9780415317856_the_routledge_creative_writing_coursebook

www.ATIBOOK.irDrama 1877 Write the first ten minutes of a feature film screenplay that includes the set-up wherea main character and wish are established for the audience. Choose the setting carefully—for suspense and consequence. The following comment by Syd Field from his bookScreenplay will be a useful way to assess your progress: ‘The first ten pages: Does itwork? Does it set your story in motion? Does it establish your main character? Does itstate the dramatic premise—i.e. what is the story about? Does it set up the situation?Does it set up a problem that your character must confront and overcome? Does it stateyour character’s need?’8 Issue play. As a group (actors/director/researchers) create a file on your computercontaining images, evidence, data, interviews, comment and opinion all related to anissue (local, national or international), which you are aiming to represent dramatically.Your aim is to make the audience think, rather than to make up their minds for them. Youmight construct it out of the question: What if…? Develop a short play—forty-fiveminutes.9 Re-writing. Re-tell a story using four actors, six separate prop objects, and limitedsound effects—in forty-five minutes. Make plans, invent your own strategies, write thescript as you rehearse and improvise. The story could be a folktale or fairytale that youwant to make relevant to your present day adult audience, a story from classical or otherancient mythology, a story from Dickens (a good example would be Great Expectations),or from the work of a contemporary novelist.10 Re-tell a real-life story connected to a place you know in the present or the past, orto people living as a group in the present or the past. Invent your own theatre strategies toget the story across to an audience in the space of forty-five minutes, with a minimum ofresources (‘Poor Theatre’), and a maximum of imagination.Revision and EditingYour characters must have aim and direction. Emotionally, are they travelling, or are theystuck? What is the soundtrack of thoughts at the back of their minds? Is it audible,inaudible, secret, revealed? Be sure that dialogues don’t just wander pleasantly along.Make them go somewhere.Are you aware of the level of consequence? Your characters might want to takecontrol themselves. Let them do so, but allow yourself to have the ultimate say over whathappens in your finished script.Check whether your writing tells a story and tells it in a way that will excite, surprise,but not confuse the audience. If story is not your overall purpose, what is it? How clearare you about what it is you aim to achieve?Think about the drama you are writing as a two-way form of communication. First,what are the characters saying to each other—are they giving and receiving significantmessages—ones that have consequence and impact? Second, what does the scene itselfgive the audience in terms of its overall image and meaning? Think about these two flowsof information and assess whether they both generate impact.If your play is going to be read by a theatre director or radio producer, it needs to bepresented on the page with an appropriate format. You will need to research details ofpresentation, through websites, through current published advice in your media. The BBC