My Script:

Opening scene-A country walk

TIME OF DAY- Afternoon, Exterior shot.

Shot- CAMERA SHOWS ESTABLISHING SHOT OF A GREEN FIELD WITH A HILL.

'Characters casually stroll down the hill towards the bottom playfully swinging clubs, bats and chains'

CLOSE UP-OF ALL CHARACTERS FACES AS THEY WALK DOWN THE HILL (NARRATION INTRODUCES EACH ONE mixed with a close up)

Narration-"When day turned to night that was when the real fun started, out of every corner and crack came creatures of the night ready for a bit of mischief.
That's me there Harry, and the rest are my most loyalist of friends Scratch, Arthur and Albert.Not the oddest of folk but none the less our attire was frightening,as we put on our war paint and put on the rags we became quite a sight for any of the normals"
"I think its safe to say that we are all a bit off our rockers, but then again we wouldn't have it any other way" (laughs)"Welcome to our world"

NON DIAGETIC SOUND-Strawberry Fields-Beatles

Edit-Camera fades into next scene

Scene two-the town criers

TIME OF DAY-Evening, Exterior shot.

shot-tracking shot,closeups,mid shots (slow motion and sped up)

Characters walk down the high street, people all around are hurrying to shut their shops and cover windows with boards of wood.

Narration-"Everyone had become wise to the goings on in those days, and things were getting worse. The police didn't rule with an iron fist anymore, the youths ruled the streets at night and the only protection was in gangs like ours"


By the time the characters reach the clock tower the town is deserted, all the shops are boarded up. There's not a soul in sight except for the four characters.

Arthur-"Ere Harry what we got planned for tonight then?"

Harry-"Well Arthur I assure you an evening of entertainment, and if were really lucky we'll meet our friends from Breck Road"

'Lights a cigarette, takes a toke, exhales'

Harry-"Lets just wait and see"

'They start walking in the direction of the bar, away from the clock-tower'


NON DIAGETIC SOUND- End of the world-Skeeter Davis

Edit-Camera pans to a low angled shot with the gang walking into the foreground and clock tower in the background then wipes to next scene.

Scene Three-the snake pit

TIME OF DAY-Evening, Exterior shot leading into a Interior.

The characters decide to go to a local bar called the "Snake Pit" this is where the gang usually go before a night out and meet their drug dealer ( to take advantage of the clubs
relaxed attitude to drugs.

Outside the club is adorned with neon signs and lights with a neon snake that flickers its tongue at the patrons.
While at this bar they manage to score various drugs including speed and cannabis.

Shot-zoom in from the outside into a bright light inside (as characters walk in),Tracking shot follows characters in then crane shot of club showing dance floor.

NON DIAGETIC SOUND-Horror show-The libertines

Scratch-"Bloody hell harry its heaving in here, can you see Rotten?

Harry-"He said he would meet us at the bar, Look there he is"

'They all push their way through the heaving crowd towards the bar'

Harry-"Alright Rotten have you got what I asked you for?

Rotten-"Hello Harry hows it going?Yeah I got the stuff that'll be £60 mate"

'Rotten, digs four plastic wrapped bundles out of his bag'

Narration-"It was easy to get the kind of medicine we were after, with the police about as useful as shit, it was as easy as buying a newspaper.

'Hands over three £20 notes, and quickly pockets the drugs'

Harry-"Cmon lads lets go find somewhere to sit down"

'They all follow Harry and go and sit on a shish table'

Edit-camera shows a shot of the crowd dancing, then fades.

Scene four-Girl

TIME OF DAY-Evening, Interior shoot.

Shot-camera is placed in the middle of the dancing crowd, slow motion.

NON DIAGETIC SOUND- Rusko-Bread Get Bun, mixed in with sound of a bass heartbeat at the beginning.

Harry was sitting at the table, by now he is heavily under the influence of the drugs he has taken and begins to hallucinate.

As the crowd parts he see's a girl dancing in the middle of the room, as she is dancing all other sounds fade,

Shot-as the crowd parts the camera zooms into a single girl dancing on her own-long shot.

Narration-"As I watched her body move in what seemed to me an almost mystical fashion, it came about my mind how truly beautiful us humans are. Her body twisted in ways I have never seen before, it was either a hallucination or a trick of the mind but I was captivated by her presence"

Shot-P.O.V camera zooms out slowly then quickly and then turns to a closeup of Scratch.

Scratch-"Harry, Harry, HARRY!"

Harry-"Yes Scratch, what is it?"

Scratch-"Its them boys from Breck Road Harry,look over there near the railings"

Shot-P.O.V shot follows Scratch's pointing finger to the railings.

'Harry see's the four members of the rival gang flirting with some women in the club, until one of them spots Scratch and Harry looking at them'

Shot-P.o.v from a rival gang member.

NON-DIAGETIC SOUND:

Edit-Fade out.

Scene five-Parting the seas

TIME OF DAY-Evening, Interior shoot.

Shot-Low angle mid shot of crowds feet zooming out as the crowd parts.

'The Breck road boys are seen moving through the rift in the crowd'

Narration-"Like Moses parted the red sea, the crowd parted for those Breck road boys"

'Albert see's them coming and warns the rest of the gang'

Albert-"Lads,Lads here they come! What are we gonna do?"

Harry-"Into the toilets lads quick"

Shot-camera tracks the characters into the toilets, then switches to a p.o.v to show the rival gang looking for them.

'They quickly run into the toilet and take a stall each'

Edit-Camera zooms out of the cubicles and fades

Scene six-clashing cubicles

TIME OF DAY-Evening, Interior shoot.

SHOT-CAMERA FADES INTO A MID SHOT OF THE DOOR

'The Breck Road gang kick in the door and rush in'

Shot-camera reverse tracks the movement ending in a wide shot of the toilets.

Narration-"We were hardly in the right state to be fighting, after everything we took we felt a little on the strange side.
Saying that we never missed an opportunity for a good scrap"

SHOT-PAN ACROSS THE RIVAL GANG, WAIST HIGH SHOWING WEAPONS CLOSE UP.

Rival Gang leader-"Cmom pussy holes, I know your in here.I can smell you shitting yourselves"

'The whole gang chuckles at his joke'


Narration-"You know whats going to happen when some people get too mouthy"

SHOT-ZOOM INTO THE DOORS OF THE STALLS.

NON-DIAGETIC SOUND- Rossini-William Tell overture Finale.

'Harry and the gang charge the doors from the inside, causing the doors to break and splinters flying everywhere temporarily blinding the rival gang'

'Scratch and Arthur take out their chain and bat and begin to swing wildly, catching one of the rival gang members in the face causing blood to splatter on the wall'

SHOT-SLOW MOTION OF THE HIT, THEN PAN TO THE BLOOD SPLATTERED WALL.

'A misjudged swing hits the fluorescent lights, causing a strobe effect'

SHOT-MULTIPLE CLOSEUPS OF ALL THE CHARACTERS INVOLVED.

'Strobe lighting shows Albert repeatedly hitting a rivals head on a sink until it smashes, then he stands up in a warrior like stance and roars'

SHOT-CLOSEUP OF ALBERTS FACE WITH BLOOD DRIPPING DOWN, THEN CAMERA SHOWS A WIDE SHOT OF THE CHAOS.

Narration-"So there we were hearts beating at a thousand miles per hour, adrenaline raging through our system, pure ecstasy as we kicked the shit clean out of each other.
After giving and receiving a good kicking we ran for the door and out into the crowd"

'Diving in and out of the tightly packed crowd whilst still being chased by the Breck road boys sprinting for the exit'

SHOT-HAND HELD CAMERA, TRACKING SHOTS, WITH P.O.V LOOKING BACK AT THE PURSUERS

NON DIAGETIC SOUND- Tempa T-Next Hype

'The gang run out of the doors to the snake pit and onto the back of a bus, with their pursuers shouting and yelling in frustration'

SHOT-P.O.V OF THE RIVAL GANG AS THE BUS PULLS AWAY THEN WIDE SHOT OF HARRY AND THE GANG AS THEY SIT DOWN.

Harry-"Who were you calling pussy holes, see you soon you bunch of queers"

'The gang follow Harry upstairs and sit down, all breathing heavily and unable to speak'

'Arthur manages to regain his breath and turns to Harry'

Arthur-"That was a close one Harry, we almost bleeding well had it"

Harry-"Yeah I suppose we did, but then again we wouldn't have it any other way"

NON DIAGETIC SOUND-End of the world-Skeeter Davis

SHOT-TRACKING SHOT OF THE BUS AS IT GOES DOWN THE ROAD.

Narration-"What you have witnessed was the glory days, from then on it was all down hill. Well isn't that what they say about growing up, its all down hill to the end"

EDIT-Camera Tracks the bus to the end of the road then tilts upwards and zooms out revealing the Dawn of a new day.

Evaluation of my script:

When I began this project I gave myself a challenge, having never written a script in this depth and detail before I found that to begin with the process cannot be approached without copious amounts of note making.
My main aim whilst carrying out this project was to write a short film that would entice the intended audience and create a form of escapism for them. I also wanted to produce a piece of creative thinking that paid homage to the films that influenced the idea.
What I wanted to do was produce a mixture of two similar but quite different films, ‘The Warriors’ by Walter Hill and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Stanley Kubrick.

While writing my script I tried to focus on keeping my style of writing quite surrealistic and putting in every detail to make sure that what I saw in my head was conveyed into words so that my vision would be clear to everyone who read my script.

I think that if I was to make this film it would be marketable in the cult films niche as it is paying homage to two cult classics, in my opinion if marketed correctly and aimed at that niche audience it would do very well. Linking this thinking in with other film studies projects where I wrote about contemporary and cult films within Britain, we in this country have seen films such as kidult hood become instant hits with the youth of today as it focuses on real issues that youth in Britain have to face everyday. If I was to extend my script and make it feature length I would add back stories that would deal with the reality of everyday life and some of the issues faced by the people I am trying to portray.

When writing about my characters I tried to write as if it was myself who was in the situation that they are in, in the narrative. The point that I wanted to get across was that although the characters world may not of always been like that, with gangs and violence disrupting everything they do the only way he was going to survive the changing world in which he inhabited was to not beat them but join them.

Trying to create a constant question within the narrative was not hard for the genre that I had chosen, because the action/thriller genre creates constant situations where the audience question if the characters will make it.
Creating a mysticism and atmosphere about the characters was what I found difficult, the model I tried to work with was to make the lead character ‘Harry’ very abrupt and charismatic and leave most of the explaining to the narrator which is ‘Harry’ later on in life looking back on his youth.

Tying in the mysticism I was trying to create with music was another challenge, as I didn’t think that many contemporary songs would go with the atmosphere I was trying to create so I decided to introduce a little nostalgia and incorporate songs from the sixties onwards that I thought would best fit the surrealistic style of the script.
The use of the song ‘End of the world’ by Skeeter Davis at the end of the second scene was one of these nostalgic songs that I used. I decided to use it as it as the lyrics ‘Don’t they know it’s the end of the world’
Gave the effect that somehow in that evening the characters lives were going to change forever, along with the world as they knew it.

Envisioning the camera shots and angles and which each scene and action would be filmed was relatively easy as I already had scenes written in note form, so it was a case of developing those scenes to include more detail, sound and dialog.

The hardest part of writing this script came at the end when I had to write the fight scene. The reason why it was so hard, was that if I did it wrong the script would lose pace and fall at the last hurdle. The way in which I countered this was to watch a similar scene in the film ‘The Warriors’ where the gang is attacked in the toilets of a subway station.
I noticed while taking notes on this scene that the use of slow motion and reaction shots really get the audience who are watching involved in the action, the reaction shots allow the audience to emotionally link to the scene as they do not want to see their favourite characters being taken out of the film already.
This links back to the constant questions that I was trying to set whilst writing, the question ‘are they going to make it?’
Overall I believe that I have produced a good script, which has pace and atmosphere to keep an audience hooked into watching the rest of my film. I found some parts hard and others easy, but I have learned a lot and can now fully appreciate all the work that goes into making a film before it is even put into production.

Aims Of this project:

My main aim of this project is to produce a script for a shot film lasting between 10-15 minutes long. I have decided to write a script for my coursework as I already have a template for a film, but find that to convey my ideas to an audience writing a script would be easier than making a short film.
I will be using a script writing software called 'Celtx'.

Hello,

I am David Barnes, I am about to start my A2 film course at St.Andrews.
From this year I hope to further my knowledge in all aspects of film including the film industry.
I hope to improve my analytical and film making skills which in turn will help me in my other subjects of media and photography.

I hope you enjoy my blog.