D1 - Requirements Met

Here is a screenshot of a section from my script to give further understanding on what I say in this post.

What I was tasked to do:

I was tasked with making a short-dramatized sequence that is up to 10-15 minutes.  This will involve the script draft of my two main ideas for Defend Our Island, a Period drama-action hybrid series for BBC 3.  This will overall help promote the show.  Because of the courier font each page of script will add up to a minute therefor I aimed to create around 10-15 pages of script also, in the end I made 14 pages overall for the screenplay and that will add up to approximately 13-14 minutes.  I was tasked by the client to conform with the genre by using conventions that are used in other dramas with the same genre such as language, culture etc.  It must also appeal to the target audience which is 15-21.  BBC 3 does this with their other shows by mostly creating unorthodox and mind challenging stories that tends to open the audiences' eyes.  I however, have been tasked with working on a show that is a period drama-action hybrid which in the eyes of BBC 3's audience, maybe not that unorthodox compared to the other shows.  That is why I have decided to add issues to the script like growing up, sexism and moral issues.  There must be three drafts of the script and they must all be an improvement of the the one before it, which I have done so, you can see these drafts in P4 on the right-hand side.  When making the script I made sure that the script was formatted correctly by making sure that the Action Blocks are written correctly and are in the right place, you can see in the screenshot above that there are correctly aligned and written action blocks that start on the left hand side of the page and not the middle like dialogue.  I also made sure that Dialogue was formatted correctly as Dialogue should be positioned a bit further right from where action blocks are positioned, you can see this in the screenshot of the script above.  Character Names should be in the centre of a script and should always be in full Capitols.  If a Character is named for the first time in an action Block their name must also be in full capitols in the action block however afterwards there name is always normal.  As you can see in the screenshot, I have used a few Sluglines to explain what the setting is for the scene for example; 'EXT. OUTSIDE TOWNHALL. DAY.'  Sluglines must be in all capitols as well as at the furthest left of the script like the action blocks.  You can see that for the first Character name, there is an OS in brackets next to it.  This shows that the character is speaking Off Screen.  These examples are some of the many ways I managed to format the script correctly.

How I met Requirements:

As I have been tasked with creating a screenplay of the drama, Defend our Island I had to learn the conventions of making a screenplay and the genre it was made in.  Now this show has been designed to be watched at home by the audience like all other dramas are made for, it is not made for the cinema but instead used to watch on demand, like on BBC3 and when it is scheduled on TV, when BBC3 returns to TV.  Like most dramas, there is a continuing narrative in which as each episode progresses the next episode will start where the last one left off.  I have followed this convention when planning this screenplay, by coming up with a story that is closely linked to Todorov's Narrative Theory.  I have done this by planning to create a progressive story that has an Equilibrium, disruption, recognition of disruption, repairing the disruption and finally a new equilibrium.  These are the conventions of Todorov's Narrative Theory and when planning the screenplay, I have done my best to conform to them.

Usually, a drama has a serious conflict involved in it in which Todorov refers to as a disruption.  Obviously Defend our Island is based in the biggest conflict of all time, World War Two but that's just the equilibrium at first!  The conflict will be espionage and moral issues at the time that involve the clashing of ideologies such as Fascism. I have planned that there will be a serious mental and physical struggle the protagonists must endure and that is not trusting anyone and fighting the main antagonist, Agent Smith who is no way related to one of the antagonists in the Matrix, as there would be a legal and story-based issue on our hands if that was the case.  Overall, the show will involve gunfights but also tackle the stigma of mental health at the time as PTSD wasn't truly classed as a medical condition until 1980.  In the screenplay I have created we are introduced to all the characters as i have involved the prologue and the reveal of the main antagonist in it.  So, it shows only what is about to happen in the fact of serious conflict however there is the introduction of some key issues that will be presented in the screenplay in which will become more apparent when the show is released.

Defend our Island is a Period drama-action hybrid with themes of espionage and a pinch of thriller.  I have conformed to this Genre and it's subgenres by creating the screenplay with understanding the culture and language of the time.  In the first draft of the script, the language I had written for the characters was a bit too modern for the tongue of a 1940s Englishman therefor it was advised by the client to improve the language in the next two drafts.  Of course, as well if one of the sub genres is action, there must be a few gunfights and some epic scenes, so that's why I had planned the main antagonist to die in a dramatic style of explosions and blazing glory as an example of how I have conformed to the sub-genre.  As I said there are hints of thriller as it is one of the subgenres in this show, one way I have conformed to the conventions of thrillers is by creating the secret Nazi meeting scene in which the main antagonist is revealed and kills someone out of cold blood, the main protagonists view this and there is meant to be a great feeling of suspense and tension.  

Coming back to Todorov's Narrative Theory, when planning this screenplay, I came up with several ideas that would help me work out what would be the best story for the screenplay so the several ideas I made, I made them in chronological order and created the ideas that in which would be the story of the entire show and I made them based off Todorov's Theory.  You can see these ideas in P2 - Initial Ideas of this unit.  Now as I have said before, I had only been tasked with creating a 10–15-minute screenplay and therefor there will not be enough space to write up all of these ideas, so I picked the two best ones which where the Prologue and the Secret Nazi Meeting.  These scenes show the Equilibrium, the Disruption and the Recognition of the Disruption from Todorov's Theory and they have been created to an extent to show a clear story progression that can be used to promote Defend Our Island to a sufficient extent.  The show includes the equilibrium at the start of the show because there is an introduction to all of the characters and what normal issues they face during the prologue, we are introduced to both main characters and their struggles, we also see what situation everyone is in at the start as we see what is normal for the people back then as there is constant feeling of uneasiness in everyone in the script due to the war as we are introduced to the mayor as well who is pretty much the anti hero in the show.  By the end of the prologue and also the equilibrium, we are introduced to the main antagonists in the show, Agent Smith who is a German spy with a mission to cause unrest in the north of England we don't see his face and we only hear him explaining his fake background story, this is the start of the Disruption and end of the Prologue and Equilibrium.  In the next part of the script we see the recognition of the Disruption in a different scene to the prologue.  In this scene, things start to get weird as people act stranger now.  The two main protagonists are mates now in this part of the story and they are persuaded by an old friend to go to a youth club which ends up being a massive gathering of people discussing some unorthodox things such as fascism.  Obviously the whole thing is an event set up by the Main antagonist and overall it is the recognition of the disruption for us and the main protagonists as they witness the reveal of the Main antagonists as he shoots an innocent man.  Overall those are the parts of the show my script covers and they show to a detailed extent that there are different stages to the show in an exciting fashion.

Overall...

Now that I have discussed all the technical and important points to do with how the screenplay was written and what theories I followed to make the script, I will now discuss the way this script is narratively appealing to the target audience by making sure the audience pleasures are met.  Overall you can see that the script has many different things happening in it at first for example in the first part of the script, the prologue, there are a bunch of different characters being set up to start their arcs and so the audience can learn to appeal to them.  These characters all have their own struggles to deal with, for example with Xander, its the death of his Brother, with Rosie, its the fact she has to look after her father with PTSD.  These setups of these characters make the audience learn to sympathise with them and furthermore appeal to the script when the characters learn and change for the better in their respective arcs.  Another thing to mention is that these characters are 17 year olds which will appeal to the target audience also, as the characters are a similar age to the target audience which is 15-21 year olds.  An appealing part of the story in the screenplay is that it ends with a cliff hanger, this is meant to represent the end of an episode also as the main antagonist is revealed to the main protagonists.  The cliff hanger is when the main antagonist shoots the old man from the prologue as the old man speaks against the secret Nazi meeting.  The gunshot blast creates a flash that quickly shows the main antagonists face to everyone and that is when the scene ends and overall it will be very appealing to the audience as this is when the recognition of the disruption begins and it shows the audience how much of a threat the main antagonist is and over all a well written villain is one of the most important parts of a script and the fact that it ends on a cliff hanger will appeal to the audience more as they will want to see what happens next!  Overall when the screenplay and furthermore a future episode ends there are a few questions that are meant to be going through the target audiences heads and they are, 'what's happening next?' 'do they get out?' 'who's the villain?' 'when's the next episode out.'  and that is overall because of the cliff hanger that is shown to the audience and overall will make them want to watch more.