Research Dossier
One UK based screenwriting competition is the Cinemagic, entry requirement:
- Aged 25 and under
- They allow entries from individuals or groups of friends, youth and community groups, schools and colleges
- The short film had to made in the last 12 months.
- Previous submissions will not be accepted
- The submission cannot be over 10 minutes
- Entry to the competition is free of charge.
They are producing a series of workshops and masterclasses with renowned members of the film and TV industry.
The winner will be screened during the Cinemagic international film festival for young people.
Another UK based screenwriting competition is the Bafta
Rules:
- There is a fee to pay for entry
- You must be 18 or over
- All entries must be written primarily in english, translation for any parts that are written in another language.
- You must hold a UK passport or must have be living in the UK for 5 years prior to the entry.
Prizes:
Finalists will
Industry showcase at BAFTA with professional actors and directors
One year’s access to BAFTA events and workshops
Industry introductions
Exposure to the industry; your details will be included on a hand-out that is then circulated to industry contacts at the event
Inclusion in the Rocliffe Alumni Network and the BAFTA New Talent Network
One to one advice and support
BAFTA and Rocliffe endeavour to facilitate meetings with third parties i.e. agents, development execs and production companies for the selected writers, but all subsequent negotiations with writers following those meetings are between the writer and the third party
The competition for YA & Children's Media is run in partnership with The London Book Fair. One writer is selected to join LBF as part of their delegation to MIP Junior in Cannes in October 2018 with all travel and hotel expenses paid. The recipient of this prize is selected by LBF from the shortlisted writers. LBF’s decision is final. The prize is for one writer only (the lead writer in the case of a writing team). If the selected writer is unavailable, the prize will be offered to another writer at LBF’s discretion and no substitute will be offered.
An example of a UK based commissioning body that will accept unsolicited scripts is the BBC writers room. The BBC writers room is for 15-20 year olds, what they want their writers to submit:
- One drama script of at least 30 minutes long/ pages in length for TV
- They accept scripts from individuals or from groups up to the maximum of two people.
- Each page must be around one minute of screentime
- They only want to see full episode not samples or extract of script
- They will only take scripts longer than 30 pages/ minutes
- They only want original ideas not adaptation of pervious films/ TV programmes
- They only accept one script from one person at a time
- If the screenplay is about a series they only want to see a script from one episode
- You have to be a resident in the UK or the Republic of Ireland
This is a link to my screenplay layout, it goes to a document with an annotated screenplay layout explaining what each different section is from the slugline to character cue.
Four different sources which you could seek inspiration from is True story for example Hidden figures which is about Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson in the 1960s who work at NASA as human computers and fighting for equality within the company for woman and black people. Due to this being a true story it allows the audience to feel more connected to the character because they know that they are actual people and that they have lived through that period and created history. Also it informs the audience on something they may not of known about which makes it a compelling story to make into a movie because more people are going to view a movie than read a factual book, so have the information and the history shown through a movie format will educate more people than a book could.
Inspiration can be based on a book or book series for an example of a movie based on a book is the book series, Harry Potter written by JK Rowling in 1997. This is a great source of inspiration because the whole story has been written so all the screen writers have to do is cut it down and make the book come alive. But when books are turned into movies they undergo a lot of changes because either it works for the books but it wouldn’t translate into visuals very well so they adapt or get rid of that section. For example in books they can take pages to describe a location, what a character looks like, acts like but in a movie they don’t need to worry about describing the character or location or how something moves because they can just show the audience. 
Personal experience can inspire writers to base the screenplay on what they have been through because it maybe a good inspirational story that they feel like everybody should be able to see their story and what they have been through. This source is better than most other sources because the writer has been through it, they have lived it they know every fine detail about the story from how it started, what the event felt like, looked like, smelt. So it’s a personal story and the writer will feel passionate about the story than if they got it from another person. ‘The 15:17 to Paris’ is based on a personal experience because the victims and main characters told their side of the story and had a large input into telling the story on what actually happened. This gives the story and movie a lot more personal feel towards it and also the three main characters are the actual 3 America soldiers that were on the train in the event so they understood what happened throughout the whole movie because they actually lived it making the story a lot more personal for them and for the audience.
Overhearing dialog can also be a source of inspiration for writers because they may overhear a sentence of a conversation so then the writer has to fill in the gaps, like what happened to the person to get them where they are now or what will happen after that conversation or even what the conversation is about. This is a different way of getting inspiration because it isn't given the writer a full story it is allowing them to have the creative room to make up a story from that small bit of dialog that they have overheard. There isn’t a lot of movies that have been based on overheard stories due to it being a very unique way of coming up with a movie idea.
Three different primary sources are interviews/ questionnaires, Diaries and books. These are primary sources that could be used to gather research to get specific information for the script writing.
Primary research which I personally used in my screenplay idea was books to give me ideas for the names of my characters for example Elan is another word for life which I wanted to play with because then the story is between life and death but I didn’t want her name to be life because it's not a name you would give to a person. But Elan sounds like a real name because there is a different way to pronounce the name such as Ellen but to make it unique it is pronounced as “E-lan”.
A lot of my primary research came from own experience and my own idea because my story isn’t based upon anything factual I didn’t need to do too much research. 
Three secondary sources is Bibliographies, Articles from magazines and history books.
I use other movies about death and depression as my secondary sources for my screenplay idea because seeing how others have represented death like ‘Collateral beauty’ which they have the character death. They show death as a lady who talks to the main character who is played by Will Smith and teaches him how to accept and forgive death because his daughter died and him and his wife split up because they both were grieving. So throughout the movie we see death as this character who is trying to help someone who has gone through it and also help someone who is about to face death.
The advantages of using Primary sources is that the information collected for that subject area which the writer will be writing about will be accurate and relevant compared to collecting secondary data that may only contain some information on that subject. The purpose of the source is often clearer than using secondary sources which can be bias or describe an event slightly different to how they actually happened, so using primary sources will give you accurate information. I have used primary sources in my research because it allowed me to get specific data to the subject I am looking for and also I know that the data is current and not out of date. In the film and tv industry they use interviews and questionnaires as a primary source of information for example on the news rely heavily on interviews as their source of primary research. Documentary like Louis Theroux also rely on interviews as their primary research source. For my documentary I used a questionnaire as my source of my primary research:
Disadvantages of using primary research is that some primary sources may not consider the other side of the story so it maybe bias in its information and opinions. Information from letters/documents may be misinterpreted like phrases that unfamiliar maybe miss read and translated differently to what they were meant as. Some documents may of been tamped with so they are not show what they originally showed giving inaccurate information.
Advantages of using secondary sources is that it’s a lot faster to collect the data compared to primary because the data has already been collected for you, you’ve got to read through it till you find what you need but with primary the data it has to be collected by the writer and documented and sorted through. The sources are easier to access because with the internet you can just search up what you are looking for and find multiple of different websites on what you have searched for. But you also have books that also contain the information but it takes slightly longer to read through. In the film and tv industry they have to get productions moving quickly so not all the time productions will have the time facilities to collect the data that they may need for that production. I used secondary sources when I needed to find an article on this specific story that happened a few years ago for my documentary: https://amywebberfilmandtvblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/secondary-research.html
Disadvantages of using secondary sources is that the source may not be concrete because you cannot see exactly what went into collecting that data so the lack of control of the data collecting process is a big disadvantage. The source data may not be accurate to what the writer is looking for, so some sources may only have a small amount of data on what the writer is looking for. Also the source may be bias and only showing one side of the story, so it’s not fully reliable.
Information which I found useful in my script idea is prompt sentences because at the start I didn’t have an idea of what I was going to write for my screenplay so I read a lot of writing prompts but none gave me my final idea but with the mix of the writing prompts and talking with fellow classmate I came up with my final idea.
In my screenplay writing I haven’t used much research to inform my screenplay because my screenplay is based mainly on my own opinion so haven’t had to find and research the only thing that I have had to research is other names for life for the name of my character and coming up with an initial screenplay idea.
Within my screenplay I used primary research which was an interview with some people who suffer with depression to inform my script and that my story is close to what it’s actually like to suffer with depression. Due to it being a very personal story and a topic most people try and stay away from it was very important to the story that it is shown accurate. But with depression each person suffers differently so there is right way of showing it but with the interviews I able incorporate multiple different experiences that they have had.
References:
Advantages and disadvantages of using secondary sources:
15:17: information about what the movie is based off and the backstory of the movie.
Collateral beauty: the movie plot and detail about the characters
Harry Potter: general information about the series
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