Screenwriting: Writing for 48

Last week in our Wednesday screen writing class we finished reading through the classes Non-dialogue Screenplay's.  It was nice to see what the others had come up with.

This also led into a bit of a discussion about inanimate objects being 'characters'.  There is a bit of a debate about this in the screenwriting world.

One argument is that something like a city or a shed doesn't have human qualities and that they don't 'want' anything- therefore they can't be considered a character.

In one of the screenplay's we read it I felt that it wasn't so much that this inanimate object had been given a character, but more that everything the audience saw was like we were looking at the events as they unfolded through it.  My interpretation is not that it was treated as a character per se, but more that it was like the eyes in which the events were viewed through, like a character without a soul, which the audience looks through- a window into the world.

Empty Eyes. P. Damsten. 2012.  Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/pdamsten/7170946578/

I did think that this made the screenplay quite impersonal, like the audience was a stranger looking in from a distance; but I also thought that it could be a clever technique depending on how it was used.



In the second half of our lesson we talked about writing for the 48 hour film contest.  The Rialto Channel 48 Hour Film Contest takes place this year from 1st-3rd May. 

 
In the 48 hour contest each team is given parameters- a character name, a prop, a shot type, a line of dialogue and a genre.  Mostly what we went over in this session was a refresher from some of our earlier classes, with some extra advice more specific to 48.

Some main points were:

• Observe Genre Conventions
• Pick a model film from the genre
• Identify genre troupes
• Subvert, don't fully copy
• Gimmicks are fine, but back up with substance
• Start with a character:
• Objective
• Obstacle- should be a game changer and threaten the objective.  This could be an antagonist or an inanimate object
• Character Arc- what does the protagonist sacrifice or give up to find a sense of resolution
• Moral Lesson?
• Informs climax of the film
• Stinger- a surprise ending.  Subvert in some way.

Priorities for creating a good 48 hour film are:

• Story
• Casting
• Pace
• Audio

Our team has struggled with all of these points each year.  We probably don't focus on character enough during our writing stage, we struggle to find good voice actors, and audio isn't a strong point for any of us. Last year we also forgot to do an animatic, so we didn't end up with good pacing at all.