Before I started this course I had attempted to write numerous scripts. Starting off with great ideas and knowing how they would end. However, I made the huge mistake, as pointed out to us this week, that if you sit down with an idea, and go straight into writing the actual screenplay, it takes FOREVER!!! Not only this, but as I have done, you give up. The story gets lost, all your ideas fall at the wayside and you are left with just the beginning.
So this week I was given a extremely valuable lesson, about pre-writing. Write down all your ideas, the plot, the characters, even every scene in bullet points if you can. Explore every theme, every setting and research as much as you can. Then when you do eventually sit down to write your screenplay, it will be a piece of cake.... well almost! It's because you have a map, you know exactly where you are going, how you are going to get there and all the possible obstacles and events you are going to face a long the way.
To put this into action, we were given a task in groups to select a story in that days newspapers as a starting point, and create an idea, a plot and develop the characters and settings, for a ten minute film. We chose a really difficult story from the Guardian, about a young mother and her children murdered by the father. In reflection, it was perhaps a little too fresh and raw, but it did give us much more emotion and grit to our writing.
Here's what we came up with....
“ESCAPE” – THE PRE-WRITING STAGE
Genre: Social realist drama.
The Idea/story: Escape is about domestic violence within a nuclear family set up. Aram is a young father on benefits, who is addicted to cannabis, consumed by paranoia, possessiveness and violent outbursts. His family suffers at the brunt of his split personality and his frustration at his loss of masculinity. Aram’s wife Joy, works hard to bring in food for her young family, and is desperate to change the life she is destined to have. Yet, Joy out of fear, stands by and helplessly lets her husband beat her daily and mentally abuse their children, will she ever escape?
The Plot: We enter the family’s life at breaking point.
Main Plot points:
1. Opening scene, Aram is on the couch, all day smoking cannabis and watching daytime television. He is uninterested by his 2 and 4 year old sons, who are left to their own devices, with dirty clothes, raiding the kitchen for any scraps that they can find.
2. Joy arrives home from work at the local Tescos, ten minutes later than normal, due to an unexpected delay. Aram, with irrational jealousy verbally attacks Joy. The situation escalates, and the audience is left watching the reaction of the children in the kitchen as they listen to the familiar sound of their mother being violently attacked, pleading for him to stop.
3. Later we see, Joy, tenderly tucking her children into the cramped and cold beds, as she fights to hold back her tears.
4. The next morning Joy awakes, and the full extent of the attack is shown on her swollen, bruised and battered body, including a black eye. Which she desperately tries to mask with make-up, before leaving the house.
5. Whilst at work, Joy is confronted by her manager, who calls her into the office. The manager unsympathetically, explains to Joy that the unexplained bruises, that have appeared constantly since her employment three years ago, are not the kind of image that she wants portrayed to her customers any longer. If it continues then her contract will be terminated.
6. Joy is in turmoil trying to muster up the courage to escape her violent life, not only for her, but also for the sake of her young children.
7. Still undecided, Joy arrives home to the usual scene of Aram lying on the couch with a spliff in hand. She finds both children hysterical with cigarette burns all over their body. Her mind is finally made up.
8. Joy agonizingly waits until Aram is again unconscious for the night on the couch. She frantically collects her and her children’s necessities. Gently waking them, taking the youngest in her arms and the eldest by the hand she attempts her escape.
9. Stepping through the front door her efforts are all in vain, as Aram suddenly grabs the eldest child pulling him back into the house.
10. Joy and her children are tied to the kitchen chairs, as we see Aram’s descent into complete madness. The monster douses his family in petrol, as the Zippo lighter falls to floor, the front door closes, as the audience is left to imagine the horrific scene that follows. Has Joy finally escaped?
THEMES:
1. Loss of masculinity in an economy that is not longer dependent on manufacturing.
2. Family and Relationships
3. Lack of self-belief.
4. Gender roles.
5. Drugs
6. Domestic Violence/child abuse
CHARACTERS:
ARAM:
1. Is 23, unemployed former factory worker for Rover.
2. Nobody, stoner, with working class family upbringing.
3. Strong masculine values that he cannot meet due to him not being able to provide for his family, this brings immense frustration.
4. Male dominant- only expresses his emotions through violence.
5. Sever drug dependence, that only amplifies his paranoia, violent behavior and depression due to lack of male role and respect from peers.
6. Aram is of average build,tall, strong and dominant. Poor personal hygiene, scruffy, dazed and confused.
7. He only feels strong, when he exposes others weaknesses.
8. He also lacks self worth and feels he has lost all control of his life. The only thing he can control is his weaker family.
JOY:
1. 21, employed Tesco worker.
2. Quiet, shy, repressed and keeps herself to herself.
3. Good at covering up her abusive life and has become submissive due to this.
4. Joy was raised in an abusive household, in the same estate and doesn’t know any different.
5. Joy became a mother at a very young age; she never enjoyed her childhood and never fulfilled her aspirations of getting out of the council estate.
6. Emotionally scarred, trapped and extremely vulnerable
7. She lacks the self-respect and courage to change the pattern in her life.
8. Her appearance amplifies her situation; she is thin, weak, exhausted and immensely fragile.
9. She takes on all the roles of a modern woman, juggling caring for her children, making sure her chores are carried out and working full time to support the whole family, including Aram’s drug habit.
SETTINGS:
1. North of England
2. Grotty council estate
3. Cramped, dingy and dirty flat
4. Present day
5. Tesco supermarket
I now feel a lot better about writing the screenplay for "The Meeting", and hopefully will finally go about writing one the correct way :)
this is great stuff. glad it was so helpful
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