script development

first thoughts 

my script went through a variety of changes throughout the writing process. my first idea was to write a comedy featuring a mime and a clown fighting in a high street for a performance space. this would have been a silent comedy as neither the mime or clown would talk and everything would happen through their actions. i changed this idea quite early on though as comedy is considered one of the hardest genres to write as comedy is very subjective but also because since there is no talking, it would be very hard to have a very long and continous action sequence written on a script.

first draft

i changed my idea to one of my ideas i had drafted but chose not to write orignially. i chose a fantasy piece to write as i enjoy writing fantasy and it is an easier genre to write and hit key notes of the genre. this made the writing process a lot easier for me as evertyhing flowed and i couod write about what i love to write and the final product came together really well as it is about a meeting in an inn between a character and someone who would be considered 'the big bad'. i was inspired by the short film "Laura Hasn't Slept" which is a short horror film that was turned into a big budget film called "Smile". my inspiration was that i created my story and it was left open towards the end as it led to the possibility of more happening in the future affecting the world and characters we met in the screenplay.

feedback

the feedback that i recieved from Jane was that i made the film seem like it came form a feature film and that i needed to give the piece some more emotional resonance and make the story seem more closed. i was also told to cut down on some actions as i wrote some hefty paragraphs of description and not enough emotion or character movement  as well as not describing the characters appearance.

second draft

in my second draft i started with the feedback about emotional resonance and it seeming like a feature film. i tried to add a few lines of dialogue in to correct these ties but in the end, it wasn't the angle that i wanted to go for for the story that i wanted to tell. my vision was it to be a short film with an open end such as that of a tv pilot or as previously mentioned a lead on to a bigger thing in the future. i tried to correct to the feedback accordingly but decided to not fully embrace an closed ending. next i started trimming down on some unecessary actions or descriptions that i had put into the script. there was a decent amount i was able to remove as in some parts it was more like i was writing a novel than a screenplay. in place of these long sections i removed, i added in shorter sections of the same events, just not as detailed whilst also adding in descriptions of things i was told i needed to have more of. for example, i gave a description to Benamarth and what he looked like broadly so it would give the reader an idea of what the character would look like so they know who to look for for casting. i also added in some more emotions for the scenes that are tense so the characters know how to say their lines and how they are physically reacting to things around them.