Tag: Melbourne

Melbourne: “Thanassis”

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Considering the other group member’s characters, I decided to go for someone who was less relatable to me. I took inspiration from various people in my life, hopefully crafting an interesting character who is out of the norm of a young, white and educated Australian.

manolis_the_slap_episode_6“Thanassis (67) is a widower and father of three. His wife passed away from cancer four years ago, bringing him to a new understanding of loneliness. He comes to a realisation that he spent his youth working, and as a strict father, he feels that he had pushed away his children in the process. In an attempt to find purpose in his new life, he tries to get closer to his three kids, despite all of them having their own families and living away from home. He discovers a second chance for redemption by bonding with his middle child’s daughter, Sophia (5), nurturing her like his own.”

Undoubtedly, my character was influenced by Manolis from Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap. (What can I do, I just love Tsiolkas’ work). It would’ve been relatively easy for me to write about someone who was of Filipino heritage, considering my background, but I thought that Greek families were more dispersed and assimilated into Melbourne communities.

Without revealing too much of my personal circumstances, this character, his motivations and particularly his family were inspired by people close to me. This will make my writing easier and hopefully give me the opportunity to grab raw content to transform into story material.

10 Screenwriting Questions

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Upon decluttering my stashed things from who knows when back then, I found a document from a Film and Television short course that I took part in early 2011. Titled “10 important questions to ask yourself”, I’d forgotten the context of this document. From glossing over the content, these questions for a writer would surely be of value to this course.

1) “What is the conflict?” Good stories have strong conflict. No conflict, no story.

2) “What’s the worst thing that can happen to this character?” Make that happen and then make the hero overcome it.

3) “What’s the opposite of what I’m thinking?” Is that an interesting event in the story? Is it better or worse?

4) “What would this character do if they couldn’t talk?” Movies are visual. It’s more important to show what a character does that hear what it is they say.

5) “Do I know the ending?” This will mean you have a goal to write towards; and you will finish the script too!

6) “Who knows what, when?” If you’re stuck, give one character a secret that another character is unaware of. This always results in conflict and tension.

7) “Do I break the story rules I’ve set up?” Consistency is important. If Spiderman can swing from a web, don’t get to the end and then say he can fly. The audience won’t believe you.

8) “Is it clear who my hero is?” The audience need someone to barrack for and identify with. This is usually the hero. There should be something about them that is like you and me. Something we can relate to.

9) “Is it clear who the bad guy is?” Just like the hero, there should be something about them that is just like you and me. Something we can relate to. This makes them real.

10) “What am I embarrassed about?” If you’re stuck for a story, ask yourself this question. The chances are it’s thrilling hilarious, tragic, or dramatic. All good things for stories!

Now try applying every single question to George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and see how effective these are.

The Creative Ones

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This is a delayed post on my first collaborative class with the Creative writing students, which actually happened last Thursday. But you can’t blame me, I spent a good part of the weekend feeling like I was dying with an illness.

Despite the initial territorial-like awkwardness between the Media and the Creatives (or was it just me?), especially with the large group number that we had, it turned out to be somewhat effective in the long run. After reading three of the four scripts we had written, they chose to work with mine as “it was the easiest to do” according to one American-sounding Creative. Surely, the task being a long take, we utilised a single back-track shot which ended with a slightly panning medium shot of Antonius, the protagonist, sitting at his favourite diner spot with June the hostess, slightly off centre on screen. By doing so, the antagonist, his mysterious stalker, can be shot within the same frame. Simple cinematography at its best.

In terms of the group dynamics, two other Creatives and I were actors in this scene, with Jen Farrow taking charge on direction, another Creative on camera and the rest having to sit out this exercise (like I said, group numbers were massive).

I suppose if there was one thing to take away from this exercise, it’s that when writing for screen, one must surely take into consideration the logistics and practicality of what is being written, on eventual production. In this case, I hadn’t included much dialogue and opted for long silences with continued muted action. But filming a scene in a location that isn’t staged nor having proper actors with physical stimuli to deal with, there was a lot of silence that had to be cut. Only because, well, there was nothing happening. Glances and slight looks aren’t useful in class exercises like this. In lieu of future class exercises, one should opt for shorter scripts so that we can play more with the technicalities of production and experiment with cinematography.