Fortunately there was just time in the last session to do a script read of this draft of the script, I really enjoyed the pace of it being read aloud and felt that on the whole the dialogue sounded light off the page and there wasn’t any significant pace issues with these sections.
The two montage sections really benifitted from being shorter, I think that although they serve a purpose here if I pursue this script further I would possible remove them and find an alternate way to solve the problem. They would definately add complexity to filming the project and contributed to the main criticism that the script recieved after the read through.
With so many characters and locations and the pace of the plot in just ten pages there were comments that it was hard to follow what was happening. I think that this is a realistic observation, I wanted the pace to have the drive of adventure story whilst retaining the themeatic issues address by the world but there are very few scenes where we pause to take stock of what has happened so far. I think that I could have removed another charcter/plot point and still achieved the same world building, I think I was enjoying developing this idea too much to notice that for ten pages it really didn’t need to cover so much ground, this was Park’s story and anything that didn’t directly service that could have been dropped, I think Sally could realistically have been merged with Lily in this version and it would have still achieved many of the same points.
I don’t think that this is what I will do going forward as I think that there is enough story here to support a longer running time and I want see if I can make it work for 25-30 minutes. I enjoyed writing these characters and this world.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This was the first version of the outline the feedback was positive and this encouraged me to push forwards with this structure. Although I was broadly pleased with the world and Park’s character I was still exploring where the narrative was going . I had been thinking a lot about Se7en (Fincher, 1995), and this influence how I was thinking about the world at the time and this would come out further when I came to writing the treatment.
It was during the writing process of this treatment that I realised that I was going off down the wrong path, it was for me a useful example of why a treatment can be a really useful step, I have used them on most of the screenplays that I have written. The process of visualising the world whilst writing it and taking the characters on a journey brings them to life for me and fleshes them out, I prefer this way of developing the backstory and life of a character to writing a character profile before writing, I just make notes of the character details and history in my notebook whilst I am doing this to keep them consistent later on. Whilst writing this treatment I establish for myself that Park was already partly an outsider before she could no longer practice medicine. An only child who had moved away from home, she had had to work hard for the grades she needed, the long hours ment that she had missed out on some social experience.
Whilst watching Mr. Robot (Esmail, 2015) that was a scene of him being choked with concrete, watching that sequence it clarified for me that I had gone much darker with the tone than I had originally intended. I wasn’t sure how to revise this in the treatment phase without going back to the outline.
When returning to the outline I knew that I wanted to create a much more inclusive world more accessible to a wider target audience. This much more closely reflected my initial conceptions for the world, although I further developed this to have a stronger comicbook influence. The way that I think about this world is something that could work for games, TV, film or comicbooks. I felt that the some of the themes that I wanted to address would work with a family/adventure tone, similar to Stranger Things references. Although it would be difficult to establish in 10 pages I wanted to begin to build an ensemble cast around Park, to establish where I wanted the world to develop as well as working as a 10 page script.
Once I had established the second version of the outline I was able to create another version of the treatment very quickly. I felt much more confident about where the characters were going and were going to develop and how that reflected the world I wanted to create. From this version of the treatment I was able to go straight into writing the script.
Idea 1: That scar really won’t heal if you keep picking it.
A malpratice case leaves a Doctor with only the undead to treat, and their new patients turn out to have bigger problems than maggots.
Feedback for all three ideas was fairly positive but general consensus was that the first idea was scaled most appropriately for the 10 page/minute length.
Outlining
I started trying to outline straight away last week but ended up with somethingh that was more like a treatment.
I have always found something inherently absurd about zombies and afterlife concepts.
— Shaun of the Dead (2004), Edgar Wright
Shawn of the Dead (2004) has a clear similarity in the mixture of contemporary society…
– Beetlejuice(1988), Tim Burton
But Beetlejuice (1988) is one of my earliest film memories and has a strong influence on how I think about film. The humor comes from the surreal situation rather than “jokes”.
In ‘That scar really won’t heal if you keep picking it’ I want the protagonist to very comfortable with the situation hopefully illustrating to audience that this is the ‘normal’ in this society. This is intended to establish the antagonist as culture of rejecting and marginalising people who are undead.
Pro-Brexit supporters take to the streets. Yui Mok/PA Wire
I have found it interesting trying to develop ideas to pitch given the constrains of developing a world that could work in multiple media and a range of stories. How do you set up a space in which both other writers and the audience can play out their own stories. As was discussed during last week’s seminar this is clearly a trend in the sector with franchise intellectual property a huge draw for audiences. Disney have a strong position in this area after picking up and carefully managing both Marvel and Star Wars. How are the other key industry players going to respond? It seems that there isn’t an easy formula to copy as Warner’s squandering DC and Harry Potter would suggest.
For each of the ideas that follow I wanted to consider; the world, our guide introducing it, and their unique perspective on it?
Idea 1: That scar really won’t heal if you keep picking it.
A malpratice case leaves a Doctor with only the undead to treat, and their new patients turn out to have bigger problems than maggots.
Idea 2: A very British monster hunter
Born adventurer, moderniser, servant of the glorious British Empire has their idealism rocked by a troubling encounter with a less than mythological monster.
Idea 3: Report 37
Climate disaster has crushed humanity into endless megacities of factories, farms, and homes. A bureaucrat questions their role maintaining a peaceful, fragile, unequal status quo.
I haven’t undertaken a structured approach to writing for a few years, the last few things I have written have just been for me to make something with a specific objective. But a short that I wrote more than 10 years go is in the final stages of postproduction, and is due out in a March.
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mattprentice 
