Notes : 23/4

 

Conflict – Opposition of persons or forces.

Internal

-Issues/ Problems within oneself.

External

-Other people

-Family pressure

-Financial situation

It is the interaction of opposing ideas, interests, or wills that creates the plot.

Types of conflicts

Dramatic conflict is the protagonist’s struggle against something or someone.

-Man VS Man

-Man VS Environment    eg. Natural disasters

-Man VS System 

-Man Against Self  > inner struggles > end up testing owns values/moral beliefs.

Variations of conflicts can arise form gender, age, religion and culture.

Causes & Effects of Conflict

-Conflict arises when there is CHANGE.

-Changes may be minor or major.

-While change is universal and common, it is not always accepted.

-Examples of changes : Seasons, lives , relationship, feelings, bodies, locations, technologies

-Conflict arises when people resist changes

-The intensity of conflict depends how people react to the change.

-People must learn to cope with change if they want to survive.

-The action in the drama depends on the conflict.

-Plot cannot be constructed without conflict.

-Conflict is essence of drama.

-Central feature of the screenplay.

-As your characters attempt to reach theirs goals, they come into conflict with each other.

-Give characters: the drive, needs, to make them dangerous.

-The end of the story nears when the protagonist and antagonist approach their goals and the conflict rises to generate maximum suspense and excitement.

Writing for an Audience

Screenwriter = storyteller

-The cinematic experience is not just made up of text on paper, but the audiences’ emotional reaction to that information.

Director to people

            Writer to people

                        Camera to people.

But it’s not the case.

It’s people to people!

What is the writer’s purpose?

To connect the audience:

-Themselves

-Their unique vision

-The material/Issue

-The drama

-Others

Audiences want to be transported by a screenplay.

Where do you look for a story?

Within yourself eg. Experiences, memories, emotions.

Practice observing, ‘listening’ and reading body language of people.

Figure how to connect your viewers to your story through emotions, characters. Etc.  

 

Jane saw herself through the reflection of the still surface of the lake, with the images of nature in the background. Placed at one of the quietest location of the national park, the sound of waterfalls in the distance and the faint chirping of birds in the background. Nature was all around her. Formidable mountains, giant redwoods and the vast size of the lake gave her the peace that she longed for. In a way, nature is her only solution when she wants peace, all to herself.

Even as she was placing herself in solitude, thoughts began to gather. Past and present memories started flowing into her mind, just as how the water would flow down a fast-moving stream. She began thinking of how she has lived her past eighteen years, under the guidance of her parents. How she has been treating her parents and younger brother and people around her, more noticeably her relatives and friends.

Her time spent with her family members have more or less been like a roller coaster ride, with all the ups and downs, twists and turns all over the place. Her memories are filled with more of the bad then the good. This was something that she was determined to change and replace bad experiences and memories with good ones. However, she knew it would not be easy, she recalled a life quote said by,

Carl Sandburg: Our lives are like a candle in the wind.

 

Quoted from: http://www.wisdomquotes.com/c at_life.html

 

Review Exercise 2 : 50 Word Stories

Difficulties – What were they?

Restraints – Did they help?

Main point. Do Constraints help you to be a better writer??

 

Huang Yixi Vicson

S10059493B

T1B2