The document provides guidance on developing characters and story for screenwriting. It discusses finding a protagonist and considering their outer presence, inner presence, and context/world. A good character is defined by their actions, especially in crisis. Most important is that the character has narrative significance and moves the story forward through their actions. The document also outlines tasks for developing a story treatment, including viewing films for inspiration, analyzing characters and key scenes, creating character profiles, drafting a treatment, and getting feedback.

1. PLANNING A PROJECT FINDING A STORY FINDING A PROTAGONIST DEVELOPING A STORY STATEMENT DEVELOPING AN ENDING STRUCTURING THE STORY TREATMENT AND PITCH SCRIPT STORYBOARD & AUDITIONS SHOOT, SHOOT, RESHOOT, LOSE HAIR ON HEAD.

2. FINDING A STORY NEWSPAPER STORIES LIFE EXPERIENCES??

3. FINDING A PROTAGONIST ‘ Without character you have no action, without action, no conflict: without conflict, no story;’ – Syd Field (The Screen writer’s Workbook) What makes a good character? How can this be expressed in a screenplay so that your work stands a much better chance of being original, imaginative and enjoyable?

4. FINDING A PROTAGONIST-2 Phil Parker (The Art and Science of Screen writing) suggests all characters in any dramatic form have three essential aspects : Outer presence – ‘dominant impression’ Inner presence – ‘dominant attitude’ Context – ‘world of the character’ So what should the screen writer consider when constructing a character?

5. Dominant Impression – created by the character, dependent upon age, sex, mannerisms, physical appearance, clothes, grooming, movement, style of speech etc. Dominant attitude – of the character is based on their intelligence, knowledge, personality, temperament, likes, dislikes, beliefs, fears, goals, self image etc. The world of the character – based on relationships with friends, colleagues, lovers, cultural background – class, education, place of birth, ethnicity, personal history- significant events in their life / their personal ‘back story’

6. But beware !!!! You won’t make a believable character simply by adding these elements NARRATIVE SIGNIFICANCE Does the audience really need to know that the character has a fear of ducks or loves the colour blue??

7. Most important…. How a character acts in a crisis. A character is defined by ACTION How would your character behave under pressure?

8. CONTINUOUS EVALUATION OTHER – key points which struck you about the task. Personal thoughts and feelings. TARGET FOR NEXT ACTION/ IMPROVEMENTS TO MAKE – How can you use what you learnt here? HW 13B & 13 A – Mon 6 th Oct Evaluation chart Log ready Minimum one film viewed and analysis of key scenes completed HW Tuesday 2 dec All these tasks need to be completed in your logs and separately evaluated in this chart as well. NARRATIVE/EVENTS Watched ‘Ice cream dreams’, ‘Stripes’ and ‘Hard Labour’ ‘First time it hits’ Textual analysis Mood boards City of God World cinema task How to plan a film project lecture by MNA Newspaper stories Character theories and character intros analysis Taxi Driver and/or Usual Suspects – textual analysis of 2 key scenes Create a character for one of your newspaper stories. Place them in the world of the story/ in a crisis. Pitch this to the class. Get feedback and record this feedback . Suzanne Vega storyboard activity – visualisation techniques Lion & Slave – Story Structure – Film making Part 2 Character Profile World of the film Treatment 1 and feedback Treatment 2 and feedback Final treatment and feedback Films and characters which inspired your treatment (atleast 3 films and several characters.) DATE 11 th Sept 11 th Sept 16 th Sept 18 th Sept 22 nd Sept 23 rd Sept 1 st Oct 1 st Oct 2 nd Oct