First Attempt at a Screenplay!

Another blog post already? I'm on a roll!

I've been playing a game with my family & friends where I ask them to set me a location & time. I then fill in the gaps and try work it into a story. It's interesting what they and I can come up with, and adds a nice twist to attempting to tell a story!

Here's the first result I've written up. I asked my friend (Rightly named Charlotte!) to name a location, she decided on a farm. I asked her to be a bit more specific and she said "Pantry of the Farmhouse". I then asked when, she said "dusk".

Right! That sorted... the cog's started ticking. Here's what I came up with...


          INT. FARMHOUSE PANTRY. DUSK

          CHARLOTTE is hiding in the pantry of her Parent's Farmhouse.
          She is holding her fathers shotgun, her hair is wet and she
          is covered in mud.

          Outside the room shouting can be heard. Someone is having an
          argument and it's getting heated. We see a medium shot of
          Charlotte which gradually zooms in, the shouting gets louder
          and louder, Charlotte begins to look more and more anxious,
          suddenly someone (a Woman) screams and a gunshot rings out
          followed by a "thud".

          We have an ECU of Charlotte's eye's as they widen in shock,
          she whimper's and a tear rolls down her cheek as we pull
          back. Another shot is heard and she flinches in shock. It's
          silent outside the room.

          Charlotte slides her back down against the wall until she is
          in a sitting position, with her left hand she cradles her
          head.

                              CHARLOTTE
                    No...

          Footsteps can be heard outside the room, ECU of Charlotte's
          eyes looking up towards the door. She jumps up and begins
          searching the shelves, she finds a small rusty box and
          flings it open, shotgun shells are inside, 5 of them.

          She begins loading shells into the shotgun, footsteps and
          shouting can be heard outside, just as she's about to load
          the last shell into the gun the footsteps & shouting stops,
          Charlotte freezes, ECU of her Face, ECU of the shotgun and
          shell, cut to a ECU of her eyes. She gingerly loads the next
          shell as quietly as she can, the click was louder than she
          expected and she winces.

          She crawl's towards the door on all fours and looks through
          the keyhole, ECU of her eye, we cut to a shot of looking
          through the keyhole from Charlotte's point of view, the room
          ahead is empty, we cut to a ECU of her eyes, cut back to the
          keyhole view, a black figure covers the view, someone is on
          the other side of the door. ECU of Charlotte's eye as it
          widens in shock, she flings herself backward...

                              CHARLOTTE
                    Bastard!!!

          She fires, the bullets rip through the door and into the
          unsuspecting victim, she fires again..

                              CHARLOTTE(CONT'D)
                    You bastard!!!

          She stands up and kicks the remnants of the door open, a
          body lays on the floor in a pool of his own blood. The
          stranger's pistol is lying on the floor next to his legs,
          she kicks it away. CU of Charlottes Face..

                              CHARLOTTE
                         (hysterical)
                    Fuck you!!!

          We cut to a shot of her from behind aiming down at the
          stranger's head. Then a shot of the farmhouse from outside.
          It's raining. We slowly pull out as 3 shots ring out, the
          downstairs window's flash with light. Fade out to black.



It was good fun writing it! A lot has been learned, I think I need to work (alot) on my dialogue, but.. this first story I intended to be mainly visually based, I reckon it works.. kinda.... :D

Baaack.

So yeah.. no posts in over a month!? Madness. I have only myself to blame!

I've finished the second year at University and have opted to take the placement year before going onto my final year. My results came in yesterday... AAACA, well chuffed! As expected the first thing the parents ask is "What did you get the C in?!", typical. I got the C in digital media culture, post modernism / modernism & me didnt really get along very well. But its still a pass, so what the hell!

Since finishing uni I've been guilty of basically doing.. bugger all. Yeah, and I'm proud! I wanted to savour a few week, work / hassle / stress free and just relax. So for the past few week I've just been biking around & playing video games. Suck it.

Though now is the time to get my arse into gear! This year I'm planning on doing a few short films, I already have actors lined up, I also have some of the equipment needed. All I need now is some damn good stories, I have quite a few idea's in my head, but getting them down onto paper (or pc..) is pretty damn daunting. Seeing as I've never written a screenplay before I'm going to start with short, 1 page treatments to get into it. Then maybe take some exisiting stories, from books or films, and try to convert them into a screenplay. It's all good practice!

I'll update again at somepoint this week, probably the weekend. My website needs revamping aswell, I'd better get cracking!

Stuff!

No update for quite a while! Uni work is now finished more or less, just a presentation to do this Friday, it shouldn't be too bad!

I bought a Canon 550D last week, its my new toy. I've wanted to get into film making for ages, it really is where my heart lies, I was just put off because its such a big and expansive subject to get into. After visiting Studio Distract a few weeks back I decided an animator was something I didn't want to be, it's just too linear and I cant for the life of me live sitting at a PC 24/7 anymore, I think only after going and seeing the industry at work you get the true feel for it, and the weary eyed animator's working on a sequence they've been working on for the past week or so kinda put me off.

But not to worry! I'm pursuing something I've always wanted to do, and nothings going to stop me this time. I have dozen's of idea's in my head for short films, they just need getting down on paper, and then I can write my first ever script. 

Placement-ness! I still only have the definite placement at Big Talk productions for 2 weeks, but this is great. It's still 2 weeks working in a production house, and somewhere that handles scripts too! Should be brilliant experience and maybe I can get a script or two read and gain feedback? Would be excellent. 

Also! After contacting Millie Cox for the last few month asking about updates on placements at Moving Picture Company, she's sent me a link to a summer school opportunity at MPC! It's 8 weeks long and 6 lucky students get paid for accomodation over the 8 weeks in the heart of Soho! To top it off once you finish the summer school and go into your final year one of the senior artists you meet in MPC becomes a mentor to you, and helps you shape your final year project. Brilliant!

In other news, my first little extra has arrived for my camera, the Rode Videomic! It took me a while to choose this one, but after reading many many articles on it, it turned out to be the best for my budget.

 

Still boxed! Cant wait to open it, but to further increase my frustation I decided to write a long winded post on here, worth it though!

Right time to open this baby and play with it, then time to write some short film treatments. Finally, im doing something with film and its so exciting!
Craig

No posts!

I haven't been posting on here for a few week as I'm full time on another project at the moment. So personal work has to be put on hold!

http://www.wyrmwood.co.uk/
http://wyrmwoodanimation.blogspot.com/

This is a project I'm doing with Karl, a fellow student at university. My job is to build the set and its rather time consuming! Once this project is wrapped up I shall be starting on personal work again.

Weekly Post - Week 3

Here's week 3. Sorry its late, not had time to post as I've been moving my PC home for easter!

Animation of the week...

Probably the animation Im most proud of so far. I played with the Max rig some more, after messing with some initial poses I decided to make him jump of the building that I showed last week. Learnt a lot whilst doing it, especially about the IK/FK snap, and changing it mid animation. On top of that though, brilliant fun.

Jump Animation

Model of the week...

Gah! Nothing this week, just not really modelled anything that's even half finished. I'll make up with it next week by modelling 2 things!

Photo of the week...

A portrait this week! I took it whilst filming an action scene in woodland. I really like the lines in the picture, plus the small pile of twigs (which was actually a bivouac) add a bit of character.

Inspiration of the week...

Tim showed this in a presentation he did for University. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Dgzi7j5Q8 It was brilliant! The simple style works so well, I had never heard of them before, which I'm kind of gutted about now. It shows how humour and character can be added without the need of dialogue, but with just movement and random grunts & laughs. Brilliant stuff.

Weekly Post - Week 2

Here's week 2!

Animation of the week...
Did some lip syncing in University, I used the Max rig from 11 second club to animate this scene from One who flew over the cuckoo's nest. My first lip sync, was fun to do!

>

Jack Nicholson Lip Sync Animation

Model of the week...

I made this environment for a chase animation. I revisited it this week and added a few details. Still a work in progress, but its what I've got to show this week! I'll be doing some animation with the Max rig using this environment hopefully.

Photo of the week...

I took this photo whilst in my parents allotment. The sky looked pretty awesome so I had to take some pictures. The problem being earlier that day I started chopping down the tree in the bottom of the picture, so sadly it looks a tad sparse!

Would be a nice print though I think, I may look into panoramic photo's soon.






Inspiration of the week...
I watched this a while ago, but I've revisited it recently.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAxi38FE8xo
I love the animation on this, especially how the robot's seem so light and fast. Brilliant stuff, I'm planning on doing animations like this in the future, just a lot more practice first! Also I don't think my robots will get tired.

Weekly Post - Week 1

At the beginning of this week I made a list of things that I said I would get done every week. Below is what I've done/not done this week, as well as comments and random babbling.

Animation of the week...


Learning animation from the basics seem's daunting, but its something I need to do. Here's my first animation of my "Animation Basics" exploration.

Bouncing ball with Squash & Stretch

Model of the week...

I made this in 3Ds Max a while ago, but realised I've never really rendered anything out. The design was for a game, it was going to be a building to be used at the docks as a warehouse.

Im pretty happy with the outcome, apart from the boat being too low poly and the roof lat's being all whoppy..

Photo of the week...

I took this photo whilst scouting out some filming locations around Huddersfield. After hopping a few walls and crossing some fields we found this path on the edge of the woods. Really nice place!

Im adding it to the "needs to be printed" pile.







Inspiration of the week...
I watched an animation called "The Saga of Biorn" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV5w262XvCU
Its amazing, watching it has made me realise how well 2D and 3D go together if used properly, I think I may use 2D backgrounds on some projects in the future.