Assignment 6: Research Dossier

The system I am using to send my thirty minute screenplay to isn't a compitition but is the BBC writers room website. From the 18th of november to the 16th of december the BBC is taking in screenplays from new writers that give an experiance that hasn't been seen before on their broadcasting system. They accept scripts for Film, TV drama, TV Comedy, Radio drama, Radio comedy, Children's drama, Children's comedy and Stage plays; you can send your story's via their submission page on the website; to submit yot have to sign into their writers room if you have an account but if not then you have create an account which means you can send work in at anytime; also the work has to be submitted as a PDF file.

 

 

This Extract is from the 2008 film "Shify" and shows the layout of a basic screenplay.

• It has the scene heading (slug line), telling you where and what the time the scene is taking place.
• The Action (scene direction) so you know what the Characters are doing.
• The characters name (character cue) so you know when they're going to talk.
• The the characters lines (dialogue) so you know what they're going to say.

The screenplay also has to be layed out in this format with courier new writing text; they are usually printed in PDF format.

This extract is from the original screenplay from Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs". This screenplay is a fine example of essential screenplay conventions. We have character development with seeing what characters are like and dialogue; for example "Mr Orange" doesn't swear while "Eddie" doesn't stop swearing. This tells us that "Eddie" is a man with a short temper and doesn't like seem to be that intelligent either, while "Mr Orange" seems to be more of a thinker and is a lot calmer, especially since he's been shot; Then you have "Mr Pink" who stays quiet through the whole event and doesn't really do anything at all and doesn't speak at all; he seems like the quiet ordasius type, then there's "Mr White" who is like a bit of all of them, making him a father figure really and even some what wise. This extract doesn't have a lot of scene direction to it but what it does have helps you in your mind walk through what is happening; one thing that is unusual for most screenplays is that it has got types in it, this usually occurs when you have an auter film maker who is probably directing as well as writing. In terms of the screen direction, it is designed to give the characters their actions during a scene so we have movement and not just stationary characters beacuse the actions are of course the drive for the screenplay to get from place to place and to a certain exstent it is also a drive for the dialogue. The actions can also tell us as much about the characters as the dialogue, for instance, becuase of his actions, we can tell that "Eddie" is a violent person.

Here are two short films that I have liked and why.




I like the first shot film titled "The Punisher: Dirty Laundry" because it uses visuals more than dialogue to move the story along. It also relates to my own screenplay for this assignment because it's about vigilante justice and what happens to motivate this action. The other short film titled "Late Bloomer" is good because of it's narration of the point of view of the boy who is watching it. I also like this because of its use of a subject that could be seen as controversial to children and the way it talks about that from the children's perspective; it relates to my screenplay through its narration from a character that might not be accurate but is from their perspective so they believe it. It also has a lot of stylisation to it and a lot of humour; the humour of mine is a lot darker but the humour in this short film is also some what disturbing with the way it is narrated and the visuals used.

To research further into my target audience I asked a diversity of different age's and genders three questions to see what their response was to the idea of my screenplay.

1: would you watch this film?
2:Why?
3:What would you change about it and why?

The general response was that a younger male audience was more likely to watch it and the there wasn't much they could suggest to change. There was an okay response from a younger female audience but most of them wanted the sexual references toned down and the the violence as well. There was a similar response from older male audiences and the majority of older female audiences wanted most of the language and violence taken out but surprisingly there wasn't much call for the sex references to be taken out. Most of the Senior citizen male and female would not watch it under any circumstance and called for all sex, violence and language to be taken out. Religion wasn't an issue because religion wasn't touched on at any point but race was an issue as there is a black American character and the main criticism on it was that he was stereotypical which might be seen as racist as I am a white writer but I have so far be unable to talk to anyone from a black background to ask their opinion on it.

Theme wise I have had to look into a lot of stories involving sensitive subjects such as child prostitution. Sourced from the "BBC News" six men were arrested in Leicester for paying for sex with a sixteen year old girl who was addicted to alcohol and drugs and needed the money as a way to pay for it. Boys at college used her to sell to the six men, aged between twenty to thirty nine for the use of sex; all six men where arrested and sentenced to between eight months and five years. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23896937.

For the location I looked into places with the highest crime areas and my chosen location for my setting for the second half of my story is Stratford due to it's extremely high crime rate.
http://maps.met.police.uk/

Character wise my main character is based on a character from a fictional novel  called "Class A" and is based on a character called "Nicole" who through drug abuse tries to self destruct over family issues. The only difference between my character and Nicole is my character finds redemption and sorts his life out while Nicole does not.
Class A by Robert Muchamore.

My main antagonist is based on a drug dealer called "Mario Ramirez Trevino" that operated in Los Angeles and was arrested while moving over five hundred grands worth of cocaine and deeper investigation by the FBI revealed that he was also responsible for a large prostitution ring in the south central of the city. He has been sentenced to life in prison.
The Observer

The way the story and characters have been put together is a blend of two big successful films, "Leaving Las Vagas" and "Taxi Driver". "Taxi Driver" was a big inspiration beacuse of the idea of a character that is excluded from normal life, and has the pressures of life driving him to the point of insanity and I also have the controvicey of child prostitution. Leaving Las Vagas was a big inspiration with the idea of the characters self destruction and his determination to kill himself; where the characters differ is, my character realises the value of his life and finds a purpose for it. We have the self destruction of the character from "Leaving Las Vagas" while we have the idea of an under age prostitute and a mans quest to free her comes from "Taxi Driver". The genre and theme is more like a Cohen brothers film, blending crime with quirky characters and dark humour, just like in the film "Raising Arazona".