Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting - Synopsis (Draft 2)

‘The Meeting’ is a thrilling short film about a confrontation between a male in his mid-twenties Dean Chamberlain, his girlfriend Chloe Richards and two hooligans Gaz Maloney and Sid Graham. It’s the eve of Valentine’s Day and Dean decides to take Chloe to a river side view where they regularly visited when they first started dating; he intends to propose to her. Afterwards, on their way home they run into Gaz and Sid who after just purchasing a replica gun from Neil Gascoigne decide to threaten and bully the couple ‘just for a laugh’. This has a psychological effect on Dean due to a previous experience of being attacked by thugs. He tries to deal with the whole situation and protect Chloe but the whole replication gets a little too much for him mentally and he loses his self-control with chaotic consequences. This is a 5-10 minute short film that touches on dynamic subjects such as ‘racism’ ‘love’ and ‘reprisal’ with a thrilling, entertaining and dramatic plot.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting - Pitch (Draft 2)

A Short thrilling drama about a couple who find themselves mixed up in a confrontation with two juveniles which then results in horrid consequences.

Story Telling Unit: The Meeting - Synopsis (Draft 1)

‘The Meeting’ is a thrilling short film about a confrontation between a professional footballer Dean Richards, his long-term girlfriend Chloe Sims who is a 3^rd year fashion student and two gangsters Gaz Maloney and Sid Graham. It’s the eve of Valentine’s Day and Dean decides to take Chloe to a river side view where they regularly visited when they first started dating; he intends to propose to her. However, unknown to them only a few yards below where they sit, Gaz and Sid interrogate and then murder a drug dealer Neil Gascoigne for double-crossing them. After hearing groaning and pain coming from below, realising what was going on Dean tries to get away with Chloe but Gaz and Sid already noticed they had been watched so they go after Dean who tries to protect Chloe when they reach the car park and all hell breaks loose. This is a 5-10 minute short film that touches on dynamic subjects such as ‘love’, ‘conscience’ and ‘decision making’ with a thrilling, entertaining and dramatic plot.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting - Pitch (Draft 1)

A Short thrilling drama about a couple who witness a murder and find themselves unfortunately mixed up in a confrontation with the two gangsters involved which then results in horrid consequences.

Story-Telling Development Exercise

We were put into groups and had to come up with a story for a 10 minute short film using a newspaper as our starting point for idea development. I was paired up with Sam 'Pepe' Ogden.

Here is the outline of our idea:

Title: Accused

Genre: Thriller/Drama

The Idea:

In a Courtroom, a secret police informant sits in the dock charged with the murder of his ex-wife. As the court case goes on and evidence is given against him, it cuts to descriptive scenes of events that took place leading up to the case.

There are multiple twists to the storyline but the major turning point is when the brother of a drug lord is arrested and imprisoned due to evidence supplied by the informant, he sets out to avenge his brother by setting up the informant in a murder case with the ex-wife as the victim.

The film is voiced over by the lead character as a first-person narrative.

To the audience, the film is set like a game of ‘Piece the Puzzle’.

Theme:

The moral to the story is dealing with subject matters of Vengeance, False accusation and Innocence. Another major theme is a ‘Reverse state of affairs’ in the sense that the major character finds himself in a position where he usually causes others to be in.

Characters:

The lead character ‘Jeff Neilson’ is a Web-Designer. However, he secretly works for the police as a police informant. He is responsible for hundreds of dangerous criminals imprisoned.

He is the caring father to a five year-old daughter but recently divorced from his wife of seven years.

Though dedicated to his job as an informant, he also knows that due to its nature his family is under much threat and risk from criminal, so his is always prepared to go to lengths in order to protect his daughter.

He has a huge fascination for photography.

He is framed for the murder of his ex-wife due to their legal divorce battles.

Rebecca Neilson is Jeff’s ex-wife who becomes a murder victim in a vengeful attempt to get him sentenced to life imprisonment. Prior to her murder, she was at constant battle with him over the custody of their daughter and other legal issues, which is then used as evidence against him in the court case.

Rebecca was stabbed in the neck in Jeff’s kitchen. The knife was stained with Jeff’s fingerprints and used as evidence in court.

Elizabeth Neilson is their 5-year-old daughter.

Simon Todd is a professional Lawyer dedicated to his craft. He is Jeff’s close friend and defendant which means he is willing to do all in his power to help him.

Don Fremlin is a drug lord who desires to avenge his brothers’ sentence because of Jeff so he sets him up in a murder case.

Setting:

Set in a courtroom with the descriptive scenes set at Jeff’s home, Don Fremlin’s office.

SPACED - 'The Synopsis'

SPACED is a fictitious Sit-Com centred on the adventurous lives of five twenty-something year old characters with distinctive personalities.

Tim Bisley is an aspiring comic book artist who got dumped and thrown out by his long term girlfriend whom he is absolutely smitten with.

Daisy Steiner is an aspiring writer and presenter, who though seemingly enthusiastic and energetic can sometimes have a negative attitude especially towards anything work-related.

Brian Topp is a shy, timid and pretentious artist whose personality is enigmatic and in fact much more complex as he tends to come across as a bit mental or emotionally unstable.

Marsha Klein is the oldest character amongst the group in her early fifties; she is a Land-lady who comes across as dim-witted and always sober, wallowing in self-pity a lot of the time due to previous life predicaments, a previously failed marriage and constant quarrels with her teenage daughter.

Tim, Daisy and Brian are flatmates resident in Marsha’s property.

Mike Watt is Tim's best friend who is absolutely obsessed with anything army related for reasons which are uncovered as the series progresses; a very much laid back character with a some-what childish behaviour, he pretty much lives with Tim as he is present at the flat more often than not.

Some other reoccurring characters through the series and storyline include Daisy’s dog ‘Colin’, her best-friend Twist Morgan and Richard her boyfriend who lives in Hull and is in a long-distance relationship with her. Tim’s Ex-Girlfriend Sarah who broke his heart and Amber Klein, Marsha’s extremely difficult teenage daughter, amongst others.

Tim Bisley and Daisy Steiner initially meet fortuitously while both searching for a place to live. After long periods of unsuccessful house hunts, they find themselves in a dilemma where they have to pretend to be a genuine couple in order to rent a relatively cheap flat together; a lie that sustains through most parts of the series. Marsha Klein the Land lady falls fool to their plan and accepts their request immediately after giving them a tour of the house. Undisclosed to Tim and Daisy, they awkwardly discover that Brian Topp is already a lodger at the basement floor of the house by the time they move in.

A series of thirty minute long episodes, ‘Spaced’ will follow the different characters as they go through adventurous events in their day to day lives living in an urban setting. As the story evolves throughout the series, the characters, all seemingly distinctive, uncover similar traits in their personalities that suggest they are in fact relative in terms of life experiences i.e. previous relationships and life issues.

This slapstick style programme will also implicate elements of pop-culture through-out sections of its serial innovative story-lines in order to pay homage to the current society and social state.

'Spaced' aims to create entertainment through the structure of fictional and realistic events while mocking certain ideologies and also delivering exciting twists in its tales.

SPACED - 'The Pitch'

'Spaced' will be an adventure filled Sit-Com involving the life's of five distinctive but very relative characters living in an urban setting with pop-culture references.

06/02/2012 - First Lecture - STORY-TELLING

Today was the first lecture of our course and we were briefed on the basic procedures of producing a show/film/programme beginning from the initial idea generation to scripting right through to the post-production phase. However, today's focus was on the first and most important step of production which is the idea development.
We looked at two episodes of the critically acclaimed  Sit-Com "SPACED" by Writer/Actor 'Simon Pegg' and Director 'Edgar Wright'. Then we reviewed it as a whole and attempted creating a 'Pitch' for it, which would have been Simon's first actions in order to get the programme produced.
We were also shown the basic components of writing a 'Synopsis' which include a "Set-up, Development and Conclusion".

The '3' minute Short film shot in '3' hours with '0' Post-Production!

YAY! Finally!! Today was officially our first day at the Studios and so we began with our first project on a Brief based on the word 'TIME' (explained in my previous blog).
We started the morning off with a very informative demo of the HD Cameras we will feel very privileged and opportuned to use for the course productions. Simon showed us a host of operations ranging from simply turning on the camera to 'White balancing'. With that out the way and the cameras handed our to each group we were set for our first day of film production #ExcitingTimes (Yes! I did it again)
The title of my groups 3 minute film was 'RUN FOR YOUR LIFE'. A thriller based on three characters haunted by an anonymous psychopath; by whom they get simultaneously chased to a dark mysterious room where they get trapped.
Our basic idea for this was to produce a feeling of tension, mystery and suspense in the audience; making them question what is going on, why are the events in place happening, who is behind the chaos, what happens in the end...(you get my drift?) whilst feeling tense about the whole situation. We all worked really well together creating ideas for scene shots, camera angles, lighting etc. in order to successfully portray the story in such light. However, because we were all so drawn into the story line and production ideas we took more time getting everything as perfect as we could, and given that we only had 3 hours to plan and film without post-production, we struggled to keep up with time.
This is therefore very evident in our finished product as the opening scenes and first couple of minutes seem to have worked out very well but as it got towards the end it became obvious that the final scenes were rushed. This was a great shame as we all had high hopes for it but nonetheless we are satisfied with the outcome and very confident that had we been allowed enough time (or even the precious post-production privilege) it would have been a lot better. But then again, if we were allowed privileges like post-production, our creativity would have undoubtedly not been stretched as far as it was due to the fact that we had to think of ways to work out a lot of the production without being reliant on the idea of "Oh we'll just edit that later!"
I would like to forget the fact that we later showed up late (for 'obvious reasons') for the screening of every groups film. We therefore missed the first groups' film but for all the groups we caught up with, I have to say were equally impressive in very surprisingly different ways.
It is in that light I would like to conclude this post with the fact that 'Today has been very Productive, Interesting and Promising'.
BRING ON THE NEXT PROJECT! :-D