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