Script: Strife Through a Lens

[BrainThrust 10]

Hi guys,

 

This was my first scriptwriting attempt this year for my university module.

 

Strife through a lens

 

Next year it is being filmed but I need to finalise the script and I can't seem to give the ending the potency that it requires.

 

The story is a linear narrative mixed in with a non linear flashback sequence. The flashback sequenes was always a rationalisation and justifaction for the current story but for some reason it's ending works and the main narrative's resolution doesn't show the struggle and eventual satisfaction that it really needs.

 

Note: It's scriptwriting formatted in word so might not work or look pretty.

 

Wilf

[shoeshine 10]

Had a quick look Wilf, will read it later........all's working for you.

[Jabberwocky 46]

A Very proffesional, very gritty piece of work.

I like this one a lot.

[BrainThrust 10]

Come on guys, I really need some feedback on the resolution! What can I do to beef it up a bit?

 

Wilf

[shoeshine 10]

My suggestions

 

Get rid of the telephone bit in the bedroom scene. Let him meet his contact in the hotel lobby...and his contact is the girl who helped him that last night when he fled from school. They are just a couple of tourists in Beijing to all and sundry.

 

She leaves the hotel...he retires to his room alone.

 

Back at school

(Select a time of day in England which would suit in Beijing time the point at which the main character and the girl are meeting up in the Hotel Lobby) Headmaster and the Housemaster (from that first Dormitory scene) discussing the main character's desertion from the School. "He would never have achieved much" etc.

 

Back to Hotel Bedroom

 

Bedroom scene as already written, excluding phone part.

 

After rooftop pics he meets up with the girl, passes the roll of film on.

She escapes with it and leaves from Beijing Airport for London.

 

He gets caught by the Security people.....spends some years locked up in Beijing. Is eventually released to Beijing Airport.

 

He is sat looking at a newspaper, as you have already written. A woman leaves the Ladies Toilets adjacent to the Waiting Area where the main character is sitting ( his contact going all the way back to his leaving school and the same woman he met in the Hotel Lobby that night......He says "Thanks for keeping a copy of this for me"

 

They walk to the check-in desk for the Heathrow-bound plane.

 

THE END

 

I hope this may be of some use, and I think it still keeps the strong element of drama.

[42fta 10]

I was happy with the resolution, BrainThrust, there's nothing wrong with a brief denouement.

 

My only criticism would be that I felt vaguely "undernourished" by the inner sections. I'm not sure that the school scenes were sufficient to show the relentlessness with which the teachers tried to oppress Mark's creativity, thereby mirroring the future atmosphere in which the Tiananmen incident arose.

 

I thought it a really good piece of work, good look with the filming.

[42fta 10]

PS - While reading around, I came across this image of a memorial from Poland - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tiananmen-Wroclaw-plDominikanski.jpg - it seemed appropriate to post here, hope you agree.

[sauerkraut 10]

Possible suggestion: instead of it being Mark looking at the newspaper with the photo, make it the (now ageing) headmaster looking at it in the school staff room. Or perhaps even that Mark marches into the headmaster's study and throws the paper down on his desk. Could include some ironic comment about an old boy being a credit to the school....

 

And just a minor point about the opening scene, but would a cheap plastic alarm clock actually show the date? Mine doesn't! Might need to include date some other way.

 

P.S. Forgot to say that I found the whole piece very impressive by the way. Where/how/for whom is it being filmed?

[BrainThrust 10]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm taing it all on board and using some, discarding others as while they are great ideas, they don't sit well with the tone of my piece and the treatment, character study and synopsis I have already written.

 

I might try and deepen the school bits, I can see that justification, I think the next step for me is to get some storyboards done up because if I work with a good artist there I can probably increase the struggle of getting the shot visually, something that is difficult to achieve in the script.

 

This alarm clock will have the date on it, i have the very type embedded in my brain

 

The telephone scene is a tricky one, i wanted to try and evoke the idea of an editor halfway around the globe hounding him for the shots but it didn't work cutting between the two,one sided phone conversations rarely work and so I'm at a loss where to take it, let me think a bit more.

 

Wilf

[cosywolf 10]

I agree with Shoeshine about bringing the girl back into it...or, if she's unimportant, perhaps consider leaving her out. Otherwise she's a distraction. Did he run away to be free to pursue his life the way he wanted, or did he run away to be with her? I quite like the idea of her being the one to hand him the paper with his photo on at the end...but I'm a girl and I like a bit of romance, lol.

Just my tuppence worth.

[BrainThrust 10]

The girl isn't really important.

 

I'm trying to get across the impression that in the past the opression beat himand he escaped taking the easy way out almost (the help of the girl)

 

In the present narrative I want it to feel like the world is against him and he could give up and take the flight but he'd just be running away again.

 

Thats the key to the story for me, it is about him coming to terms with his past by fighting it in the present and this time, succeeding.

 

As for the girl, she's just there as a device to show while Mark isn't very talkative as a person, being barked orders keeps him silent. She's the only person in the script that treats him as a person, doesn't order him to do anything and asks him how he feels. Thats what she's there for, not as much of a love interest and more of a person who helps reveal his character and grants him that easy escape from a struggle.

 

Wilf