Storytelling Unit - Casting and Crew

Casting

As i'm only doing the first two minutes of the script I only need a couple of people.

Young Boy (around 12) -

The only boys I know that are 12 are my brother and my cousin.

I was able to speak to my brother, being my first choice and he agreed on playing the part as the boy.

Extra -

The other person I needed was someone that could just wash up (so you can hear them in the background). There are no speaking parts for this person so anyone could do this part. As i'll be filming at my house my mum offered to do this.

Player 1 and Player 2 -

This characters voice is only heard on the other side of the headphones. I was able to find out that he plays with my cousins on his xbox. I was able to ask them if they could say a sentence each to contribute to my story and they said yes.

Crew

Except from myself, Helen gladly offered to help with my project.

I will be operating the camera and Helen will be helping out with the sound.

I'm glad that there's someone else there to help me especially with filming. You definitely need more than one person, otherwise it would take much longer to do

Storytelling Unit - Location

Now that my script is handed in and waiting to be marked, the next part I needed to look into was how I was going to film it. We had the choice to do a trailer or the first 2 minutes of our scripts.

I decided that I wanted to film just the first 2 minutes of my script, I feel that it will be easier to do for me than doing a trailer, especially because i'm not used to filming.

The first couple of pages are based inside a house. The first place I looked into was my house, I thought that if I could film it at mine, then I wouldn't need to rush filming. I only need to film in one of the bedrooms and the front room, so hopefully I will be able to film it over the weekend.
I've decided that my house is a good choice, so i've decided to film the scenes there.

Here are pictures of the two rooms I will be using.

Now that I have a location I am now able to look into who could be part of my crew and also people to play my characters.

Storytelling Unit - Synopsis

After handing in my first draft I was able to complete my synopsis on what happens throughout the story. I'm hoping that I have explained it thorough enough for the reader, so that they can get an understanding on what my short story is about.

Synopsis - The Meeting:

Luke, a 12 year old boy finds out that his mum has been hiding letters that were sent from his dad. He has always dreamed of meeting his dad and has tried to talk about him with his mum, but she always ends up changing the subject. Devastated that his mum betrayed him, he decides to go on a journey to find his dad. While getting something to eat at the train station his iPad gets stolen. A stranger catches the Theif and is able to retrieve back the boys iPad. The boy and the stranger get to talk and get the feeling they know who each other are. Luke and the stranger come to realise they are father and son, but will Luke's mum let him see his dad?

Storytelling Unit - Research 2

While working on my story idea, I went to the library on campus and got some books that might help me with my work.

My favourite book out of the four was 'The Art and Science of Screenwriting,' by Philip Parker.
This book was really helpful for making my idea come together but also on what type of research to do, i.e. background information on characters, etc. Also if you were interested in making scripts it then gives you a guide on ways you can come up with ideas. It included different points oh what type of script you wanted to create, i.e. TV series, feature films and even short films. Overall it is an easy to understand book and the best part was there are no scientific words.
I loved this book so much, that i've even considered buying it!


Another book I liked was 'On Screenwriting' by Freddie Gaffney. This book is very to the point so it makes it easy to know what you need to do to get a successful script. This book explains about plot, theme, 3 Act structure and character building, in a specific way.

After reading these books I was able to come up with some information on my characters. Here are my mind maps i created for my characters.

Mind mapping your characters is an easy and effective way of building your character profile. I was able to look back onto my mind map and incorporate the dads job so that dad would be a type of hero by helping the young boy get his iPad back.

Storytelling Unit - Idea Development

Before writing my script I wanted to make sure that I was happy with my story.

I made a timeline on what was going to happen throughout my story.

Here is my first timeline

After looking through this timeline it made me think whether this was going to be long enough for a 10 page script. I decided to go through my idea again and see if there were ways I could make it a bit more interesting as well as make it more believable on how the events happened.

Here is my second timeline

I'm so glad that I looked through my idea again. I  decided to add the mum to the story, as before you could just hear her at the beginning and I also changed the way on how the boy meets his dad, which I think makes the story a bit more dramatic. I originally was going to have the boy and the dad meet in a coffee waiting room area on the train platform. I decided not to do this idea as it would be a bit strange if a random man started talking to a younger boy, so I decided to look into the background of the dad and was able to incorporate his job into how the boy and him would meet. By doing this helped develop a good part of the story and made it less coincidental on how they met.

I feel a lot more confident with this story and I also think the second timeline makes better sense then the first one.

Storytelling Unit - Research

After coming up with my project idea I really wanted to research into it, to make sure it was as realistic as possible. I was looking through films that had a relationship where a young boy or girl wanted to meet their dad who they had never met.

The first film that came to my mind was 'The Parent Trap' starring Lindsey Lohan. This film is about two girls, Annie and Hallie, who meet at a summer camp and find out they are twins. Hallie lives with her dad and Annie lives with her mum. While at camp they come up with a plan to swap places so that they could meet their other parent.

In this film I focus on Annie's character. She is the most similar to the young boy, Luke in my story. Her background story is roughly the same as she lives with her mum and only knows that her dad looks like form a photo. the only difference is Annie's dad knows she's alive, as her and her sister were separated when their parents divorced, where as in my story the dad didn't know that his son was alive until recently. I really thought this would be a good film to look into how the young girls reacted when meeting their parents.

Another example is from a character from 'Eastenders'. Dexter was abandoned by his dad when he was a couple of months old and was brought up by his mum. Dexter has never had any interest on meeting his dad after what he had done. One day his dad, Sam turns up wanting to get to know his son. Dexter instantly refuses. After Sam stays for a couple of weeks, he gets close with Dexter's mum, Ava and decides to try to get along with him for his mums sake. He starts to get close and accepts him as his dad again.

I liked how Sam was the one who wanted to have a relationship with Dexter first. By looking at this story line I was able to get a good look on the dads point of view on finding his son for my story.

I'm happy that both my examples were able to help me for both the dad and the young boys perspective on how they come to find each other and reacting in my meeting scene. It's good to look into what other writers come up with to make the story's believable and realistic.

Storytelling Unit - Storytelling task

Yesterday we had a task to get in small groups and create a two page script from one of our journeys to the studios. This was to help get us introduced to using Final Draft for scriptwriting. I worked with Aquila and Helen. We decided to use Aquila's journey to uni, as we thought it would be more interesting to add situations to.

Aquila came up with the idea that the character could have bad incidents that happen throughout the story. We thought that it would be a simple yet fun way to add funny situations to.
After discussing what type of incidents that could happen we came up with:

- Missing the bus
- Not having enough money for the bus
- Can't find her phone
- Getting splashed by a puddle
- A bee attacking her
- The studios being closed
- Having clothes that don't match/inside out
- Leaving her bag on the bus

Here is the final copy of our script:

Simon marked our script and said it was good, but it was a bit short. Also that we could have capitalised the actions of the character. Overall it was positive feedback as we didn't need to change any of the story, we just have to be more careful when writing a script.

By doing this task it really helped me get into writing scripts, and was very good practise for when I have to write the script for my project idea. It also made me think that screenwriting is definitely something I want to pursue in.

I really enjoyed yesterdays lesson, and liked working with Aquila and Helen and hope that i'll be able to make future projects with them.

Storytelling Unit - My Idea and Pitch

I finally came up for an idea for my project!!

The pitch:

'A young boys world is turned upside down, when he discovers that his dad had been trying to contact him. Will a chance meeting a stranger ease his betrayal.'

The idea:

A young boy finds out that his dad has been trying to contact him (mum been hiding letters that were sent by the young boys dad). One day the boy decides to go and find his dad. While at the train station he sits waiting for his train and a stranger sits next to him. After getting into conversation the stranger ends up being the boys dad.

At first I had trouble thinking on how I would explain the boy finding out about the letters but also how this story would end.

On Monday we were put into small groups, we had to discuss each others idea and develop them in some way. From this I was given plenty of options on how to begin and end this story. I have a rough idea on what i'm going to do, but still haven't made my mind up fully. I want to make sure that I make the right choices, so that my story makes sense but at the same time is interesting.

Characters:

I have two characters the young boy and the dad.

Young boy - The young boys name is Luke, he is 12 years old and has recently started secondary school. He is normally home by himself until his mum comes back from work in the evening. He is a good boy and helps out with choirs without a complaint.

Dad - The dads name is James, he is 30 years old. At 18 James and Luke's mum found out she was pregnant. After finding out Luke's mum had an 'abortion' he left and continued his studies at university. Over the years he got married and had two kids. After finding out that Luke's mum didn't end up getting an abortion, he started writing letters to her to see if he could meet his son. After getting no response he decides to give his son a surprise visit on his birthday.

I'm continuing to look into the background of my characters, as I think this will help with completing this story.

Now it's time to hit the library and do some research!