Here in the UK, as well as in many other paces all over the world in fact, many companies hold screenwriting competitions which allow and encourage young aspiring screenwriters to send in their scripts in an effort to get more new talent noticed and perhaps even in some cases more recognized by the industry going forward. As stated, there are a lot of different competitions like this being held every year in the United Kingdom, each with their own prizes, guidelines and/or rules. For example, the competition known as the 'BAFTA Rocliffe' writing competition is held each year, calling for "film, television drama, children's media and television comedy script" (BAFTA, How We Support Talent, BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Competition). After a "blind" judging process, each submitted selected script is then performed by a professional cast to an audience full of directors, producers, actors, literary agents and development executives in order to give the emerging talent who applied a platform, giving them feedback and advice from professionals if their piece is chosen. Over two years, the competition has four application windows, where the applicant must be aged over eighteen years old, have been a UK resident for at least five years prior to the deadline and pay a slight fee in order to submit their script in the form of a PDF file. Similarly, the page known as ''UK Film Festival Script Competitions" has an available competition which is made in order to accept "10 minute screenplays", with their aim being to get the winning scripts they decide on to get put into production, being known for successfully connecting many screenwriters to the film industry and getting movies created as a result (UK Film Festival London, Script Competitions, 10 Minute Screenplay Competition 2020).
'Commissioning bodies' also exist, accepting unsolicited scripts and helping new writers fund their upcoming projects, ultimately helping the project get made and the writer's vision become a reality. In the United Kingdom, one of the main bodies is known as the 'BFI' (British Film Institution), funded by the National Lottery with the purpose of supporting the "formal development of original live action, emerging media and animation feature film-making from treatments to production-ready screenplays", with the way to apply to receive funding being as simple as creating an account on their website, deciding which type of funding fits you and your project best and following the steps the website then displays before you (BFI, 2021, About the BFI).
~ Background Material (for concept/idea generation) ~
Above is a link to a blogpost which shows and explains how to properly and professionally layout a screenplay (Blogger, 2020, Screenplays).
When writing a screenplay, it can sometimes be hard to come up with the initial ideas for the story that the script will be revolved around. When looking for sources of inspiration however, there are many different avenues a writer could look towards and take from in order to make the development of their screenplay a little bit easier for them. One place of inspiration which is often taken from is the writer themselves - specifically, past experiences of a writer's life can sometimes be taken and used to create a new story, following very closely to the true events that occurred or straying from them once the initial inspiration has been found. Iain Morris and Damon Beesley have gone on record stating that many of the episodes of their British sitcom 'The Inbetweeners' were based off of real things and events that had happened to themselves when they were the ages of the four characters of the show, enhanced slightly and spread across the four (The Guardian, 2010, Inbetweeners creator admits he's Will, and his co-writer is Jay (with a bit of Simon)). Similarly, sometimes television show or movie ideas are inspired by genuine events and/or news stories that have occurred, staying with the idea of taking inspiration from real life, just not as personal to the writers. This can happen in a few different forms, like in the form of a 'biographic' like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (2018) by director Bryan Singer, following the true story of a famous or well-known figure and sticking quite close to what really happened (although it isn't too uncommon for creative decisions to be made during these films which did not actually occur as to make the film more interesting or fit the classic 'Hollywood structure' better and make for a better film) (IMDb, Bohemian Rhapsody, Storyline). However, it can also stem from a true event and take the story into a completely fictional route, with the initial true event acting more so as a background setting for a lot of the movie, such as with Taika Waititi's 'Jojo Rabbit' (2019), being set during the second world war and using the German's side of the war's events as a part of the plot which can affect the main story being told, but not being the entire focus of the film (IMDb, Jojo Rabbit, Storyline). Writer's sometimes even take inspiration from other peoples existing works, whether it be from specific films, genres, or styles of film making from other screenwriters and directors as to come up with their own individual vision. An example of a film series which very clearly are made from finding inspiration from others is the 'Scary Movie' film series by the Wayan brothers, going as far to take the form of parody, poking fun at horror films from recent times to their release, as well as the genre as a whole, in order to create new, comedy-focused story-lines (Wikiwand, Scary Movie (film series), Introduction).
[The slide from my research and pitch PowerPoint which shows off my initial inspiration sources for my script]
~ Research ~
'Primary' research is often considered as the more personal form of researching, done by the party involved in the development of the product that the research is being done for (in this case, a screenplay). Examples of primary research options include surveying people with your own custom-made survey, interviewing significant people and asking them things directly, and asking questions to a focus group in order to get a larger amount of results back.
In terms of sources of primary research I personally took part in while working on my own screenplay, there are not a lot of examples of where I used any. However, one form of primary research I, along with the rest of my media class, took part in involved going around the whole class and letting each person explain the basic premise and plot of their screenplay ideas as to allow and encourage feedback from the rest of the class on the ideas. This feedback would include whether or not anyone in the class would watch the movie/short film that the person was pitching, as well as other helpful notes like features which may make the script better if they were added and/or removed for example.
'Secondary' forms of research are different in the fact that instead of researching a topic and forming your own data and answers to questions, you will instead be looking into answers that can be found within already existing data. This existing data is already out there and usable due to somebody already doing their own primary research at some point in time, and putting their results out there for others to use for their own projects, such as historical information when creating a period piece for your film. For example, you may be find data and answers related to what you are trying to research using secondary techniques such as paying attention to news articles, getting a hold of a textbook and reading through it, or simply by using search engines like Google to search the questions you want and get the result from a site that comes up - this is, of course, if the data matches what you were looking for close enough.
~ Prepare Material ~
On top of all the other research I did, I also watched three movies I believed would be helpful for me to watch in order to gain some inspiration or ideas as for how to properly present the ideas I want to include in my final screenplay to the best of my ability. I ended up deciding on three movies, these being Shallow Hal (2001), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and Liar, Liar (1997), each for their own reasons which I believe relate to my own film idea, as well as reading an article on head trauma and how it can affect someone's personality going forward, similar to what happens to the character of Ed in the script.
Starting with 'Shallow Hal', this is a movie revolving around the character Hal, who starts the movie living quite a misogynistic lifestyle, judging women on their appearances alone and, as a result, never finding a partner. We are shown at the very beginning of the movie that the reasons for his life being led as such was due to the words his father said to him about women and how to judge them moments before he died in front of him, traumatising him and changing his outlook on life from then on. The main plot of the movie centers around when Hal gets this mindset changed by a hypnosis-like affect put onto him by a man named Tony Robbins, who he gets stuck in a lift with. This causes him to see people's appearances based on their inner self instead, until it is changed back by his similarly misogynistic best-friend, Artie, near the end of the movie, at which point Hal's mindset has already been changed after many thought-altering events occur to him over the film's runtime, and he stays with his new partner, who while shown as a typically 'unattractive' character, is still believed to be beautiful by him no matter how he sees here. Similarly to my screenplay idea, the character's personality is changed fairly early on in the movie's plot, in a way that he does not realise until it has been changed back by Artie. This is the thing that drive's the film's story points forward, quite like the way my character's personality gets changed will also drive forward many of the important moments of the film. A lot of comedic situations and lines are also caused by this personality change, while the movie also manages to fit in moments of heartfelt sincerity and self-reflection of both Hal and even the audience, such as Robbins discussing the idea of outward and inner beauty to Artie and how the media portrays it to us, as well as when Hal realises once he has had his mind changed back that the children in the hospital scene from earlier in the film were actually burn victims, which is a big moment for his character arc. These comedic and heartfelt moments manage to co-occupy the same script comfortably without switches between the two ever coming off as jarring or odd - something I would like to incorporate in my film (IMDb, Shallow Hal, Storyline).
Next was 'Mrs. Doubtfire', another comedy film this time led by Robin Williams, running with the main plot of a man going through a divorce and dealing with his separation from his children by disguising himself as a woman in order to be able to secretly become the family's new housekeeper and spend time with them, while allowing him to support himself at the same time with the end goal of making enough to improve his life and be allowed to share custody of his children again. As just mentioned, the main event that this film's story revolves around isn't a very positive one, that being the divorce of our main protagonist, Dan, and his wife, and how he is forced to distance from his children. Despite this however, the movie still works very well as the one of the genres it is going for - a comedy. As well as this, while the movie's ending can still be considered a happy one, with custody eventually being shared between the two parents despite all the hurdles and ups and downs that occur throughout the movie's plot, the point in which the characters end up in is not the same as where they are at the beginning, and could still be considered by some people to be a slightly worse situation in some ways than the situation they lived in during the movie's beginning scenes. This is similar to my screenplay, with instead of a divorce, the break-up between my main character and his partner being a huge part of the movie's plot, as well as the intended ending being one where things are better than they were during the main middle section of the film, but quite different than the beginning, with Ed living to get closer to a normal mindset with the help of his partner. Managing to keep a film's script funny and 'feel-good' while it's main driving force is quite a depressing event is not easy, but I would like to take note from this movie how to do it, using the event in some places for pieces of slightly dark humour, while at other times, such as the ending, using it to portray a heartfelt message to the audience about toleration and awareness of people's mental health issues and how they may not be able to control the way they act (IMDb, Mrs. Doubtfire, Storyline).
Finally, I decided to take a look at 'Liar, Liar'. This movie has a lot of similarities with the first film I chose, that being 'Shallow Hal', as it's main character, Fletcher, also begins the movie with a negative trait a huge part of his personality, with it then being changed quite drastically for the midpoint of the movie and then ending in a positive finish, with characters learning to change for the good. In the case of this movie, Fletcher begins the movie as a lawyer and a father who lies a lot, hurting his son and ex-wife as a result, until his son makes a wish that causes Fletcher to find it literally impossible to tell a lie. This leads to many funny moments and examples of situations of which this new trait puts the character into, until he ultimately makes up with his family and partner at the end again after realising his mistakes from earlier in the film. Our main protagonist here is played by Jim Carrey who, similarly to Shallow Hal's main actor, Jack Black, is generally quite a likable performer, having his own unique acting quirks and deliveries of lines which make his portrayals of characters different to those played by any other actor. As a casting choice, the idea of having a main character played by a performer of this sort is very appealing to me, as it adds to the enjoyability of a movie having quite a likable, charismatic lead I believe (IMDb, Liar Liar, Storyline).
On top of the movies I watched, I also found it quite useful to read an article I found which focused around the concept of what real head traumas can do to a person's brain and how, in some situations, it changes that persons personality in some way or another. The article states that it is not extremely uncommon for people who suffer from some sort of traumatic head injury to suffer from "social anxiety, irritability, anger, depression, feelings of overwhelm, general anxiety, mood swings, or emotional lability (teariness)" after the injury has occurred. These personality changes are apparently due to, as it can be described in the most basic sense, a disruption caused by the concussion in the connections "between neurons and the blood vessels in your brain", with "as much as 30%" of concussion patients having symptoms of this sort long term after the event. While a personality change like the one that affects my screenplay's character aren't actually possible in the real world, a change that resembles it the closest will be the changes that come under "impulsivity", with oddities being caused in the brain's "cingulate gyrus or anterior insula," both being "brain regions involved in emotions and impulse control", or "sleep disruption" because of the injury leading to other "impulsivity and behavioural changes" (Cognitivefx, 2020, 'Personality Changes After a Brain Injury or Concussion: Irritability, Sadness, Social Struggles, and More').
Reference List:
BAFTA, 2021, BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Competition, available at
UK Film Festival London, 2020, 10 Minute Screenplay Competition 2020, available at
BFI, 2021, About the BFI, available at
William Grimmer, 2020, Screenplays, available at
Iain Morris, 2010, Inbetweeners creator admits he's Will, and his co-writer is Jay (with a bit of Simon), available at
IMDb, 2018, Bohemian Rhapsody, available at
IMDb, 2019, Jojo Rabbit, available at
Wikiwand, (no date), Scary Movie (film series), available at
The Numbers, 2021, All Time Worldwide Box Office, available at
IMDb, 1993, Shallow Hal, available at
IMDb, 2001, Mrs. Doubtfire, available at
IMDb, 1997, Liar Liar, available at
Dr. Alina Fong PhD, 2020, Personality Changes After a Brain Injury or Concussion: Irritability, Sadness, Social Struggles, and More, available at
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