Reflective Analysis
Part 1) – The story begins with a college in Brighton deserted and trashed after the apocalypse. Three students come to college to find this, they try to work out what happened, using the different amounts of knowledge that they know about it. Lisa saw the event on the news and wants to see it for herself, Ronan had study leave on the day of the apocalypse and came to college as normal, not having a clue what has happened.
With a zombie encounter with Jason along the way, the students group together, determined to find any other survivors and a way out of the disaster. Eventually a hungry survivor called Charlotte is found in the ICT classroom. With food and drink still left in the canteen, Charlotte immediately heads for it. They begin to recall the days before the disaster happened and how their lives have changed since.
We also discover more about Lisa and Ronan, with Ronan always doing coursework and rarely going out and Lisa being slightly annoying asking Ronan to join her with some other friends, as well as Jason being shown to be behind with coursework. The beginning of the end starts to unveil, with it all starting with one girl and a virus within her.
Part 2) – My screenplay focuses on the aftermath of the apocalypse set in a college and how the three students discover the damage. The flashbacks are used to show the audience how the apocalypse happened as well as showing what life was like before in order to create a suspenseful atmosphere and element for the audience.
My target audience will be aimed at 15-19 year olds, both female and male. Their interests being that they are into sci-fi films and enjoy going to the cinema. I feel that the screenplay should be aimed at mainstream cinema because I feel most people in my target audience tend to watch them.
The cinematic ideas I had in mind was the style being science fiction and slightly comedic. The screenplay contains a flashback which shows what life was like before the apocalypse. The screenplay starts from the beginning of the story where the three students discover the virus and all of them knowing different amounts of information about it. The music that I used is intended to compliment the action and the dialogue as well as adding suspense.
My main influence was that I did this as a trailer in one of my other subjects as well as enjoying doing that project. I thought it would be interesting in terms of turning it into a screenplay. The film influences that I used were “28 Days Later” (2002) in which I took the idea of a virus infecting everybody, but this time using students in a college environment. Another influences included “The Road” (2009) and “I Am Legend” (2007) these films influenced the way I wrote my screenplay, the films are in a way a different take, as well as being mixed together.
Part 3) – I found writing a screenplay a very different and useful experience. I also found keeping to the rules of a screenplay a challenge, as well as writing suitable dialogue reflecting each character’s personality and traits. Not to include making each scene realistic and fulfilling the genre my screenplay was about which was post-apocalyptic. I found reading previous students work relating to my genre quite useful as well as looking at professional screenplays such as ‘Memento’. My idea is perfect for a screenplay so I went on to develop the plot more by adding a flashback and more dialogue. I was happy with my flashback scene as I feel it reflects on what life was like before the apocalypse as well as developing the characters more, I also feel it keeps the audience hooked into the story.
I feel that I have kept fairly well to my aims by keeping true to the genre. I also had help from Will Jewell in terms of developing my characters and narrative structure. I kept to typical cinematic ideas such as having a flashback, voiceover and a soundtrack. Also, I kept to there being a main character having the main authority. One thing that I feel is different is the age of the 3 main characters, in most screenplays the characters tend to be in their mid-20s or even over. The difference with my screenplay is that my characters are mostly 16 or over. One last thing that I feel my screenplay is significantly different from others is the fact that mine is set in a college, whereas in other screenplays they tend to be set in other places such as empty streets/roads or even abandoned towns etc.
From my audience feedback I found that I got a fairly mixed response in terms of understand what the screenplay was about with some partly understanding it such as someone said that they understood the purpose as to how ordinary people extraordinary circumstances. I would challenge this by saying that it didn’t fit my aims as well as them not understanding it clearly. Another said that the screenplay didn’t make sense at all, as well as someone saying that it is a comedy. I would agree that it is slightly comedic, but it wasn’t my intention to make it like this, I could improve by establishing the genre more by using more description. Not to include that someone said that they understood it but they said that there wasn’t any real conclusion, I would argue with this by saying that it wasn’t my intention to conclude it, but to leave it as a cliff hanger. There were also some positive comments about the understanding of the screenplay with some saying that the genre was clearly shown as well as the generic conventions. There were also some particular elements that they liked as well including the narrative being dramatic and sudden, besides the characters being highly believable. Meanwhile many liked the description of the mise-en-scene, some said to vary the time frame or mise-en-scene to give more depth to the narrative. Also the voiceover and the idea of zombies as a protagonist were also highlighted as a good point. Further improvements included using more words other than “we see”, as well as making the dialogue more concise. Lastly there were also some grammar and spelling errors pointed out.
I feel that this screenplay would be suitable for a mainstream cinema. If it was to be shown to an art cinema audience, I think that they wouldn’t like it that much due to their style being more ‘arty’ and not mainstream, in which this would make this less popular. Different audiences would probably respond to this by criticising the narrative flow and how it ends, or they might not be fond of the genre as well as it being not suitable for their age range e.g. 50 year olds. I feel that overall young/very young audiences would be able to appreciate it the most due to people their age being in the screenplay as well as understanding the narrative. With older people they may not enjoy it as much due to it not being their favourite genre or too complicated for them to understand.
I see my screenplay being mostly appreciated by British audiences due to it being set in their country and the characters being typically shown as British. If it was to be shown to an American audience I feel that this wouldn’t be as popular with them as most don’t understand the British. Not to include if it was shown with a European audience I also think the same as with American audiences, but it could possibly be appreciated more with there being a lot of European countries. Also I think it would appeal to all races and creeds.
Follow your dreams. 