Part 6

Short screenplay writing

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tours/shortfilm/tour1.html

This website talks about screen writing in conjunction to 10 minute short films. Institutions such as the British Film Institute, The UK film Council (UKFC), the BBC and channel four, all provide help for directors when making short films. They help by setting up schemes which supply funding; this has helped directors/writers such as Shane Meadows (This is England) and Lynne Ramsey (Gasman).
A lot of attention has been placed on the screenplay of a film. The article gives six questions that you are advised to follow to create a good, well-written screenplay.

1. Who is the protagonist?

2. What is the active question, which is the basis of the action in film?

3. Who or what opposes the protagonist?

4. From whose point of view is the audience being shown the story?

5. What is it about? Or, what is the theme?

6. What is the style of the film?



http://www.shootingpeople.org/

Shooting people is an international networking organisation dedicated to supporting independent filmmakers. It gives details about training in workshops for amateurs and professionals. The site tries to get all types of filmmakers together to offer information and resources to each other.

http://www.netribution.co.uk/features/howto/scriptwriting_5_short_film.html

I read the article ‘Screenwriting Guide’ by Andrew Lowes, in the article he speaks from his personal point of view about short films and the screen writing that’s involved. He begins by saying how making a short film is not pointless and in some respects harder than making a feature film. He explains the difficulties most filmmakers have with the time length of a short film. he also explains how you should not put too much information within the film as it other complicates it all and the film will not have enough time to breathe. He continues by giving advice on aspects such as location, dialogue and even having a low budget, he believes that bigger is not always better and keeping to a smaller scale will make the production of the film easier. Short stories are also good to experiment with different types of narratives, whereas it’s harder to do so with a feature as the expense is greater.