screenwriting - coming up with simple concepts

ScreenwritingConcepts & synopsising

Today

In todays workshop you will be;

• applying your knowledge of concepting to create and develop 3 ideas for screenplays

• Conducting initial research for each of these ideas.

By the end of today, you

MUST use idea generation strategies to create 3 story concepts

SHOULD be able to develop your 3 ideas by conducting research

COULD evaluate your ideas effectiveness using peer assessment & reflection

Syd Field

Famous American screenwriter Syd Field came up with a way to describe a films

concept in its simplest form.

Describe each

Story Concepts

A person

A geeky high school loser

Story Concepts

In a place

New York City

Story Concepts

Doing his or her thing

Fighting crime as a masked vigilante

Syd Fields rule of story concepting

A person, in a place, doing his or her thing

For example

A recently widowed OAP

In America

Flying his house off on the adventure of a lifetime

Up

A wealthy industrialist

In America

Using his super armour to fight terrorism

A young farm hand

On Tattoine

Trying to rescue a princess from an evil empire

An orphaned billionaire

In Gotham City

Becoming a vigilante crime fighter

Idea generation techniques

What techniques can we use to help us come up with ideas for our story concepts?

Idea generation techniques

What techniques can we use to help us come up with ideas for our story concepts?

- Research- Brainstorms

- Blue sky thinking

If you’re struggling to come up with ideas where can you look for inspiration?

If you’re struggling to come up with ideas where can you look for inspiration?

Secondary research

• Internet• Magazines

• Graphic novels• History books / novels

• Photos• Films

For example… nothing is more dramatic than real life

If you find some useful research what should you do?

Research

for one of your assignments for this unit you have to conduct reliable & useful research

into your idea.

So print anything you find off, and annotate notes on it which explain how useful &

reliable it is!

Task 1

You will develop 3 story concepts.

You have 30 minutes to come up with 3 strong concepts. If you are stuck for ideas

what can you do?

If you finish your 3 concepts you can begin to research them

Feedback

What concepts did people come up with?

Task 2

We now need to develop our ideas.

Working alone begin to flesh out your idea by conducting research into it.

You may want to look at news articles as a starting point.

Plenary