Screenwriting LO1 Essay

 

As a screenwriter, understanding the script development process is vital in being able to come up with stories that an audience would want to listen to. Even if it is not a conventional topic that would get you a confirmed number of viewers, as long as you are clear with your narrative and keep in mind certain points while developing your screenplay.

The basic part of developing a story begins with a treatment document in which you develop the general outline of your film, and you can start with one of the two, depending on what you prioritise. If you want to tell a story of your own choice, first choose your topic. Find a story you want to tell, whether it is a story that has played out in the real world or your own mental one. It just needs to be a narrative that you want to write about. Then you decide the targeted demographics. On the other hand, if you want a story that is easier for the market to consume, you first decide on the targeted demographics and THEN you develop every aspect of the plot, to some recycled cliché that will instantly be consumed by the targeted audience.

The latter option is usually the one that is used by television program’s when they are developing scripts for drama serials that are targeted specifically at housewives. The stories tend to have similar character tropes and are basically redundant white noise to some at this point.

For the former option, the targeted demographics are very important because it decides a lot about the screenplay that they are writing. If it is targeted at children, the tone difference and pacing of the show is different, if it is targeted at teenagers, the tone turns a lot more edgy and dark, and then even more so when targeted at adults. Further, the ages can be split into genders too. That helps you develop specific characters that the viewers might want to see in the on-screen adaptations of your script. Further it helps to narrow down the ethnicities, culture, country, or the society that will be targeted in the audience, unless you think age and gender is sufficient a target.

Just as an exercise, say one wants to develop a show for females under the age of 12. Already, a lot of aspects of character development are narrowed down. We need a female character who is confident and has an extremely bright feminine aesthetic sense, if you add in a cultural aspect, the main character can be a different ethnicity from the usual Caucasian female so that a viewer in Pakistan, can have a Pakistani role model in the show and the writer is probably going to develop a world that is unlike the one we live on, but still has some form of similarities. More sparkles, ear-worm songs, more rainbows and of course, a horse or their distant relatives the Pegasus and the Unicorn. Even if it is a story that they want to tell, chances are they will need to redevelop characters or the world building according to the data from the demographics collected from children’s viewing habits.

If you’re trying to develop a story for a teenager to adult male, the aesthetic changes drastically, as does the lead character and the theme, so it could be argued that this is one of the most important steps.

Second, you are required to develop the objective of your script. You need to figure out what you want the audience to pick up from the story. Whether it is social change or an open discussion about class warfare or a knowledge/insight about a certain sect or part of society, religion, or a world that the audience is unaware about. The objective points help you keep the story on track through the writing process.

Then you are expected to decide on your genre. At this point if you have your target audience and the story you want to tell, it should be quite easy to decide on the genre, it can be a merged genre like rom-com which is targeted at females, or action films that are targeted towards males, it can be a action/rom-com that is aimed at both genders like the movie Mr and Mrs Smith. Usually, the genre is pretty evident to the screenwriter the second they decide what story they want to tell.

The third aspect that will be developed is the central idea. It is straightforward; it can consist of questions derived from your objective points or just a straightforward de-summarized version of your objective points too.

After this you develop the logline of you story. A very brief and vague outline of the story that viewers can read at the back of a DVD before buying one or on the top of their Netflix/streaming platforms page when they are deciding if they want to spend time watching the story. This is a very miniscule part of it but it is essential to make the logline gripping or funny so that interest can actually be garnered towards the story.

Then you develop the characters. A good character is one that the audience can relate with, or one that can convince the audience to feel the emotions that it is trying to portray though it’s circumstances in the story. Usually the slightly flawed character, sometimes even the villain, is the fan favourite because they are able to make the viewers see through their lens and reconsider their own aspect on life. 

To make characters more relatable, it is usually best to loosely base them off people that you have personally encountered so that you can switch the characters personality on and off easier while writing dialogues, when developing an original personality from scratch, it can be a little difficult to decide “What would this character decide right now”. So, it’s slightly easier to take inspiration from people you have seen or met, or just ones whose personalities you know well enough so that you can instantly know how they would react if they were in the same circumstances that your character is in.

After all these steps, you write a summary of the plot. It is a compilation of all the steps you have taken, the story is outlined from start to end and it resonates with the target audience while also allowing you to expand on the objective points and central idea of the film by putting the characters you have created into the world you have built for them and allowing them to tell your story for you.

After the film treatment is complete, it is important to write a breakdown. What that does is, it allows the writer to break down their story into scenes. They don’t have to write the exact dialogues by this point but just a general note about what happens in each of the scenes. This is an integral step because as you’re writing your screenplay’s drafts, the breakdown helps remind you what happens in each scene. You can focus on expanding each scene with dialogues instead of planning out the story as you write the drafts. This saves a lot of time and makes it very easy to write in one flow.

After the treatment and breakdown, you begin work on your drafts. This is the feedback-based part of the process. The feedback and revisions are integral in developing your story because it allows you to fix errors that you could not even think of. It is very important that you receive sufficient feedback and implement it in your script, it fixes a lot of technical errors that one might unknowingly make, or it raises questions or a discussion about why a certain character reacted the way they did in your story, especially if the personality of the character is completely original, feedback might help you solidify their personality and actions or question them completely, but it is good to have your beliefs about the characters challenged a little bit. It puts them into perspective.

Once the final draft is completed, then it is pitched to the market. For newer writers working at a company, usually you do not get paid for your script until it is sold to someone, or alternatively, leads to self-funded projects that allow you full creative freedom or you can find investors for your screenplay that allows you a little less creative freedom but even lesser financial strain.

The post-developmental stage of the screenwriting process, where you are trying to get your script sold in the market can be affected by many factors such as luck, contacts, and your own skills as a presenter/conversationalist. So, if you cannot get your words across to a buy about your vision for the script, it would almost be as if the entire process that you went through was for nothing. So it is important to be able to pitch your idea properly so that everyone can understand what message you are trying to convey.