Script Writing Workshop
Today, Robert and Alder attended the script writing workshop with Darren Bolger. He covered a lot of valuable ground with us, from writing a treatment to script writing software to the appropriate language to use.
We started by writing a treatment. This gives an outline of the story to potential funders and acts as a foundation for the script. He told us it should be written in the present tense and be about 10 lines. This is the new treatment we came up with during the exercise:
The two human characters, male and female are lying on the bonnet of the car, star gazing. The female asks the male if he thinks there’s any life “up there”.
In space, the two main star characters, Altair and Vega, are sneaking away from school.
They cause mischief, harass constellations, and fly down to earth. Altair interacts with children who react with wonder and terror. Vega in competition with Altair’s antics imitates cows in a nearby field.
They fly back out into space and unwittingly awaken the antagonist monster character who begins pursuing them.
Their parents are informed of their absence and go looking for them.
The monster wreaks havoc in pursuit of Altair and Vega and corners the two but Their parents arrive just in time.
The monster comes close to destroying Altair but Vega tricks it into consuming itself. There is a flash of light and for a moment it is unclear whether Vega survived.
The protagonists are revealed to be safe and well, and are happily reunited, but with a lesson learned.
Returning to the star-gazers, the male human answers the opening question by simply responding “nah.”
Darren’s only criticism of the treatment was that we should use more descriptive language and action verbs.
We then went on to using script writing software Celtx which is free and offers a lot of automation for the process and was extremely easy to use. We wrote the beginning of the story with Darren’s feedback and advice. He also gave us printouts about how to write realistic dialogue as well as a glossary of scripting terms.
Overall the workshop was very much worthwhile and informative. Ken and Robert will be completing the script next week.