My Script Writing Progress

Reflecting upon the means of a script and script writing for the first draft and the script, feedback given in week 3's tute made me rethink my script again. Not because of the rules of rewriting but the story line. It is a bit cliché having a blond foreign girl in Australia and never seen a possum before and getting rescued by an Aussie Possum catcher, but what can I do to make it more interesting? What was it in the feedback that could inspire me to make my script grow?

It was one of my current favorite movies and the lecture upon sound design, of course! What does ‘Shutter Island’, ‘Blair Witch Project’, ‘Chopper’, ‘Sponge Bob’ and ‘Paranormal Activity’ have in common? A simply made story line (looking beyond the setting, chose of characters and the plot) with some creative and EXTREME sound effects. ‘Sponge Bob’ the cartoon upon a sponge and his sea star friend playing with ‘iiiiimaaaginaatiiiooon’ in their box is ridiculously over driven with sound effects matching the movements done by the characters and adjusted sound levels, becomes the film's drive force for me as an audience.

For my script sound and light effects as those used in ‘Paranormal activity’ will spice it up. Keeping the story line simple and focusing on details and camera movement upon my setting will clear up what is going on and rather enforce the mystique of my film instead of being confusing. After writing the first draft and implementing two feedbacks (first one was too easy, too short, too simple and to usual. And the second one needing more clarity) I decided to go for more details. This made me go in depth of ‘what would I do if I was the protagonist? What would I do if I was inside a house of paranormal activity and the possum guy I thought was chasing me but instead came for the possum? I would hear lots of sounds, be paranoid and scared. Sound effects and storyline here, I belive go hand in hand. It is simple but the visual is only less than half of it before adding dialogue, sound and noises.

Aiming to develop journalistic writing skills, script writing is about details and action and as I was rewriting and rewriting and rewriting, I felt that I as an author became clearer and concise of a character or a location. Script writing being as a writing style, has taught me to be more simple and more specific on a particular person, location and an action. Having told the story ‘Hello Possum!’ to friends and seen their reaction, I’ve realized the change and the dynamic of the story and where these changes and corrections needed to be made. Keeping it simple worked, now the details of camera, characters and sounds needed work.

Doing the shot construction exercise and going through feedbacks upon script writing, this style differs itself from others by being specific, clear, concise and detailed. For my professional strand of journalism this is developing my clarity and punctuality of writing and the most interesting aspect of this writing is how to get direct action down to paper by including the visual and the audio.

In this way both my script of the film and the visual and audio goes hand in hand. Maybe the storyline is cliché but that works for me; a bit cliché but simple. With the use of effects and camera I am imaginating, this could be good. And that is what matters for me, I am after all a RMIT student being the ‘author of my own story’.