1. What did you do?

Today was the first session of the BFI Film academy and we did quite a lot! Firstly, we had a session with Paul Fraser, who is a screen writer, and regularly collaborates with Shaun Meadows, for example, on the film Dead Man’s Shoes. In our session he got us to write a paragraph describing a character and then give our story to another person, who would write another paragraph on the character, and this would continue until we received our story again. This activity was to teach us the fundamentals of a story, where the character comes against a problem and has to solve it.

After we had the session with Paul Fraser, Caroline Cooper Charles, a producer, came and taught us about the basics of producing, which includes, pre-production, production and post-production. When in the session she allowed us to be very independent and try to decided ourselves what processes (such as editing or casting) came where in producing.

Then after lunch we had a session with another producer, Rebecca Mark Lawson, who set up her own production company in Sheffield, ‘Tyke Film’, and has produced works such as the 2018 documentary Irene’s Ghost. In our session she talked to us about the correct format for screenplays, and watched a short film, 2:20, with us.

2. What have you learnt?

In my first session with Paul Fraser, I think one of the most important things I learnt was the fundamentals of story telling, which is very important as without a story you don’t have a film. We learn’t this through the activity where we all took part in writing a paragraph for someone in our group’s character, and by the end of this we had learnt the 7 plot points, which are: back story, catalyst, big event, midpoint, crisis, climax and realisation.

Something else I learnt that I didn’t know before the Film Academy was how important the role of the producer is. This is because, before taking part I thought they were only involved in securing the money for the film to be made, however because of the session with Caroline Cooper Charles I have learnt that the producer is involved in all stages of production, from just an idea all the way up to exhibition! I was really quite shocked by this as it is normally the director of the film who gets most of the credit, however, now I know the producer gets quite overlooked, as they put in a lot of work, and without them, films would simply not be made.

One last big thing I learn’t was the format of a screenplay, which we were taught by Rebecca Mark Lawson, as before we had her session I just thought screenplays could be wrote up on a normal word document, but now I know that if that did happen producers would find it very hard to know what was going on in a film. Some specific things I learnt were that screenplays had to be a page a minute, detail should be kept to a minimum, and dialogue should be in the centre of the page.

3. How have you worked with others?

One way I have worked with other is through the script activity with Paul Fraser. Through doing this we had to share our own ideas on who the character was and how their life would turn out. I think this was good as it allowed us to share ideas, which let us be open and understand that people will have competently different ideas on what they think will happen in a story.

Also, near the end of the Film Academy after learning about how to write a screenplay, we were put into the groups that we are making the short film in and had to decided what our story was going to be. In this activity I gave some possible ideas for what our film could be (I had an idea of a runner who is having flashbacks to a critical event in his life). I think we worked well as a group as we were able to listen to each others ideas and give feedback. In the end we came up with the idea of 2 assassins who don’t know they have been hired to kill each other.

4. What do you need to develop?

One thing I need to develop is my knowledge of short-films. This is because since we are making a short-film is it probably a good idea to watch some as it will help me grasp what works and what doesn’t in that format and time frame. I will be able to do this through using sites such as ‘Short of the Week’.

Another thing that me and my group needs to develop is our script. This is because while we have outlined a simple story for it, we still don’t really know a lot of plot points, such as how it will end, or how the characters will meet.