Story telling: 25 word pitch

Title: Auxilium

Pitch: A young boy sets out
to make a rope swing, time after time he fails, until he meets an unlikely friend.

Characters: Seb, 12 years old, loves planes (wants to be a pilot when he grows up). Family can't afford many luxuries, lives in small rented apartment that is 7 mins walk from the woods.



Cliff: 72, doesn't get on with his neighbours, doesn't (usually) like kids, retired naval captain. Fond gardener and keeps a peace lily in his conservatory. His house backs on to the woods.

Location: The location is an actual place, it is based on a section of the darland banks where me and some friends would make rope swings.

Sources: I have taken influence from a few things, the main one being the relationship presented in Goodnight Mr Tom. Where a man in his later years befriends a young boy and proceeds to teach him how to read and write. I also have based the old man on someone I know in real life, he isn't that old but the mannerisms he has in the way he speaks etc and his background are true to life.

However in my short film the old man would be helping the boy build a rope swing and teaching him different naval knots.

The story would start with the young boy saying goodbye to his mother and taking his rope out in a backpack to the spot in the woods. He then tries all day to make the rope swing but does not prevail. He tries the next day with the same result only the old man has been watching and on his third attempt/ day the old man comes out and mumbles some words of faint sarcastic wisdom. This intrigues the boy and they become friends working together to make the rope swing and him being taught these different knots for different purposes. It ends with him going home with the sunset to his back and a smile on his face.

Notes from others: He becomes fond of boy because not consumed by technology, out trying to do something constructive/ Boy's rope isn't as strong as mans rope, so he brings his own out, shows him knots etc, as he walks away realises man brought out his own rope has good knowledge of knots and made a comment like "this stuff's better, you could string a man up with this" or "this could take oh.. the weight a me"

Story telling: Script writing workshop - when considering script writting: pre-writing

When considering script writing:

·       Who is it about?/ What?/ When?/ Where?/ Why?/ How?

·       Is it dramatic? Can I dramatize it in a series of scenes?

·       Look for unpredictable, original, uniqueness

·       Do I feel strongly about the story?

Story – Series of events in chronological order which form your screen play

Plot – the most interesting and dramatically effective way of telling the story

Theme – your story is really about, “your idea”.

Characters must be strong as story and plot! Protagonist is the one who goes on the journey and is the one who “changes”. Remember:

·       Who are they?

·       Where do they come from?

·       What are their beliefs and how does this affect the story?

·       Does the character have flaws that will twist the story?

·       What does the character want or need? What are they risking?

When writing you need to collate your ideas, even the bad ones! Build on ideas, filter and sift, research your ideas. How will the world you create look like, sound, feel? Who are the people in it?

Story telling: Script ideas

A voice is asking you to wake up, it's a hazy figure and their is extremely faint inaudible talking in the background accompanied by the odd beep. It's a male voice, soft and caring, it's urging you to come back to him, begging you to join him.

A woman shudders awake, dying moonlight illuminating the cold sweat sticking her dark drown hair to her forehead. She goes and makes a coffee and stares out of the window.

cut to the morning and she is in formal business attire preparing for the day, she calls upstairs and her young son comes down. As they leave she looks down at a picture on the side of herself, her son, and a man (audience presumes it was her husband/ child's father).

After dropping son off to school she walks back to car and sees a man in a car across the street in a suit and dark sunglasses. She shrugs it off and presumes he must be a father of one of the schoolchildren. Later on that day she is walking to work in a crowded street, as she crosses the road she sees the same man adjacent to a grocery stall watching her as she walks. She quickens her pace and decides on reporting the suspicious man after work.

                                     

She finishes up in the office and says her goodbyes, walks out and down the corridor to the elevators. As the doors slide shut she sees the same man with the glasses at the end of the corridor. She swallows her heart and mashes the ground floor button. She rushes out of the building towards her car where she see's the man waiting for her so she decides to run. Kicking off her high heels she panics down the street trying to get her bearings. She was trying to get to her sons school on foot but as she frantically looked back the man was no longer there.

                           

That was the school she was sure of it, it couldn't have been a couple of hundred feet away, but then he arrived. She cried an exhausted cry of desperation, running around the school to the back entrance instead. Shouting her sons name she ran towards the door with the blue frame that would lead her to his classroom. As she burst through it was dark, she turned back to the light but the man was there, in the doorway.

                                                

She reeled back whimpering with fear, backing up into the corner she hid her face in her arms and in her scared silence, she heard her husbands voice "come back to me". That is all she heard as the man approached, over and over again. Until she opened her eyes. She was looking at a tired tear soaked face with unsightly stubble but she knew that face, it was the one from the picture. she looked down for a second, she couldn't feel her legs or arms. The man looked up from his feet both hands holding one of hers and saw she was awake. Shouting through tears he called for a doctor and kept telling her he couldn't believe she was awake.

                                         

The doctor comes in and explains while he checks her sensory functions, that she had been in a car accident with her family, she looked across and asked, suddenly realising, where her son was. The answer came in the husbands face, "he passed away after the crash" the doctor said.

Story Telling Short Project

Death by Garage

Location: Garage
Characters: Plumber, Office Cleaner

Character breakdown:

Office cleaner - Female, Maria,
Plumber - Male, Steve,

Plumber is in toilet fixing under sink, Maria walks in to collect car from MOT, man walks in and demands to see the mechanic. By chance the mechanic walks through the staff entrance and is shot in front of Maria (now she is the only one there). The plumber hears the gunshot, slowly approaches toilet exit and sees Maria being tied up by assailant. He creeps back and grabs a piece of cooper pipe and returns to the slightly opened door. As the gunman walks over to counter and through where the mechanic came from, Steve rushes to Maria, unties her and tells her to go and hide in the toilets.

The gunman comes back through door but freezes for a second as he sees that Maria is no longer there, in this time Steve is hiding behind the door and hits him over the head with the pipe. A gasp of celebratory safety is short lived as the unconscious man's phone rings. Gingerly Steve answers it and a voice tells him" we're 10 minutes away". Steve runs back to Maria and tells her they need to go and try to exit the back door but it was locked and non breakable. Steve has a moment of thought and goes to toilet, takes all small metal objects e.g. screws etc. and tells Maria to get all her cleaning cloths. They wrap the screws around a large pipe and Steve rips a regulator off the wall just as a blacked out car stops outside.

5 men walk in and look around for a second (can not see gunman as he is unconscious behind counter) peering through a crack in the door both Steve and Maria watch as pipe groans bulges and explodes next to the men. Shrapnel flies everywhere and rips through the plaster walls next to them. Water was now gushing out of the pipe diluting the pool of blood engulfing the men now on the floor in silent pain. They moved quickly and efficiently weaving in and out of the bodies to the exit smashing through the door to let the warm touch of the sun reach their face. A crack of sound shattered the air and Steve fell to the floor, Maria turned and saw a dying man in the garage with a wobbling raised arm grasping a pistol.

Story telling work shop - Speed Pitching

The following pitches were assigned 15 mins each and we were allowed up to 25 words per pitch

1- Big Budget Hollywood Thriller with a BIG STAR
    Tom Cruise is charged for the murder of a student, however a haunting tweet from her account the
    day after she died may lead to a chilling truth






2- British Comedy series for late night Channel 4
    Norfolk 5.0: US cop finds it hard adjusting to British arms laws, already being charged for the
    unnecessary tasing of a black pastor who offered to bless her.





3- Low Budget short film located in a Council Estate
    Small community struggling to deal with death of young boy who took part in a dangerous
    internet fad "pass out challenge" and their campaign to end these killer cyber trends.

Self introduction video