Strange Sci-Fi and Many Competitions

Since finishing my dissertation, I have plenty of time to focus on what I really want to do, which is write screenplays. Over the last few weeks I have been tinkering with the first 20 pages of Otis, which I feel flows a lot better now but still needs a lot of work. I am struggling with structuring my arguments and mostly not making them monologues that just go back and forth between characters. I also need to work on my descriptions of location but I feel as though the more I write, the more confident I will become with how I describe the surroundings and atmosphere created from those places.

I recently stumbled across a couple of screenwriting competitions that look very appealing. One of them is the Gee Nicholl Fellowship run by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The deadline is the 2nd of May and the prize sounds extremely rewarding. I think I will be entering Otis into a few competitions and just see what happens. There will be no harm in trying, that is the way I look at it.

Now onto my sci-fi idea, Stranger. It has changed a lot since I last mentioned it. It is now developing into an environmental, three-dimensional, thriller. I have had a large amount of scenes come into my head in the last week and now it is just a case of putting them together to form some semblance of a working idea. I have the beginning of all three realities, the end of two realities and a working flashback. I just need to find a connection between all of them and work out all the details.

Here are a few scenes that I have come up with:

1) The stranger wakes up in a space station and gets his clothes on. He goes searching around for his crew mates but he can't see anyone. He looks outside to see a colleague in his spacesuit, hanging from a wire attached to the space station. He gets his spacesuit on and goes out to find that no one is actually there. He runs inside and can't find anyone. He goes to push the emergency button when a hand grabs his arm. When he turns around he sees that it is his best friend.

2) The stranger is working in an office just doing his paperwork when he looks outside the window to see a massive wave hitting London. A panic hits him and he asks his colleagues to look outside but when they do, nothing is there.

3) The Stranger is walking down a long and winding road with trees running parallel to it. He sees a light coming from the end of the alley and he eventually reaches it to see a pale looking woman standing there. He approaches but as soon as he does blood starts to pour from her clothes and she lets a massive scream. This then moves onto a horizontal vertigo shot.

I am enjoying the process of putting scenes together and making the idea work. It is fun times.

IG

Otis And The Yellow Brick Road

Otis has begun his long journey to becoming a man...well at least on paper he has. I am moving steadily towards having the first act completed by tomorrow. Working on my dissertation has taken my head away from the world of Otis and I somehow fell out of love with the idea for a little while.

I went searching for a lot of inspiration in my head and found nothing. Left with nothing else to do to avert my crisis in confidence in the idea I decided to watch clips from a related film The Wizard of Oz. This inspired me to think of the way in which I was going to write Otis.

So far the writing process has been extremely fun and rewarding. The best part about it has been seeing my idea unravel as the pages go on and all the characters/surroundings come alive.

The only issue I've had with it so far is trying not to be too wordy as the limit is 80-90 pages. It is definitely going to be hard to restrain myself from getting carried away.

If anyone wants to read the first 8 pages then please let me know and I will send you a copy or you could wait until the first 20 pages are done.

IG

Power

"No one man should have all that power." So far in 2011 no film has affected me more than Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky. With themes of perfection and fighting to be the best at something you spend most of your time doing, the film really strikes you emotively and haunts you with it's combination of beauty and ugliness. This made me think about other industries where people strive for perfection and the result is beautiful yet what got them there was quite ugly. There were two industries that I could think of: Acting and Art. So when I saw the film Paranormal Activity and instantly the idea of murdering to get to perfection came to the forefront of my mind. Even though this is an idea, which is played out in Black Swan, I wanted to develop it and make it the main theme of a film. So out of this came two ideas, one being called Power, which features an artist who has been struggling for a number of years to make an impression in London. When he is walking through Hyde Park, someone attempts to mug him but in the struggle the artist murders the attacker. When he steps back from the aftermath the artist sees beauty in the murder scene and feels the urge to paint it. This painting becomes massively successful and he then feels pressure to gain perfection in his paintings so he has to keep on murdering people to create the perfect painting. As he gets more and more obsessed, colour starts to fade from his vision before culminating in him ending his life in front of the woman he has been pining over.

The other idea is about an young college student, who by chance becomes a megastar when he acts in a successful film. He gets all of the perks that come with being famous but he can't get enough of it. So this drives him to insanity before he loses it all. There is a lot more to this idea but it all needs to be worked out before I lay it all down on here.

Stranger is slowly coming together and now emerging as one of my stronger ideas but is still a long way from being finished. Exciting times ahead.

Rabbit In Your Headlights

It's been a little while since I have posted anything on here due to the fact that I have purposefully tried to narrow down the amount of ideas I am working on at any one time. This last week though I have seen myself get drawn into an idea, which involves zombies. I am not a massive fan of zombie films in general but as always I always like to feel I can contribute something different to a specific genre. With this film I have decided to look at the zombie world from the perspective of someone with a young family who has a decent job and loves life getting infected. The film will deal with the gradual process of coming to terms with the impending nature of his plight and reflect on enjoying life while you have it. The idea took inspiration from non-zombie films such as: Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Schnabel 2007) and Room in Rome (Medem 2010). Both these films deal with reflection on what you have lost and gaining something positive from your losses, which is what Rabbit Caught in the Headlights is also about. This film has potential to be shot fairly soon as it is set in the UK and won't rely too heavily on a massive budget as story is the focus. I feel as though I am getting more and more inclined to write stuff about England as I grow as a screenwriter and develop. Here is a short synopsis, hope people like it:

Ryan lives in Devon with his wife Arlandria and three children. Ryan works as an estate agent but has always had ambitions to be an actor. Ryan and Arlandria have a massive fight and Ryan drives away in his car for a couple of hours when he runs over a man in the country rain. He gets out of his car to check on the man only to be bitten by the man, who has no skin on his face. Ryan goes back to his house and reconciles with his wife but decides not to tell her about himself getting bitten. The next day Ryan goes to work where he meets a new girl called Natalie. Zombies break into the office and make their way through the people as Ryan and Natalie escape into Ryan's car. They travel across the county as Ryan reflects on opportunities lost, memories in his life and sees future visions of himself killing people. Ryan and Alice reach Arlandria and the children amongst a swarm of zombies. Natalie tells Ryan that it's time that she goes now and sacrifices herself so that Ryan can say goodbye to his wife before he turns into a fully fledged zombie.

OTIS is well on it's way with an improved step outline and with script writing about to commence. I am extremely excited about the way it has moved forward. If anyone wants to read the improved step outline for Otis or the full synopsis for Rabbit in your Headlights then drop me a line.

Ib