Evaluation Questions for the Script Draft 2

-  Have You Paid Respect to Screenwriting Conventions?

With screenwriting conventions, such as having it in the right font, and size for the page, i have followed it in that respect. I made sure when writing this script i followed the industry standards for writing a script. The program online Celtx, helped me to do this in the way that it auto-formatted the page when i selected certain inputs such as ‘Scene Heading’ or ‘Dialogue’, it spaced the page and moved the text around appropriately for it to be presented effectively.

-  How Does The Script Adhere to the Guiding Principles of the Ten Point Plan?

Title - Is to be confirmed.

Genre/Tone - Social Realist/Drama Hybrid

Setting (Time & Place) - Set in a school setting, mainly in a sixth form centre.

Main Character - Luke, a teenager who follows the ‘metalhead’ culture, which is shown within his mise en scene of costume, with jeans, band t-shirt and long length hair.

Want/Need/Obligation - His want is to be accepted by others for who he is, and his obligation is to stand up for this belief.

Opposition - Luke’s opposition, is the group of social accepted youths, shown once again by their mise en scene of all of them having the same or similar hair cuts, wearing similar clothing, a lot of it branded, for example chinos, polo top and a pair of vans shoes.

Catalyst for Change - Is when the group of youths ‘attack’ Alice, (the secondary character, who is from a sub-culture of the metalhead movement, once again shown by her costume and make up design, who Luke has a particular interest in) with a sandwich.

Climax - Is when Luke finally gets up to intervene in the ‘bullying’ and takes Alice outside whilst being followed by the group.

Resolution - When Luke gets his ‘revenge’ on the group by getting his friends to pelt them with various items of food.

And the Audience Feels... (Theme) - Better and happier within themselves, seeing that people can have self-belief to be able to stand up for themselves.

-  Does Every Scene Reveal Something New?

INTERIOR - SCHOOL LOCKERS - DAY

In this scene our main character Luke, encounters secondary character, Alice for the first time, and he takes a particular interest in her.

Luke and Alice’s relationship is revealed as significant to the plot.

The costume of both character’s reveals to the audience what they could be like as people.

The indication of theme is shown through Luke’s interest in Alice as a teenager who is interested in the opposite sex, which is a very real theme related so social realism.

INTERIOR - SIXTH FORM CENTRE - DAY

In this scene Luke is ridiculed by his ‘peers’ but he brushes it off and eventually the group move the focus of their ridicule to Alice.

It is revealed to the plot that Luke has dealt with this before and that he is unfazed, where as when the focus is shifted to Alice it starts to effect Luke’s position on the ‘ridicule’.

The audiences understanding of the characters is furthered by Seeing how Luke is a self strong individual through his actions, whilst Alice is an emotionally weak character as she can’t deal with the ‘ridicule’.

The theme shifts back in to social realism but in a different portrayal of the dark side of being a teenager and having to deal with bullying.

FLASHBACK SEQUENCE - INTERIOR - TOILET - DAY

In this scene it shows Luke being bullied by the same group of Youths as in present day.

It is revealed that Luke has gone through this abuse before and how he feels about it.

The audience finds out that the Youths are a particularly violent group, whilst also seeing that Luke used to be in a similar position to Alice at one point.

The theme still stays around the social realist ‘bullying’ theme although it brings in a bit more of a drama feel as the actions of the characters become more dramatic themselves.

INTERIOR - SIXTH FORM - DAY

In this scene we see Luke move across the centre to get Alice and lead her away from the abuse but the group follow them.

It is revealed to the audience that Luke has a plan for the group.

The audience finds out that Luke cares about Alice enough to put himself in a dangerous position and that the Youths like to abuse people enough to follow them as if it’s a sport.

The theme now stays at social realism but veers off more towards the dramatic side of the theme now.

EXTERIOR - PIAZZA - DAY

In this scene Luke’s plan for the Youths is revealed.

Luke’s plan is revealed and carried out, resolving the conflict for now.

The audience comes to a full realization of how much Luke cares for Alice, and how other people feel about the ‘bullying’ issue.

The theme is extremely dramatic in this theme but still carries the thematic undertones of social realism.

- Does the Narrative Progress Cinematically and With Minimal Dialogue?

Over the whole script there is only seven lines of dialogue. The whole first scene is literally pushed forward via use of different camera angles such as wide angles to establish the setting then a close up pan of the main character Luke, following his look and style and then revealing his interests within his locker. This is the same with the secondary character Alice but it follows Luke’s line of vision to specific parts of her appearance such as in her locker, revealing how she has similar interests to him, and then close ups on parts of her face such as her smile and eyes. Certain visuals have been used to further progress the story such as when Alice is hit in the face with a sandwich. It is a pivotal point in the story so when grouped with sound, it has to represent that. Therefore it will have a slight thud when it hits her, and maybe a period of dead silence and then a rush of sound, to show how she feels inside her mind.  Items of the mise en scene, specifically the costume have been used symbolically but mainly to represent what the character is like for example; Alice, is part of the ‘emo’ subculture, so will be wearing mostly black clothing.

How Engaging Is the Protagonist? Is the Antagonist Convincingly Portrayed?

Luke is a rather engaging main character is the way that he as a character is mysterious in personality and state of mind. This draws in the audience in a way that they want to find out more about the character as the short progresses. The antagonist(s) in the form of the group of Youths, is portrayed very convincingly, in the way that there is an ‘alpha’ male leading the group, and he is the particularly violent one of the group, with the rest following his actions after he has acted first, just like a stereotypical teenage group.

Is There a Clear Tone? Is It Consistent Throughout?

There is a clear tone of social realism at the start but this eventually becomes more and more dramatic throughout the short for example the ending scene or resolution, where the group is pelted with food, becomes extremely dramatic. But the underlying thematic tones of social realism are constant throughout. The two are useful together because they interchange making this a hybrid.

Is Tension Created and Built Effectively?

Tension is created in the way that the verbal abuse, and physical abuse, is built up and built up from childish, petty insults to rising aggression, which turns violent in the form that Alice is hit in the face with a sandwich.

What Kind of Setting Are You Establishing? Is/Are the Space(s) Allowing You To Effectively Encode Your Mise En Scene With Semantic Pathways Through to Your Macro Ideas?

 I am trying to create a school sixth form/college setting in my short, the location I have chosen to use is based within my school’s sixth form which gives me the realistic feel needed for a social realist short, which therefore could also show how the audience the ‘new age’ teens.

Does the Story Contain Key Themes and Issues That Relate It To Wider Social/Media Contexts?

It contains key themes of ‘bullying’, ‘acceptance’ and ‘self respect’ along with issues related to teens. These issues can be related to the wider, teenage media contexts such as teenage media along the lines of magazines, blogs, social networking and other ‘new age’ forms of media.

Are There Opportunities in Your Story To;

Create Specific Representations of Social Types, Groups, events or Places?

In my short the main character is part of the metalhead culture, and Alice is part of the emo sub culture. These two representations allow me to portray specific representations of those social types. It’s also applicable to the supporting characters in the group of youths, who fit a social stereotype of a socially accepted teen. Also due to the shorts portrayal in a sixth form it allows for the representations of a typical school setting and therefore also allows for the supposedly ‘typical’ representation of teenage bullying.

Establish Cultural Meaning Where Those Representations Articulate Specific Messages and Values That Have Social Significance?

The issues of ‘new age’ bullying and social segregation shown in the short, show the audience how and what teens can go through and the effects it can have but also how to stand up to it and have self strength and reliance.

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Script - Second Draft

Script Draft 2

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Comparative Analysis of 5 Short Texts - 2nd Draft

Many short films by directors such as; Brian Percival, Alicia Duffy, Simon Ellis, Tom Harper and Jane Linfoot all have common traits between their shorts. These being the themes and issues that run throughout them.

Take for example; ‘The Most Beautiful Man in the World’. One of the main themes and issues that run through the whole of the short is the sexualisation of young children; this shows to us the viewer the representations involved are sexuality and age mainly.

Alicia Duffy shows this to us in the opening scene of her short through the use of a fade in which makes the audience feel in a sleepy relaxed state of mind, likewise with the child shown on screen, but in a few seconds this comfort is shattered and immediately dropped in to an awkward, morbid curiosity due to her choice to use a slow pan and tilt up a scantily clad, young girl, wearing skimpy shorts and an almost tube top like shirt revealing a bare midriff. This camera movement along with a canted angle makes the viewing extremely uncomfortable and almost voyeuristic in its style. This whole scene is yet again reinforced by the use of character codes due to the actress stretching with an arched back whilst yawning but because the movement has been slowed down, it makes the scene overly sexualized. Then Duffy had the idea of linking all of this with her makeup design. Young girls with makeup generally connotes a sexualized girl and the makeup used on the young girl within this scene is subtle but really effective due to the use of a makeup that makes her have a waxy skin tone, which also brings out her bright red lips. The use of mise en scene as a micro representation, all the little connotations towards sex, leads up to the macro idea of an extremely young girl that has been overly sexualized, which effects the audience in such a way that it makes them feel so awkward whilst watching it but it also makes them feel compelled to watch more.

This links to Brian Percival’s short, About a Girl, with its theme and issue of sexualisation of young children but in a different way. Due to the fact that in the short the main character, a young girl of 13 years of age, is represented as young girl with aspirations of growing up to be a popstar with her friends but this is juxtaposed with the final scene of her dropping a fully grown baby fetus in to a canal, being the so called ‘sting in the tail’ that many shorts finish upon. This shows us the viewer that the main themes and issues that run throughout the short are growing up and maturing, plus the sexualisation of young children. Furthermore this also shows us the representations in the film being sexuality and age, pretty much the same as ‘The Most Beautiful Man in the World’ but with subtle differences.

Brian Percival shows this to us in one of the final scenes of his short where the young girl is walking through a dilapidated housing estate, full of graffiti and forgotten about rubbish, making it seem like a war zone. This shows us her class and status of a poor background, while all the time spouting diegetic monosyllabic dialogue, which shows the simplicity of her education, whilst walking along side a long thin canal. Milgrom states that it is important for an emotional journey to be shown through a physical journey, which in this short, is the canal. Then there is the use of more diegetic sound of rushing water, which sets the tone of an uneasy calm, paired with the use of an upwards tilt which gives of a brooding feel to the audience at first but when it comes to rest at a high angle it shows the reality of the situation, where the young girl is a now represented as she is, a child. Then as she drops the prop of the bag in to the canal, we fully realize the extent to which she has been sexualized and how she has grown up. The white bag, which could possibly connote innocence is shown opening and out of as it continually sinks, is a fully grown baby fetus, covered in bright red blood. The use of the colour palette here shows how her innocence has been destroyed and how she has grown mentally but not physically and that she has been sexualized in the way that she has actually got an aborted child, but at the same time it also shows the lack of education because she has gotten pregnant and then decided to dispose of it within the local canal.

Micro to Macro representations have been used here through the micro idea of her dancing and singing like a child throughout the short, especially in the opening scene, where the viewer is misguided by her silhouette which makes her look older where in reality she is really young. This idea of ‘misguided’ runs through the whole short up until the big reveal of the macro idea of the ‘misguided youth’ to use a clichéd expression, which was shown in the scene where she drops the dead fetus in the canal, and then walks off saying; ‘I’m still gunna go get that 99’ in reference to the ice cream showing she is still just a child, which makes the audience shocked and horrified which goes back to the ‘sting in the tail’ point made earlier.

Moving on, this could link to Simon Ellis’s short, ‘Soft’, due to the fact that in ‘Soft’, its major themes and issues revolve around growing up along with nature and nurture. But the growing up theme is completely different in the way it’s shown when compared to ‘About a Girl’ due to the fact it is about how teenagers grow up and the problems they face when growing up, plus the nature/nurture side of its theme is about how he is being nurtured the wrong way by his father, where as his nature is telling him to defend himself. This links with representation because it shows to us the viewer the representations of age, gender and class and status.

Simon Ellis shows this to us the viewer in one of the final scenes in the short, where a group of stereotypical ‘yobs’ are being shown outside a middle class, English house showing us the class and status of the area, this is shown to us through the use of the mise en scene, with the group wearing the stereotypical outfit of antisocial youths, in baggy tracksuits or jogging wear, paired with baseball caps or bandanas, plus the house is shown to us as being in a pretty, clean, quiet neighbourhood. The group then progress to aggravate the father and son within the house, again with the mise en scene showing us with the use of props that are rather expensive dotted around the house. The tension is shown between the father and son when they begin arguing, constantly raising their respective voices, showing the scene as getting more tense, as if it’s building up to something. This links to Milgrom as she said each scene has to reveal something in the next to push the story forward, which it does effectively due to the fact it shows us that despite the father’s diegetic dialogue of constantly telling the son to; ‘sit back down’ he’s trying to nurture his son but not effectively because it’s a representation of ‘do as I say, not as I do’. But as the scene progresses the use of mid shots and close ups on the father and the group show the fathers fear and the groups confidence, which Goffman made a point about that we present ourselves differently for different people, so he is trying to act like the protective father figure in front of his son. Percival’s use of the quick cross cutting between the two situations of outside and indoors, shows the two worlds are completely different and this helps to build tension for the viewer until the father breaks the divide and goes outside to confront the group and proceeds to get beaten up shown in cuts of close ups, interchanged between the main antagonist and the father. Until the son comes out and proceeds to beat up the group with a cricket bat, the prop of the weapon plus the close up of the enraged facial expression character code, shows how the son’s nature has taken over; which shows how he has let his nature, nurture his way of being.

The micro ideas here of bullying, aggravation and nature vs nurture have been shown when the son breaks through in to an almost ‘primal’ nature when he attacks the ‘yobs’ when in reality the macro idea here is that he is breaking free of the nurture of his father and opening up the door to his nature, where he becomes a self reliant person.

Fourthly, this could link with Tom Harper’s short; ‘Cubs’. This is due to the themes and issues of nature and nurture along with growing up being present in this short, akin with ‘Soft’. But yet again Harper has chosen a different way of representing these themes and issues. He chose to show that for nature and nurture both his environment and his peers are pushing him in the wrong direction and that he growing up in the wrong way; due to the fact that they are pushing him to kill a fox.

Tom Harper shows this to us in one of the scenes near the end of his short, where the main protagonist is out in an old worn football pitch made from concrete, that has been well used and is in a poorer part of London, due to the surrounding mise en scene being dead trees, high rise flats and the different types of graffiti everywhere, but the colour palette is dark due to the night setting, but the scene is pierced with one bright light emitting from behind him, coming from a street lamp. Then it cuts to a low angle, worm’s eye view shot from the foxes point of view, where the rest of the group are revealed to us, egging him on to kill the fox with the gun handed to him by the ‘alpha male’ of the group. The diegetic chant of the whole group telling him to kill it shows the wrong type of nurturing for him to grow in to, but you can see the main character is conflicted because it keeps using cross cutting to show the group, the fox and the protagonists face, but it’s in the close up we can see the anguish in his eyes, but eventually he is pressured in to shooting the fox. As it zooms out to show him standing, in a group but the way he just stands shows to us the viewer through character codes that he feels solitary until, the ‘alpha male’ wipes blood on his face from the fox, and in diegetic dialogue says; ‘You’re one of us now’, almost as if it was like an admission test to grow through slightly like a Jewish barmitzah otherwise known as a rite of passage.

The micro links here such as the group ethic shown in the young youth of today, and the want for acceptance links to the macro idea where he wants to be accepted and not ousted by the group but he is conflicted about the way he gets there, this was shown during the scene where he shoots the fox and the anguish displayed on his face.

This could be then linked to Jane Linfoot’s short; ‘Youth’, due to the fact that the short is about young teens growing up and nature vs. nurture. The film itself is three different stories in one short, but I am focusing on one of these short stories, the last one focusing on the three school kids on the back of a public bus.

The scene opens with a blatantly handheld camera movement as the three teens run up the stairs of an old style bus, shown by the mise en scene of a brown colour palette and plain metal railings. The handheld movement was selected by Linfoot because it allows us the viewer to see it from one of the character’s point of views and therefore relate to the story. Milgrom stated in one of her scriptwriting articles that you should set your short around a familiar event or ritual so considering a bus journey is a regular thing, this also allows the audience to relate to the situation.

Later on in the scene it cuts from a mid shot, to a close up of one of the teens playing with a flick knife. The slow close up used shows the teenage stereotype of knife crime, which shows that he isn’t being nurtured very well but his nature is conflicting with him just cause he is carving in to the back of a bus seat.

The constant use of mid-shots, for one character shows him as the alpha male, a common connotation of groups of teens to have a leader of sorts. This alpha male role is reinforced in the next scene when the diegetic raised dialogue of an argument between the alpha male and one of the group kicks off and then dies down. Furthermore the use of a focus pull shows that the third member of the group, doesn’t want to get involved.

Moreover a scene later on has a long take of a group of girls getting on the bus and sitting down, which then cuts to a mid-shot of the alpha male using the character codes such as staring and having his mouth slightly open to show that he is interested in the girls. Moving on from this scene another argument breaks out between the alpha male and a member of the public, and the use of close ups, shows the aggravated situation, with a teen bothering a member of the public, which is another common social stereotype, which builds tension for the viewer. But the tension dies back down, when the alpha male throws an empty drinks can at the member of the public but then uses diegetic dialogue to blame it on one of the lesser ‘ranking’ teens. These are all common stereotypes of growing up but they relate back to nature vs nurture because none of the group are being nurtured properly they are being left to their own devices, like in other shorts such as; ‘The Most Beautiful Man in the World’, ‘About a Girl’ and ‘Cubs’.

The micro ideas explored in ‘Youth’ about teens, being the alpha, and showing no weakness, relates back to the macro idea of nature vs nurture, the primal nature of a teen, like the tribes of old, where one would fight for dominance and would act out to scare those who challenged dominance, which was prominent in the scenes when the ‘alpha’ fought his friend, and when he acted out against the member of the public.

In conclusion, i have found that shorts can share many of the same traits such as themes and issues, representations, but at the same time the way they represent these traits is perfectly individual to the short itself.

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10 Point Plan

Title

TBC

Genre / Tone

Social Realist / Drama Hybrid

Setting (Time & Place)

School Lockers
Sixth Form Centre
School Piazza

Main Character

Luke, a 17 year old ‘metalhead’, inward and reserved but quietly intelligent and knows how to handle himself, along with strong moral values.

Want / Need / Obligation

He feels like he has an obligation, to help out and protect Alice, for being a vulnerable person, plus the fact that she belongs in the same social clique as him.

Opposition

The opposition is the Group of social accepted ‘norms’.

Catalyst For Change

Alice being hit in the face by a sandwich.

Climax

When Luke and Alice are followed outside in to the Piazza.

Resolution

When the group of ‘norms’ are being attacked by food in the Piazza.

And The Audience Feels... (Theme)

Better, knowing that people can have self-belief and stand up for themselves.

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Script - First Draft

Script - First Draft - Joseph Cross

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Target Audience Research

Target Audience Research on Prezi

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