The Plot That Sucked
Hello faithful blog readers!
Back again today with part 3 of the notes from the writersroom seminar. Today’s should be fairly brief…
COHERENCE
Your script needs to have a strong plot that holds everything together. This should be fairly obvious to anyone who’s an aspiring screenwriter, but there are so many people who get it wrong! You can have lots of great ideas, good scenes, etc., but you still need a clear plot that connects these things and also comes to a satisfactory resolution.
One example of a film which (in my opinion) fails to accomplish this, is “The Boat That Rocked” by great writer Richard Curtis. It’s full of great little scenes and moments that can be comedic, touching, or even heartbreaking. As a whole, however, it is very unsatisfying. The overall central plot is extremely weak, and there are too many little plots all happening at once, with no real resolution or sense of story.
It’s very easy to get carried away when you’re “in the zone” and to try to do too much, but you need to beware of being distracted from the focus of your story. You may write a scene that you really like, but, if it’s not moving the plot along, does it really need to be there?
Lastly, you need to know the world, tone and genre of your script, then make sure that you are faithful to this throughout. What kind of story is it? This harks back to the stuff about format from part one of these blogs, but again – your audience needs to know what they are watching, and to “get it” very quickly. There’s nothing wrong with writing in a specific genre, the trick is learning how to be original and surprising within that world.
Alright. That’s all for part 3. Catch you later!
L.
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Form of an Ass
I got today’s blog title from an exclamation made by a writer I follow on Twitter. I thought it was funny and it contains the word “form”, which is what I’m talking about today…
So!
Yesterday I promised I’d fill you in on some of the points from the Writersroom roadshow event that stood out to me on Wednesday. The main part of the talk was delivered by Paul Ashton of the BBC Writersroom, and he gave a rundown of ten things that they look for in a script.
Much of this stuff you can also find in other writing courses or in books on writing for tv/film, but it was still good to have it re-iterated and there were a few things Paul explained in a fresh way that I think will really help in some of our up-coming projects.
Today, I’ll just write about the first point…
FORM
Television shows always fit into a specific format, for example, half-hour sitcoms, serial dramas (two/three hour-long episodes, like jane austen), one-off sixty-minute documentaries, etc. So when you’re sending in a script to the BBC (or any other channel), you have to make sure you know what kind of show it is that you’ve written, and that the format is appropriate. Don’t send in a two-hour long episode of what is clearly half-hour sitcom material.
You also need to look at other shows in the same style as yours. Although you want to tell your own original story, people are used to a specific form when it comes to certain types of programme. If you’re doing a crime drama series, you should be watching other programmes of a similar nature, and figuring out how they work – how they tell their story.
When you’re writing the script, you need to always be clear about what you mean, what you’re trying to say. Script readers don’t necessarily have all the background information that you’re aware of, or all of the painstaking notes you’ve taken as you’ve worked on your story. If you don’t make sure all the important info is there, the chances are that they’re not going to “get it”.
Finally, it’s important that you don’t “direct”. Just get the dialogue and action onto the page. Leave all the camera moves and things up to the director. An example of this could be where you write about how a character gets a shock of realisation. In the script, you simply have to say something like, “We see a look of realisation on Kevin’s face.” It’s up to the director/actor how this is then shown on-screen. The script is the blueprint. The starting point that everything else is built from.
Alrighty. That’s all for today, but hopefully there was some interesting stuff in there for ya. Lots of it seems like common sense, but apparently the Writersroom gets inundated with a plethora (I love that word) of scripts that haven’t thought about these kinds of things. If you can make sure you bear them in mind, you’ll definitely stand out as someone who knows what they’re doing.
Adios for now!
L.
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Bee Careful to Follow our Blogs!
Hey!
So, we’re back in the blogging game again today. We have been busy bees of late, which is more than I can say for the poor actual bees who seem to be dying out in some kind of bee apocalypse.
We’ve decided to re-focus our blog approach. So far, it’s just been a case of letting you know what we’ve been up to, like crewing as the cameramen for this music vid, for example…
…but from now on, we’re going to be posting more regularly, and sharing lots of the different things we’ve been learning on our quest to become great film-makers.
Both Stu and myself are interested in all the different aspects of film-making, so it’ll be a bit of a mish-mash of subjects, plus we’ll be doing some reviews and other random stuff too, but hopefully that means there’ll be at least one thing a week which will keep you interested. 🙂
Last night we were at a special seminar in Dundee, put on by the BBC Writersroom. It was a really informative look at improving your writing, as well as an opportunity for them to remind us about their upcoming screenplay competition. If you’re a writer, you should check out the Writersroom website and get yourself signed up for their email bulletins!
Tomorrow, I’ll be posting a couple of the points from their seminar. Stay tuned!
L.
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Promises, Promises…
Well, well, well. I promised a blog every day didn’t I. Sorry about that, but we’ve been MAD busy! We’re in the middle of a major event in Dundee right now, called “LOVE DUNDEE”, and we’re doing a lot of music and video stuff for it.
In the meantime though, here’s a vid of me smacking myself in the face with a shovel. This is an out-take from the vid we made for this year’s Virgin Media Shorts competition. Please click the link below to view it on their official website, and register to rate/comment. It would be seriously appreciated! 🙂
‘Later!
L.
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Chain Gang
Yo!
So, you may have read Stu’s last post where he said we were working on, “yes, this is why i became a film-maker” stuff. Sadly, today he is at home, eating humble pie, weeping, and saying the word “why?” to himself quietly.
Here’s the lowdown – Stu and I were invited to join in with a “chain film” project. This involved us receiving a film from another film-maker, watching it, producing our own film based on something from their film, and then passing that on to someone else. We agreed wholeheartedly, especially as the finished work is supposed to be shown at the DCA (Dundee Contemporary Arts) Cinema. However, we forgot about this until Monday, and it had to be finished by… Tuesday!
So, together we watched the other film and studied it, and the best we could come up with was a silly short about a pteradactyl in the woods. We “scripted” it and “organised” to shoot the next day. The rushed finished project is unlikely to rock Hollywood, but hey, it MIGHT gently nudge a small village like Helmsdale or something.
Prepare for the horror that is….
TERRORDACTYL!!!
Was it worth us missing out on two of our weekly sketches to make this? Haha, yes! It was fun.
‘Laters.
L.
Friends of Steve Buscemi
My friends in Blogworld!
So far its been a great week for the man ALIVE boys. We’ve been out and about doing some of the more mundane film makery stuff as well as the “yes this is why I became a film maker” stuff. Yesterday saw Liam and myself take to the woods to film our newest short film due to be screened at a local art centre (‘center’ if there’s any American followers) later in the year. More on that later, unfortunately its not edited yet so I can’t add it to this post, so instead i’ll add a couple of our more recent sketches.
BUT BEFORE THAT, Liam and I are really excited to say that thanks to the communicative powers of TWITTER, we’ve been able to chat to THE REAL Steve Buscemi. A friend of ours Mr Gregor Maltman messaged Steve on twitter suggesting he watch our Award winning Matt, Ben and Buscemi. In short, he watched it, he liked it, and he told his 7000 strong following to check us out. So if you’re here because Mr Buscemi sent you, WELCOME.
A special thanks obviously goes out to Gregor and the man ALIVE Award for ‘making our week the best ever’ goes to the man, the myth, the legend, Steve Buscemi.
Enjoy the sketches!
Cheers!
Stu
Tax Doesn’t Have to be Taxing, but it F***ing is!
Yes!
Tax is a flaming (that’s the starred-out word in the title, obviously) nuisance! This week we finally caught up on a year’s worth of “book-keeping”, and sent off some forms to the inland revenue, who were trying to fine us £100 (each!) for not filling in yet ANOTHER form they’d never sent us or even told us about! Every form was as pointless as the next one and contained the EXACT same information. One even started with our business name and tax reference number, then proceeded to ask for our business name and tax reference. Twice!
My tax fury was so intense that I had to let Stu take over for a little bit while I went outside to smash a bin lid to pieces with a spanner.
Still, some good news as Matt, Ben and Buscemi will finally be making it to the small screen sometime in the next couple of weeks on Paramount Comedy. We actually cringe watching it now, but it’s still exciting!
Below is another of our recent sketches. We’ve been firing out 3 a week, so keep checking www.youtube.com/manaliveblog to stay up-to-date. Like all sketch stuff, these are pretty hit-or-miss, but let us know what you think! Constructive criticism is always welcome, and even insults can be funny.
Catch you later.
L.
More Quality Sketches
Hey there bloggie wogs,
I wanted to make sure all our viewers are getting their fill of man ALIVE quality entertainment so I thought it would be a treat to post another couple of sketches Liam and I have been working on so far this week. Unfortunately due to some terrible goings on in the man ALIVE office we have been unable to finish any sketches at all.
Instead here are a couple of videos that show the terrible events this week in the office. Fortunately the cameras were rolling as the action happened. That’s because man ALIVE understand the importance of always being prepared.
O.k enjoy the videos.
Love and peace,
Stu x
New Comedy
Hey blog junkies,
been a busy week at man alive, so unfortunately i didn’t get to interview a kangaroo BUT I WILL, however not this week. hopefully next week. Just keep tuned in for it.
We decided this week that we are going to make 3 sketches a week and post them on youtube and probably on here as well, so make sure you have a look and tell us what you think. We expect some of them to be a little crazy, but just trying to experiment
Love and Peace, enjoy the sketches! (only got two this week so far but are filming one this avo)
STEWIE!!
man ALIVE Studios 
