What’s going on…
Screen Industries: Professional Development
Having been overwhelmed with work, family life and MA studies, I didn’t keep a reflective blog for the whole of the last Writer’s Room module. Shame on me. However, it’s a new module and a new day, and I’m going to attempt to do some reflection. It may be simple but I’m at least going…
Week 8: Communicating the screen idea
Week 8’s study block was all about how digital technology has changed the means and ways modern screenwriters are able to sell their projects and screenplays. The screenplay is the standard format for a film idea, but more and more these are being accompanied by visual and musical support material, normally in the form of…
Week 7: Making progress…
The highlights of catching up on Week 7 have watching ‘The Detectorists’ and finally getting some feedback on the 2nd draft of my screenplay. ‘The Detectorists’, which will be the focus of a collaborative writing exercise, I found to be a reasonably enjoyable watch. I found the pace a little slow and the writing a…
Week 6: The Scene
Catch up continues. The theme of Week 6 is ‘the scene’ and dialogue. Cherry Potter’s chapter on ‘Characterisation and Dialogue’ was a pretty enjoyable read and a good overview of screen dialogue’s function, how it works best and some starter-for-ten suggestions on how to best write it. My issue with dialogue is that I enjoy writing it…
Week 5: Starting from scratch…
Where I have always struggled as a writer is that I get plenty of ideas about characters, themes or basic premises, but I’ve lacked the craft and knowhow how to plot them and turn them into compelling stories. Which is why I’m doing this course. So I’ve parked the Western. A classic case of having…
Week 5: A change of heart
So Romania was a success. The shoot went well and after a year of not working it felt great to be back in the saddle, doing what I love…making daft TV commercials. But I’m still behind on the Masters and desperately playing catch up. I’ve greatly underestimated the demands of doing such a course and…
Week 4: Dude, where’s my ‘process’?
So it’s the end of Week 2 of quarantine in Romania and the end of Week 4 of the Masters course in screenwriting. Pre-production on the TV commercial I’m working on is going well but typically, after a very quiet year, the buses are starting to line up. I went into the week planning to…
Week 3: Writer’s Retreat
At the time of writing it’s the end of my first week of quarantine in Romania. It’s been a busy week and not quite the relaxing writer’s retreat I’d envisaged. However, I have started to catch up my student work. I’ve written my premise. Tick. I’ve written about what story telling means to me. Tick.…
Dude, what’s with the blog?
Put simply, because I have to. I’m doing a Masters in Writing for Script and Screen at Falmouth University. I’ve been told self reflection and keeping a journal is a key constituent of academic study. This may be obvious to many but it’s been some 20 years since I was last a student. I’m a…
Week 1: Fresher’s Week
So fresher’s week as an adult is somewhat different to back in the day. Having barely worked in the past year because of the damn plague I suddenly find myself starting a big job the SAME week as my Masters Degree in screenwriting at Falmouth Uni. Instead of wrapping my head around the online learning…
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Ben Whitehouse // Writer & Director 