For my final work I created the plot treatment for my story Y to K. Inspired by classic 2000’s chick flicks like Mean Girls, Bring it on and The House Bunny. I am aware that many people still love the genre even though there are not really any films of the sort being put out today. I wanted to give the audience a chance to relive the era and just be able to show that a plot can be easy to follow and understand but still have complexity to its characters and story. Most of all I just wanted to create a film anyone could enjoy and relate to. One of our topics covered was about diversity and inclusion. I wrote this story with a diverse cast of all types in mind. As I wanted to create something anyone can enjoy, that also includes characters that anyone can relate to no matter who they are.

If I were to keep working on my story, I would definitely need to refine it and add more detail to the story. I rushed to finish my story and missed out on fleshing out characters, although you have a pretty good idea of who they are, I had my own vision in mind that I didn’t really translate into my work. I could have definitely spent more time on the character building to create more defined individuals. Just taking more time to flesh out characters and also research more into the time period to make sure my treatment is as accurate as possible. I also felt I possibly had too much information for a treatment. My work was quite lengthy for a relatively simple plot so I wasn’t sure if I had indulged too much information that should be left to be inferred.

A treatment from other students in the studio that I found really interesting was ‘Newlydeads’ by Finley. The treatment is definitely right up my alley and I really enjoyed reading through it. Finley did a great job where I dropped the ball and that was with fleshing out the characters and putting so much detail into the world that I felt like I really could visualise every scene so easily. The character building was really good, and you could see the growth of Keira and Aaron by the end of the treatment. ‘Newlydeads’ is a great homage to the genre and follows all the tropes you would expect to see such as false jump scares, low lighting, suspense, action, gore and more while also creating a story which still felt fresh. It was a great piece that was clearly plotted and easy to follow. The beats of the plot can be inferred clearly.

A second treatment from the other students in our studio which I thought was interesting was ‘The Burning’ by Mustafa. This treatment has an amazing sense of place, and the world building was fantastic. While this isn’t necessarily a focus of the studio, it still deserves a mention. I could really feel engulfed in this work. One subject we did cover in our studio was dialogue in treatment and I feel like Mustafa did a very good job of conveying the dialogue, atmosphere and emotions of the cast during moments where dialogue will take place, without needing to directly tell us. Similarly to the ‘Newlydeads’, ‘The Burning’ also has very good character building and I felt like I understood what each character represents and values which is definitely important in a good plot.

The studio I choose to take a look at was the Visual Blueprint studio. The studio had one of the focuses being “show don’t tell” which I think the work created in the studio was able to deliver. Specifically, the piece for me that I believed to have done a good job of this was Unhinged. Based on the visual imagery in the short film, we are able to decipher and conclude pieces of the story that aren’t explicitly told. Examples of this include when the victim of the murderer finds pictures of all the girls before her who had their picture taken by the murderer. We can infer what had happened to them is more sinister. At the end of the film, we also see the murderer, after leaving the questioning with police, receive a text message from what is seemingly his next victim just by two short texts between the murderer and the girl. The film ends shortly after, and we know that he will continue to do it to the next girl. It is quite intriguing and done well. It was successful in bringing across that focus of the studio.

Assignment #4 Reflection:

For my major project in The Plot Thickens I created the treatment to a feature film inspired by 2000’s chick flicks called ‘Y to K’. I believe it is something many people, me included, would enjoy watching if it was to make it as a feature film. Chick flicks are a dying art that many people are missing, and I wanted to reignite that genre and show others that a film doesn’t necessarily have to be complex and intellectual to be good. Through the light-hearted plot, I was able to convey a story that any person of any age range or background can enjoy. As films in the 2000’s wasn’t necessarily inclusive of all types of individuals, I wanted to create a cast that could support individuals of varying backgrounds and life experiences which I believe I accomplished, and inclusivity in media was one of our concerns in this studio.

If I were to keep working on this piece of media, I would work more towards filling any plot holes I have in my plot. As I didn’t have enough time to go over my story thoroughly, there could potentially be errors or unexplained circumstances. This ties in with a plot device I placed into the story in an attempt to create a time constraint for our protagonist being the watch Yasmine has counting down to seemingly nothing, it is only assumed it is counting down to the end of her time in the world which ends up being true.  In our week 7 reading, “Cheap Plot Tricks, Plot Holes, and Narrative Design” by Marie-Laure Ryan, the importance of whether the trade-off of including plot devices if it is worth the cost of suspending disbelief and if it could’ve been done at a cheaper cost or no cost at all. I definitely think I could’ve came up with a different way for Yasmine’s limited time in Kamila’s body to explained.

During this studio, in every class we were made to collaborate with our fellow classmates. I found this to be a very effective way of improving our work especially with the workshops in the final weeks for our plot treatments. I usually don’t seek feedback from others which can be detrimental to the development of my own skills. Having other students read through my work and provide feedback allowed me to realise what areas my writing is lacking and things I could use to improve my plot. The collaboration between students was also very beneficial in helping form relationships with all the other students. In most other classes I keep relatively to myself but in The Plot Thickens I was able to get to know other students who could potentially become future connections in the media industry. The downside of this is that it is easy to get distracted by other students conversating on off topics. Overall, the advice and guidance from other students was extremely helpful as well as our gracious tutor. In the week 10 reading, “The Feedback Phenomenon: Dealing with Multiple Voices in the Development of Original Screenplays” by Siri Senje, it brings attention to how screenwriters can better be able to maintain the integrity of our stories when we are confront by diverse feedback content, which was definitely something I experienced through collaboration in this studio.

References:

Taylor, S. and Batty, C. (2021). The Palgrave handbook of script development. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. p.9-31.

Ryan, M.-L. (2009). Cheap Plot Tricks, Plot Holes, and Narrative Design. Narrative (Columbus, Ohio), 17(1), p.56-75.