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Screenplay Narrative Aims & Ideas

I began mind-mapping ideas for my screenplay by listing the objectives I wanted to cover with the final script:
  • Featuring one on-screen character- This is because I have to make a story-board featuring photographs, and using one actor is the most practical way to create a simple short film.
  • Character preferably a teenage girl- This is because I am writing a screenplay and as I am a teenage girl myself, it will be easier to capture the personality (and language-use, reactions to events etc.) of my character if we are similar.
  • Set in one to two simple settings- Again, this is due to the need to keep my narrative simple as it has to also be represented with a story-board, ideally the screenplay would be set in a house as this is the most accessible location to film in.
  • Tackle a social issue such as mental illness- This is because I believe that film is a powerful media that can be used to deliver a message to society and potentially effect ideology. I would like my film to mimic the films that can do this (with a large audience/budget).
  • Feature interesting character dynamics- This is because I am writing a ten page script, so it would be to difficult to either write a monologue this long, or take a minimalistic approach (use small amounts of dialogue) whilst still making the script interesting.
I was then faced with the issue that I wanted to use interesting character dynamics in my screenplay, whilst only featuring one (on-screen) character. I thought about my protagonist being the only character seen by the audience, but talking to other characters off-screen. This idea stemmed from the narrative idea of a girl who hates her birthday, a story I've been thinking about for a while. However, I felt that this wasn't working well enough with my objectives (listed above).
So I then came up with the idea that my script could feature two or more characters but played by the same actor. I came up with several vague ideas surrounding this, including 'multiple eras' in which the same person would feature in several different time periods.
My final idea and the one I think I will use was at first titled: 'Conflicting Left and Right Brain'

My Final Idea
I based this on two things: The new Netflix series 'Maniac' by Cary Joji Fukunaga and Bo Burnam's skit 'Left Brain, Right Brain' (explicit).
I would describe the genre as sci-fi, drama and potentially coming-of-age.
The film is set in the near future, where an experimental therapy for mental health is taking place. The therapy creates a hallucination inside the patient's mind of their left and right brain, who then argue and discuss their differences, what went wrong with the patient's mental state and how they can fix it.
The patient, left and right brain are all played by the same actor. There will probably be another character, the doctor, off-screen, who we hear the voice of at the beginning and end of the film.
The patient will be a teenage girl who is mentally ill; I will do some research into which particular illness I should use for this scenario.
The film will be set in a doctor's office, and possibly the street outside. I think I will be able to create this set in a room in my house, so I can take photos easily.
Finally, in the story-board I think I will use a lot of extreme close-ups of the patient, as inspired by Fukunaga's 'Maniac'.

Comments

  1. Caroline Birks18 October 2018 at 19:51

    This sounds like a very good idea, I look forward to seeing how it develops. I note that you have made some decisions because they will be easier to achieve but that you've also chosen the genre of sci-fi. Delivering the sci-fi element via the storyboard could be tricky, so plan carefully.

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