REWRITING NARNIA

As I mentioned in my last blog post, we looked at a section from the movie ‘Up’ and attempted to write our own screenplay for it. I enjoyed this exercise and wanted to have another go at it.

I was going to write something for Wall-E because it’s one I’ve mentioned in another blog post, too, but I figured I should take a look at live-action movies for once. I found a clip from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) to use.

I got extremely carried away with this. Turns out screenwriting is kind of fun. Who knew? One thing I found while writing this is that sometimes you get the urge to include something that might feel right to you but may not be relevant or helpful to the screenplay itself. Here are the notes that I wrote down but didn’t show up when I exported the script:

There were many shots that could relate to the one line of big print but while watching it I was conflicted about whether or not I should describe it. To me, each shot was so important in building up the scene that I felt like it should be added to the script. However, if we were working in order (script to screen) instead of backwards (screen to script), the decision to add all these shots would most likely come from the director.

Another thing I realised while writing was that I couldn’t not edit as I went along. I tried to show my editing by striking through the parts I didn’t like instead of deleting them so I could see my process. I know some people work by writing everything and editing afterwards but I feel more comfortable editing as better ideas come to mind. I’m scared I’ll forget them by the time I come back later.

To keep in line with the exercise, I also looked up the script of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to be able to compare. Did you know it was originally titled ‘The Hundred Year Winter’? I didn’t. I’m glad they didn’t go with that title because it seems quite depressing and less fantastical. Anyway, I digress.

I don’t know what version of the screenplay this is (I got it from here). It is slightly different to what we hear on screen but the general idea of the scene is there.

Just like the ‘Up’ script, I am utterly floored by the minimal amount of description this screenplay has. It seems like I kind of did the opposite of the screenplay and wrote too much for the beginning and not enough for the griffon aerial attack. I got the gist of the scene’s tone which I’m pretty proud about.

It’s really interesting to see how much shots a director can get out of one line of description because clearly screenplays usually don’t describe each shot in detail. I have been a part of the process of making a video from a script (you can read about it on this very blog) but I don’t remember if we took the screenplay very literally or if we also added more than what the screenplay told us. I have to look into that. I’m very intrigued.