Screenplay: Draft to Final

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I think it is very difficult to envision a film without a script, as it is the base of what appears onscreen. So, as part of pre-production, I wrote a screenplay as it gives me a clearer picture of what I have to do when I start filming. I am also aware that some parts of the screenplay may be refined or removed, but this depends on how it goes down during the production.

Since the Internet is filled with screenwriting softwares, the top three websites recommended to the class were: Plotbot, Adobe Story and ScriptBuddy. However, I decided to make my own because I wanted to put my screenwriting skills into practice, and learn how to format a screenplay properly. I created the script by setting up a paragraph style on Google Docs and followed the screenplay conventions sheet, which was shared to us by our teacher on Google Docs:
Since we are only required to write two pages of our screenplay - as a page is equivalent to a minute - the basics of the screenplay conventions was pretty easy to grasp. As well as this, I have written a screenplay before, because we wrote one for our short film experiment, so this made the process much quicker.

This is the first draft of my screenplay for my horror film opening called Untitled.


 CHANGES I HAVE MADE
Google Docs has allowed me to share my screenplay with my teacher so she could comment and give feedback on certain parts of it:
My first screenplay draft was very irregular, because I did not proof read it, so there were a lot of mistakes. However, I was able to identify my errors because the text my teacher highlighted had a comment next to it, which allowed me to make the corrections to my screenplay. I made sure to add all the transitions so that when it comes to filming, and editing, I'll know exactly what I have to do.
© 2015 RICAANGELICAADARLO

Another change I made to my screenplay was the name of the characters. The first draft was very inconsistent because I referred to the female part as female character, female actor and wife. I then decided to keep the female part as female character, because she is not meant to have an identity, and I changed the male character's name to Will. Furthermore, I adjusted the alignment of the text from justified to align left, as this is one of the fundamental conventions in a screenplay. Also, this correction has made my overall screenplay more consistent.

CHOOSING A TITLE
As I was writing my screenplay, I initially left it as Untitled because I couldn't think of any other names and I wanted to get some title suggestions from the class. The reason why I wanted to have a different title from the original story, is because there is already a film with the same title - The Yellow Wallpaper (dir. Logan Thomas, 2010) - and the focus of my film is on the unnamed woman, who secretly writes in her journal and is locked in a room. 

After the class read-through my screenplay, I asked for a title suggestion, but one of my peers thought that my film opening was actually called Untitled. Although it did somehow correspond to what my film is actually about, I was worried that my audience would not understand the concept and think that I did not give my film a name. To tackle this problem, I went on Twitter and created a poll to let my followers decide and vote on what title would suit my film opening the best. The three options I gave were Anonymous, Untitled, and Dementia. These are the results:
I chose to do a twitter poll because it does not show which option the user voted for, but instead the percentage breakdown of votes are displayed. I thought this was very effective, because the user is only allowed to vote once, and can't undo their choice, so the results would not be biased. Since I did not get any other title suggestions, I decided to change to title to Anonymous, as it had the highest percentage of votes.

This is my final screenplay:

CONCLUSION
Now that I have finalised my screenplay, it has made me realise how worthwhile this process is. This is because, it let me get my ideas down clearly, and the input I got from my teacher and peers - after reading my first draft - helped me improve my script further. Additionally, this task has made me think more critically and carefully about the mise-en-scene, editing and camerawork, and has also helped me visualise how I would want the production to go.


About The Author

An ENFP who happens to be an aspiring globe-trotter with a love for art, music and iced coffee. Trying to be pretty alright at everything.

2 comments:

  1. Binge. Read. Watch25 February 2016 at 00:44

    This is very good and detailed

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mrs Holly1 March 2016 at 20:43

    Another lovely and detailed post outlining the process of your journey. I love the use of Twitter as a way to gauge a successful title. Please make sure posts are submitted on time in the future.

    ReplyDelete