SCRIPTWRITING

In Black Snyder's scriptwriting book Save The Cat he talks about what differentiates a well-written main character from the opposite is that we must like the main character. He gives a comparison of Lara Croft 2 to Sea Of Love, Lara Croft 2 did not attract audiences like it was expected to because though Croft was 'cool', she was also cold and humourless so the audience never actually liked her. Where as in the first scene of Sea Of Love not only does Al Pacino come across as a 'cool' cop saying phrases like "catch you later", we also learn to like him from the 2 seconds of the film where he flashes his badge to let the criminal through because he has his son with him.

This shows that it is vital that our script allows for the audience to immediately like our main character, especially if later on in the short film we then expect the audience to feel sympathy for him/her.

In the book Alternative Scriptwriting by Ken Dancyger and Jeff Rush they discuss the conventions of any script that must be followed. They state that any story either revolves around conflict, discovery or reversal and without conflict as story is flat. They also add that turning points are key to any script as they are what engage the audience. This book also looks at using humour as a tool, it says that humour should be used to put the audience at ease with a character as the audience is more likely to like the character once they have shared a laugh with them.

In our script we aim to have one turning point about halfway through the script where the mood changes and conflict is introduced. The first half will be more about the character's everyday life and the audience will discover what it is like for this child. The second half will be where the audience feels sympathy for the child as any problems arise for them. What this book says about humour has made me think about our script since we had planned to add subtle humour in act 1 of our film, tasteful humour that was based around the oddities of the child's life. However from what Dancyger and Rush say, it has made me realise that this will only work if the audience is laughing with the child, not at them. This will be difficult to do as it won't be easy to make it look like the child sees any humour in their disability. We also want to make sure that the humour is all tasteful and doesn't in any way demean the child or their disability.

tb