For a bit of extra work I decided to find a script of one of my favourite movies and compare that to the final product and see what kind of things I can pick up from that. I decided to look at Animal Kingdom by David Michod as I have analysed this film very closely.

One of the first things that I noticed is how much of the story is lacking in the script. Not that this is a bad thing, it just goes to show how much you can actually do with a script, and it doesn’t necessarily tie you down too much. It’s interesting how much story I could pick up from the movie that wasn’t exactly defined in the script.

Having said that, the script’s dialogue is extremely similar to how the actors performed them, in the way and mood that was set by the script. When I was reading the main character J’s dialogue it came with the exact same performance that was given in the final film. Not to say that the performance wasn’t anything but incredible, but you could really feel what the character was like during the dialogue of the script.

Obviously the big problem with this is I know the movie and I know it well. It’s a benefit to see the difference however having already seen it I was always drawn back to the visuals when reading the script. If I were to read a script of a movie that I haven’t seen before it might be a different story and I might find out a few different things from this experiment.

I shall therefore endeavour to find a movie that I haven’t seen before, find the script and read it first before I watch the movie, hopefully I will have some more revelations!

So far it has all been a bit hectic trying to get a grasp on what we are doing exactly in our studio. The exercises that we have done in the first week were really interesting though so instead I shall focus on that. In Class we were given a character and an action that we had to write a short scene on. My character was Antonius, a retired engineer that is building a man sized rocket in the back shed; and the action that I was given too match with that was that he was enjoying a delicious sandwich. Like the exercise we did before that, I just started writing down whatever was coming to my head, getting as much down as I could. Turns out I was writing a Spy style movie with Antonius trying to make it to the moon in his rocket, the scene was set at a Diner where he happened to be enjoying his sandwich.

After this we got into groups and read each others story out and decided which one we should turn into a script, the group decided that my one was the best to convert to script which I was pretty excited about because I had already started visualising the shots of the scene. Unfortunately looking a bit too far ahead in this case. We each wrote a script separately and brought it to the next class where we would collaborate with the Creative writing students in filming the small scene.

When filming the biggest thing that I found was that everybody had fairly different opinions and views on how the scene looked in their head. I had something completely different in mind to the next person, which was interesting and problematic. I think the main problem here is that there were no assigned job titles so there wasn’t a director that had the power to control the shoot. Every one kept on throwing in individual ideas which, as a collaboration was good, but without a specific director in charge it took us a very long time to film with tall the contributions happening.

We got asked at the start of the class whether we thought the groups were too big. I think they were from what I had seen in my group as some people had no jobs and had to wait around which wasn’t the most productive use of time.

The main things I learnt from this first week’s exercise is that writing is a lot easier if you have some seed of an idea to start with, such as the character that I was given. Collaboration during the writing process was also really good because it critiqued and made a better script with everyone adding their best parts to the scene then what I could’ve had on my own. When it came to the filming however it was a little confusing it terms of the collaboration and who was able to call the shots. Doubling in size probably didn’t help and because we were restricted with the amount of equipment we had to use a few people didn’t get to have a job for the shoot which wasn’t the best. I think next time there should be a list of positions that we assign to everyone so we know who can give direction and who needs to take direction, which will just make the whole shoot more smoother and economical.

This Course is called Writing for Film and Filming for Writing so I don’t think it is to far out their to believe that this course will include writing and filming, that much is for sure. I would think that we’d be looking into the industry and how it has been done as well as research and try new techniques of writing for film, and possibly even creating our own techniques.

What do I want out of the Studio? I would really like a lot of hands on experience in both writing and filming, especially doing the two together from start to finish. I would like to learn a lot more about the techniques and the styles that writers use to convey ideas for the film maker to interpret. As my background is in film I would like to focus more on learning about the writing and then just honing in on my skills as a film maker as I’m a lot more confident in that.

One of my main problems at the moment is writing down my ideas for films that I want to create in a way that people understand them and can see my vision. This is one thing that I hope to become better within this studio.

Something else I’m excited to do is to work with the creative writers that we’re going to be collaborating with. It will be a great experience looking through their work as well as showcasing my own to them. The thing that I’m most excited about is when the two groups can work to each others strengths to create something worth being proud of.

Hopefully some, if not all, of these expectations become a reality.