Jan 27 2009
What Does It Take To Write A Script?
We chose a news story about The X Factor, but because that would only leave scope for singers we decided to go with Britain’s Got Talent instead. We still chose the news story for The X Factor, but we played around with the story so it would fit our needs. Stories in the news give you a good story to start with that you can then change around to fit your needs.
We looked at other news stories, but because we had such different types of talent within our group we thought a story based on Britain’s Got Talent would allow everyone to have their chance at performing. With Britain’s Got Talent we would have chance to develop our own individual gift’s further.
We had the various talents within our group; break dancing, poetry, acting, singing and writing. We thought that the story we had chosen would make an interesting script. As long as the story is interesting then you can write a good script that will be of interest to the audience.
Turning the original story into a play was probably the most difficult. Both Tom and I went away and wrote a short script for consideration. When we brought it in the following week we decided to run with my version because Tom’s was too short and aimed for just two people. When my script was chosen I went away and worked on it till I had some good material. Each time I went away wrote the script then went back to college to get feedback. I found that once I received feedback I could go away and work on the script some more. The feedback gave me ideas I could base the script around.
Originally we had six people including; Nicky, Elaine, Christie, Tom, Anthony and Mel. Two of those people dropped out of the group at different stages of the script writing process. That left us with only four people to fit into the script. This meant that we had to change many areas of the script. It was a difficult process and we didn’t have that long considering we were only part time at college and then had to carry on with the rest of our lives. Writing a script is really a full time process and you need to put your heart and soul into it otherwise it won’t turn be a huge success which is what you should always aim towards. Although our college course was only part time I worked on the script every night and originally I wanted to let the script breathe. Unfortunately there was no time to allow the script to breathe so we were working on the script right up to the time of performance and I felt there was so much more work we could have done on it.
The dynamic of the group was very different in the beginning. I didn’t get on with one of the girls called Nicky and she was very difficult towards me. Nicky would chose not to do certain things I asked her to do. At times I felt that she was jealous of me because I wasn’t there for the first week she took the lead. Then when I joined the script writing process she didn’t want anything to do with it. When I asked Nicky to do things for me like print things off the computer she would make excuses up and head to the library. I found working with Nicky was very difficult and it used to be quite stressful. Nicky was not very nice towards me and would often snap or be short with me.
Other people in the group were wonderful to work with although there were disagreements at times. I also found it difficult with absences like Anthony who took a number of weeks off whilst we were in the final process of the script this hampered the script writing process. I suppose I took the lead during the writing of the script although this position is new to me. I am not used to taking the lead and although I know that I did it wasn’t a choice of mine. I found it quite uncomfortable because I have never fit into a group situation before. When I was at school and even college I was bullied badly and never fit in. I have felt different though on this course and have finally come out of my shell. Although I did take the lead I also tried to include my other group members.
I think I probably had too much input in the script although Elaine and I did work together a lot. Tom had some input as well and gave his ideas that were used in the play. As the characters developed and we read through the script more ideas were added.
