Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Written by
Luca Nicolaescu
lucanicolaescu97@gmail.com
FADE IN
ANDREW
Thanks, but I don’t play these
games anymore. They give me
headaches.
JEREMY
( as he leaves)
It could help you blow
off a little steam.
(winks)
JEREMY (CHAT)
USER HAS BANNED YOU.
Tears run down his cheeks, behind the helmet as he reads “You
have 0 friends” on screen.
INT. CAFETERIA - DAY
Andrew is sitting alone again. He sees Jeremy sitting at a
nearby table along with two other boys. He looks at him for a
few seconds, then starts walking towards their table.
ANDREW
What the hell was that about? I
thought you wanted me to play
Jeremy ignores him the first time so Andrew taps him on the
shoulder.
ANDREW (CONT’D)
Hey I'm talking to you.
Jeremy turns to him, quickly.
JEREMY
I can’t play with you anymore.
ANDREW
What? What’s going on?
JEREMY
We lost our rank because of you? Do
you know how hard that is to get
back?
ANDREW
So you block me instead?
JEREMY
It wasn’t my decision. They made me
do it. Matthew said he’d ban me if
we ever played again. I had no say
in it.
ANDREW
What a friend you are.
JEREMY
You almost cost us the upgrade. You
almost cost me the upgrade. Only a
handful of users get to experience
the 4k HD skin pack. Do you even
know what that means?
5.
ANDREW
(walking away)
No and I don’t care.
ANDREW (CONT’D)
No way. No fucking way. I did it.
INT. BEDROOM - ALMOST MIDNIGHT
Andrew takes of his headset and hears the front door opening.
He triggers the update, then goes downstairs to say hello to
his mom. The headset visor reads: “Downloading Geographical
Maps 20%” “Testing Binaural Sedative Soundwaves 50%”
“Acquiring List of Targets 90%” “Unit Ready for Battle 100%”
Andrew comes in the room looking pale with dark circles under
his eyes. His hair is unkempt. His school uniform is stained.
He takes a long look at the fridge and notices the piled up
notes from Mom. He opens the fridge door and has a drink of
milk from the carton. He begins to make himself a sandwich
and turns on the TV just to keep his eye busy while eating.
The news channel is on, showing the picture of Rasool ur
Ra'ahmaha, one of the leaders of the Iraqi Resistance Army.
The news anchor, states the crimes against American troops
that he is suspected of. Andrew pays attention for a few
minutes, then switches to Comedy Central before he leaves for
school.
TV ANCHOR
Breaking news! Last night, violent
extremist Rasool Ur Ra’ahama killed
yesterday in a covert operation. He
was accused of housing resistance
fighters, destruction of American
property and arson.
The kill is confirmed by the CIA
who have produced photographic
evidence of the body. Find out more
tonight on FOX NEWS when we show
you the last moments of this
terrorist’s life. Live.
FADE OUT
Through this essay I will reflectively analysing the creative process behind developing my
script in this particular direction, the factors that shaped its structure. I will also be
discussing how tried to use the science fiction genre intertwined with drama as a backdrop
to comment on how susceptible children are to popular culture propaganda not overlooking
the rising trend of toxic islamophobia in Western Countries, especially in post 9/11 USA.
The first step towards writing a script that adheres to a particular genre is to analyse the
historical evolution of the genre from the it’s inception as only after clearly defining it can
we begin applying it to our own ideas. In its most rudimentary form, a science fiction story
deals with, as described by essayist Kingsley Amis, “a situation that could not arise in the
world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or
technology … whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin. (1960/1963, 14)”. With the key
word of technology in mind, a clear difference between Sci Fi and other film genres is
obvious. The main characteristics of the genre are not based on what the subject is or how it
is presented but rather by where the story is set and what props are used. The ambiguous
nature of the definition gives a wide range of different approaches of the genre. Hard
science fiction, soft science fiction, both aim to satisfy human curiosity as well as offer a
spectacle of what the future may be like. “A Trip to the Moon “(1902) by George Melies,
“Metropolis” (1927) By Fritz Lang, both indisputable classics of the genre, are great
examples of completely different approaches. If Melie’s film is mostly based on presenting
the future through spectacle and camera artifice, Lang uses the film to discuss the more
complex topic, anxieties present in the 1920’s such as the gap between classes created by
rapid industrialization. But what both movies manage to accomplish through sheer
creativity alone, they lack in technological means.
All genres have been shaped by the advancement of technologies, but none of them have
been so closely tied like the science fiction genre. Computer generated images have been
around since the early 1980’s but only in the 21st century has it give artist total freedom
over what is put on screen. Films like” Matrix” (1997),” Avatar” (2009) or even “Blade
Runner 2049” (2017) wouldn’t have been able to exist without it. But I feel like the use of
CGI in contemporary science fiction films is a two-sided coin. On one hand the artist gets to
fully express his vision, on the other hand sometimes it leaves little room for any character
development, mere spectacle replacing the inherent meaning of the script. “Science fiction
writing has traditionally dealt with ideas; often subordinating characterisation (or creating
what are commonly called ‘flat’ characterisations) to a more overarching premise. (…) they
are often understood as generic archetypes or one-dimensional characters representing
particular views, beliefs or principles.” (2007, 216). This along two more reasons, was what
motivated my decision to try and reduce the science fiction elements of the story, rather
build them upon the structure of a drama. Firstly, I felt that by weaving science fiction
elements into a drama as opposed to centring the story around it, would get the audience
to relate to the characters, the topic and the particular time in which is set in due to the
contemporary subject of choice.
Secondly, in most science fiction films, there is a suspension of belief that that allows
filmmakers to explore more general philosophical concerns such as the morality behind
endowing robots with sentience only to enslave them in Blade Runner or the ethical
treatment of animals in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Whilst this distance from the real
world helps the audience understand the “bigger picture” I feel like it also makes the chosen
topic lose its impact on the audience due to the fact that the they first need to get
accustomed to the whole new order of things before grasping it’s second meaning. By
presenting the life of one character in detail and the downward spiral he finds himself on
because of technology and by setting the story in the near future I tried to attract attention
to the flaws of today’s society. A person doesn’t need to travel to space to see how bleak
the future is, you merely have to open any news channel.
This is where I felt that the drama genre would help me create a better portrait of the many
subtle ways in which the youth can be indoctrinated. As opposed to science fiction, “dramas
often illuminate characters that must carry out everyday tasks, exist in everyday family
situations, work in everyday jobs and deal with other everyday situations” (2014,77). It is
through the daily mundane activities of Andrew that I tried to present how even people the
best people, can be corrupted through if enough propaganda is pushed upon them. By
repeating the scenes in a cycle, and showing the changes in his behaviour as well as the
behaviour of his middle school peers, I tried to explore the gradual intensification of anti-
Muslim behaviour and overall violence the children exhibit. From one of the better
students, Andrew finds himself on a downward spiral, getting into a fight and even killing a
human, unwittingly but still murder nonetheless, by the end of the film. The conclusion of a
drama, in contrast to it’s ancient Greek ancestor, the tragedy, is that the character gets to
live through his mistakes or wrongdoings, having acquired a valuable yet painful life
experience that prevent him from making variations of the same mistake. In this case,
Andrew will have to live with what he has seen, but the audience will have to think further
as to what he may have done better himself.
Initially, I struggled to find the theme for the screenplay, due to my personal lack of
knowledge concerning modern day classic genre films. The initial idea came whilst looking at
the marketing campaign of the Wolfenstein game that depicted a Nazi soldier being
punched. So, I thought to myself what if the tables were to turn, and there would be a video
game killing refuges on the walls of Cities. After struggling with at least 10 different ideas, I
finally settled on this. The amongst the cinematic inspirations for this film were Black Mirror,
the TV series and” Homeland Iraq Year Zero” (2015) the documentary that depicts the
consequences of the American Iraq Invasion in a very personal manner. The director
attentively documents his extended family’s day to day activities, before and after the
invasion. After watching it, I felt incredibly moved and this let me to research how the
general public in America perceived the Iraq War. I found out that in spite of the factual
information that 90% of the Muslim population adheres to the peaceful teaching of Islam,
except for a few extremist factions, the general public tends to view religious extremism,
Islam and race as a monolith. The completely biased way in which the western media
covered the American War on Terror in the Middle East certainly didn’t help. As Chaudhuri
Shahin states in his book “In Western news media, 9/11 victims are duly mourned, while
foreign casualties of the ‘War on Terror’ are usually hidden from view or masked under the
dehumanising imagery and nomenclature of ‘terrorists” (2014, 27). And even when they are
mentioned, the sheer number of civilian deaths prevents, prevents the public from viewing
them as anything else rather than statistics. This can also be seen in modern American
movies such as “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012), “Patriots Day (2016)” and the more controversial
“American Sniper” (2015). Once dehumanized, vilification through popular culture becomes
very easy to do. Any violence is justified in films, as long as it is the hero who does it either
vindictively or to save lives. American troops are usually portrayed as the saviours of
Muslims countries, bringing democracy and the “right” system of values to the exclusively
violent savages that live there. This not only desensitizes the audience to onscreen violence,
helps perpetuate unhealthy stereotypes but also promotes the wrong idea that the ends
always justify the means when fighting the “enemy”. These are the procursive steps towards
the general anti-Muslim attitude so widespread in today’s society. Through the script I tried
to explore what would happen if this gap between reality and prejudiced image pushed on
by the media were to be eliminated and an unsuspecting character would be put in the role
of the actual executioner. When facing the factual reality of war, how would this character
react to it and more importantly, is the shock enough to break the preconstructed image he
adopted as his view. Another, more subtle aim of the script was to inverse this accepted
cinematographic stereotype, by showing the American children slowly turn into savages
themselves. Looking back, I feel that I should have spent more time on making the character
of Abdul, more clearly redeemable in the eyes of the audience, rather than focusing on this
theme to make the viewers be more emphatic towards his character.
Structure wise, since only having written a handful of scripts as of yet, I turned to Syd Field’s
book, “The Foundations of Screenwriting” in order to understand the basics of constructing
a script and apply it to my short story. Whilst writing I took into account his theorized 3 act,
2 plot-points script formats. I settled on using Andrew being offered the game and then
winning the upgrade as the two plot points of the story because both of them represent
turning points in studying his behavioural changes. Following this plan, writing the narrative
side of the script was easy, but keeping it contained within 10 pages was clearly a more
difficult task. When I decided to base the story on character development and social
commentary I should have taken into account the allowed number of pages. This in turn led
me to try and reveal information through very small lines of dialogue for example, the death
of Andrews father or Matthews failing his classes two years in a row. This felt like the only
way present exposition, without the aid of voice over or long dialogue. On the other hand, it
may very well be that the audience would miss these points because they only got
mentioned once, through the whole story. This is a consequence of trying to create a story
too large for a short film.
Concerning feedback, I didn’t have a clear idea ready, in time for the pitching sessions, so I
had to get feedback through an alternative method such as turning to my peers, in my own
time. The feedback I received was positive for the most part. The biggest problem for most
was the length of descriptions, giving the script more of a prose tone to it. In hindsight, I
realized a lot of the elements that were put in the description were mostly for me to
understand the story rather than pushing the story forwards. This allowed me to quickly cut
most of the unnecessary parts after completing the story. Another problem as one of my
colleagues pointed out was that there was a linguistic mix-up between words of British and
American origin that caused confusion. If to begin with, I was not sure whether to choose a
fictional country or America as the location of the script. After giving it, some thought I felt
that no matter how realistically I would try to construct my characters, making the location
fictional would undermine what I was trying to accomplish. I also believed that the current
state of things in the America of today added to the realism of the script so I removed any
inconsistencies from the dialogue.
Overall, I am not sure that I was fully able to achieve my intentions, concerning what I tried
to do with the script, and how the final draft looks. Whilst I felt that Andrew’s character was
the most realistically built one, all the other characters seem to have been created to push
the story forward towards it’s climax. Initially, the first part I wrote was the ending, and the
plot was supposed to be about finding out how this happened, but I quickly realised the idea
just was not feasible. I decided to reuse the scene as the ending, and left myself carried
away by the story. This is why all other characters, in reality just add complexity and
exposition to Andrew’s story. What I would do differently is to allow all characters to grow
organically, as standalone people, in relationship to the main character.
In conclusion, the experience of having written a short script, whilst trying to adapt it to a
certain genre, has been quite beneficial overall in spite of how much I struggled to get to a
first draft. Not only have I learned more about the chosen genre, but more importantly I had
the opportunity to actively learn from my mistakes, which in the future, will lead me to
improving on my scriptwriting skills to a level closer to industry standards.
Bibliography / Reference List
Kingsley, A., 1960-1963. New Maps of Hell. London: Penguin Books.
Cornea, C., 2007. Science Fiction Cinema: Between Fantasy and Reality. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Selbo, J., 2014. Film Genre for the Screenwriter. USA: Taylor and Francis.
Chaudhuri, S., 2014. Cinema of the Dark Side: Atrocity and the Ethics of Film Spectatorship.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Dancyger, K., Rush, J., Alternative Screenwriting. UK: Focal Press.
Chapman, J.C., Nicholas J., 2013. Projecting Tomorrow: Science Fiction and Popular Cinema.
London: I.B Tauris Publishers.
Field, S. , 2005. Screenplay : The Foundations of Scriptwriting. New York: Bantam Dell.