HAVANT GROUP 1 April 2014 NEXT WEEK'S WORK

MEETING FEAR                                              

Sorry about confusion of dates.    We are definitely ON next week. The task I outlined in class was to write another 'meet' piece, this time meeting Fear.   And to make it a film or TV.    That is, you do dialogue and also describe what is happening 'on the screen'.   You don't need to show camera shots, or imitate a TV script,  unless you wish to.    You can get advice on layout and much more from http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/write-a-script/

The value of this exercise is it gets us thinking about making the dialogue the centre of the piece, and thinking of the setting in terms of the point of view of characters,  or of the narrator, and focusing on the visual without getting into literary 'description'.  

The example below needs a lot of work, and some backstory to make it at all credible.   But it’s intended as and idea of how you might do things, the visual bit and the spoken bit. NOT, of course, a proper film script.

We see a clump of grass in a muddy field.  Then our view lifts and stretches into the distance across the field.   

The back of a small girl's head.  She's a walking away  across the field.   She slips on a muddy lump, gets up,  walks on, almost falls over again.   

We cut to a car going fast through country lanes.   The driver, a young man, watches the road with staring eyes, driving much too fast. Once the car lurches dangerously and he slows, then speeds up again.  The passenger, a woman, scans the fields.  Her face shows acute anxiety.

MARTHA                 

There!   Look.   Stop, Jake.  There she is!

  

The car stops at the side of the road.  They run  out  towards a gate.  Over the gate there’s a sign.  First we see  Martha’s face looking up, then we see the wording.

KEEP OUT  UNEXPLODED BOMB

  

We see the child again,  walking and slipping over.

JAKE

Penny!    Penny!   Penny!   Penny!

The girl still stumbles on,   then stops, turns, looks back and waves.

Jake is already climbing over the gate.

  

MARTHA   

You can’t go in there!

             She’s got a mobile phone out of her handbag.  Lots of papers blow out of it.

MARTHA

I don’t know.  Police, I  think.  Maybe  fire! -    

            She stops and tries to pull Jake back but he shakes himself free.  He drops down on the other side              of the gate.

  

           We see his face looking across the field.   Then we see the field as if his eyes are scanning it

           He starts walking.

MARTHA

Jake!   They’re coming!   

           We see Jake’s face,   set,   not looking back, walking forward, then hear, but don’t see

PENNY

Daddy!   Daddy!

           Now we see Martha’s face.

MARTHA

Why?   What’s the point?   Why?   Why?   Wait you stupid. . .?

Penny!   Don’t move, darling.   Don’t move.