Thursday, 29 March 2012

Character Development

Today we concentrated on Character Development, this is essential to a great script as noone likes to watch a movie or tv show with a boring, unfleshed character. We started with a bit of a free writing task. "using a slug line and screen directions (but no dialogue), in about 200 words, create and introduce a character in a screenplay." This was a lot more difficult than I first thought, primarily because I couldn't use dialogue. This is what I came up with...

INT: WAREHOUSE - NIGHT

The warehouse is quiet, drips of water from a broken pipe are heard in a corner, a rat shuffles past a hospital bed, camera pans up to see a stocky man tied down to the bed, he is blading and bloody. Beside him is a surgical tray with a very clean and sharpened knife. Through a creaky double door walks in HARRIS ASPIRE, on the outside you wouldn't take much notice of him, he is young, attractive, but he is very plain, average. If you look into his eyes however, you will see repression, a constant interior fight, you can almost see another HARRIS screaming to be let out. HARRIS shuffles over to a half broken mirror and stares into it intensly, he looks over to the unconcious body and whispers an apology . A sudden change takes over him, he twitches, he looks like he is having stomach cramps, the change makes him look more confident, almost evil, he walks up to the table and takes the knife with such glee. Beaming a smile he stands at the head of the lying man and starts to wake him...

Jinx (A Birds Remake) Treatment

Today we was tasked with creating a reimaging of the Birds, much alike what Dysterbia had done with Rear Window. I love this area of film making so was dying to put some of my ideas onto paper, I remember while watching the Birds, thinking about how this attack is almost like a biblical event, like god had sent these birds down to punish the sinners in this small town, of course with Birds being so open to interpretation, my thoughts about it can neither be right nor wrong. I took the concept of a biblical attack into mind and started to try and craft something around it, I thought that perhaps it wasn't a random town that was picked, but perhaps it was because of the Melanie character that it was attacked, like the hysterical woman in the hotel claims. Perhaps she had some control over the birds, or perhaps that she was just a Jinx, a cursed woman stepping into a town and dooming it. I ran with this idea and created this...

Title - Jinx
Tagline - Death Always Sends A Message
Synopsis - Jo Jinx is a happy go lucky young woman who moves to a small seaside town with her father when he unexpectedly recieves a promotion.
She starts her new life by enrolling in college and getting a small part time job in the local café. She begins to have very vivid and horrific dreams about the town folk being town apart by birds, she is mocked at first but then her dreams starts to become true. Jo is blamed at first but as the body count rises and more witnesses claiming that they saw birds commit the murders, they turn there attention to attacking back. Jo worries for her fathers and friends safety and begs them to leave town with her, but she is approached by a strange little man who sits her down at the café. He explains that he is death and that he must send a message to humanity every so often to make sure they still fear him, he does this by creating a omen, in this case the omen is Jo, he tells her that where ever she goes, the birds will follow and kill everyone around her. This forces Jo to make the ultimate sacrifice and isolate herself in a cabin in the woods, with no one around to attack, the birds have no choice but to attack and kill Jo, thus ending the Omen and saving the town.

Key Characters

Jo Jinx – Lead character, female, 21 years old.

Jo has recently moved to the small town of JanesTown with her father, she picks up a small part time job, and enrolls in college. She begins to have horrific dreams that start to become a reality.

Wants – A Normal Life

Needs – To survive and keep her new friends alive, as well as her father.

Sam Synder – Love Interest, nice guy, has an instant crush on Jo from the moment he meets her.

USP – The unique twist on a classic.

Target Audience – Teens and Young Adults

EDITED

I was one of the few people in todays session to practise my pitch on the class, and I have walked away with a lot to think about, most of the audience feedback was them disliking the fact that I kill off the main character, especially after bonding and being with this poor woman throughout the entire film. They also didn't like that I separated the love interest and my main character, I did this for the simple reason that by definition, if I introduced a love interest, they become a main character, sort of by default. I already kill of one main character at the end, I didn't want another dead and have a Romeo and Juliet ending on my hands. I also think that the fact that I left the love interest alive builds on the ultimate sacrifice even more, it makes it a lot more heart wrenching when she is forced to say her final goodbyes and leave to ultimately die. Taking the dislike of my main character dying into consideration, I had to think of a way to create a happy ending, this is what I came up with.

Everything that I have written previously still happens, this new part takes off from the moment Death has a sit down and a cup of tea with Jo.

Upon hearing that it is Jo's fault that the birds are attacking, the towns folk once again turn their attention onto her. They grab her and plot to sacrifice her life to hopefully end the curse, this angers Death and he sends in flocks of birds to attack the entire town, during the chaos, Sam takes the opportunity to save Jo. She is suspicious as to why Death wanted her to stay alive as much as he did and decides that she must confront him. She drives out to a deserted Cabin in the middle of the woods and calls Death out. She succeeds by threatening to take her own life, she demands that Death release his power over her, and removes the Omen, when he refuses she tells him that he has no choice, as with no one around to attack, the Birds have no choice but to attack and kill Jo, when Death sees how prepared she is to die for the town he backs down and lifts the Omen. The movie ends with the birds flying away, towards Deaths next Omen.

The Birds Treatment

So the movie opens up with Birds flapping and flying pass the camera as the title hits the screen, the audience is curious, and nervous, cut to San Francisco, big city, but we concentrate on one woman, attractive, young, guys can't help but to wolf whistle as she walks on by, and she is flirty, she'll wink and smile right back. She is a fan of birds, so visits a pet shop weekly, in there this particular week she meets an eligible, single guy. Her attempts at flirting fail when he admits he knows her, he has heard about how she was recently “pushed” into a fountain “naked”. During the conversation Mitch (who is the love interest) brings up that it is his sisters birthday coming up and that she would love a species of bird known as “Lovebirds”. Our main protagonists, Melanie then takes it upon herself to purchase some Lovebirds and drive the 60 miles to where Mitch is living, a small fishing town. She follows a lead and meets the towns teacher, Annie. Annie gives Melanie information such as the sisters name and where they live. Melanie journeys there via boat to “sneak up” on the house, she lets herself in, drops of the birds and a note and journeys back. In the water however Mitch returns and spots her, he gives a playful chase in his car and awaits for her at the docks, as she approaches the docks though, a seagull swoops down and pecks her head, drawing blood. Wanting to help, Mitch takes Melanie to the local restaurant to clean her up, there we are introduced to Mitch's protective mother, Lydia, who takes an instant dislike to Melanie. Melanie still manages to get invited to dinner at Mitch's house. During conversation Melanie has to lie about why she is in town and says that she is staying with her good friend Annie. Annie does have a room for rent and agrees to Melanie stay, as Melanie is getting ready there is an ominous thud, when they investigate, they find that a seagull has flew into the front door and died. At dinner we are introduced to Mitch's little sister, Kathy, who takes an instant warmth to Melanie because of the gift, some more ominous things begins to happen during dinner, such as a phone call revealing that the towns chickens are acting up and not eating, not to mention that the birds are shown to be gathering more and more. Whilst back at Annie's we learn her back story involving her and Mitch. Mitch rings Melanie asking that she come to Kathy's birthday party. Even though it means staying another day, Melanie agrees. At the party birds suddenly flock down and start to attack the children, the adults round all the kids up and gets them to safety indoors, worried Lydia goes to check up on her father the next morning, she discovers him dead, his house is trashed, the birds have smashed their way through the windows and pecked his eyes out. In hysteria Lydia returns home and is put to bed, Melanie looks after Lydia while Mitch goes to the police, Lydia starts to voice her concerns about Kathy's safety. To put Lydia's mind at ease, Melanie heads out to the school, everything seems fine and quiet so Melanie takes a seat on a bench and begins to smoke, a crow lands behind Melanie, then another, and another and another until hundreds of crows are there. With help from Annie, Melanie begins to calmly escort the children out of the school, but the crows start to attack, horribly pecking at the children. At the restaurant, the word has got out about the attack at the school, the town folk are spooked, a mother and her two children are planning to leave town as is a smartly dressed man, a well educated elderly woman states that this is impossible, as birds don't have the intelligence to launch attacks, a drunk in the corner declares that it is gods punishment, and that it is the end of the world. Suddenly the birds attack again, this time it is a man filling up his car, this forces the man to drop the pump and leak petrol everywhere, the smartly dressed man is lighting a cig at the same time and ignites the petrol, the birds attack as people are fleeing from the fire in panic, Mitch saves Melanie and takes her to the hotel, in which they meet an hysterical woman who screams at Melanie and declares that this is all her fault, and that the birds only started to attack when she came into town, Melanie strikes the woman and then leaves with Mitch to go and find Kathy. Kathy is safe but Annie is found dead, Kathy says that Annie died protecting her. Mitch barricades his house to keep everyone safe but the birds attack and nearly get in, they suddenly stop attacking however which leads everyone to believe that they are save, for now. During the night, while everyone is sleeping, Melanie is woken up to noises, she goes to investigate, she finds the birds have broke through the attic roof and are waiting for her. She is viciously attacked and falls unconscious, Mitch and Lydia save her by dragging her out the room but it is clear she needs to get to a hospital. Mitch ventures outside which by now is covered with thousands of birds, he gets Melanies car and everyone drives away onto a unknown future.