Lecture Notes(Week 2)
Name: Nurul Ain Bte Muzlan
Student No.: 10064266k
Tutorial Group: T1B2
Week 2
In-class exercise: Short Story
opener by: Simon
After a hard day at work, Mr. Mendez was really looking forward to a nice dinner with his family, followed by a can of light beer and the English Premier League match that would be on television that night. That was all that he longed for and thought about as he stood waiting for the bus at the interchange since the past fifteen minutes. Finally, after what seemed like ages, the engine of the bus roared. He heaved a huge sigh of relief as the bus came to a halt in front of the booth he was in. As he was about to put a foot on the first step of the bus to board in, a woman in her fifties cut the long queue, elbowed him and headed for a seat in the bus.
Mr. Mendez’s laptop, which he was carrying on his left arm, crashed into the ground, shattered into smithereens. Silence began to engulf the atmosphere. Mr. Mendez, feeling bewildered, stared horrifyingly at his doomed laptop with his mouth wide agape. All that ran through his head was his project’s proposal that he saved in his laptop which due the next day. His mind was in a whirlpool of chaos. He clenched his fist tightly that his nerves began to protrude through his skin. He was in a fetal position, shaking, unable to control the rising temperature of his blood. Slowly and steadily, he lifted up his head and gazed at the woman, drawing in his breath with a long hiss.
Notes: Conflict
Definition of conflict: disagreement, hostile encounter, issue
~Opposition of persons or forces
~can be internal - problems or issues within oneself
~can be external
- other people
- family pressure
- financial situation
~it is the interaction of opposing ideas, interests, or wills that creates the plot
Types of conflict
~Dramatic conflict is the protagonist’s struggle against something or someone
-man vs man(e.g. villain vs hero)
-man vs environment(e.g. Twister)
#environment- e.g. storm, beast, drought, disaster stories
-man vs system
-man against self
#inner struggle within yourself(u want to do something that people don’t approve of)
#test moral beliefs/values
~variations of conflict can arise from gender, age, religion and culture
Causes and Effects of Conflict
~Conflict arises when there is CHANGE
~Changes may be major or minor
~While change is universal and common, it is not always accepted
~Examples of changes: Seasons, lives, relationships, feelings, bodies, locations, technologies
~Conflict arises when people resist changes
~The intensity of conflict depends how people react to the change
~People must learn to cope with change if they want to survive
~The action in the drama depends on conflict
Importance of Conflict
~Plot cannot be constructed without conflict
~Conflict is the essence of drama
~Central feature of the screenplay
~As your characters attempt to reach their goals, they come into conflict with each other
-Give characters-drives, moods to make them dangerous
~The end of the story nears when the protagonist and antagonist approach their goals and the conflict rises to generate maximum suspense and excitement
Writing for an audience
~Screenwriter=storyteller
-The cinematic experience is not just made up of text on paper, but the audiences’ emotional reaction to that information
Director to people x
Writer to people x
Camera to people x
~It’s people to people-audience will only react to characters on screen.
What is the writer’s purpose?
~To connect the audiences
-Themselves
-Their unique vision-connect to audience on how you feel/what you want to portray
-The material/issue
-The drama
-Others
=>Audiences want to be transported by a screenplay
Where do you look for a story?
~Within yourself e.g. Experiences, memories, emotions
~Practice observing, ‘listening’ and reading body language of people
~Figure how to connect your viewers to your story through emotions, characters, etc
