At the end of this process I will have thirty brand new short film scripts and that will be thirty scripts I didn't even know could exist before I started. This one is among the few that actually could be made and it's another mocumentary. This genre is really fun to write for however, this one is not quite up to the standards of the first I did on day three.
Writing mocumentaries is really fun because there is less you need to worry about in terms of visual storytelling (at least for me that is the case). But, something I am realising about writing these is that it is quite easy to get lost in just forming lots of little silly scenes that are not necessarily contributing to one story line that is moving through the script in these scenes. I watched a short mocumentary a while ago called Brian and Charles which is about a lonely man who creates a disturbing and funny looking robot to keep him company. The two live on an isolated farm. We see lots of funny little moments in their relationship before Brian eventually gets fed up with Charles and abandons him in the middle of a field. Brian eventually feels sad about this but cannot find Charles. He is lost. Miraculously Charles finds his way home and Brian is overjoyed and they live happily ever after. Its a fun and very weird little film that I fell in love with. It is full of funny moments and little scenes that contribute to this overall theme and storyline of what friendship is and how important it is. It's a lesson in how to make a short mocumentary comedy that works and when I put that structure and place it up with this I feel confident that eventually I can do that because it's clear that's what this story needs. In it's current form it's just a bit of a hot mess inspired by a fun idea.
I also feel like when I am just improvising and writing without notes I become too ambitious and start writing things that will create story threads that would be far too expensive are too much of a pain in the ass to film. As Michael Scott would say "Keep it simple stupid". That is the message I need to tell myself with my writing at this point because I feel like some of these scripts are losing their way structurally. After this challenge I will go back and re read some of the screenwriting books I have and go over some of the structures I need to become better acquainted with.
Nine scripts left to write in about six days. I need to get on those two script days!
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