Story telling unit: Pre-writing Practice

A couple of days ago we were asked to create a story, where the starting point was from an article in a newspaper. After brainstorming for a couple of hours, Dave and myself came up with this:

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.

Sorry this posted quite late, we ran into some technical problems.

Story Telling Unit: "The Meeting" Development

   After brainstorming for a couple of weeks and tweaking my ideas, I have finally come up with the storyline for "The Meeting". My initial idea was to have a boardroom meeting between some representatives of a company or some government officials, but while thinking of main characters and background information the story transformed and started to warp around the main character. The story now shows the main character's daily routine and how a boardroom meeting changes his life completely.

The story is set in a contemporary urban setting (London/Maidstone area) and shows a male in his mid-twenties woken up by his television and alarm clock. This young man is George Figgs, he has a wife and together are expecting a child in the next few months, he works for a company called "Enigma" who specialise in covering up the stories and secrets of celebrities, MPs and anyone else who is under the public eye as court acts like injunctions and super injunctions have become meaningless and useless against the media. One day George is called into a boardroom meeting about a new client, an MP who has spent thousands of pounds of tax payers’ money on his new condo and wide selection of expensive cars. George is put in charge of covering up this story and hiding it from the press and is told that this has to be done urgently and as soon as possible. Soon enough George gets cracking on with covering up the story but later gets distracted when he finds out that he has forgotten that today is his 1 year anniversary of being married to his wife. He quickly leaves work to find a present for Anna (his wife) totally forgetting about his assignment. George manages to find a present for Anna and takes her out to a 5 star restaurant for a romantic dinner and a couple of drinks. The next morning George wakes up dazed to find out that he is late for work and that his story has been leaked to the press and has caused public outrage. He rushes over to work only to get fired by his boss and violently beaten by security guards. He returns home to tell Anna that he has been fired, she asks him what happened but he refuses to tell. The couple break into an argument where George gets violent and physically harms Anna; she runs out the house in tears and phones the police. Meanwhile George shocked by what he has just done has a mental breakdown and crawls into a corner sobbing uncontrollably, police sirens are heard outside the house and the story ends with George on the floor still crying with his head buried in his arms.

The genre that I am aiming for is Dark Drama/Thriller which I tried to show through how a man started out with a happy family and ended up with nothing. This is only the first draft so can and will be edited. Hope the story didn’t bring you down too much.

James          

Spaced: The Synopsis

In Spaced we have 5 main characters. We have Tim a twenty-something year old who has recently broken up with his girlfriend Sarah, he is a massive fan of comics and is writing his own he also works in a comic shop where he dresses up as a monster/alien to promote the store. We then have Daisy another twenty-something, unlike Tim she has a boyfriend however he is living in Hull, her ambition is to become a journalist. Tim and Daisy end up meeting in a cafe where they form a friendship, both end up looking for flats but are unsuccessful until they find one which is suitable however the advert is aimed at professional couples only. Together Tim and Daisy form a fake relationship in order to live in the flat. There they meet the landlady Marsha who is a woman in her mid-fifty's. Marsha is an alcoholic and always appears to have a cigarette in her hand. Tim and Daisy manage to fool Marsha and obtain the flat, which is where most of the series would be filmed. Other main characters include Brian a lodger who lives in the room beneath Tim and Daisy's. Brian is a very emotional artist who comes across as slightly psychotic when he describes his feelings through his art (rage, wrath, anger etc.). The fifth main character is Mike who is obsessed with the military and is usually carrying a weapon of some sort. Mike is Tim's best friend who comes across as a tough man who doesn't really care what people think of him.
This is all set in the urban setting of North London where these five distinct characters form relationships and get into all sorts of "wacky" adventures.

Spaced is a sit-com with a combination of styles. It has the classic slapstick humour but also has an atmospheric side to it which can be reflected with the lighting and a variety of camera angles. The story is something the audience can also relate to for example a viewer can relate to Tim and Daisy if they have unusual and distinct neighbours and friends. Spaced also attracts an audience by mocking pop-culture by making references to television and film, for example a scene appears where Tim and Daisy resemble Scooby-Doo characters after talking about the flat being haunted. The title "Spaced" is indeed very relevant to the storyline as the characters are seen taking drugs and getting high.

Spaced will be a half hour series full of the 5 twenty somethings wacky adventures as they live their life in their North London flat. Each character could have their own story arc which will include interesting back-stories as well as some episodes showing how their past will affect their future. This series will have it's cliff hangers, it's twists and turns but one thing that is for sure, "Spaced" will have you hooked.  

Spaced - The Pitch

"Spaced" is a 30 minute sit-com about 5 twenty-somethings living in a urban surrounding with an atmospheric yet slapstick style about it with pop-culture references.

Hello again! Well today was our first day at Maidstone TV Studios without any tours or inductions, so we could finally get to do some work. Our first project was that we had to create a three minute video of any genre, just as long as it had an opening title which included the word "life" and a list of everyone who was involved in the production (credits). We were split into a group of 4 and in this group we came up with the title "A Wasted Life?" which was about a girl who's life starts out quite innocently, until it changes and turns into a life of drugs and getting drunk. Although some viewers may think that this is a life which has been wasted, the girl seems to think otherwise which is shown at the end when she says "I wouldn't change a thing". Our group had planned what we were doing a couple of days before filming so we had a general idea of what we were going to film, because of this we were able to provide props for the production such as flowers (both alive and dead to symbolise her life), a vodka bottle and some paracetamol (for the scene where her life starts to go downhill).

Overall I found my first day at Maidstone TV Studios highly enjoyable as I enjoyed working with my group, enjoyed working with the equipment and will be looking forward to continuing with the course.

Till next time

James

  "The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time." Abraham Lincoln