Pre-Production Unit- Interviewing BAFTA award nominated screenplay writer and Top 5 Tips.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with a BAFTA nominated screenplay writer; Steve Coombes whilst I gathered footage for a video unrelated to my Pre-Production Unit. However, whilst I spoke with him, he provided me with some fantastic insight into the screenplay writing industry, including how to go about actually forming my screenplay from start to finish.
You could argue that I could ascertain this information myself from books and such, and whilst I will be doing this throughout my pre-production unit, I feel that it really did help being able to speak to someone like Steve who has experience in a field I am interested in, as it allowed me to ask questions and ultimately learn from a very reliable source.
The video we created can be viewed here, and is a part of the UCA's TVPlay Youtube channel series.

I enjoyed the experience of being able to briefly speak to and learn from Steve, and found it comforting to know that the way in which I operate as a screenplay writer (inventing an ending and working my way backwards with the story) was a technique that is actually used in the industry by professionals.

I any more opportunities to speak with writers like Steve happen, I will most certainly take them.

Pre-Production Unit- Investigating Film Festivals

Myself and Charlie have recently begun investigating UK and international film festivals that we could possibly submit our completed major project film to. The main reasons for this is that not only would this open our film up to a broader audience and provide us with some much needed exposure (potentially leading us to further work in the future) but there are also very rewarding prizes for well made films, including funding for future projects and cash prizes (which would be fantastic for Charlie and I to pay for future projects or pay off any debts we may incur as part of this project.

I began my search for film festivals to submit to through a simple Google search, which delivered some useful results for both UK and international film festivals, many of which are specifically targeted to younger film makers. It would be advantageous for us to apply for a festival for younger film-makers, as an audience of said festival would be more likely to understand budgets restraints and difficulties we may encounter during production. Also, other films at the festival are likely to be similar quality to our own due to the film-makers having relatively the same amount of experience in film-making that we may have.
An extremely useful website I found which documents a lot of festivals both in the UK and internationally was the British Film Council Website, which has an entire directory on festivals, along with links to the official websites for each festival, highlighting the entry requirements, prizes and history of each festival.

I also decided to be more specific with the kind of film festival our film would be submitted to, and since I would define the genre of the film we are making to be "sci-fi/drama", I decided to look for independent science fiction film festivals. As a result I found out about Sci-Fi London, a London-based international film festival.

Sci-fi London would have been a fantastic festival for us to submit our film to for several reasons. For one, it is an international film festival, hosted in our home-country, which means we can expose our film to people from many different countries, without having to leave our own country. This also means we can attend the festival in person, and answer any questions that viewers may have about the film's story, characters or production.
All in all, submitting to- and attending this film festival could have been a very valuable experience, and could have been a fantastic starting point for Charlie and I to begin our film career outside of student film. Unfortunately, during my investigation into the festival, I came across this small piece of information in the entry requirements;

Unfortunately, I expect the film we create for our course will probably be around 15, 20 or 25 minutes, which will be longer than the basic criteria for a sci-fi film submission in this festival.
We may of course be able to submit a different, cut-down version of our film- but if we are to do this, we will have to be very careful not to cut any crucial story-telling moments, or anything that would affect the overall message the film is trying to send.

Another film festival I found was the USA based Phoenix Film Festival which accepts films in all kinds of genres, including sci-fi. Although the submission period for 2016's festival is now open, I don't foresee that our film will be shot and edited in time for the deadline.

We will continue to look for suitable film festivals throughout this project, and gather enough information to pinpoint exactly which film festivals we would like to submit to in 2016 so that we can provide an indepth discussion about our platform and why we have chosen it in our pre-production package submission.

Pre-Production Unit- Developing a Storyline for Pre to Major Project

I have recently begun developing a storyline for myself and Charlie Ansell's short film. I wanted to create something that would allow us to tell a dramatic story, with a serious underlying message that would be able to be filmed and developed on a student budget, and I believe the story I have devised will allow us to do this.
Using the "Book Spine" rule that I found in "Pixar's 22 Rules of Story (That aren't really by Pixar)" I managed to create a storyline that I believe has the ability to be complex and dynamic enough to fit a the requirements for a short film, whilst still being interesting and compelling enough to keep an audience interested.

The story revolves around a couple that discovers that their child has become infected with a rare disease which causes the cells in the child's body to break down rapidly, which will ultimately lead to a very untimely death. There is no known cure, and as a result of the families desperation to save their child, they volunteer to take part in experimental clinical trials, with the hope that their child will somehow get better and be saved.
Miraculously the child eventually begins to recover and show an overall improvement in health. It seems that normality has returned until people, animals and plants living close to the child begin to fall ill and die. It is then revealed that the things that are deteriorating are losing their cells, and the child is somehow absorbing them to fix their own cells.
This angers the public and they then begin to subject the family to abuse, forming a hate campaign and eventually (when a massive amount of people have died) demanding that the child be killed. This causes the family to begin falling apart, disagreeing and questioning what is the right thing to do, with one eventually believing that the child should be killed so that everyone else may live, and the other not wanting to kill the child and instead working with the scientists forming the clinical trials to try and find a cure. This ultimately leads to a break up.
The film ends with the parent who originally didn't want to kill the child having a break-down and looming over the sleeping child with a pillow (presumably to smother the child) but cuts away to another scene before anything is done. The next scene shows the parent sat in silence in the park in silence, before dying- leaving the viewer to wonder whether or not the parent killed the child or not.

I specifically wanted to create an ending to this film which would be very ambiguous and allow the viewer to make their own mind up about how the film ended. I expect viewers of this film will be in one of two categories;

• Those who agree with killing the child in order to save everybody else in the world.
• Those who would not kill their child because they can't imagine taking their life.

I feel that the ending I have decided for this film will satisfy people with either one of these impressions and create a sense of gloom in both. 

Pre-Production Unit- Reading up on Storytelling

As part of my research into my role as a script-writer and overall storyteller, it was suggested by Charlie that I read an ebook that was tweeted by an employee of Pixar animation studios, who had written the ebook based on his experiences of working with fellow animators and directors. Although Pixar is known more for their work with animation, the general idea behind telling a story is still there, and this ebook is therefore useful for me to read.

The book itself is called Pixar's 22 Rules of Story (That aren't really by Pixar) by Stephan Vladimir Bugaj and details some of the aspects of story-telling that I have become accustomed to during my time on this course. Among the most useful pieces of information I gathered from this ebook was what is known as "The Story Spine".  This "story spine" dictates that the key components in story-telling are these:

• Introduce the protagonist and their world.
• Present the protagonist with a critical, worldchanging challenge.
• Litter the path to confronting that critical challenge with increasingly difficult obstacles.
• See how the protagonist overcomes the obstacles and takes on the big challenge. 

I believe that revising this rule will be beneficial as a refresher for my storytelling techniques, as it will allow me to make sure that I have everything required in order to tell a successful story, including character, problems and motivation and resolution.




Pixar's 22 Rules of Story (That aren't really by Pixar): http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52675998e4b07faca3f636a5/t/527f0a75e4b012bf9e7361c5/1384057461885/Pixar22RulesAnalyzed_Bugaj.pdf

Pre-Production Unit: My Roles

As I will be working with a partner on this unit, it will be important for me to properly define and understand my roles. After speaking with Charlie, I have decided that my roles will be:

• Script-writer
• Story-board Artist
• Producer
• Co-Editor

Charlie has decided that his roles will include Cinematography. I believe that he will thrive in this position, as our film may contain some quite graphic situations and scenes, and I was impressed by the way Charlie handled the filming of a scene for his Fiction Adaptation film piece in year 2 where a girl was depicted being raped, but nothing explicit was shown. 

Because of this, I think Charlie understands how to insinuate that graphic situations are occurring, without actually showing the graphic detail, which considering we will be working with a shoestring budget, will be very useful.

I may also be involved in working with sound equipment and operating a camera if it becomes necessary on shoot days and none of the other students in our class are available to help. 

Pre-Production and Major Project MAJOR UPDATE

Recently, there has been a massive change in plans with my pre-production and major project idea. I originally wanted to compose a film piece in the super-hero genre, and was strongly debating whether or not it would be worth me only using this genre for a pre-production piece only (as it would allow me to have a large, imaginary budget) or create something that I would be able to carry over into my major project.
After some careful consideration and discussions with Charlie Ansell, who I will be working with on this course, we decided that it would be best for us to create something for pre-production which would then be able to be carried over into our major project.
There are several reasons for this, but the most important reason for me personally is that I believe it would be most beneficial for me to spend the entirety of this year working on one singular film project, as opposed to planning production for two.
There is also the recent influx of super-hero film and series that have been arriving in droves. The super-hero genre is at an all-time high in terms of popularity, and I feel that if I were to realistically create my own (especially one based in an Original Character), there is a very real possibility that it would be "lost in the shuffle" so to speak, and lose out to more popular super-hero films with already established characters and fanbases.
Here is a list of all the Superhero films that are to be released between the years 2014 and 2020 (this excludes television and Netflix series like Daredevil and Arrow.)

As can be clearly seen, there is a large amount of mainstream super-hero films being released all the way up until the year 2020, and as such it would be difficult for my film to stand out from the crowd of similar films that are being released too. In this project, I would like to create a film as unique and different as possible, and a genre as saturated as the Superhero/comic book genre would be very difficult to work with when trying to achieve this result.

Pre-Production Unit- Considering my Production format and problems.

I have recently spent a lot of time considering certain technical aspects about my Superhero idea. In the past, I brought up the debate about whether or not I wanted to create my Superhero idea as a television series, or one singular film.

I have done some more thinking about this and discovered several potential problems that may occur with each of these problems, which I will list below.

Problems with creating a series-

• Each episode will have to be fresh and interesting, bringing something new to the story. (Avoid traditional television "filler" episodes, episodes which do not have much story relevance, and are merely created in order to fulfil a network obligation or pad out the number of episodes in a series.)
• I have to consider whether or not I would like my series to have one continuous story (much like Lost, Breaking Bad) in which case viewer's may become frustrated if they drop in half-way through the series as it may be confusing for them to pick up on what is happening due to having not watched from the very beginning, or make it so my series is created with each episode having a new story so that viewer's can comfortably drop in and out of the series at any point and still enjoy the product for what it is (much like X-files, Friends etc.)

Problems with creating a singular film-

• In creating a singular film, there are many things I have to consider, including the fact that it is very unlikely that I will be able to create a full-length movie for my major project. Most feature-length films are about 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours in length, and with a student sized budget, it would be incredibly difficult for me to pull something like that off.
  There is of course the possibility of my creating a short-film instead (around 20-30 minutes), but this amount of time severely limits the amount of story I can tell in the product, and isn't a particularly great format to tell the kind of epic story a super-hero product usually tells.
• There is also the fact that creating one singular film quite limits the amount of story-telling I can do. I have a ton of ideas that I want to incorporate into my film, and if I were to include everything that I wanted to, especially into one film, there is a risk that the film will become oversaturated with plot-elements and be too confusing to watch.