The 48 Hour Scriptwriting Challenge: The Result

Well, that was certainly interesting.
I thoroughly enjoyed this self-imposed challenge. Well, up to a point.
It all started off well and innocently enough. I had my plot outlines, I had my characters, I even had a surprisingly cooperative laptop. I managed to get the first draft of an episode's script done and dusted in the first evening and gave myself the rest of the night off for sleep. And then, bam, the next morning struck me with no problems whatsoever. I made it throughout a fair amount of the morning before I accidentally opened a YouTube video and my laptop decided it was one step too far. Bam! Green and purple blocks invaded my screen and before long, my laptop was dead.
Now, this was mildly convenient as my brother's new girlfriend was in town and it would have been rude of me to not greet her. On top of that, there was a kind of arranged meal to be had. And so, since my laptop continued to die every time I turned it on that evening, I resolved to leave it until the next day. Well, I say I "resolved" but I had no say in the matter, really.
And so, on Sunday, my final day, I eventually managed to get my laptop back up and running and got through half of a draft of the second episode before my time ran out.
So yeah, my 48 hour scriptwriting challenge didn't go too well but I got a script and a half out of it.

But that's not all!
As Monday rolled on and having just finished a day of filming, I found myself in a conversation with a good friend about the upcoming 48 hour London sci-fi film challenge. (Ker-link!: http://www.sci-fi-london.com/festival/2011/48-hour-film-challenge) I quickly adopted the role of writer in the (currently) hypothetical scenario that we take on this challenge and so, a new challenge arose. Writing an entire film in a lot less than 48 hours, based on specifics. Now this was a challenge. So...of course, I fancied giving myself a new challenge.

The New Challenge
This new challenge is to develop a movie idea into a script from preset criteria that must be included. I have decided to not give myself a time limit this time as my life seems to be getting progressively busier for the following weeks and filming for my group's documentary begins next week. So yeah, busy, busy, busy.
The criteria was chosen by the aforementioned friend with whom I had been conversing.
Keyword: Deadline
Prop: A shoe
Line of dialogue: "Stay out of the fridge..."
Genre: Science Fiction
So there we have it. Perhaps a little strange but lo and behold, I did manage to come up with a decent story out of it. I'm not going to reveal it all until it's actually finished but the working title at the moment is "Take A Chance".
Another adopted criteria for the film was to use as few locations as possible and aim for very low budget.
Perhaps I'll chuck up a small synopsis and whatnot later on as it develops. But until then...
Farewell!

It really is a wonderful world

So, I've finished my first evening of my 48 hour scriptwriting challenge. I've finished one episode of Genesis Key and I'm all happy to start the second in the morning. So what am I doing with my spare time? Well, I was amusing myself with YouTube videos and after clicking on a few links, came across this.

It's such a beautiful film. It's made my evening so happy and restored any missing faith in life. I think it can be summer up perfectly in one of its top comments.
"every time i watch this i cry. it make you think about every moment in you life that you take for granted, that you just pass over, that you forget about, but sometimes those are the most beautiful moments in you life. i'm trying a lot harder to take in everything in my life, and to take no moment great or small for granted." ~ muffinrave


And so I pass this video onto anyone who watches this blog in the hopes that it can help you feel happy and help you learn to appreciate the seemingly mundane moments in life. 

The 48 Hour Scriptwriting Challenge [11/03/2011 - 13/03/2011]

So, the scriptwriting challenge I wrote of in my previous entry. It's happening and it's happening soon. In fact, it will begin at some point tonight. Shall we say, 20:00? Yes, that seems adequate.
Now, I won't be writing non-stop, I will of course be needing sleep or it'll all end up in vain as my sentences not only lose their structure but possible even their spelling. What an unfortunate farce that would become. Now then, let's discuss a little, shall we?

The Idea
I have decided to choose an idea before entering the 48 hours and after some consideration I have landed back at an old idea of mine that I have ever so much loved since I first thought it up. It has its origins in my first year of college and over the years has had several drafts and redrafts. There have been at least three drafts of a first episode, first drafts of the following three episodes and even a couple of drafts for a feature length adaptation.
Unfortunately, as the holidays came and went, none of these productions were ever filmed and so it became an assumption that the idea would never be made, but alas, it has resurfaced once more. Now, what is this idea?

Genesis Key: a two sided prophecy
This idea was born from a list of short film ideas I jotted down to discuss with my good friend, Matthew Clarkson, back in year one of college (a.k.a. 2008). It was originally formed as two short films that would follow the same story but from different sides and the rough description was thus;
"A hero is told that he must save the world by seeking out an ancient artefact."
"Another hero is told to save the world by stopping the first."
From these two short ideas came the whole of Genesis Key. Throwing in a bizarre antagonist who was manipulating the both of them and adding the classic idea of a roaming adventure with a dash of comedy, Genesis Key became what it is known as today.
The two main characters became known as Adam A. Accuine and Luke L. Layrs (now Evan E. Eborn). Over the years of development and redevelopment, characters have come and gone and the story has expanded into something quite ridiculous. But ridiculous in a good way.
And so, in the year 2011, after starting completely from scratch, Genesis Key is about to be reborn.

So, my challenge starts at 8pm tonight and concludes at 8pm on Sunday. As Genesis Key is a serial with unspecified episode length I will write as many episodes as I can within that time. There are four episodes planned so far so hopefully, we'll get a decent way into the story.
And who knows, perhaps this summer will finally be the one where Genesis Key is actually filmed.

P.S. I will probably be doing constant updates on my twitter page, so be sure to catch the action as I ponder, bitch and celebrate in real time! @TimothyGElsy for those of you who aren't willing to look to the right of this page.

The Challenge

For the past few weeks now, I've been intrigued by the prospect of a group of film makers going out and setting themselves the challenge of filming a short film in no more than forty-eight hours. And so, inspired by this, I've decided to set myself a little challenge.
It is essentially the same thing but with scriptwriting.
This has mainly spread from a cry for help from my own mind for starting scripts but rarely actually finishing them before moving on. So this time I'll be a fair bit more committed.

So, the challenge is to conceptualise and write an initial draft for a film script in less than 48 hours. I'll set aside two days (probably a weekend) so that I can work non-stop on this project. I'll lock myself up in my little bedroom and get on with it. Perhaps a pre-made playlist of inspirational music would be a good idea.

Well, this should prove fun. I'll no doubt blog about the results. Other than that, happy first post! (emoticon)
I hope this is the start of a loving user-blog relationship.