I hate oral presentations. I hate oral presentations with a passion. Talking in front of a crowd is my worst nightmare, and having everyone’s attention on me is also a nightmare. I also hate having to talk about my own work, because in my mind it’s never good enough, so you can imagine my joy with getting to talk about my own screenplay in front of a crowd for an oral presentation in class.

Anytime I get through a presentation without crying I consider a win, so I am very thankful that I did manage to get the presentation over and done with. I am glad that I did finally get to tell the story of SONNY (which can be found here), because it has been something that I have been thinking of for years and years, so getting it off my chest and transforming it into a work in progress rather than just an idea in my head was incredibly freeing.

In my own personal reflection on my presentation, I definitely wish I had provided more visual cues. The only visual cue I had up on the board was a sample piece of writing which I had completed for SONNY, which everyone read at the end, but having seen everybody else’s presentations I definitely regret not creating a mood board to show how I visually want SONNY to look.  I wish I had given the audience something to stare at while I spoke, instead of just having my piece of writing on the board, because it also meant that they wouldn’t have had to read and listen at the same time. I should’ve done better at keeping their attention on what I wanted at that time, which would’ve been better done with a presentation of some sort.

I talked a lost about the story, but I don’t think I got to talk about the tone of how I believe it would feel. For example, I felt when I was talking about Sonny and Chris having an argument, I made it sound too light. In my head, I envision the argument they have to be completely full of passion, with lots of emotions flying off from both ends. The first argument that comes into my head is from Birdman, of an argument between father (Michael Keaton) and daughter (Emma Stone). The argument can be seen below. The language is so raw and thought-provoking and the audience gets such a clear for what is being portrayed which is what I want to come across in Sonny, and I wish I had done a better job of portraying that in my presentation.

I wish I had talked a little bit more about that in my presentation because although the story of SONNY is incredibly important, I feel I didn’t particularly bring across the audiovisual element of SONNY. In my presentation I don’t think I really expressed more than just the story, I wish I had said that I wanted the tone of the film to be very dark and gritty, and that I was taking inspiration from Alejandro González Iñárritu work in the way he manages to evoke emotion from his characters, but also how he gives his films the look of dark undertones which I’m trying to convey as well.

Along with Stacey, our tutor for Picture This!, we had 2 panellists listening in on our presentations and giving us feedback on our ideas, who were Smiljana Glisovic and Dylan Murphy. They both provided us with feedback on the day, with Stacey to provide us with feedback at a later stage.

Initially, I was worried that speaking about such a sensitive topic would raise concern from Smiljana or Dylan, and I was really worried it would seem like my screenplay was trying to trivialize suicide and bullying, and I’d hate to do any injustice to the topics.  I was really pleased to hear Smiljana say that she thought writing about such materials was a great way to speak about the what not only I’ve been through, but people around me have been through in a creative way. My biggest fear with this screenplay is that I’m making it seem like I’m profiting from suicide like I’m only writing about it for a story which is not the case at all, so it was really comforting to hear Smiljana and Dylan say they thought the way I was expressing everything was appropriate.

They both did raise a couple of questions which have left me to think about. I am still in the early stages of writing, so I don’t have an answer for everything, but they both raised the question of whether or not Sonny was the main character. From the piece of writing I showed, it had Chris as the main character, so it did leave me thinking about how I was going to create the story, whether or not it would be around Sonny or Chris. Smiljana mentioned that it would be interesting if I could build up empathy for Chris as a reader, because then by the end of the screenplay you’re left with these incredibly conflicting emotions about whether or not you’re furious with Chris for bullying Sonny, or whether you feel sorry for him because he had no idea of the damage that he was doing and now has this horrible dilemma of should I tell everyone I pushed Sonny to death?

One of my main concerns with my screenplay is that there will not be enough audio-visual elements to is it, as I do think it will be relying a lot on the dialogue, which is why the most helpful advice from the panel came from Smiljana, who mentioned that there could be a sound through the entire script, which got larger and larger as Sonny’s life deteriorated, and I absolutely love that idea. As soon as she mentioned it, the idea formed in my head of having almost a ringing in the background constantly which gets louder and more prominent as the screenplay progresses. As Sonny’s life begins to fall apart, it gets louder but stops as soon as Chris reads the note that Sonny gives him. When he is running to Sonny’s house everything is silent, with all the sound coming back into the script when he finds Sonny in her bedroom. When Chris is brought back into reality and we discover that the argument with Sonny was all in his head, the ringing returns and crescendos when the police officer speaks to Chris and cuts off as Chris stares at the camera to make his decision about whether or not he will reveal Sonny’s suicide note.

I have no idea how I will add that all into the script, or if I’ve written above will be the final manner in which I use the ringing, but it will definitely be a fun challenge for me, and I genuinely believe my screenplay will be stronger because of it.