Research Dossier

• When I have completed both my screenplay and the ten minute short of it, I will then need to start to think about distribution, I will obviously put the short film onto YouTube and other social media websites. But I will also enter it into a film competition in order to see if the short film is actually good from a different perspective other than my peers and friends. The film competition I will enter my short film for it is called "BlueCat Short Film Festival", This Festival is good because the winner gets $2,500 as a prize as well as the top ten short films are premiered at the Landmark Theater in Los Angeles. The requirements for me to be able to enter my short film into the competition are that it must be under 50 minutes long, which is fine as my short is only ten minutes, they also must be in English or with English subtitles, which is also fine as my short film will be entirely in the English language.  

• This is my understanding of the structure of how a screenplay should be done:

• With any screenplays there comes inspiration from other ones, especially for things like character creation, scene direction and the dialogue in it. Below are some examples of the ones I will use for inspiration for my screenplay. The first is for character creation and this screenplay is from the TV show called "Peaky Blinders".

The reason why I like how the character are presented here is because although it tells us the basic information of the character called "Thomas Shelby", but it doesn't tell his name till much later in the description which allows the audience to get to know the character's look before knowing who it is and also creates mystery on who the man is as well. What I also like, is that it that it starts off with the character being terrifying and also ends with it as well, with it saying "The courtyard is now miraculously empty", as this make it so the audience knows that his terrifying influence over people isn't just said but instead it is shown as well. The character creation of this extract is mostly very good outer presence throughout the extract but does offer both inner presence and context as well. The inner presence is the "produced such instant terror", which like I've said before shows he's scary to other people. The context is the same with "the courtyard is miraculously empty", as it shows the environment is quiet, especially when the man enters the location and also gives us an insight into his life with the fact he is on a horse with a non riding clothes, showing him to be both smart and rich, due to having a horse during the time of which the TV show is set was very expensive.

Dialogue:

Next is use of dialogue in a screenplay, the extract I have used is from a TV show called "Sherlock" Series 1 Episode 1 - "Lady in Pink":

The reason why I used this extract in order to show off the use of dialogue in the screenplay is because with this one, it really helps to show off the main character, in this case, it being Sherlock Holmes play by Benedict Cumberbatch. It does this by showing off how his mind is one tracked at a time and can only focus on one subject at a time, in this extract he goes from talking about John Watson's time in Afghanistan, to him talking about sharing an apartment with each other.

Scene Direction:

The last extract is for scene direction. This is from "Merlin" which is a television show about the rise of King Arthur from the help of his servant who can use magic in a place where magic is forbidden:

The reason why I used this extract to show of the scene direction is because, the scene direction in it is always they're to try and increase the tension in this certain scene.

• As well as finding different examples of screenplays which will help be inspiration to me when writing my own screen play, but also finding actual short films, which will help me in the same way as the screenplays did.

The reason for picking this short film, is because it's really good. The short film makes you ask questions to yourself and keeping wondering what happening, this is usually a bad thing in films, but this one makes it work as it gives the answer near towards the end of it. For example why is the main character wearing a gas mask? It's shown at the end of the short film that the post apocalyptic atmosphere is poisonous towards humans or why he is digging a hole, in which we find out that he is digging it for a women, most likely his wife or girlfriend. 

The reasons for me picking this short film as one of the two short film I will use it to help me as inspiration for my screenplay. It doesn't help me so much with the narrative structure or the genre of the short film. But more of the shots that are used in this short film instead. Also like the last short film, but not as much, I like the fact that there are question about what's happening in the narrative and are answered at the end, like why does match box keep moving away from under the table leg. But with the shots, the creative use of over the shoulder shots in this makes look it professional as they aren't used in a traditional way like in most productions. An example is the shot of camera focus change which helps the narrative reveal a new character in the short film, with the over the shoulder shot and use of refocusing in such a unique and creative way.

•   With my own short film idea, I will need to have a target audience for it, that way it will give me focus on just getting the film right for them and not to have to worry about getting it right for everyone. With my target audience it will be mainly aimed at teenagers at the ages of 15-19, with the demographic audience being in the Social grade of E, which includes students which falls under the age range of my short film's target audience.This means for the pyschographic audience I will be targeting both explorers and strugglers, the reason for it because firstly with strugglers, this is typical linked to lower part of the demographic, like students. But also because strugglers, seek escape and like them, the main character in my short film seeks escape as well and matches what the strugglers is as well. In order to know if my idea for the short film was any good, I created a survey in order to ask questions about it and see if they would have interest in watching a short film of my idea. 

Above are the results of survey that I made and sent out to people. By the results I can see that my idea for a short film is getting positive feedback with most of them, having an interest in seeing my idea and most also know what Lucid Dreaming is, allowing me to be able to spend more of the minutes on the narrative of the actual story and not have to use precious seconds in order to explain what lucid dreaming is to the audience in a complex way.

• With my short film idea, the main theme surrounding it is the idea of lucid dreaming and how the drug in the film is able to increase the effects of it and also you to be able to control what you see and what you do. Firstly lucid dreaming is when a person dreams and they know they're dreaming, some people to certain extent can also control what happens as well. Lucid Dreaming also helps with things like, problem solving, creativity, the ability to face your fears, improve confidence, etc. The difference between normal dreaming and lucid dreaming is when you are having a normal dream than you self awareness shuts down, which is why most people can't remember their dreams as they all seem fuzzy and distant, but with lucid dreaming the brain wakes up the self awareness during the dreaming allowing the person to known they're in a dream and allows you to "explore the inner workings of your unconscious mind with total freedom . Reading more into Lucid dreaming, it is shown lucid dreaming can be effected by what has happened in someone life, for instance someone had a lucid dream that was influenced by the game "Skyrim" and in this dream the person was flying to a point where they had reached an invisible wall, which was the end of the game world as dreams don't have an end. Another experience of lucid dreaming is with Lucid Dreaming a guy got told what to with his life by his own mind. He done it by asking that question will self inducing himself into lucid dreaming and asking the question of what he should do with his life, to which a phone rang that had a voice and told him to travel and after the guy came out of the dream, he began to travel more and it made him better as a person.This works with my screenplay because the main character has to go into his subconscious via lucid dreaming in order to figure out a problem like the person who didn't know what he wanted to do with his life and like the guy who flew and was able to control his dream like in my screenplay as my main character learns t control his dreams and also be able to make himself be better and sort out his problems through lucid dreaming.

• Another theme of the short film which also links to the main character which is being a private investigator, as that's his occupation during the short film, so the theme is actually case solving as that's what private investigators have to do in order to make a living. Another big theme is the theme of betrayal as my whole story revolves around the main character getting betrayed by a person who thought he could trust the most and him actually confronting her.

• With my short film idea, like most, there are inspiration for it. For me the main inspiration of the short film idea is the film called "Inception" directed by Christopher Nolan, the reason for it because it follows the same theme of entering the subconscious in order to find something out. Inception also follows the same genre as well which is sci-fi, thriller, which is the same as mine with my idea having the added extra of it being a psychological thriller, due to the mind tricks that are played during it. Inception also is inspiration for some of the narrative more so the entering the subconscious side, but another film called "Taken 3" also helped with the narrative, this is because although the film is not great the narrative behind it was, as the main character has to escape the police and become a fugitive, in order to solve a crime he didn't commit, this is the same with my short film idea as the main character has to become a fugitive in order to clear his name for something he hasn't done.  

Bibliography:

BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/Sherlock – 28/11/2017

Film Freeway - https://filmfreeway.com/BlueCatShortfilmfestival - 29/11/2017   

Blue Cat - http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/2018-rules-guidelines/ - 29/11/2017

Sacher.D - http://shortsbay.com/film/when-it-will-be-silent - 29/11/2017 - When it will be silent

BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/peaky-blinders - 01/12/2017

BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/merlin - 01/12/2017

World of Lucid Dreaming – Rebecca Turner - http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/what-is-lucid-dreaming.html - 2/12/2017
How to Lucid - http://howtolucid.com/lucid-dreaming-stories/ -  13/06/2018

Life Hacker - Patrick Allen - https://lifehacker.com/the-benefits-and-risks-of-lucid-dreaming-1795735303 2/12/201

Private InvestigatorEDU - https://privateinvestigatoredu.org/what-is-a-private-investigator/ 2/12/17

IMDb - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/ - 15/12/2017

IMDb - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2446042/ - 15/12/2017