Research Dossier

The Competition:
The competition I have decided to enter my script into is called BlueCat Screenplay Competition. This competition provides huge advantages to the winners and even if you don't win you get your screenplay analysed by 2 professional writers which can help me in my screenwriting immensely. Winners of the competition and even finalists of the competition have been signed to major talent agencies such as UTA, CAA and WME and have sold their work to huge world renowned studios such as Warner Bros, Universal and Universal. This competition could not only help me with my screenplay techniques but could also get me a career in the screenwriting business. Among the large lists of regulations there are for you to submit and be liable to win the competition, a few are, screenplays that are submitted must be original and are owned by the applicant, there is no limit on how many screenplays you submit however if they're a short screenplay which mine is, it must be between 5-40 pages and there are absolutely no exceptions. You cannot submit a screenplay that is entered in any other competition or have won any other screenwriting competition will automatically be disqualified from the competition. With these rules and regulations I don't break any of these regulations and I will be able to enter my finished screenplay into the competition which as said before, if won will give me huge opportunities.

I took a page from the screenplay of a TV show i'm very fond of called New Tricks. I did this as i not only wanted to show that I can identify key script conventions but I also wanted to annotate a show that I enjoyed. As you can see from the image below I have annotated the extract and identified the key script conventions.

Examples from existing scripts, with my evaluation of them:

This is an excellent example of outer presence and gives us the dominant impression of the character Viva that is being described. From this extract we learn what sex the character is, around what age she is, grooming, physical appearance, clothes. We can instantly tell what sex the character is, one is says "her" however we can also tell from her actions like "checking reflection of her back view in mirror". This is a stereotypical mannerism of a young teenage girl, caring what they look like from every possible angle her putting on lip gloss also backs this up, however we then begin she isn't actually like a stereotypical teenage girl as she puts her football boots in her bag, this gives us as the reader a different impression and picture in our head of the girl, although she seems like this girly girl who cares about what her makeup looks like and what she looks like to other people, she runs around getting dirty and sweaty from playing football which is the complete opposite.

From this we can see a clear inner presence in this character. We learn from this extract that the character Saz is more intelligent than the rest of her friends and shes in fact becomes a teacher like figure of the group, the more mature of them all. Shes in fact teacher her friends about what happens when a sperm enters a woman's body and she also knows the right names for part of the body like the Fallopian tubes which none of the others know. It also shows that she has more knowledge about the subject of babies and sex although she may not have the most experience in the subject.

This extract shows us the context of the character Viva, even this small little clip allows us to be in Viva's world and what her home life is like. Although this scene is primary about showing Rob and Anna having sex and how much they have sex there is some deeper meanings in here. Viva calls the characters Rob and Anna, not mum and dad which most normal teenagers call their parents and we find out later that Anna is a teacher at her school and shes her step mum so we know that the character Rob is her dad although she doesn't call him this. This could suggest that her home life or her mum and dads divorce was bad and shes had a hard home life. It could also show that she is no longer cared about, the two parents care about having another child we find out before this extract and that Anna is in fact pregnant, and when the baby is born it will be taking Viva's room. This suggests that she isn't wanted within the house and as soon as she goes to uni or gets a job she is being made to move out.

From this dialogue you can see that Holli clearly has insecurity about the subject they're on about. It shows her inner presence and also her outer presence. It shows her outer presence as we see her 'hard' exterior being the tough one of the group, but we also see that she can get offended easily when people say that its easy to have sex with her and she isn't the tough one of the group shes exactly like the others in the group a stereotypical teenage girl.

From this scene direction we can paint a very good and clear picture of the character that is being described. We know what shes wearing and even though only her eyes are described and can be scene we get the feeling that she is one of the very innocent shy girls as her eyes are large (like a small cat playing their eyes go large and they look innocent etc.) We can also tell that she looks up to the 4 main characters as she is paying close attention to what they're saying and wants to be included in part of the group. Just from this small extract we can learn a lot about the character and this is what you want the scene direction to do.



This is an 11 minute short film for an anti bullying campaign. From a screenplay perspective this is a very smart and well written screenplay. The thing I like about this is that its silent and absolutely no dialogue is used, although you can see what the characters are sometimes saying for example when the bully keeps calling the victim a slut. Everything the audience needs to see is said through the characters actions and body language. This is what you want a screenplay to do, more scene direction than dialogue and I personally think that having no speaking in this short and making it silent gives a bigger effect on the audience. It allows the audience to think longer and harder about whats going on and they have to think about whats going on instead of being told whats going on. It also makes the short more emotional just from being silent and having effective music. In the first scene we get a very good example of inner presence just from the first few seconds. We can clearly see that the woman/girl who is staring into the mirror is going to an event that she is dreading. Just from the first few shots and the small gestures she does, like looking closely at her earrings and making sure her lipstick is perfect by wiping a small bit off her skin we can tell that she cares what people think about her and she obviously takes peoples comments to heart as shes trying to be as perfect as possible for other people. Just from seeing the first few scene you would think that with the context shes just nervous about a big event that is going on and she is going to be going to however her being nervous about the big event could lead to bigger problems etc.



I also liked this short film as it was completely different and original compared to the rest of the short films I watched. The writers of the screenplay are currently writing the screenplay about Vicky and Sam and then they see that what they say that would happen within the screenplay actually happens to them and they see their characters come to life. Its really well written and a very clever idea. From a screenplay perspective this is also a very clever video and is very unique. Compared to the last screenplay this short has quite a large amount of dialogue and voice overs. Although you can see whats going on within the scene and you don't actually need the dialogue the only reason I personally think that the dialogue and voice over is put in the short is so you can understand the narrative of the short film. One of the main characters Sam you can tell just from seeing him within the first few scenes you can tell from his outer presence that he is a very shy kind of person and is classed as a 'misfit'. Although when you begin to learn about him you see that he's actually a normal kind of person and is desperately in love with Vicky. Again the main reason I like this short is because its so creative and original and I've never seen anything like it before.

I conducted audience research so I could see if people would either read or watch a short that was about my screenplay as this kind of research is vital to see if my idea would appeal to my primary target audience and if people would actually watch/read my screenplay. I conducted a questionnaire on a site called SurveyMonkey which allows you to create free surveys for people to complete and to try and get more responses I emailed close friends and family. I sent the link to my survey to close family and friends. Although I didn't get as many results as I hoped, some is better than none. I asked questions that would allow me to see if I had aimed my screenplay at my target primary target audience and to see if my idea would actually work. A question I asked was "Would you watch a short/read a screenplay with the genre of a who done it wrapped up within an apocalypse situation?"
As you can see from the graph 80% of the people that I asked said that they would watch/read my screenplay. This is a huge success and shows me that my screenplay does have an audience. To follow up from this question I asked how old the applicants were so I could pinpoint my target audience demographically.





From this graph you can see that 6 of my 10 applicants were between the ages of 17-25 years old which is what I was aiming for. 4 of them were slightly below my age range however the more people that I can attract the better. More questions were answered and they allowed me to build on my targeted audience. I leaned the age and that people would read the screenplay which are two of the most important questions that I needed to know.





I took my research of my idea very seriously as I wanted to create something that not only I liked and that I enjoyed to write but also something people would enjoy. A large influence on my original idea was The Walking Dead and my main character was based on one of the main characters. Rick is a police officer and right at the start of the first ever series of The Walking Dead they chase villains and Rick ends up getting shot and going into a coma. When he finally wakes up in a hospital bed he doesn't realise that he has woken up in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Rick is a strong minded, born survivor which again I based my story line and main character on in my screenplay. This was probably the largest influence on my screenplay as I am a huge fan of the show. New Tricks and Shawshank Redemption were also major influences on my script. The reason they're influences on my script is because they are both who done it programmes and films, they have you guessing how it was done? or who done it? This is what I wanted to do with my script and I think I managed to do that. A video game also had a slight influence on it the game being called Dead Rising 2, this is where a zombie outbreak is blamed on the main character Chuck Green and you play not only to have fun and kill zombies but to prove his innocence and escape the city, this was going to be my first idea however I realized that it would not fit into a 10 minute short. I took parts from all of my influences and created my script.

Real world stories such as Princess Diana possibly being murdered by the SAS/Government also interest me. A Doctor Kelly that was also found dead again was possibly murdered because of knowing too much about a certain government project. David Kelly was a British scientist and was an expert in biological warfare and was employed by the ministry of defense and was formally a United Nations weapon inspector in Iraq. He came to the media's attention in 2003 when having an unauthorized discussion with a BBC journalist on the British dossier of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. After being questioned aggressively for his actions Kelly was found dead two days later after 'Committing suicide' there was huge speculations that he was murdered however like the Princess Diana case no evidence could be found. Both these stories also had influences on my script and allowed me to get influence from real life stories.


Bibliography:
www.bluecatscreenplay.com
www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom.com
www.vimeo.com
www.wikipedia.com
www.youtube.com
Microsoft word
www.surveymonkey.com
www.chartgo.com
www.google.com
BBC Article on Princess Diana's Death
Daily Mail Article on David Kelly's Death