Basic Screenwriting - Discovering a Dream!

I know I complained a lot about my other classes, but there was one class I couldn't complain about - Basic Screenwriting.

I loved the class for several reasons. One, the subject interested me and two, the professor was amazing.

The aim of the class was to write the first act of a full length feature screenplay. We would be marked on this and we had to create a beat-sheet to show what happen in the rest of the film. Before I even went to KU I had some film ideas and was glad I had taken a note of them, as I ended up using one of them for the class. 

The idea I had was based on a true story, although not knowing the people involved personally I had to recreate the characters and entire story. At the time I thought this was a good idea, but now - as the screenplay is still unfinished - I've realised that because I don't know enough about the experiences of the people I'm writing about, I can't really write the play  until I'm free to take the time and do research.

My story revolved around a pupil-teacher relationship. These are often a subject of controvery in the western world and I was interesting in exploring the morals around this topic. In real life story (which happened in a school near the area where I went to school) the pupil was seventeen (which is over the age of consent in the UK) and the teacher was a lot older. However, the sex was consensual and I think the relationship continued after the pupil left. The teacher was male and the pupil was female. Like most of the general population, I was disgusted by this story. However, it wasn't until my sister, who knew the girl (very vaguely) through a friend at the time, told me that the paparrazi had been chasing her down and hassling her. My sister told me she felt sorry for her.

This is what made me think about it differently. It was the first time I had ever heard of someone being sympathetic towards the relationship...and although I didn't think that the relationship was ethical, this did make me consider the stigma attached to the people involved. These kind of stories are always a source of gossip and I think this makes us forget that the people involved are real people with feelings, just like you and me...they just happen to be in a relationship with each other which other people don't approve of. Of course, it's different if a teacher exploits a pupil - but if it's consented...does this make a pupil-teacher relationship acceptable??

It's a fine line and controversial topic to approach. People will have very different opinions about it but it got me thinking. What if a girl is sixteen or over (the age of consent in Britain) and a guy is in his early twenties, they meet in a club and they start going out/having sex etc. This is acceptable in terms of the law but is this socially acceptable?? Although I'm in my twenties and most guys I know who are my age wouldn't go out with a sixteen year old, there are some who do. So, what makes it different if it is a younger teacher and an older pupil? Well...their professional relationship certainly makes it different, but if they're in love - can they help it?? Does it matter?? I don't know the answer, but these were the issues I wanted my screenplay to explore. 

But like I said, I don't have enough experience having never been sexually involved or sexually attracted to a teacher that I don't even know how such a relationship would actually begin. Then there's the question of who comes on to who?? If the teacher does it he's a straight-out pervert and if the girl does it then she's a full-on slut which is not the way I want the characters to be! So this screenplay is being forgotten about for the moment.

I think I've went on about Professor Willmott enough...but basically he had a combination of professional experience and a kind and caring manner which made him the best professor I've ever had. He took interest in all of us and every one of our idea. He never said an idea was bad, but would point us in the right direction or encourage us to look at it in a way we hadn't previously. 

It was a bit weird bringing up the idea of the story, especially as we were in a classroom situation...I hope he didn't think I was getting at something lol. Especially the way I've went on about him on this, sounds like I well fancied him.

I just really liked him and his classes! The classes we had didn't even feel like classes: there was never any pressure and it didn't feel like we did any work. Although I still felt like I learned a lot (which is rare for me - I'm used to writing essays and taking notes furiously for exams). He explained a lot of concepts, such as creating character, narrative and writing naturalistic dialogue (appropriate to your story). Each class was spent, talking about our ideas and how we were developing them. We were encouraged to ask questions to help us along with our own screenplays and to help others...we often ended class with reading out a scene from another student's work. It was very interesting to see what the others came up with and very exciting - it was so much fun!

The best thing about the class is that it made me realise what it is with film I want to do - write! I've realised that as much as I hate writing sometimes, I'm good at it, I enjoy it when I can write what I want freely and I find it therapeutical. Sometimes writing down my problems helps me get over them. Then I rip it up and throw it away, never to be seen again. I sometimes use what I've written to inspire ideas. I didn't want to fully forget what it was like to be an emotional teenager because this is when I felt most inspired to write stories for films, different from the typical Hollywood standard. This is when most things in a person's life change and the stories of any teenager are relevant for most of the living human population...to write down what it was like helps me remember, and helps me to create relevant characters. I couldn't write now what it was like to be a child...so I hope I can recreate teenage moments which are relevant to an audience.

Anyways, I 've rambled on here long enough! But check out the blog next week to find out about my trip to Chicago!! Fall break woo hoo!

Documentary Film and Video - They lost my exam paper??!!

I took this class hoping it would broaden my film taste and introduce me to films I had never seen before. This never happened.

If I had known what Professor Small was like I would never taken this class. But there was no way I could know and was determined to continue with it.

One of my roommates was in this class with me. This was either my first class (or one of my first classes) and my roommate had already had been to her other classes. I remember when it ended the first thing she said to me was that it had been her worse class so far. I had to agree it was particularly boring but I was still willing to give it a chance.

It didn't take long for me to realise she was right. It ended up being my worst class too. It was boring, unhelpful and they lost my mid-term exam paper. So yeah, it was pretty bad.

The worst thing about it was, not only did they lose my exam paper - the teaching assistant (Rich Housh) decided it was my fault rather than apologising for it.

Part of it actually had been my fault. A lot of exams in the States are multiple choice, and having never taken a multiple choice exam before, I didn't know I had to score my name using the boxes at the top. I just wrote my name on it, but then the computer system didn't pick it up. I wasn't told I had to do that though, so how was I supposed to know that?? Surely they should give you all that information at the start, no matter how stupid it seems. Any exam I've ever taken in Scotland, they tell you exactly what to put on it before you start.

So yeah, I took the exam. I was definitely there and had evidence as I asked a girl nearby to borrow her eraser. But basically most people in the class, including my roommate had got their grades back so I emailed the teaching assistant to find out mines. He then got back to me saying that I 'obviously' hadn't taken the exam which is why there was no result. Why would I have asked for the results for an exam I never took??? Retarded or what...

As soon as he emailed me that back I was angry. I put it all over my facebook, and was like how the fuck can they accuse me of not taking an exam even though I have proof I was there! They obviously had lost it and tried to blame it on me. I emailed him back assuring him that I had taken the exam and that I had proof. A lot of my friends on facebook were supportive and agreed it was a complete disgrace. Cheryl then told me to email the head of the film dept and said she would go to the Dean for me. I didn't think it had to go as far as the Dean, but I emailed the Study Abroad office straight away who then offered to complain to the head of the dept for me. Of course, after this they obviously made more of an effort to look for my paper.

Housh then got back to me saying, 'Well, we never found your paper, but we did find one with no name on it so we can assume that's yours and give you the grade. It's a B+.'

Thinking a B+ wasn't bad, I agreed that that was okay. Professor Small then offered me a personal apology and explained my paper was sitting on his suitcase in his living room and that we could go over the grades together if I wanted. He said he had looked over it and was certain I had got a grade around a B+. I accepted the apology and agreed that was okay (my real grade was probably shittier to be honest). I was just grateful I didn't have to sit the exam again.

Small gave us a lot of background knowledge in this class. Well, at least I had thought it was background knowledge. It turned out it was actually stuff we needed to know for our exams. Yeah, apparently knowing the original name of the film building at KU is useful in the field of documentary. The most annoying thing about it was that so many people failed the midterm, that Small was made to give us a list of possible exam topics for the final exam. So apparently, I was an idiot that studied the possible exam topics - none of which appeared in the final exam! I was mad.

Ended up getting a B- for the class overall. Which I didn't mind...until I realised this was the equivalent of a 2D-2F in Stirling grades! Ugh...worst class of my life. The most recent documentaries we studied in that class were from the early 1990s (if we were lucky). Did not see any documentaries from this century, you know which would have been nice but oh well.

Bit of a downer reading this eh? Well it gets a bit cheerier next week when I talk about the best class I took at KU, Basic Screenwriting. Check out the blog to read all about it!

International Women Filmmakers - An Opportunity Comes!

I liked and disliked this class for a number of reasons...

First of all I am glad I took this class because the most amazing opportunity came along with it. Second of all, I got to look back at the film I first acted in when I was seven years old.

Let me explain the film thing first. I never ended up in the final cut of the film - so you won't find me credited in it. I ended up being an extra in the film. The film is called, "Gasman" (UK, 1997) and was made by an award winning director from Maryhill, Glasgow called Lynne Ramsay. I should also point out that we didn't study this film in the class but we did look at her feature film, "Ratcatcher" (UK, 1999) and so I borrowed the DVD from the library and watched Gasman (as it is on the same DVD). It was funny to look back. I'm that sad that I actually found the one frame I was in...

You can guess why we watched the film if you look at the title of the class - International Women Filmmakers. We looked at British films in one of the weeks and this was the week Lynne Ramsay's film appeared, along with Sally Potter. We also watched films from countries such as France (Agnes Varda), Tunisia, Iran, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and other places (I can't remember them all without the syllabus in front of me) - all which were made by women. It was pretty interesting to see films from a variety of different cultures.

The KU Student Activities committee (or something like that) put on a film screening for students to go and see. It was for the film, "Good Dick" (US, 2008) by Marianna Palka. There was a poster for the event in Jayhawker Towers and I had thought about going to it, but never took a note of it or anything. Then we got an email about it through the class, so I thought why not? Plus it mentioned that she was Scottish so I thought it'd be pretty interesting.

So I watched the film - and loved it. I thought it was an interesting story and loved the main character (played by Palka). The film was funny at the same time it was tragic and I thought the character was crazy before you realise she's a victim of sexual abuse and incest. Plus, I thought it was beautifully shot. At the end of the screening, they mentioned that the cast was coming out for a Q and A and the next thing I knew, Palka and her boyfriend - Jason Ritter came out on to the stage. 

I suppose you could kind-of tell she was Scottish - it was clear her accent had become Americanised though. (Can't blame her, the Americans probably never understood her). I thought to myself, she's from Glasgow and here she is making movies, I had to ask her a question. So I went up to the microphone and asked her what her inspiration was behind the film. She recognised my accent immediately. She was like, 'Are you Scottish??' and I replied, 'Yes'. She immediately took interest and asked whereabouts I was from. I told her Glasgow and she was like, 'Ah me too!'. Then she answered the question. 

Interestingly enough, another person at the screening asked her if she considered herself to be like another female Scottish director- aka - Lynne Ramsay. Palka then mentioned that they were similar in the way they were both from Glasgow, and in fact the same part of Glasgow - Maryhill! I was thinking - oh my god - that's where I'm from - I have to tell her!! So basically (like a creep) I waited til the end of the Q and A and then I saw her and was like, 'Sorry - you're from Maryhill?? So am I!'

She was like, 'Oh my god, that's amazing! We should swap contact details!'. So I waited in line to get my DVD (which I ended up buying) signed by her and Jason. Jason was like, 'I've been to Glasgow, I love it!' and I was standing there thinking - I used to watch his dad on '8 Simple Rules'. Then Palka was like, 'Aw come sit next to me, tell me how you ended up here.' So we spoke for a while, but we didn't really get in-depth because she was busy signing autographs. She told me that she moved to New York, really broke. I told her about GAMTA and how I wanted to do acting, but went to university instead and ended up in Kansas. Then I told her how I was moving to Santa Barbara and she gave me her number and told me we should meet up (we never got round to that lol). So I was really grateful to have met her and that I took the initiative to go and see the film (after getting an email about it lol)...I didn't even know who she was before that night, but I was excited that I met her. I could not believe she was from Maryhill.

I went home, really excited that night and I think my roommates thought it was weird. Especially as they didn't know who she was, and that I hadn't known who she was beforehand. I didn't care to be honest. She's obviously successful in her own right (and even more so now because of Peter Mullan's 'NEDS'

Anyways, back to the class. Well, Professor Preston had interesting ideas - but took a while to get to the point. She explained things in so much detail, she always forgot what she started explaining in the first place - and so did we. Even though her classes were three hours long, she never got all the work planned done in each class, so everything ran over and this fucked up the syllabus. She revised the syllabus several times and continuously changed the dates of assignments, so when the time actually came to do a 10-page research paper - she told us a week in advance. Bit short notice. Then she responded by saying, 'Well, its in your syllabus.' Bit useless when we never stuck to the syllabus for anything else.

I remember complaining about this to my roommates, mainly to let off steam. They seemed to think it was my fault for not consulting the syllabus which annoyed me considering my syllabus was basically useless. I was kinda hoping they'd be more supportive, but obviously they couldn't be bothered listening to my problems. Which is fair enough - no-one wants to listen to a moaner...and I did moan a lot.

I complained about that class a lot, because we were required to write journal articles every week and as a class, we had no idea what to write about. She told us to write about the films we watched and what we thought about them, with relation to film concepts. That wasn't very helpful - did she want us to write a page or what?? It didn't explain how much we were supposed to write or what film concepts to write about. I just wrote 2 or 3 pages with and talked about common themes the films had and hoped it would be good enough. Which we never find out as we didn't get them back til mid-semester and the rest of them we got at the end - so I didn't know what I was doing wrong or how to improve on it. A girl in the class explained to her that the journals would have been a lot easier to write if we had been given a question each week - which made a lot of sense.

Anyhoos, after a lot of complaining and moaning and stress that this class gave me - I got an A! So I was happy in the end, although she didn't send her feedback back to my university. Not a lot of help, seeing as her feedback could've improved my Stirling grades. But oh well, no point getting stressed about it now. I still passed, didn't I...

Check out the blog next week to find out how stressful my Documentary Film class was!