So some information about me as a screenwriter, I am shit at writing treatments and can only do them when I have written a couple of decent drafts of a script. I prefer step outlines and script graphs. Believe me, I think it is best to write all the ideas in your head and sort it into some kind of narrative and acts but all the while either reading the treatment out or handing it in for someone to read, all I think is “It doesn’t make sense right now but it will do/it sounds better in my head”, basically I feel I have to explain every single part because I haven’t put my idea across very well. This is what I struggle with as a writer and have done with other artistic expressions. I have good ideas but can’t show someone myself and I am very bad at explaining things. Very bad. But with this struggle during high school and sixth form, I have learnt to be a good editor. So I have to write out all the stuff that’s going on in my head, spew over a notebook or laptop then edit afterwards because believe it or not, development comes from sifting through that spew.
So I have done a treatment and it was bullet-pointed more for my benefit and it was honestly the best one I have ever done but I had to still have an extra paragraph on Act 2 to explain the plan for that section. Now that my fellow filmmakers have read the treatment and have given me advice to move forward, the genre I am focusing on is psychological thriller/gothic thriller. Since this, Kara one of the many WI fellows and my friend, sent me a link to shortoftheweek.com and I have tried to watch films similar to mine in genre, feel and length of time. The thing I am struggling with is telling a story in a short amount of time, with a feature you can explore so much and this is taken away from you in a short film. So watching films like Chasseur show it is possible. I am also taking inspiration from Shutter Island (2010) with the use of weird visions and creepy scenarios to express the torment that Ted is going through.
Now after some research from watching films I am that point where I can’t rewrite the treatment, I just need to start writing the script and spew the ideas into my head into Celt-x. I have done that and already I feel better. I have decided that we see no monsters until the first act turning point and my main character Polly is running away from something. This to me is working because it establishes a crisis but it is built up until the turning point where something is revealed of what is scaring her and it won’t be a long first act, allowing me more room to work with in Act 2. And this is as far as I will get for tonight and have a first draft hopefully done by my meeting with the rest of the girls next week.
Below are some websites I have been looking at to help my brain think…
http://study.com/academy/lesson/gothic-novels-characteristics-examples.html
https://www.shortoftheweek.com/search/?q=chasseur
The Devil in Disguise: Modern Monsters and their Metaphors
’till next blog post…
Paradoxical Ramblings 