Scripting Part 1: Treatment to Script

I spent this weekend and this morning working on the treatments for Urban Numina, and as predicted there were some interesting changes.

One of the key ones is that I'm inclined to drop the first season down to three episodes. The reason being is that the treatment for episode three feels like a really good cliffhanger ending. Anima shows up, Devon and Deus' burgeoning relationship looks to be over before it began, Mel and Urge hook up and Andrena thinks she's close to exposing the Numina's motives.

This feels like a great point to leave off and get the fans begging for more. I'm holding off on episode four now just to see how the first three scripts develop.

Another interesting development from the treatments is the creation of a seventh character - Carey. This character had been in the back of my mind when I was initially conceiving the show. He's a nice everyday guy, a researcher of some kind, who has an on again, off again relationship with Andrena. I found that he kind of worked his way into the story as I wrote it, being the guy that Andrena can turn to because Mel and Devon are too wrapped up in the Numina.

In a way he's the compass for Andrena and the others. When they overlook something obvious, he guides them to look at it. He spots the things that they ignore and he plays a bit more of a sceptic role. He challenges the Numina to prove they are supernatural and he suspects certain things about Deus and Urge's relationship to each other.

So now it is time to start writing scripts. I'm happy with the treatments and the outline they have given me. The first few episodes are strong, in my opinion, and have suitable structure.

But what do I need to know before I start writing a script?

Two excellent resources I'd recommend are The Guerilla Filmmaker's Handbook by Chris Jones and Genevieve Jolliffe; and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Screenwriting by Skip Press.

Both of these books provide invaluable advice regarding scripts. There are certain conventions and format rules that are used in the professional industry - and it is well worth learning these conventions. It is also worth noting that film and television do have slightly different rules - but these can be overlooked.

Now obviously you don't want to be pissing around with too much formatting while you are writing. There are two ways to tackle this. One is to just write normally and apply formatting afterwards. I personally find this a bothersome method and a poorly advised process to follow. I would not recommend it and I would question the wisdom of anyone who did especially when there are so many excellent programs out that for screenwriting that do all the work for you and let you just get straight into writing.

The best, I feel, is Celtx, which is not only an industry standard application, but also a free one. You can also buy a support application for iPad and iPhone that allows you to write on these devices and sync the scripts up on a server to download to your computer - which means you can take your scripts anywhere and update them on the fly. Very useful when making changes mid shoot or when you suddenly are inspired regarding a scene while out and about.

Some professionals will pooh pooh the idea of trying to write a script on their iPhone, but I managed to write 70 pages of my revised Winding City script in exactly this way during lunch breaks. The Celtx app is extremely intuitive and easy to use. I find it makes writing anywhere hugely easy and removes one of the greatest obstacles of writing - time. If you can write anywhere there is no excuse for not having the time to write - and because it syncs up with my iPad and laptop, I am always up to date on the script and even if I just add a single line - all my copies get updated with that change. An excellent way to manage one of the more difficult parts of the process.

So now that I have my treatments, my scriptwriting application and an idea of characters - it's time to go to it and start writing the script.

There is no fixed way to do it, but the key thing when diving into a new script is to make sure the first scene has a punch to it. This doesn't need to be an obvious action scene, but it needs to grab the audience to get them watching straight away. There are all manner of methods to do this. James Bond, for example tends to start of In Media Res - in the middle of the action with all manner of things going on. Vampire Diaries usually starts with some standard action which suddenly reveals that something you had thought you understood was in fact something different. Glee tends to have some kind of funny quip that suggests the theme of the episode to come.

Your first scene is a tricky one because it sets the tone for the entire episode. My thought is that I will be starting with a funny argument between Mel and Andrena. It should tell us a little about the two characters, be witty and it will end with Devon showing up followed by Deus. When Deus appears, Devon is going to say "I think he's God" at which point we'll go to the titles.

Now this scene could take 2-3 minutes to run if I'm not careful. That's half of the episode, as I plan to make each episode 7 minutes long. So I'll be starting the argument In Media Res and keep it to maybe two lines each and a line from Devon before Deus shows up. In total, I expect the scene to be about a page long - which is roughly a minute of screen time. This is an acceptable length of time, I feel. The titles should not be longer than 30 seconds. We then can have a 2-3 minutes sequence of Devon, Mel, Andrena and eventually Carey dealing with Deus' arrival. A minute of Devon and Deus. A minute of Devon, Mel, Andrena and Carey. A minute of Deus and Anima. That should bring me to seven minutes and will cover the entire first episode treatment.

It is vital to plan these things - not so that you stick to the plan, but so that you have a roadmap of what you are trying to achieve and to keep you from wandering off course too much. It is too easy in this kind of set up to milk a 5-6 minute comedy debate that really doesn't move the story along and - while funny - drags things out. In webshows you need to get to the point and be punchy with each scene to keep viewers watching. In a way, a minute in a web show can feel like a really long time - especially if there are lag issues.

It's important to keep things moving.

Next - Scripting Part 2: Writing Episode One

Conan

Characters - Part 1: Broad Strokes

I have a concept and a plan in place. Surely now I can dive into writing, right?

Wrong.

Well. Kind of wrong. A good plan of attack when you are about to leap into scripting is to first do characters and then a treatment. I'll go into more details about what a treatment in the next post, but for now the best way to think of it is a short story of what you intend to write a script of. This helps to focus your ideas and often exposes any inconsistencies.

It's not 100% vital, but most producers and grants will require you to provide a treatment before they even look at a script. So I will be taking that step next.

In order to get the most out of my treatment, I'm going to write up the characters first.

There is no right or wrong way to do this. I feel that it helps to not detail characters too much. A common rookie mistake is to develop the characters in amazing depth at this early stage - but you have yet to cast them. It is better, in my mind, to have a broad vision of the characters. What are the really, really important things to know about them. This is what we need right now. Through the treatment and first draft process the characters will grow - and we can then add detail at that point. Right now, I just need to have an idea of who they are - with the knowledge that by the time the scripts get written and the roles are cast, these characters may change.

The Flatmates

Firstly, let's look at the three mortal characters. These guys are our main leads and will be the characters that hopefully the audience will identify with most.

Andrena - Unwilling Responsibility - Andrena is the eldest flatmate and likely the lease holder. She's friendly but a bit motherly. I see her as wanting to be more like Melissa, but unable to let things go into complete anarchy. She's a balancing influence who takes the responsible role because nobody else will. Responsible, Balancing, Motherly.

Melissa - Care-free Chaos - Mel is almost the opposite of Andrena. She throws herself into the chaos of life and milks every drop of enjoyment she can out of it. She likes to keep people off balance for her own amusement. If she wants a party, she throws a party. She loves Andrena as a friend and probably uses her a bit too. I see her key relationship with Andrena being one of little sister trying to help big sister loosen up. Ironically, this probably causes Andrena to become more responsible rather than less. Mel is likely to be very emotional. Carefree, Emotional, Unpredictable.

Devon - Confusion in Love - Devon is newly out of the closet. He's likely fooled around with a couple of guys and had one boyfriend. He is more like Melissa than Andrena, but is less likely to go off the deep end. He desperately wants to be loved but isn't really sure how to tell when he is in love. He is very physical and likely measures things by their more tangible qualities. Hence his troubles with more emotional issues. Loving, Confused, Physicality.

The Numina

Although the series is being pitched as Three Flatmates, One God - the series actually will involve three Numina. Numina is the name I am giving the gods of the series. I've decided that humanity's understanding of gods is flawed and that the Numina are the actual beings that we base mythology on. This allows me to create vague Numina that the audience can debate about which mythology (or mythologies) they inspired. It should also become fairly obvious that each Numen is a partner to each mortal in regards to theme.

Deus - Lost in Translation - Deus is the primary Numen in the show. He's the first that the characters will meet and initially appears delirious and barely able to speak. When he is first introduced, Devon will misunderstand his statement "I am a god" as "I am God." Deus will have a very alien perspective on humanity and the world. He perceives everything in spiritual terms. Here is the twist as to why I decided not to outright make him God - he will fall in love with Devon. I thought a while about this character trait, and I really want to explore this relationship because it will be revealed that Deus is asexual. Not in the no bait and tackle sense, but in the emotional sense. Asexuality is an orientation that is not explored much and has a lot of confusion about it. I really am interested in having a core relationship that looks at the gay prejudice towards asexuals who want love and intimacy but not sex. Who better than a spiritual being to act as a catalyst for exploring that? Deus' other theme is being lost. He's not sure why he has shown up, and is looking for answers. Enigmatic, Loving, Reserved.

Urge - Passion Unleashed - If Deus is reserved and hard to fathom, Urge wears his nature open and proud on his sleeve. He's not evil, but he is all about himself and doing whatever he wants. This will naturally make him appealing to Mel. Urge is the initial antagonist of the series. He knows the score, and is taking advantage of Deus' confusion and weakness. He will be a wedge in a number of relationships and will likely cause all manner of disruption. Disruptive, Passionate, Unrestrained.

Anima - Order and Mystery - if Deus is a twin to Devon and Urge a twin to Mel, Anima is the twin to Andrena. She will not be known to any of the other characters initially, being a vision in Deus' dreams. Anima is going to be trying to help Deus remember who and what he is and will be very responsible and controlled. But she should also be the greatest enigma in the series. Is she a part of Deus? Or is she something else? Mysterious, Aloof, Ordered.

And there you have it. The six core characters outlined in broad strokes. Enough for me to be able to write my initial treatment.

Next up: The Treatment.

Conan

The Plan: If you want to make show, make a show

A lot of people who set out to make webshows are full of energy and excitement, but they dive right in without having a plan in place. But a plan is what will help guide you as you create your series.

When planning, I strongly recommend not to make your goal "to make money."

Why?

Because if you are focused only on money you will find that you will make poor decisions based on chasing the audience rather than focusing on actually improving your show. If you make a good enough show and push it hard enough, you have a good chance at making a success of your show. Making money is a good target, but it should not be the sole nor guiding goal for your project.

Instead, you should have a goal that is better suited to getting the most out of the project you plan to make. And your plan needs to be focused beyond distribution. As I like to say, the real work starts once your series goes live. If you don't have a plan regarding what happens once you go live, you are going to have issues.

With The Winding City I had some ideas as to what I wanted to do after the show got online, but once the first episode went up I realised that I had kind of hoped in some ephemeral step to occur. Kind of like -

1. Write Cool Series
2. Shoot It
3. Put it online
4. ?????
5. Profit!

Now I have a plan in place for that series - but going into Urban Numina, I want to lay out a stronger plan from the start.

Goals and Pre-production

So - first the goal. To show that a great series can be made without needing lots of expensive equipment and software.

To this end, I procured two Flip Minos with free travel tripods to shoot the series on. The script will be written using Celtx and editing will be done on a readily available piece of home video editing software. (Currently I am considering iMovie but one of the production team, Amy, is investigating free programs just to see what else we can find. I'll post more about the editing software when we get there.)

Now part of my plan requires me to be realistic about certain things. We need quality music. MingleTV recently had some great advice regarding this - they recommend finding a band via MySpace to work out a deal with them where you use their music and promote them through your site. I have a band in mind and later down the track in this series I'll be writing to them and covering the mission to find music for the series.

The next thing is visual effects. Although I plan to use minimal visual effects, there will still be some. It is likely we will be using professional software for this stage, but I will be discussing again with Amy and Craig regarding possible ways to do this on the cheap as well.

My goal is to start shooting end of April - which gives me a tight schedule to write in. I intend to write a four episode first season at 7 minutes per episode. I will need to do a treatment of each episode first and then write the full script.

I've decided to shoot most of the series in a single location. I have access to a flat that has commanding views of Wellington and is near great public locations on foot. For storyboarding I will be using an iPhone storyboard app, Cinemek Storyboard, at these locations once the script is written. This will help me to also visualise the shoot and provide a good indication of camera placement and cast placement.

For the series to be a success it will need to have a strong following. A common mistake made is to chase the audience once you are online. I made this mistake with Winding City. With Urban Numina, the process of developing the show in a public forum hopefully will help draw interest in the show. I have already set up the blog and a twitter account as we move closer to production I will add a facebook page and twitter accounts for the main characters to generate feedback and interest among fans.

Casting will be a big challenge. I intend to explore a number of avenues - from posting on 48 hour forums to using a local website called The Big Idea. While some of these are semi-professional resources they are accessible to everyone, so it still fits within my main goal. I also intend to video tape all the auditions and display them on this site for audience feedback. This will require all actors who audition to fill out a release form so that I can use their image. There is a great form available via the Guerilla Film-maker's handbook. I'll also hunt out some alternates to link to on the site when we get to auditioning - to help others keep their costs low if they choose to follow in my footsteps.

Readings and rehearsals will be held on location at the flat we intend to shoot in, this will help the cast develop an idea as to how they want to move around the space we will be using and gets them comfortable.

Production

The next stage of the plan is the shoot itself. At seven minutes per episode and using the same core location, we will shoot by episode rather than by locale. Normally I would split scenes up by location and we'd shoot the entire series at once, with each location being a single block of shooting.

With the plan to shoot at a single location, we ought to be able to shoot chronologically instead and can shoot a single episode in a weekend. Generally it takes two days to shoot approximately 5-10 minutes of useable footage. This includes reshoots, extra angles etc. With two cameras we should be able to cut down on the time factor there - but it is important to plan for all eventualities. I recommend that you aim for 3-5 minutes a day. If you find you shoot all your scenes and still have time for more - that's just a bonus. Plan for 5 minutes maximum a day. Especially if you are inexperienced, a lot can go wrong on a set and you want to have flexibility in your schedule.

Editing should take about a week per episode. There will be no composing of music - we will stick to pre-recorded tracks. While I do have access to good quality royalty free music, I'm going to try to avoid using it if I can, as that music was gained through professional channels. It's a ballsy decision, but I really want to meet my main challenge of making it easy for anyone to make a series without having to spend a huge fortune doing it.

Due to the nature of Flips being able to download straight to computer, we can start editing while shooting - this should help to keep things moving quickly and efficiently.

Post Production

I don't want to plan too tightly for post production. This is because we wont know how well the actual production phase will run. Ideally post will occur concurrently with production on this project. I will plan this side more once I have complete scripts and a better idea regarding the post production requirements such as visual effects and pick up shots.

The aim will be to have post-production be efficient and structured enough to be able to go from raw footage to completed episode in the course of a fortnight.

Distribution

So what happens after we go online? I have already procured the URL for the website. During the production phase, we will be working on a website for the series that will have a link to this blog, but will be more focused on presenting the finished product.

This will be the point where we get the fans to help spread word of the series. If anyone watches the show it will be a success, but for my own goals I want to see engagement from viewers. I want to see fans drawing others to the show. This will require networking and keeping up content post distribution.

This is also the point at which to enact any monetising plans. Ideally these will be set up during the production/post-production phase and I will discuss this more at that point.

The aim will be to have enough interest to work on a second season. Part of my plan for the second season will involve writing treatments and scripts during the early production phase of episodes one and two, so that a second season is ready to go after the first season wraps.

I want to be able to give the cast and crew a rest before diving into a second season.

From a networking perspective, I will be discussing my experiences of making the series when applicable during the #webserieschat run by Slebisodes and MingleMediaTV on Twitter. A great many webseries creators and ideas people are involved in these chats and are well worth making contact with. You can learn a lot from them and their advice not only will be invaluable to Urban Numina, but they will help spread the word if the series is good enough.

This is just a brief glance at the process of planning, and I will continue to adjust my plans as we proceed. The key thing to take away from this is that you shouldn't be thinking about just making money. The best approach is to make the best series you can and not worry about things like "what does the audience want?" That is a difficult question to ask. The better approach is to set yourself a goal that you are passionate about and do the best you can. And believe in what you are doing.

If you work hard enough and are passionate enough, you will find an audience.

Next up - The Treatment: Characters.

Conan