Our Screenplay

 

        So, just this week we had a lesson on screen playing, or creating a script, which was very much needed considering we had never created a real script before. We learned about the correct formatting of the script as well as the creation of a story line in general, so here are some of the things that we implemented into our process after the lesson (this lesson came at the perfect time because we were about to begin scripting at this point). 

         First and foremost, we learned that a script and a screenplay are essentially the same thing, which I did not know. We also learned that there is a standardized format for a script that we should follow. For example, the names of characters should always be written in uppercase and it is preferable to refer to a character by their name instead of pronouns so the screen directions are as clear as possible (this excludes dialogue). When it comes to dialogue, it should be pushed to the middle of the script in order to differentiate it from screen directions, which start from the left, and it should have the name of the character saying it right on top. It should also have the acronym -V.O- next to it if it is a voice over, which is important for us to know since most of our dialogue will be voiced over. 

        Another important aspect of formatting would be having the description of the setting on top of the screen directions, like saying if it is taking place in an interior or exterior, the name of where its taking place, and whether it is day or night time.

    

     Now, i want to touch on some of the main takeaways i got from the lesson on story telling. First, the importance of your knowledge in what you're choosing to tell a story on. You should tell stories about things that you know about, care about, or are willing to immerse yourself in in order to learn about. It is not possible to tell a meaningful story if you don't know what you're talking about. This made me think about the story me and my partner, Violette, are choosing to tell. Our main character is a young girl struggling with society's perception of her. Maybe we aren't mimicking our experiences as teenage girls in today's world in an exact matter, but we are expressing feelings through our character that we are familiar with, like insecurity, anger, frustration, and vulnerability. This allows us to tell the story in a way in which the audience will be able to decipher these feelings through our character. 

        Another one of my favorite aspects from the lesson was that you should show your audience 2+2, not 4. In simpler terms, you shouldn't spoon feed information to your audience as if they couldn't have figured the same thing out by themselves with some context clues. I have noticed that when I'm watching a low quality film, they always seem to be stating the obvious and falling into redundancy, while good films always seem to let its audience work toward a conclusion with the information they were given, which makes the film way more interesting to watch. Taking from this lesson is very important for our opening in my opinion, especially since we want to develop mystery with it. We want the audience to watch it, take what we give them, and come to their own conclusions.

        Well, that's pretty much it for today. Lastly I just wanted to input what we have for our script so far :