Week 4 Picture This! Class B activity
“Int. day, store
Beth, aged 21, dressed stylishly in black with vibrant blue hair peruses over a selection of CDS.
She tracks along with her fingers until she finds one that grabs her attention.
Reading over the back of the Nickelback CD she becomes delighted with her choice.
Clearly disgruntled by this choice, a fellow shopper overlooking her intervenes, quickly enacting justice by fatally shooting her point blank.
Cut
Later
A freshly drawn chalk outline marks where Beth fell dead in front ‘popular’ music section. Markers surround the area, and detectives write intensely into their notepads. The stores’ bright lighting and vibrant colours serve as cruel juxtaposition to the recent events.
Cut
Ext. day.
Multiple police escort a handcuffed man outside of the camera-laden store to their van, lock him in the back, then meander outside to continue discussing details. Emerging through crowds of concerned civilians, another two cars arrive to assist in securing the area and looking over security footage.
Cut
Adjacent to the police, a news van hastily pulls in. A reporter converses to an officer whilst crew set up for their coverage. A woman soon exits the van, joining the crew. Adjusting her hair and clothing, she clears her throat, and with the all-clear signal from her cameraman, begins live reporting.”
Unfortunately, due to my strange habits in writing, what stands out with my writing for the better is also my largest setback (or at least a very close Venn-diagram which I should aim to separate).
While trying to be descriptive, in which I believe I can do fairly well, I fail to be concise in some areas, and fail to elaborate in others. In order ot improve I need to try and expand my vocabulary to include more precise verbs, as well as reduce the length of my sentences whilst remaining concise and coherent. This is evident within the first paragraph of the screenplay I wrote in class two weeks back; I stated Beth to be “delighted with her choice”, yet failed to exactly show how. Delight infers emotion not action. I need to be able to convey visible action; did she grin, eyes widen, jump with energy, smirk – I need to further enable myself to make definite irrefutable statements that aren’t debatable in how they’re perceived. to meander with definition is to wane the absolutes and control, and expand interpretation to a compromising extent. Whilst a screenplay is an art form and should be able to artistically express, it has a duty to be more direct in conveying information, a duty which I am yet to efficiently uphold, although I do plan to.
Cody: descriptive? Yes. Concise? No.
Hopefully the more I write I can become better at the practice, it will just take a lot more diligence than I currently have. It should be interesting and fun to compare my statements now with my final assessment piece.