For Year 11 Media Studies BTEC Students

Hello everybody, I am away today, but there is plenty of work for you to get on with.

1.) Write a new post in Blogger.com describing the work you did last week and what you learned about character profiles.

2.)   Look on BBC Writers Room website http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/childrens_drama.shtml and read through the first few scenes of the shooting script for The Sarah Jane Adventures- The Vault of Secrets Part 1.

3.) Write new post on Blogger.com describing the  layout of the script and how this will help you with your own scripts.

4.)   Revisit Guillaume Sabourin’s video “Camera angles and shots” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwbsYgZ7d-8 and write notes in your own words describing each shot.

5.)   Carry on with breaking your treatment down into scenes.

Save work and log off.

AFTER LUNCH

1.) Watch original District 9 short film on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlgtbEdqVsk then write down all the different camera angles you saw and post on Blogger.com.

2.)   Continue with scene breakdown of treatment, including camera angles where possible.

3.) Log onto each other’s Blogger.com and review each other’s scene breakdowns so far, writing a comment giving two positives and one thing which would make the script even better.

Save work and log off.

This should keep you busy for the two lessons. I look forward to reading your results on Blogger.com.

Mr Pyle.

Y11 BTEC media 08/11/11; Y9/10 BTEC media 10/11/11

Character Profiles

Script writers will often create detailed profiles of all the characters in a film or television programme, asking many different questions about each character. There is an example of a set of questions a writer might answer to produce a character profile below.

Soap operas such as Eastenders and Coronation Street, where a number of different writers write for the same characters, all have what they call “bibles,” which are detailed guides featuring key information about every character in the show.

You will not need to know every single fact in order to write your scripts; in fact, you may think that some of the questions have nothing to do with your script at all, but there is a point behind them.

The more information you have about a character, the more you know what they are really like, so the better you will understand how they will react in certain circumstances.

Knowing how your characters will react makes it easier to write a script, because it helps you to understand what the characters will do at each point.

Answer all of the questions below for at least one of your main characters.

CHARACTER PROFILE QUESTIONS

• What is your character's full name? What is their preferred nickname?
• How old is your character throughout the majority of the story?
• What is their date of birth?
• What is their place of birth?
• Are they male or female?
• Where do they live now? Are they married, single, engaged, divorced, widowed?
• Does your character have any brothers or sisters? If so, how many?
• What is your character's overall health like?
• What type of personality does your character have?
• What is their Ethnic background and religion?
• What is their current occupation?
• What level of education does your character have?
• What does your character like or love?
• What does your character dislike or hate?

Scene breakdown for Y9, 10 and 11 Media BTEC students

Ladies and gentlemen,

In an effort to help you along with the scene breakdown of your treatment, please look below for a scene I have created here. It contains all the elements you should be putting into each of your scenes when you break the treatment down into scenes.

1.     INT.       CLASSROOM.     DAY.

Mr Smith, a science teacher, stands at a desk, frowning and staring down at Billy Jones. Billy, a small, nervous-looking schoolboy, sits and stares up at Mr Smith with a look of fear.

Mr Smith shouts at Billy for not doing his homework and for not paying attention. Billy is in a detention for not doing his work. Billy tries to tell the teacher that he did do his homework but that the school bully, Bruiser Barnes, took it and tore it up, but Mr Smith does not believe him. Billy closes his eyes and puts his head on the desk as the teacher continues his rant.

CUT TO:

Each scene needs to be laid out like this. You will need a scene heading with the scene number, whether the scene is inside (INT) or outside (EXT), the location and the time of day.

Next you need to write a brief description of how the scene starts in italics (the diagonal writing like this.) This description should contain what the audience would see at the start of the scene, the characters they would see and what they are doing as the scene begins.

After this you need to write a brief description of what happens in the scene. Avoid dialogue if possible for now; once you have planned out the whole treatment you may find you have to cut scenes if it is too long so don't waste your time writing dialogue yet.

End your scene with either CUT TO: or FADE TO: according to how you would like to reach the next scene.

Read this carefully and use it to structure all the scenes for your treatment. Remember you need a separate scene for every location change in your treatment.