In my screenplay I have chosen to centrate it around the horror genre.

It focuses on Emma,
she is our main character. Other than her we only see one other character who actually has
any lines, Robin, her best friend. There is also a mysterious villain, the ghost who starts
attacking people. The way I structured the narrative makes it clear what’s happening while
still having that air of mystery to keep the audience engaged and on edge.
As I wanted to make it a horror I wanted to use some genre conventions. This led me to
decide that I wanted us to start with a scene that was scary and that we didn’t have the full
context for. It gives us a taste before the film really starts. I decided I would implement this
by putting us in a comfy scene, it’s quiet and the mise en scene of the blankets and cushions
are meant to give a sense of comfort. That way there’s more to destroy, it creates a more
harsh contrast therefore striking fear. My aim for the screenplay was to showcase the horror
genre as well as telling the audience nowhere is safe. The ghost was in her house, her
school and who knows where else. It keeps the audience constantly on edge.

The short film “Meshes of the afternoon” lightly inspired my screenplay. I liked how open to
interpretation it was and how the narrative was structured. When it came to my narrative
structure I was inspired by the way meshes of the afternoon played with time, I wanted to
add flashbacks and weird time jumps. I felt it added confusion to meshes and that was
something I wanted to incorporate into my own screenplay.

The wrong trousers didn’t influence me, but I can see similarities. While there are many
obvious differences, especially the genre, there are parts that relate. The penguin in the
wrong trousers seems so innocent at first. He’s just a little penguin who goes about his day
doing whatever. But slowly we see him becoming more and more suspicious. The way
there’s not necessarily an issue at the beginning of the short film, but one slowly creates and
the problem builds and builds. This relates to my screenplay because the ghosts Emma
sees aren’t a problem at first. While the part of the screenplay we see seems very action
heavy, that’s because the time jumps. The ghosts don’t do anything for a long time and even
when they do, it starts off as just one. So it builds just like the wrong trousers. So while it
didn’t directly influence me there are elements that definitely are similar.

The Silent Child was a short film that rather heavily influenced my screenplay. I can’t
express how much I loved the short film. I loved the way the child was represented, it
definitely showcased her as lonely and not understood but still showed us she was capable.
It also shows that while she’s different and unique she is still just as human and is just like
us. The way I incorporated ideology into my screenplay was with quite a few things. Firstly I
wanted to make Emma quite normal, the first time we see her she’s in her room which looks
very normal. There’s nothing too special. I wanted this so we could all relate to her more
easily. So the mise en scene was carefully thought out there. I also made her different. She
can see ghosts. This is a big thing so I thought it separated her from the audience enough
to show that she is unique. But she’s still meant to be relatable. Her dialogue in the scene
with Robin shows that she has a normal social life and there’s so much about her life we
haven't seen. But it shows that she’s like us. We can still relate even though she can see
ghosts. She’s still human even though the things she sees are far from it. It humanises her.
I didn’t want her to be a protagonist that was untouchable and completely not relatable to the
audience. The Silent Child helped me and inspired me to create her like this.
A film I was heavily inspired by was sixth sense. It was an amazing film which featured a
major plot twist at the end. If I was to continue the screenplay I definitely would have wanted
to add an interesting twist of my own. It made the film very memorable and a really
worthwhile watch. But something that did incorporate sixth sense was a big part of the plot.
The plot of sixth sense is centred around this young boy who can see ghosts. At first we
think the ghosts are bad, they scare him and seem very disturbing. But as we go on we
realise that they aren’t, in fact they are using the boy to pass on to the afterlife. I based my
whole screenplay off of sixth sense. So in order to make it similar I had my main character
see ghosts, she was the only one. But I didn’t want it to be too similar so I decided to let the
ghosts start out as fine but suddenly one or two act out. Then if it had continued all the
ghosts would have become not as friendly. All in all I was really heavily inspired by sixth
sense and I was a big fan of dialogue. The only person who talks to the main character is
the boy. This is because the main character is actually dead, nobody else acknowledges his
presence. I enjoy the way that everything changes as soon as we figure it out. Looking
back at the anniversary dinner it all makes sense. It’s a final piece and it all clicks. I wasn’t
sure how to incorporate that, If there was one thing I could have done differently, it would
have been to set up for a big twist that made everything click. The use of non-diegetic
sound was really nice too, I loved the score of the film. I think it gave a really good sense
and I think it inspired me to work on the minor details and aesthetics to create more of a feel.
Of course I can’t use music in a screenplay, but to an extent I can achieve the same effects
with mise en scene and other cinematography techniques.

If I was to turn my screenplay into an actual short film I definitely would have incorporated a
lot of long shots. Especially in the flashbacks. I would do this in order to convey loneliness
and also eeriness. A lot of distorted shots and angles that are slightly tilted would help give
it the effect I want. Another thing I would want to do is emphasise colour and light. Light is
semantically seen as positive and dark the opposite. A genre convention of horror I noticed
frequently was dark settings, or using darkness and shadows to highlight evil, or just
anything scary. I saw this especially in ominous scenes or times where a jump scare was
coming up. It’s almost a way of foreshadowing that something dark is there or is going to
happen. So I would use editing to accentuate the light parts as well as the dark. I wanted to
create contrast.
Another thing I would like to do is create representations within gender and age. Something
I would want to achieve with this as a short film would be to while creating a good film
anybody is able to enjoy, I want to empower young women. There are lots of films where we
see strong male characters but there aren’t as many strong female characters. The films
that do also tend to portray these women as more masculine. I would like to show that
feminine people can also be strong. So the continuation would have shown Emma, Robin
and a few other young women getting together to help each other fight and survive the
ghosts. There was a reason I made the ghost attack a man. I wanted to create a divide
between genders so I could emphasise the women and put the spotlight on them. It was a
personal goal of mine to have the main characters women so I could show what women are
capable of and showcase them.
So all in all I’m rather proud of my work. There are definitely places I could improve, it’s far
from perfect. But I think it reflects the genre pretty well, seeing the goal of my screenplay
was to very clearly be from the horror genre I think I did rather well. I do, however, think that
there were more horror genre conventions I could have used. If I was to continue the
screenplay I would definitely want to build on that and improve. But seeing as it’s just the
start I think it’s rather successful. One more thing I would want to do differently is to work on
my character development and flesh them out more. I’m not very confident in my characters
and they feel a little bit boring.
So that’s what I would change but I think I did pretty well and I’m proud of what I did
manage. With more time and probably more research I could have improved. Watching
different films to study how it was written and to understand the artistry that goes into film
writing was very beneficial to me and it was a big help. If I was to do this again I would
definitely want to watch more films with the intention to analyse the writing, I think it would
very strongly benefit me.