The first semester of the third year was a semester. I say that because the highlights completely balance out the lowlights. In saying that, Picture This! (with Stayci Taylor), was definitely a highlight.

Picture This! was a studio in which we studied script writing, both as a collaborative work with directors in the film industry, and as a medium in itself. In class, we would explore the different techniques and rules of script writing, and undergo little exercises to put our newfound knowledge to the test (all in helpful preparation for our final assignments, of course).

The final project I worked on was a seven-page script for a surrealist short film. I used to go around, boasting, about how the story is ‘complete bullshit’, until someone who looked at the work said it was very ‘avant-garde’, and now I just say that because it sounds cooler. So yeah, the story of the film is ‘avant-garde’, and the reason that I chose to take it in this direction is because of the freedom that I had when writing. As the fancy term suggests, I had much room for experimentation.

My initial idea for this came from one of the first segments we did in class, in which we were understanding how to properly be descriptive in a screenplay. This meant, avoiding adverbs and adjectives, and trying to visually paint what’s going on. I wanted to try and use this technique to give ‘animation’ to inanimate objects, which is where I got the idea for a psychedelic lamp.

My next idea came from a discussion we had in class about who chooses to have the creative freedom when working on a film; the writer or the director. This was one of the main topics I was curious about upon starting this class. And the answer we got was ‘it depends’, which really pissed me off because I only deal in absolutes. But at least it meant that we could have as much creative freedom when writing our own scripts. So, the second idea that spawned in my head from this discussion was that I wanted a balance of creative control between me as a scriptwriter, and whoever interprets it. I aimed to do this by avoiding pacing specifics, and mood descriptions, while still giving enough detail to paint the picture. I found this to be both easy and difficult. Easy in the way that all I had to do was describe what the viewer was seeing and hearing, but difficult in that I had to restrict myself in using tone. There were definitely some areas where I pushed the tone in a certain direction, however, but David Fincher avoids using handheld cameras, and has five scenes in the film Se7en, in which handheld was the dominant technique. What I’m saying is that in about one and a half cases in the script, I had to set the mood just a bit to move the story forward. This just goes to show how important being visually descriptive can be in relation to the story.

I could go on about how the final product of my script came to be, but Stayci only gave us a 350 word guideline, which I’m already 187 words over and counting, so I’ll have to cut it short.

This studio was definitely a productive one. It’s good actually understanding the specifics of script writing because it opens up more opportunities for experimenting with future screenplays. Overall, I’d give it a solid 8/10, too much water – IGN.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BPMKJ3tlPF78q1EcQA069wTsEnBEcNEV/view?usp=sharing