Script Writing - Evaluation

I missed some scheduled lessons in the Script Writing module by joining the course seven weeks in, but I managed to catch up quite quickly due to the help of other students such as Simon, Tori, Steven etc. This included Narrative structure, Genre, Mise-en-scene and how to start writing such as quick fire tasks. When I joined the course my first lesson was on writing a synopsis; I found this an odd starting point as I struggled to address an idea without engaging into it further. I went back to my synopses after I had written my treatments as this gave me a better idea of how the narrative would play out. From this I was able to look at the structure of my treatment and address it as three acts; which I found really useful to mark out a balance within the script and to allow myself room to switch things around a later date.

After receiving some feedback on my treatment, it was agreed upon that the narration weakened the script when it was interlinked with a series of flash backs.  Due to this feedback I will be re-writing the structure without a heavy use of narration, to take forward for my first draft. Once my First Draft was completed I still felt unhappy with the way the Narrative worked. This lead me to creating Character Bio’s, to give myself a better understanding of the characters and their relations with one another. Because of this, I made a Second Draft of my script were there was no flashbacks and instead it was in a completely chronological order. Some scenes were modified accordingly to the new structure, and some scenes were completely new to help with the relations between characters. My Third Draft was shortly after the class done ‘hot-seating’; this was due to new elements I hadn’t thought of before, which made me create minor changes to the script.

From this Third Draft, I went through a script breakdown, and from that created scene cards and call sheets. This wasn’t difficult until I came to the call sheets; I felt it was something that should have been covered in another module earlier than this as this would have cleared up a lot of confusion. I don’t think my call sheets are very strong or understandable but I will continue to work on them as I progress through my summer and the modules next academic year.

Although I have thoroughly enjoyed this module in its entirety, I have especially enjoyed writing a script from scratch. However I do feel it’s not one of my strong points for this industry and I would be happy to not continue writing my own scripts as a specialism. I would like to carry my script over though, and potentially film it, this would mean going through the process of a shooting script which I was looking forward too but was unfortunately not part of the module.

I have enjoyed the way this module was taught but it did feel slow in some areas, I was especially pleased when Di progressed through the scheme of work at its scheduled pace instead of waiting for people to catch up. If it wasn’t for this I feel I would of lost interest toward the later stages of development. My biggest concern is the lack of professionalism within the class; it ruins lessons and makes it feel incredibly childish.