Consider Jasmine’s lecture on Screenwriting and briefly describe one point that you have taken from it. A point that excites you, something that was completely new to you, perplexes you or even one you take issue with.

One of the major points I took away from Jasmine’s lecture was her emphasis on character and the tip to ‘make your charcaters interesting.’ This can be done through such things as stress and unexpected circumstances – when characters push the boundaries of what’s expected of them to avoid the pitfall of cliché. Jasmine particularly noted that film characters work ‘better’ if they’re larger than life. They should be bold, wilful, determined, strong and emotional; meaning no wallflowers, no introverts and no ‘nice guys’ as we need to be able to introduce emotions. I concur with this as I believe the characters in a short film need to be well understood by the audience due to time restraints, but there is a charcater for every story and films can be built up around the lack of understanding between character and audience.

The lecture then furthered the idea that if the characters are interesting the situations they are put in will become interesting as well, and as an audience we will learn more about a character from their reaction to their surroundings. In the creation of character, Jasmine offered some simple addition:

Take a character + Want + Problem

Through this we can use constraints as stimulus. For example, the character of a young Irishman who wants to write and paint but he has cerebral palsy since birth and can only use his left foot. Through this equation we can create the pure form of character for the story to build upon.

Jasmine notes that the problem the character has will constitute the events and therefore the problem should be something that is outside the everyday. However, this doesn’t always have to be the case as it can be done by making everyday activities interesting, such as in a show like Seinfeld. The problem causes an event which the protagonist is then affected by and which should ruin your character’s day or peace of mind as a mechanic to a chain of reactions.

As a conclusion Jasmine offered some general tips for our production:

1. Keep it simple

2. Stick to 1-3 speaking parts

3. Use one locale

4. Beware of flashbacks and featured time frames

5. Think about your ending as they become important, especially in short films because they have much more impact

Seinfeld screenshot sourced from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WRxEY8o3kc