Disaster!

Disaster!

Having confidently written and decided to produce my short screenplay adapting Little Red Riding Hood to focus on the viewpoint of the big bad wolf, I came to a harsh realisation this week. I don’t really like it.

Whilst the story of the piece is interesting, and I’m still happy with the core idea of reconceptualising the story to focus on the tragic downfall of its traditional villain, it occurred to me that the screenplay I had written has two major flaws when considering the physical limitations of the assignment set.

1. The assignment requires the film to be shot solely on an iPhone, and whilst this screenplay could easily fulfil this part of the task, there’s no point in the film where this feature could really be utilised to achieve something otherwise not possible with a traditional film camera. Were I to film this piece traditionally, I’d likely be using the canon C100, a camera that would lack the simple mobility of my iPhone SE. It’s rare to shoot something in the methods I will be using for my fairytale piece, and so the screenplay I write should take advantage of the opportunity at hand.

2. The second major flaw, is that the film once again falls victim to my own inability to scale and adjust a short piece to fit within a short running time. I’m proud of the script, but even in writing it was picturing dramatic cuts, flashes and a powerful soundtrack. This film needs to be possible not only on a small budget, but with a very short turnaround time and I’m not convinced that my wolf story would really be possible within the latter. The story demands three locations, three (talented) actors and specific costumes for ⅔ of the cast. There’s also the need to consider transport between locations for cast AND crew, plus shooting in November/December means that the forest scenes will likely be cold, and therefore require hot catering in a location where this would be difficult to obtain. There’s a running theme on almost every production I’ve ever been part of whereby the weather will somehow terrorise the production, and this is something I simply cannot afford given the short turnaround of this film.

The solution? Looks like it’s time to write another screenplay.

#Reflection