Scriptwriting Frenzy

With just 4 days left to go until the deadline for Scriptwriting Frenzy, my fingers have been creating smoke and sparks this weekend!

If you haven’t already guessed, with my blog topics over the past month, Scriptwriting Frenzy has been taking up a lot of my time.

On Thursday morning I heard an argument on the tube between two people who worked together at a local catering company. Person A; we’ll call her Lucy had ignored Person B; we’ll call him Jack.

Lucy had prepared a fruit salad, NOT a leafy salad!

Needless to say it went straight in to my script when I had chance to get a pen and paper out. I changed the topic slightly though. I’m not sure a salad argument would work as well in a Car Showroom.

On Friday it was a bizarre conversation with a colleague at work that really helped me past a stumbling block I’ve had in episode two. She was talking about how someone in her block of flats keeps stealing the post. (it’s delivered to a communal place). One of her flatmates found £500 missing from her bank after a new debit card came for her and a neighbour managed to find it first! Eek!

As she was telling me I began to think, that is exactly something that Mickey would do. It’s strange how the characters in my script are becoming more like actual people.

Anyway, another 16 pages to write. Then its just a case of uploading it to the website……

The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of my own and not my employer.

Blogging, Scripting, Filming and Birthdays!

It’s now very apparent that I can’t blog AND script at the same time!

I started out quite well with my Scriptwriting Frenzy, but then lost a few days because of filming and celebrating birthdays. This has meant that I am now writing around 4.5 pages a day in order to keep up with the schedule.

It could be worse…it could be a case of writing something from scratch with just a week and a half to go!

I have also been filming with Josh Dubovie, our hopeful for Eurovision 2010.

I filmed behind the scenes on Wednesday and Thursday, following Josh during his rehearsals.

Then I planned an interview on the Friday morning so that he could talk about the rehearsals and the footage that I had already shot could be used as ‘paints’ to illustrate what Josh spoke about.

I then needed to edit the package together and comply it on Friday afternoon so it could be published.

(Needless to say that the interview was rescheduled for the Thursday afternoon instead. Great as it gave me more time to edit the package. But it meant I had less time to think about the questions.)

Shooting to edit is a very important technique when you have such a small time frame. For example, with this interview I threw some ideas around on the Wednesday afternoon after the first lot of filming to come up with two ‘safe’ options I could talk to Josh about.

These ‘safe’ options couldn’t give away anything that was taking place with the staging.

I chose to ask Josh about being in TVC and the simple dance routine he had been practising.

This consequently meant I knew exactly what to film during the behind the scenes.

A few more filming dates are coming up in the next few weeks which I will tell you about…

For up to the minute information about what I am doing, you can follow my Twitter account.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of my own and not my employer.

Sunshine and Pens

Temperatures are expected to reach 17C this weekend. With that in mind, it’s time to take the scriptwriting on the road!

Well, when I say on the road, I mean to the park.

I’m 13 pages in to my Scriptwriting Frenzy.  I should be writing about 3.3 pages per day in order to meet the 100 page quota for the deadline. Certainly won’t be doing the College trick and leaving it until the night before!

In other news, the recce went really well and I was able to make contact with the people running the Eurovision event.

Took a few stills and have worked out where to do any filming; the venue is a pub and so noise was instantly a real issue.

From my experience when I filmed in a Playgroup for Children in Need, I shall be using a clip mic on any contributors and make sure their backs are to the crowd. It worked really well for me with the Tess Daly video

One last thing. A huge thank you for the link on The Manchizzle website! Make sure you keep up to date with all the Manchester based blogs by visiting this site.

Meanwhile, you can keep up to date with my weekend adventures with my Twitter account.

The opinions and views expressed in this article are that of my own and not my employer.

Ideas Generation #3

Ideas come from public places…

I love this technique. It really uses my ability and fondness of ear wigging and being nosey.

Sometimes, the best snippets of dialogue can be found in a public place.

I remember once, listening to a full on argument about a bus pass taking place over the phone on a bus.  It was great because I only got one side of the story from the woman sitting behind me, but some of the phrases she came out with were priceless.

I then regenerated the conversation, but with two of my own characters and changed the bus pass to a gun. Needless to say, the scene became quite dramatic!

So these are three ways in which I generate ideas.

Of course there are plenty more ways to generate ideas, some of which will fit the way you work a lot better.

Hopefully these processes will help me over the next few days to develop a plotline for my Scriptwriting Frenzy.

If all else fails, there seems to be a great plotline generator on the Scriptwriting Frenzy website.

For all those taking part….good luck!

The views and opinions in this article are that of my own and not my employer.

Ideas Generation #2

Ideas come from job titles…

Once I have my basic plotline, I like to use this method to create great character lines and reactions to situations.

Pick a few job titles at random. I think it makes it more fun if you list a few, put them in a hat and draw how ever many you want out at random.

For example, an army officer, a chef and a school caretaker.

You can have as many as you want but I always start with a few and then build if necessary.

Once I have the job roles, I write a short scene, perhaps three pages set in a lifeless room. The characters interact with one another.

For example, how differently would the caretaker speak to the chef than the army officer?

The other great thing about this is that you can choose any gender for the characters. Half way through, I sometimes change the gender and see how this changes the situation.

It always amazes me how quickly the characters come alive.

From the pieces of dialogue I have written in this exercise, I can then try to fit them in to my other scripts.

The opinions and views in this article are that of my own and not my employer.

Ideas Generation #1

Ideas come from postcards…

My favourite way of generating ideas is to get a random postcard, traditional or electronic (like the one below) and, in a 30 seconds, list everything in the image.

They can be anything from objects, weather, situations, to feelings and emotions.

For example here we can see…

Witch, cat, broom, wooden flooring, apple, cauldron, fire, smoke, devil, skeleton, hat, ribbon, red, blue, yellow, brickwork, fireplace, chimney, shawl, heels, scared, disappointed, logs, poker, forks, wood, cloth, wool, fur, black, green eyes, crooked nose, smashed pot.

Once I have the list, I either pick three things at random and fuse them together OR I write about what could be happening in the scene.

For example, here the cat is being shouted at by the witch after it knocked the potion (which is smashed on the floor) into the cauldron. The potion mixed together to create the little creatures that are floating around the room.

The creatures go on to escape the house. The witch then goes out to collect them before they cause havoc.

Similar storyline to Gremlins, but without the water being their vice. Instead, red apples cause the creatures to act mischievously.

You can then go further and turn any emotions or feelings that may be in the postcard on their head.

For example, the cat is the one that is in charge of this scene and has thrust the broom into the witch, ordering her to clean the mess in the room. She is looking down, disappointed in her actions.

The opinions and views in this article are that of my own and not my employer.

Ideas Generation

I feel like I have been neglecting my blog a little recently, so today I have organised a little blog fest!

With Scriptwriting Frenzy starting in just a few days, I thought I would share with you some of my favourite ways to generate ideas.

This process can be an exhausting experience, but it is certainly the most important thing when working in any creative environment.

They have thousands of courses about generating ideas so it must be important!

Therefore, I shall be bringing you my three favourite ways of generating ideas in three separate blogs throughout the day.

Watch out for the first one coming very soon…

The opinions and views in this article are that of my own and not my employer.