writing the script

WRITING THE SCRIPT

How it startedBy now our script is basically finished, but I wanted to show you how it developed and changed over time.

So before we started coming up with ideas we had a look at our assets, so we could see what is possible and what not.

Assets:Locations: school, Ivan's house, Jordan's house, school car park, a gym, saltaire, library, Roberts park

Actors: teachers, friends, students from sixth form, acting students from Stage84

Equipment: Camera, tripod, dolly, jib, shotgun microphone, lighting equipment, Adobe Master Collection, Computer

After we did a list of the assets we have, we found out what is possible and what is out of reach.

First ideas

We knew we wanted the film to be based on school, but we didn’t wanted to go drama and do a film about racism, bullying etc. We wanted to make a film where people get excited and laugh.

We finally decided on the genre: Action/Comedy

The most important thing to us was that the film was relatable, so we had a look at the problems of students, because the majority of our audience is students.

The first thing that came to our mind was exams, the second thing was money. The decision was made to base our film on exams and money.

After a lot of thinking and staring up the sealing, we had a solution how to combine those things: a corrupt teacher.

With a corrupt teacher I mean a teacher who sells the results to an exam, before the actual exam.

Characters

Every good movie has good and diverse characters. We already knew that we have a corrupt teacher.

The audience needs a character that they can relate to, so it was obvious that we needed a student who is struggling with his exams.

Then we came up with a lot of characters who would each turn the plot in a whole different direction.

We had:- Another teacher who could challenge the corrupt one- Another student who could be a problem for our protagonist- A wife for the corrupt teacher- A violent father for our protagonist- A police officer who deals with the corrupt teacher

The choice was made after we finished the plot.

The plot

So now that we had the genre and the idea we needed a plot. We used a technique which I call thinking backwards and I know that a lot of writers use this technique.

Basically you make a timeline and write what happens in the beginning, the end, the climax and insert also the scenes you already have in mind.

When you have done that you fill in the gaps. So here is what we started with:

A student struggling with exams.

Teacher sells him the exams

Problem

Student passes exam

Conclusion

Writing and Re-writingI know the timeline isn't really telling the plot but it is the basic construction we started off with. From there we made a whole lot of timelines and the picked the best one. Here are some examples:

Student in classroom Struggling with subject

Teacher sells exam results to student

Another teacher finds out and blackmails him

Police gets involved

The whole thing escalates

Someone gets shot



Teachers wife isn't happy with that

Wife cheats on him with another man

The whole thing escalates

Someone gets shot

So you can see there is a lot of stuff left unexplained, but that’s not the point.The point with these timelines is to show a basic structure and give the writer an idea where the story is going and lets him make changes fast and dynamic.

So after a lot of thinking, discussing and writing we went with this timeline:



Another student finds out

Teacher gets blackmailed by the student

Student wants the money

Teacher gets shot

There is still some crazy stuff there and a lot is left unexplained, but from there we went into more detail with the plot structure.

Refining the plotAfter we had our timeline we went a bit more into the characters personalities.We have 3 Characters:

Eddie: he is the protagonist, he is an average student who is struggling with his exams.

Steve: he is an aggressive student and doesn’t care about anything except himself, has anger management issues

Mr Anderson: He is a business man, very confident almost arrogant, young.

These were the character profiles at the beginning.

After that we did a list of all important things that have to happen, to make the film realistic, relatable and exciting.

1. Eddie sitting in lesson struggling with Subject2. Mr Anderson sees that and asks him to stay behind3. Mr Anderson offers him exam results for money4. Eddie goes to Mr Andersons house to get the results5. He gets them6. Steve and Eddie run into each other in the Corridor7. Eddies bag content falls on the floor8. Steve finds the results and blackmails Eddie9. Eddie tells Steve that he got the results from Mr Anderson for money10.Steve Goes to Mr Andersons office and Blackmails him11.Steve wants the money12.Mr Anderson refuses13.Steve threatens him with a gun14.Mr Anderson tells him that his money is in his car15.Steve and Mr Anderson go to the car16.Eddie sees that and follows them17.Mr Anderson gives Steve the money at the car18.Steve takes it and walks away19.Mr Anderson gets a gun from his car, turns around and gets shot20.Eddie sees it and runs to Mr Anderson21.Steve runs away after shooting Mr Anderson22.Eddie calls Ambulance23.END

Now that we had a more detailed structure, the task was to get the characters a bit more relatable, because there were still many things unanswered:

Why does Steve want the money?

Where did Steve get the gun from?

Why does Mr Anderson do what he does?

How much money does Eddie give to Mr Anderson?

Why does Mr Anderson have a gun?

How come Eddie sees Mr Anderson and Steve together?

How much money does Mr Anderson have?

We added a lot of things, like Steve taking anti aggression pills, so we know that he is violent.

Steve's father is in the army, that’s why he has a gun.

Before Eddie runs into Steve, Steve is reading a magazine and finds an add for a motorbike for £5000.

Steve gives a monolog to Mr Anderson while he is in his office, where we find out how much money Mr Anderson has made through selling exam results to students.

Eddie gives Mr Anderson £100 for the results.

Eddie is in the library and sees Steve and Mr Anderson through the window.

So even after that there are a few questions unanswered, but we still finished the script with the whole dialog.But when we were finished we realised that we were off track. This wasn’t Action/Comedy any more, this was Thriller/Drama, something we wanted to avoid.So we did some changes again.

The plot changes

First of all we needed more comedy and less drama and less negative feeling. So we changed the timeline:



Another student finds out

Teacher gets blackmailed by the student

Teacher tells student that he gives him the money on exam day after the exam

Student takes results and agrees

Teacher gave wrong results and left the country

The core concept stays the same but we have a much lighter mood now and sort of a happy ending. So we refined the whole thing again.

1. Eddie sitting in lesson struggling with Subject2. Mr Anderson sees that and asks him to stay behind3. Mr Anderson offers him exam results for money4. Eddie goes to Mr Andersons house to get the results5. He gets them6. Steve and Eddie run into each other in the Corridor7. Eddies bag content falls on the floor8. Steve finds the results and blackmails Eddie9. Eddie tells Steve that he got the results from Mr Anderson for money10.Steve Goes to Mr Andersons office and Blackmails him11.Steve wants the money12.Mr Anderson refuses13.Steve threatens him with his father, who is a police officer14.Mr Anderson tells him that he will give him the money after exam

and that he can have results for free15.Steve agrees16.On exam day they realise that the results are wrong17.After the exam Eddie and Steve go to Mr Anderson’s office, but it's

empty18.They find out that Mr Anderson has left the country19.Steve gets mad20.They fight21.Eddie knocks him out22.We see Mr Anderson driving into the sunset23.End

From there we changed a lot and added a bit more for example:

Mr Anderson talking to another teaches about how fed up and tired he is with school and the students.

A cutaway of Eddie being lazy.

A narrative voice of Eddie in the End telling us what happened afterwards.

A scene in the End of Eddie getting good results in his A-level.

We also changed the character profiles:

Mr Anderson: professional, tired, smart, caring

Eddie: confused, lazy, good, polite

Steve: misunderstood, aggressive, dangerous, short tempered

As you see the characters now have a more complex and balanced personality

Final script

The script now is basically finished. I will be uploading that soon and do another slide about the script.

As you can see, the Script changed quite a lot and we cut stuff out and added some stuff till we had what we wanted.

Now we have a script with meaning, development, a relatable plot and a satisfying end.

And it all started with a simple strategy.

Like they say in Hollywood:

Nothing is written, it is Re-written

writing the script

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