STUDY BUDDY
EXT. RMIT UNIVERSITY GROUND, PARK BENCH ( DAY)
Maria and Adam sit on a sun soaked bench as the world has changed around them. The light from the sun emulates their faces and imitates their emotions as they have found someone to make their journey through university brighter. Maria sits down and Adam hesitate’s briefly before seeing Maria’s engaging smile, her bright eyes widen with her growing and welcoming grin giving a sense of calm as he sits down beside her, the two are seated much closer together then they were on their first encounter.
Maria
So, (giggles)
Adam, smiling back.
Maria
Chapter 5?
Maria pulls out her book from her bag and opens to the marked out page.
ADAM
Yes! Yes….. agggh chapter 5.
Adam quickly pulls open his bag and fumbles for the book, he flicks through a couple pages before he finds the correct one.
Adam
Ready!
Maria
So what did you think she was talking about when she felt she had come to a crossroads? I almost thought it related back to chapter one, foreshadowing now to this.
Adam licks his lips preparing to share his thought as he does, Maria pulls out and clicks her pen into the the ready position, she is prepared to take down some notes. Unbeknownst to each other they both finally feel a sense of confidence and dependancy on the other they never had prior to now having a study buddy. Both let off a smile .
Adam
Well here where she says ” The clouds fell into place and began pointing me in the right direction got me thinking….
The two of them study well past originally intended but both Maria and Adam knew this new friendship was just the beginning and there was a lot more they would be seeing of one another.
*****
This piece was written in class based off a writing exercise where we took a series of still images to try and put together a story based initially off of visual components. This small piece of writing is from the final image and the resolution to the story. The image displays Maria and Adam sitting next to one another studying, this being the overall intention of the story I think the written element I created works well to contribute to the stories over arching plot of two university student’s finding each other and finding a study buddy.
Over all I found this to be a successful interpretation of the story as a whole and the singular image. I felt I wanted to really portray the couple’s mood and their emotional state using a more poetic and romanticised feel due to the tonal shift in the image compared to its predecessors. I think this was achieved in the first couple of scene description’s as I wanted the description to take form of how I felt and how I would expect my audience as well as actors to feel if they read or watched this.
I liked and played with the element of romance but didn’t make it a central theme. Something spoke to me, whether it was the traditional boy meets girl scenario, the scenery or just the stereotypical story ploys… the way my characters began to interact with each other within my writing just seemed somewhat flirtatious and thus I worked it in from time to time. I especially enjoyed writing Adam as the dorky goofball character, he seemed nervous around Maria and the character of Maria from previous images in her pursuit of Adam made her seem headstrong. I made certain character decisions which then began the process of a spin off into the idea of a character romance, but it wasn’t my intention for the story. I merely played on how the characters began to take shape based also on their body language and the scenery the image presented itself in.
I think overall whilst I was happy with my short script I felt it waned some what in certain capacity when compared to other writing I heard in class and even some go the feedback I got during the class exercise. Whilst I took a more direct and camera lens style approach my work seemed to feel a bit lacking in letting the visual language flow and seemed much more of a directorial script or shot break down then it did a novel or short story. Whilst I see nothing wrong with a more screenplay approach I admire how some other writing’s and interpretations from other students works felt more like reading a novel in how they choose to approach the task. I think if I had the chance to improve I would like to give my scenes and characters more descriptive depth, due to my film and television based style of writing from previous years of education, I find this style is now a habit and find it hard to tap into other styles, but it is something I would like to further work on.
I would aim to achieve this through using better descriptive visuals, and attempting to use the visuals as story indication or plot progression, as apposed to characters thinking things and me telling the audience. My aim is to get better at building my world and using it more so rather as to then relying on character to shape the story solely. Whilst I do enjoy creating characters and the intricate writing that goes into character and realise its overall importance, I would like to also achieve this with my world building for future works.