of home at the tender age of 17. She dropped out of school and migrated to Perth where she is now living with her boyfriend of 4 years and their 2 year old son, Piper. She is also studying nursing at Murdoch.

Work: On Thursdays and Saturdays, Sally works part-time at a café on Collins St. She gets paid about $18 an hour which is just enough to cover the expenses of her outings.
Education: Went to a co-ed primary school from Kindergarton to year 6. Transferred to Genazzano in year 8 and remained there till she graduated. She studied Literature, Further Mathematics, Chemistry, French, and Drama. Currently, she is studying the Genreal Arts course at Melbourne University. After graduation, she spent a month of her summer traveling around Australia with her 2 best friends Cassie and Jess. During that time, she experienced many of Australia’s wonders from seeing Uluru to having shots with sailors at a Perth nightclub.
Short term goals: To save enough money to travel back to Perth for mid-term
Long term goals: To gain high enough grades to go on exchange to London next year.
Career goal: To become a successful business analyst for a major corporation, preferably BHP or Ernst & Young.

Strengths: Determined, smart, manipulative
Weakness: headstrong, perfectionist, control freak

Bio: Ever since her dad walked out on her mum in 2005, Sally has desperately been trying to avenge the emotional trauma he imprinted on her by deliberately torturing boys her own age. When she was 16, the hottest guy from St Kevin’s chased her for 3 months and when she finally decided to give in, she pulled out last minute and claimed rape. The boy was so severely affected by the ordeal that he had to move to Canada to escape the outfall. After, she has managed to time and time again manipulate and control her boyfriends and the men in her life so that she gets exactly what she wants. She gets away with it by appearing completely saint-like in all other aspects of her life: in front of her friends, her mum and her teachers. Anyone who you ask will say the same thing. Principal Patricia Cowling said “Despite the numerous occasions where Sally has been severely mistreated, she has never let it affect her grades or her relationship with her fellow peers at school. She is a bright, bubbly energetic pupil who seeks out adventure and assists students wherever possible. It is these qualities that led us to nominate her for class president of 2009.” Her mother commented, “Sally has been a rock for me ever since my husband moved out 4 years ago. I know the strain of our divorce must have weighted heavily on her emotionally but she seems perfectly fine. Her grades are good, she has a lot of friends and she has competeley settled into the university lifestyle. It is a shame that she has had a couple of bad encounters with her male counterparts but we can’t control these things.” We also managed to get hold of Michael Darling, the boy she accused of rape in 2007. “Sally Meyers is a f***ing slut. The whole time I was stupidly chasing her, she was seeing about 3 of my friends on the side. The only reason she got away with it all was because she also blackmailed them too about testifying in my defense. I hope she rots in hell”. Currently, she is seeing Simon Westfield, a fresher Commerce student at Melbourne Uni. They have been together for 3 months now and it is clear who wears the pants in the relationship with Simon bending to Sally’s every beck and call. What Simon doesn’t know is that Sally has also been seeing Matt, a fresher law student at Monash. As far as Sally knows, the two boys have never met and if she can play her cards right then they never will.

First Draft

The first draft of any script is always the hardest. For some reason, just getting my ideas down on paper has never been fun and I really struggled initially with this one in terms of actually being genuinely interested in my characters and what happened to them.

To counteract this, I spent 2 hours getting to know my characters inside out by writing up their character profiles. I found the experience to be extremely bizarre as I had never really considered things like what my character's favourite piece of clothing was or what their daily routine outside the movie would normally be. As a result, I began to bond with my characters: I started to like Sally less and Simon and Matt more and even had a preference for Matt physically over Simon. This type of relationship definitely dictated the way in which I created the rest of my script and from here, I was able to ask myself the question, "What would Sally/Matt/Simon do?". The result of this was my characters eventually began to "act" more naturally within the script as I knew them so well now I could imagine them carrying out those actions in real life.

By then acting out the scene with my housemate, I was definitely able to produce a more naturally flowing screenplay than anything I have ever made before and I'm looking forward to developing that further in the second draft.

One Liner Revision

Ok, so the reception of my one-liner didn't go as planned. Basically when we got into class, Christine read out all the one-liners which had been posted anonymously (thankgod) and then discussed what was right with them or what was wrong.

Mine, unfortunately, fell into the latter category. It seems that judging by my very short one-liner (which I had to admit was much shorter than everyone elses), there just wasn't enough drama to fulfill the rest of the story. And that I had to admit was true.

You see, at this stage of my life right now, I'm juggling finding a new place, settling into a routine for uni/study, I've just started a new job at a nightclub which totally takes it out of you on the weekends, and with all of this going on I'm trying to organised my exchange to Florida on top. Not that I'm making excuses for myself. But I really didn't think my story through properly so I should have been expecting this kind of reception.

The funny thing though was when I sneakily asked my friend Cher what she thought of the one-liner with the girl who made pancakes. In her typical, short fashion, Cher blurted out that the idea was stupid saying "Who wants to watch a girl cook pancakes??". I thought it was hilarious and a real eye opener.

So now it's back to square one. Well, not really. I still like the idea of the girl cheating on two guys at the same time but I still have to incorporate some form of drama into that as well. Hopefully I come up with something before the synopsis is due next week...

One Liner

So it’s the first tute of the year and already I have doubts about my ability to produce something AMAZING for our first assignment. Given the them of “Seven Deadly Sins”, we have to come up with a short, 5 minute long script based on one of the scripts.

One of the biggest tips I have received from writers such as Millard Kaufman, Paul Haggis and Walter Murch is to always write about what you know. In terms of the “Seven Deadly Sins”, I have to admit that I have had an affiliation with Lust on more than one occasion which is why I chose it for the basis of my script.

Working that theme into the brief however was a lot harder than I had previously imagined. Here were our limits:

- Must feature 2 characters with a maximum of 3
- Can not be any longer than 5 pages (which equals 5 minutes in film speak)
- Must be on one location
- Can only be filmed across one day
- The film MUST contain some form of conflict

And there lies the rub. No matter how or which way I looked at the bloody project, I could not get my head around this idea of deliberately creating conflict within my script. As a natural peacemaker (unless I’m on some hormonal rampage), I don’t like initiating debate or arguments which is why I think I found it so hard to think up a conflict related to the theme of lust which was believable.

The ideas that flashed across my mind initially were the obvious ones: boy meets girl, boy falls in love, girl has boyfriend; girl meets boy, falls in love, boys cheats on her; boy is gay etc etc.

The biggest thing that I got from the first week’s tutorial however was that the film should be as original as possible. NO CLICHES ALLOWED! I realized early on that this was going to be my biggest challenge.

For my one liner, I have finally found an idea that appeals to me in terms of exploring its boundaries and is something I know about well enough to write about. So here it is:

“Sally is your typically sweet, innocent, naive 18 year old. One of her favourite passtimes involves making pancakes in the morning for Dan. Then Simon. Then Tim. Then Michael…”

Let’s hope it goes well at the tutorial next week.

Blue

Eggs have suicidal tendencies too.

RSS In Plain Bullshit

One of this week's main readings was the short animation by Leeler Feeler on the Common Craft website. In it, he defines the forever frustrating RSS or Really Simple Syndication system (no i'm not kidding. that is actually the full name of RSS). He explains that RSS is the way in which YOU can be notified about new stuff that appears on your favourite websites like news.com.au or maxshop.com. Apparently, the system was designed to reduce the time people took to check whether or not new stuff had been posted on their favourite websites.

Now, this is the problem I have with this. First of all, I don't want a hundred and one emails every single day just because I subscribed to news.com.au which changes like every 2 seconds. Secondly, and this is the biggest piss-off for me is that it is just another way for humans yet again to make their lives "easier" and therefore more acceptable to be lazy.

Think about it. In the video, they say why waste valuable time going to the websites to check up on what's new when you can just have that information sent to you in the form of an update on your reader (a website which basically collects all the new posts telling you new stuff is on your favourite sites). Maybe I don't want a computer doing everything for me? Or maybe I actually enjoy taking 5 minutes out of my day to identify what is new on my favourite website. I just love the way all those internet geeks come up with shit which they think is going to benefit the world and really, it's just a load of bullshit.

To RSS, Australia says no!

Big Tree

The story is about two boys, an older brother and a younger brother, both of whom have resorted to playing in the backyard in an attempt to fight the boredom they were experiencing inside. After a short game of footy that ends after one of the boys kicks the football into their house tree, the boys attempt to throw one piece of paraphenalia after another up the tree to uproot their ball. With no success, the film ends with one brother slyly suggesting, through the script's big print, that the cat is the next item to gain liftoff.

There are a couple of things that disturb me about this script. First of all, there seemed to be a genuine lack of explanation about the tree's ability to swallow up everything thrown towards it. I feel that it would have been much more realistic not to have the tree "eating" all the backyard toys, but to instead have shots of each individual item firmly wedged in the tree's branches. This I feel is a more plausible explanation for the items not returning to earth (we've all had that frisbee or basketball that gets stuck in the tree) and one that I would have explored had this been my script.

Another note I made was the obvious laziness of the writer's at the end of the script. Whilst Act 1 and 2 were moving along quite nicely, particularly in the way the writer's managed to build up the relationship between the two brothers, I feel it fell completely short of its mark when it just ended with a suggestion of what the boys would do next. In film, I find it extremely frustrating when only a suggestion is made in regards to the resolution. In the original script, we never find out why the tree was retaining everything thrown towards it, nor are we provided with the satisfaction that the boys will get their football back, the original motivation for their actions which I feel the writers should have returned to.

A few suggestions I would make would be 1. To change the function of the tree not so that it is a mysterious, creepy character that has some supernatural ability to make toys disappear but is instead like every other tree I know which has "sticky branches" (sticky fingers, get it?) and therefore is able to grab onto the items as each one is thrown up. 2. I would completely change the ending - for me, the cat is a kick in the guts for my animal activist side and I would rather like it to be left alone, thank you very much. Instead, I would use that beautiful set-up they had going at the beginning of the film where the boys mother told them to clean up the yard so that at the end when their father comes home, he thinks they have done just that when really, everything that was on the ground has merely been relocated to the tree.

All in all, I really liked the film's overall tone and the direction the writers took it at the beginning. I feel however, that with a few short changes, this could have been made much more intelligently and with a little more feeling. Over the next coming week's, I want to challenge myself to produce a storyboard for my alternative ending to the script to illustrate the idea I proposed above. Stay tuned.

Impressions

So far this year, the TV1 course has run slowly enough for new members of the industry can become aquainted with the basic practices and conventions surrounding the field of script-writing.

We have looked at everything from a script-to-screen approach to script analysis and vice-versa; to deconstructing eachothers synopsis, some of whom have never written anything in their lives before; to highlighting the key factors of a good script.

I have found that whilst this approach at times has been somewhat dull (I can't remember the number of times now I have had the fundamentals of narrative drilled into my head), I have appreciated the opportunity to explore some of the other ideas that Christine and Paul have presented during the lectures.

One in particular this week that caught my eye was the idea that as a writer, you are in charge of the rules of your universe, the one you re-create within your script. It is up to you whether or not your character walks to work or drives but either way, whatever you chose becomes "the rule" for that character and from that point on, that becomes that character's routine.

Christine was discussing this particular idea in reference to Big Tree, a short film written by two RMIT students whose script we analysed and whose film we then watched. In it, the tree swallows each item of paraphenalia the boys throw at it. The "rule" in this universe is that for whatever reason, the tree eats the toys and that is that.

Obviously in this script a little explanation would have gone a long way in regards to why the tree is able to make cricket bats and balls disappear but the writers must have decided to leave that for another day.

In my script, I will need to remember this idea of their being an order and a way in which my universe is run so that I do not confuse my audience as the writers did in Big Tree.

Brainstorming - LUST

Brainstorming: LUST

The Seven Deadly Sins, written during the 5th century is a similar list of sins requiring expiation or forgiveness.

Noun: very strong sexual desire
A powerful desire for something – lust for power.
Verb: have a very strong sexual desire towards someone – he lusted after me for days
Feel a strong desire for something – she was lusting for more ice-cream

Lust is a craving for sexual intimacy, sometimes to the point of assuming a self-indulgent character. Lust, or a desire for the flesh of another, is considered a sin in the three major Abrahamic religions when indulged outside of marriage.

IDEA # 1 – A young woman spends her time writing to an anonymous “Tony” who she daily proclaims her love to over and over. Swooning in her apartment, she becomes ill with the love-sickness we recognize all to well as lust, the cardinal sin which can turn the best of us into balls of dribble. Finally, in the film’s conclusion, we learn that John isn’t who we thought he was all along and that in fact – he is a she/ her dog/dead/a celebrity/shoes

Revised: A woman spends all her time at home waiting to hear from her “lover” Tony. Each day, she takes the time to write in her diary about all the things her and him will do when he arrives – going for walks along the river, going to art exhibitions, the movies etc etc. Gradually, over the period of five days, we can tell that she is slowly losing her mind with the lust. She writes more erratically in her diary, she neglects to feed her cat/put out the rubbish/fill the dishwasher/eat. All the while, still staring out the window. Finally, after falling asleep at the window yet again, she jerks awake at the sound of a car arriving. She rushes to the door as she sees the cab drive off and in a big swooping gesture similar to that of the romance movies of the 1930s, she opens the door and smiles widely at the man who is standing on her doorstep. In his hands lies a large white box. He gently opens the lid so that she can peer at the contents of the box and extracts a Tony Bianco shoe. Kissing it, she whirls around and dances with joy as the camera slowlys pans away from the scene.

Idea #2 – A young woman is at home and sees a man start to walk up her drive with some flowers. She rushes to the door and instead of welcoming him into her arms, she slams it in his face. The man stands at the door calmly then leans against it. The girl slides to the floor on the other side as she listens to him begin to talk. He starts to apologise and say sorry for “cheating” on her. We still as of yet do not know what he has done to make the girl so upset but she begins to cry profusely. She is caught between accepting his apology and upholding her pride. Finally, she speaks and asks him one question “Why?”. Later, we find out he cheated on her with the dog.