“What if I told you that instead of gettin` older, I was gettin` younger than everybody else?” – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
THE BIRTH OF THE STORY
THE BIRTH OF THE STORY
THE FEATURE
Let’s start where this all begins, from an idea, a thought, a dream, a nightmare, a book, or just plain inspired by a movie. So wherever this seed is planted it has to be put down and watered and taken care of so that it grows into the big tree that bears fruits. If you are planning to write for a feature there are 3 important things to the story,
1. The Beginning
2. The Middle.
3. The End
The Beginning is the portion wherein you introduce your characters and the plot. One should remember never to overspend time on establishing the characters or the plot as audiences will tend to get bored quickly. There are also options of starting from the end or the middle and then going into flashback mode and moving forward.
The Middle is where the meat of the film is, this is part which takes the plot up to the heights of the film where it’s supposed to be, the climax, all linkages and setups done earlier in the film come together here.
The End is the conclusion of the movie, The Hero wins or if it’s a sad ending they die, then there are also ends where you leave the seed for further stories. Whatever the case the end is the conclusion of the plot that was set up at the beginning.
Whatever you write, the key to a good end product starts with a good script, twists and turns are key to keep the audience gripped and a twist every 15 mins. of screen time helps just to do that.
Before you get into technical aspects of writing always remember to put down your story in short, then identify the key scenes and moments, and only after that go forward to writing it into a structured format which will help in getting a good screenplay out of it. The key questions one should ask while writing is what makes this story worthy of cinema? Is the plot coming through? Or is it getting hidden in the treatment of the film, who are the characters? Where have they come from? etc
Writing the story in the standard format helps make your work look presentable and professional. There are some technical aspects to it, you can use paper and pen, typewriter or a computer, but there is a format to be kept in mind that will help in the production of the film at a later stage. Some of professional software’s used are Movie Magic screenwriter, Final Draft and many more, you can buy these online but remember to try their trial versions and see if you are comfortable with it before spending your life savings on it, also keep in mind if the software is compatible to others (producer, director etc) which will come in handy during the production stage of the film where the software’s like EP scheduling, and other budgeting will be used. Do a comparison of the software’s that you choose to see what benefits they can give you. What you should also do is check out scripts, screenplays of already released films to get an idea before going about your work.
THE COMMERCIAL WORK
In commercials you don’t have too much of time or rather seconds to build up plots and characters, therefore costumes, locations, makeup etc play a key role in helping you get there faster. The key to writing a good commercial is remembering that the product is the hero and has to stand out in the end. It should make the audience watching want to go out and buy the product.
Doing things differently or sometimes doing just a plain and simple thought can bring about a good liking to the audience. The target audience has to be kept in mind before writing a commercial, also sometimes it has to be part of a bigger campaign and has to fit into the larger scheme of things. The writer also has to keep in mind music and visual effects that can be achieved for raising the standards for the product. At the end of the day if the message is clear then surely the film should work.
TV SERIALS
In tv there are different styles of writing, episodes are what one normally writes for, the story is broken up into seasons, the plan for the entire season is first drawn up and then detailed episodes are written, if it’s a continuous story the writer has to keep the interest going through the episode and yet not lose the overall scheme of things, the style of writing be it comedy or drama, etc is very important in keeping the audience attention.
Then there are also single-story episodes where the characters stay the same but the story beings and ends within the episode. Whatever the kind of serial that one writes for Character build-ups play a key factor for audiences to want to come back and watch more of the serial. Also growth of characters over a long-running series should be definitely kept in mind, especially with kids as they tend to grow a lot faster and begin to look different within a short span of time.
In conclusion, what you write is yours and don’t forget to register your script before you share it with others, getting a professional opinion is a must but make sure you are not the inspiration for someone else.
So whatever you do if you use a software or not just remember that it’s the story that will make it a better film and not the software. So would like to end on a note “Go ahead and sleep, for its in dreams that our Movies come to life.
Auggieism:- What to you call when Auggie is in a very sleepy mood.....
Ans:- Groggie..
