First draft

I wrote the initial draft of the script in two short sittings once I had done the second version treatment. I felt that I was fleshing out the structure that I had established. It was interesting that I felt the character of Sally came through more strongly whilst I was writing and the this resulted in an engaging dynamic between the central four characters that I felt could setup developing this group further in a longer script or for a multiplatform narrative. I have never used a montage before but following the story structure workshop I was inspired to try the cinderella structure (Vonnegut, 1981).

I imagined Park reaching rock bottom at the beginning of the script, having worked so hard for so long, and made many sacrifices to become a doctor, she is then stripped of the that. I remember discussing with someone that had hoped to work in a sporting field, and how they spoke of losing that after an injury made that impossible. Although the process of dealing with this could have be a story in its own right in this short script I wanted to establish this as the plot and character motivation for what follows. I felt that to this would Park the strength of motivation to act quickly when turning to help a new community, and setup the surgery without thinking through the consequences that this might bring. I also felt that this building would work as the tooling up phase of the story arc and was why it was important to have the montage sequences to establish the both that Park had hit bottom and that she was building herself back up within the 10 pages.

The goes to the ball sequence for me is the scene where Park visits the vampire. She is able to diagnose a difficult patient and also comes to terms with the man who put her in this situation, she is able to act as a professional even when her personal relationship might find it difficult. This high does not last long as she is told that the underground surgery has been found.

First draft feedback reflection

I really appreciated the feedback that I received it was a nice ego boost that the commenters enjoyed the world and characters.

There were two key themes to the feedback, the complexity of the plot and amount of ground covered in a short space was challenging and that the ending also felt abrupt. I had to reread the script a few times and digest the feedback for a few days to try and formulate a strategy for adding clarity whilst also further building the drama and threat at the climax.

I also had another piece of feedback where someone commented that they found the last shot excessively cheesy, that it was a bit of a cliché. This was one of those pieces of feedback that helped me clarify what I wanted to achieve, I felt that this visual that being familiar was exactly how I wanted to leave the characters, like they were a familiar group to us, this worked with the family/adventure tone that I wanted to achieve. And ultimately this led to the solution that I chose.

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Second Draft

For the second draft I wanted to focus on the structure and climax issues without worrying too much about the length, but knew that there was no point just making it longer as I would just have more to cut in the final draft, what I settled on was a ‘not any longer approach’. I felt that with a number of changes to be made (and with the script only 13 pages) I could afford to start from a blank document and rewrite the majority if needed. In this way I was less likely to copy over unnecessary extra scenes, and I spotted a number of scenes/characters that were nice for fleshing out the world but not totally necessary, for example Walter, who was in the first treatment, was finally combined with another character.

The big additions were the escape from the burning building to the climax, which was obviously what was missing when it was suggested, and the opening chase. The chase was inspired by the ‘cheesy‘ comment about the last scene. I wanted that scene to feel like the last page of a comicbook, a couple of speech bubbles and a big image that resolves the story but leaves questions. I went back to this source and wondered how I draw from this to solve some of the plot clarity issues that had been identified in comments.

I really like the alternate reality US/UK mashup that is created in Sex Education (Nunn, 2017), to me it felt familiar for the genre yet adapted it to ask questions about the conventions. Lily’s netball uniform and the way the chase is structured is my attempted at a similar idea, Lily is the cheerleader victim stereotype but there is something unexpected at the same time. I’m not sure that I have fully achieved the depth of her character on the page at the moment but there is a starting point.

Second draft feedback reflection

Again feedback was very helpful in identifying the focus for final draft revisions, the plot seemed to be clear enough now and the focus was on the length, number of threads to the plot, and the slow pace of the start after the chase. I was really encouraged to hear that it was new problems that had emerged rather than looking for another solution to the same problem, this feels like useful progress.