Month: March 2016

I have gotten to the start of Act 3 in my outline and I have had writers block for a few days now so I went onto youtube and researched how to create a good powerful ending. I looked at the two videos:

Killer Endings –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd01YOPovV8

Great Endings –

Killer Endings told me that I need to know the end of my film before I write the story otherwise I won’t know how to start writing the beginning and each change the characters have to make. The on Great Endings Macnab-Stark explains the three different most common elements that good powerful films have, these are:

Up Ending – good ending. End of Act 2 is the most negative to allow a successful ending.

Down Ending – Negative ending. Opposite to up ending..

Ambivalent Ending – The low point at the end of Act 2. Hero doesn’t get what they want but not what they need. For example Rocky. Rocky wants to win the fight but needs respect. At the end of the film he doesn’t win however he gains respect.

When looking at my own idea I know that I can either go for an Up Ending or an Ambivalent ending as I have already written the end of Act 2 as the lowest point in my film. The options for my climactic ending will be:

Up Ending – Rick defeats the Alien and manages to find happiness. (Wants to find tranquility, needs to have courage.)

Ambivalent Ending – Rick defeats the Alien, however he also dies as a result of this.

Whichever one I chose will be what I feel at the time. However at the moment I am leaning more towards the up ending as I normally end my films on a low or ambivalent ending so it would be nice to try something different.

As I’m writing more of my outline I have managed to grasp my overall theme for my feature film idea. The theme I have settled on is that “you can’t always run away from your problems”. I plan on embracing this theme through the setting, character and the back story of my character.

Setting:

By basing my main setting inside a wrecked train makes it very claustrophobic which makes it very difficult for the characters to escape and forces them to deal with the problems that comes up in the film.

Character:

This theme gives me a good guide line to keep too when it comes to developing my protagonists character arc. My protagonist will go to aways running away from his problems and always being afraid, to having to fight against the Aliens and become the hero of the story.

The ending will reflect how I feel on the issue of running way from your problems. My personal opinion on it is that I think it’s a good thing to face your fears and opens up new opportunities, I will show this in the climax and ending of my film outline.

Rick:

Rick is in his late 30’s. He has lived in Luton most of his life. When he was younger he was always protected by his parents. He was bullied till he was 16 years of age. He never stood up for himself. He has always had an interest in trains since he was 7 years old. He collected them and would study the dynamics of a train. From the age of 16 he started working as a cleaner at the local train station. He met Frankie through his job [PASSIVE CHARACTER, ONLY IN FILM IN DREAMS OR FLASHBACKS]. They were childhood sweethearts. When they turned 18 she accidentally fell pregnant. When Rick found out he got scared and ran away. He moved around the country, a new place sprung a new problem. He turned up in Luton aged 30. He befriended Pete who he met on a drunken night at the pub. He has been living in Luton since.

Hayley:

Hayley is a 32 year old woman. She has ginger hair and is small in build. Hayley is very feisty and she isn’t afraid of much. She was brought up in a rough area of London and suffered a bad childhood.

Janet and Phil:

Business couple. Very wealthy and posh, they are career driven but always manage to put their child first. They are heading up to Preston with their 10 year old son for a family / business trip.

Liam:

Innocent and naive boy. He also has a love for trains and carries his favourite train toy around him at all times.

I am currently writing a very detailed and long outline for my idea. I have decided to stick with the idea of Aliens that have invaded the train. However, as I am writing out my outline it has made me consider that possibly it would be better to make my idea into a TV serial as there is a lot of information that I am writing down and I don’t feel as if it would all fit into one film unless I make it a film series which is what I wanted to originally avoid. But if I was to make it a TV serial I would make it a one off (3 episodes), with each episode being 50 minutes long. I am going to carry on working on the detailed outline then start breaking it down into the 3 Act structure.

After much thought on this, I have decided to keep my idea in the format of a feature length film.

In my pitch feedback it was mentioned that I need to think if my film is gonna be a science fiction or an escapism. My initial idea was for it to be purely science fiction due to the Alien that was gonna be in the meteor. However, thinking about it even more I may change it so there is no alien and the goal for Rick on the train will be based on him and the other passengers trying to escape the train after a meteor has crashed into it. At the moment I am favouring the escapism idea and I have written up to the point of the meteor shower so I aim to edge towards not actually having an alien and just have the group of passengers trying to escape and survive this huge collision.