Thursday 26 th November – – Setting up your portfolios, dates for diaries – Pete Fraser from NFTS – Our Film Idea – BREAK – Groups work on developing Story, Sound, visual style, Animation – Feedback and Co-ordination of Groups’ Ideas

WHAT MAKES A GOOD SHORT FILM Simple and succinct Exciting and Original Idea Strong Beginning Strong Script with Interesting Characters Creates its own small world Best Possible Production Values Good Acting Concise, Well Paced Editing

STORYTELLING WITH FILM “as a filmmaker you make a film because you have something you want to say” What is our film about? A narrative story has characters, settings and conflict. It’s what you typically think of when you think of “a story” – something that tells a tale instead of just relaying information like a textbook. The key to storytelling is CHANGE; something needs to happen to the main character(s) that enables transformation. What is our character’s transformation from beginning to end? You need a NARRATIVE ARC to ensure a complete story: BEGINNING - set up, motivation MIDDLE -problem or challenge, journey into the unknown, confrontation END – resolution – is the challenge overcome?

Film Structure

In cinema a story is most visual when ideas and emotions are expressed through performance and aesthetics as opposed to dialogue. Filmmakers can use composition, framing, colour palette, costume, lenses, light and camera movement to tell the story. VISUAL STORYTELLING

Questions to ask when thinking about Character: Put flesh on those bare bones, believe in them, care about them and then start asking questions about them to craft the narrative. Think about motivation and character arc: What do they want? What gets in their way? How far do they get? How do they get there?

Narrative Development Keep your audience interested: “What’s happening now must be inherently more interesting than what just happened. The goal of structure – the goal of your entire screenplay, in fact – is to elicit emotion in the reader and audience.” Questions to ask when thinking about how the story will progress: What does the audience want to happen? What do I want to happen? What am I going to let happen? When? With each scene (sometimes even shot for shot) set up questions for the audience to engage with.

BEGINNING: SET UP STORY/ CHARACTERS /SET UP QUESTIONS Who is our main character? What is their world like? The world of our short film… WHAT IS THE FIRST IMAGE? FIRST SOUND?

MIDDLE: Journey into the unknown. Twists and turns… Breaking point….

ANIMATION Animation inspiration: Which parts of the story are animated? How? How are they fitting with the live action? Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: Diary of a Teenage Girl

WHAT IMAGES/ MOTIFS/ METAPHORS COULD THREAD THROUGH THE FILM? HOW TO PROGRESS WITH THE STORY: Final Confrontation. WHAT IS THE RESOLUTION? What do the audience want? FINAL IMAGE? FINAL SOUND? Transformation?

Groups: Animation– animation and how it would fit with live action, methods to achieve the animation Scripting – story and character development Storyboarding, Sound Design and Art Department set design, location, palette, the look of the film, how best to convey the narrative visually and through sound design, shot choices and why