Film or TV?
By Jon Bridle - BA Screenwriting and Film Course Leader
The huge success of streaming services like Amazon and Netflix and the sheer demand for new story content means that new writers should remain open-minded about how to develop their original or adapted scripts. Rather than position yourself as a purely TV or film writer too early, consider how best to tell your story. It should go without saying that you need a story that is compelling regardless of the medium.
Try telling a short, snappy breakdown of your idea to friends and relatives, are they engaged? Do they have more questions? Early 'testing' of a new premise can save a lot of frustration and heartache later. If you are confident that the story you want to tell is original, relevant and exciting enough then it will withstand the long process of writing and re-writing.
There are a few key questions you need to ask yourself when deciding how best to write up your killer idea:
What do you like watching the most, TV or film? If you watch more TV series than one-off features then you will have more recent experience of how these work, how their stories are told and how they sustain the viewer's interest over hours of screen time.
What is at stake for your character(s)? As a general rule, feature films usually pit their characters against -life-threatening or life-changing situations that unfold in a relatively limited time-frame (the convenient length of a 90 - 120 minute film!). TV series usually involve characters facing a less time-critical problem (I know, I know, 24 is an exception!) or perhaps a whole range of problems that present themselves across many episodes.
How many characters are in your story? Films tend to feature a single protagonist battling the odds whereas TV series can follow several protagonists, each with their own set of issues (although they may also all share a common issue).
Although modern TV programmes are more 'filmic' in their visual storytelling than they used to be, it's still worth considering how visually driven your story is. For example, the story of a daring rescue attempt will probably favour visual spectacle over long dialogue scenes (and be bound by a strict time limit) so will perhaps work better as a film. If you wanted to write about the back-room meetings of a football club then TV might serve your idea better as you will have more time to build the various characters through their conversations in the board-room (although you will still need to find plenty of visual interest to engage the casual viewer!).
It's important to identify the genre of your story as certain genres are more commonly found in feature films. Horror, action and epic fantasy (to name just three) stories are mostly told in film as they tend to require either the big budget or one-off time-frame of cinema. Horror films, in particular, often achieve their effect through the withholding of story information and building of tension that would be difficult to sustain through many episodes of a TV series!
Although these questions can be used to guide your thinking, remember that a good story will always attract attention, no matter how it's told!
What Is A Screenplay?
By Jon Bridle - Senior Lecturer and Course Leader BA Screenwriting and Film at Sheffield Hallam
Unless you have a particular interest in film production, most people don't realise just how detailed a screenplay is. Far more than just a list of lines for the actors to say, the screenplay document is essentially a blueprint or template for a film, complete with scene descriptions explaining everything we'd see on the screen, dialogue, scene changes and even musical cues in some cases.
The screenplay is laid out on the page according to strict industry conventions, enabling all members of a film's crew, from locations scouts and costume designers to actors and directors, to pick out the parts that are relevant to their job.
So, in a typical feature film screenplay you will find:
Jon Bridle - Course Leader for BA Screenwriting and Film at Sheffield Hallam
dialogue - these are all the lines the characters will speak but probably without much indication as to how the actors should say them (they really don't like it!)
scene descriptions - these include all the visual action on screen and sets the scene each time the location changes (although without reference to camera movements or shot lengths, directors don't like it!)
Screenplays are typically 90 - 120 pages long but, as we always stress to our screenwriting students, shouldn't take long to read if they are formatted correctly and tell an engaging story!
On our screenwriting course, students will write what are known as 'spec' (short for speculative) scripts - that is, wholly original screenplays that show their ability to write for particular genres. It's important that the spec script is representative of the student's personal taste in films and positions them as the kind of writer they want to become. The student's spec script will hopefully act as a 'calling card' (another industry term!) for their talents and can be sent out to agents and producers in order to get that all important first-meeting!
Although directors and actors often receive a lot of the attention and plaudits for a successful film, it all starts with that lonely screenwriter parking themselves in front of a computer for hours on end, trying to make something out of nothing!