Page 82 - Student: dazed And Confused

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W riter's notes

The hardest part of this is coming up with a good idea. I've got loads of ideas but the hard
bit is working out which one will make good cinema.

We've seen loads of different film beginnings in class, in all different genres and stuff. Some
of them I liked and some I didn't, though it gives me a bit more foundation to work on.

It needs to be very visual and pacy, and dialogue is secondary to what can be seen. That's
hard to get my head round as my regular prose writing, novels and such, and the radio unit
before this feature dialogue more heavily. There's a lot more speed involved than in the
other stuff; like, things are always happening here.

I got some bad criticism over my first idea, because it would have been a rip off of a famous
idea. Then I remembered a story I wrote a few years ago and thought that it might make a
good screenplay if I adapted it right. I'm doing adaptations in another module so I used my
studies from that to help.

I added more to the story than was in the original and it gave it a bit more life. There was a
sense of place and atmosphere about it now, where it was very character-centric before.

Although the idea and the character's are the same, the dialogue has been utterly changed.
In the story, the speeches feature quite a bit of exposition and reaction. But I've learnt that

this is not the way to write for screen. People need to act and make things happen, not
watch things happen around them.

Scripts usually work on the basis that 1 page = 1 min. It's not too hard to keep to that rule
roughly because I found I had enough stuff to write in the time, but I think I've fallen a bit
short at the end. I did go over quite a bit at first. I wanted to put in another storyline which
tied to the main story. On my third read through, I decided that it just didn't fit the story
and took it out - a copy of that scene will be attached at the end. A shame, because I really
liked that scene when it was written but it just doesn't fit the story. I've seen far too many

films where stories have been put in just because they are nice stand-alone stories to know
that I don't want to do that.