Despite my lack of Top 100 film watching and assigned creativity, it’s not been all bad. Nearly two weeks ago, Mark and I started a screenwriting course at The Phoenix (we seem to be going there a lot lately…).
It’s an eight week programme and by the end we should have written a screenplay and investigated structure, dialogue, character building and industry techniques. We have also been given a reading list and we’ve got two William Goldman and one Stephen King books on writing to read.
The first homework was to write your favourite movie’s plot in four lines and then your idea in four lines. This week’s assignment is to flesh that initial four lines out in to half a page and decide on a character that made an impact on you as a child.
My idea is based on the Simon Armitage poem The Manhunt (http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/simon-armitage-on-his-poem-the-manhunt/13455.html) although I may change the war by moving it to Afghanistan and also add the element of the wife having strayed before he came back wounded and the amplified guilt she would feel. I like the idea of writing about war from a female perspective although I think I will have to do a lot of research first!
It’s a start…
Harry's homemade film MA 