Actor Wrangling

It's been really difficult to get the actors I need to all be together in the same place at the same time, which is really frustrating - my lead actor's free periods don't really match up with anyone else's, and he hasn't been coming in if he has no lessons, but I haven't asked him to give up a lay in yet. I going to set up a group chat and sync everyone's schedule. Post incoming later about other problems I just know will crop up

Thoughts so far...

I've written down all the actual work I've done - the writing, the research etc. but I've been thinking a lot about the script and stuff. While I understand teenagers aren't supposed to care about stuff, but I really really want this script to play well - I still need to come up with a better name than Julian, but I can't think of any. I want more gay RomComs, and I'm pretty happy with what I've written, although that may change after I film.

DANGER!!!!!!!!!

So we have to do a risk assessment - What could go wrong, what to avoid, etc.


But we're filming in a school, inside, so there's very little actual danger.

• Risk one: There will always be trip hazards, so when I'm prepping my set, I'll clear the floor of mess, and they can focus on acting.
• Risk two: Accidental violence - Someone could be hit by something: an actor banging into another, someone walking into something. To avoid this I'll inform my crew to be as careful as possible, and should something occur I'll contact someone.
• Risk three: FIRE! Should there be a fire, I'll immediately keep my crew away and pull a fire alarm

I can't really think of any more risks, but if I do I'll update this.

My script!!! (Julian is a placeholder)

Opening scene: Romeo and two others (Benvolio and Mercutio) walking up stairs

Romeo: -so I was on her windowsill right? Literally dangling from the edge.

Benvolio: Really?

Romeo: Yeah. I can hear Rosaline's Nan talking to her about how college is going, and I'm 12 feet from falling rose bushes.

Mercutio: So what happened?

Romeo: Well... I fell.

Mercutio: From her window, or her favour?

*Romeo shoves Mercutio as he and Benvolio laugh*

*They walk up to the classroom door, Romeo exasperated, the other two still smiling*

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scene two: A classroom with the whole cast in it - all but Prince sit in small groups (the Montague's and the Capulet's).

*everyone is talking loudly amongst themselves*

Prince *holding out hands in a placating manner*: Okay, Okay, quiet down. I know you guys haven't seen each other in a while, but we need to get on with this year's production. I think we should do Romeo and Juliet.

*collective groans*

Prince: Come on, there's actually an interesting discussion to be had here. Did the Bard write a comedy or tragedy?

Tybalt: Well it's obviously a tragedy. The two are in love.

*Benvolio starts to speak, but Romeo sees Julian, and everything begins to fade* 

*The lens fisheyes, the camera zooms in on Julian*

*Time seems to slow as Julian turns to look at his friends*

*Tybalt throws something (a pen?) at Mercutio, and it breaks the moment. Time speeds back up, everything comes back into focus, and that thing that happens in army films when a flash bang - tinnitus noise, light too bright. everyone is arguing*

Benvolio: I don't get how you don't find this funny - two kids, and lets be clear, they weren't any older than 16, from families that hate each other for no good reason, are the two that end up together. Every character is stupid, apart from Mercutio, but he dies, so that gets ruined.

Tybalt: You're being ridiculous!

Benvolio: Nahhh, we're not listening to this. We'll do our own version.  

*Benvolio pulls Romeo from the room as he looks around confused and bewildered -  he catches Julian's eyes and he smiles*

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scene 3: The trio stands outside a home, looking kind of awkward, but for Mercy, who looks perfectly at ease.

*one of Julian's friends opens the door*

Julian's Friend: *with enthusiasm* Mercy! *with much less enthusiasm, as they turn to the others* ...and you guys.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scene 4: Blank wall, maybe some decorations. Julian stands alone, looking rather bored.

*Romeo slides up, they start talking - we can't hear them, but we see them flirting* 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scene 5: Romeo and Julian on a bench, sitting close

*Romeo puts his hand on the bench, face up. Julian looks down and smiles*

*close up of the hand as one closes around the other*

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scene 6: Romeo sits alone in his room

*Romeo is on his phone, texting and smiling shyly*

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scene 7: Julian sits alone in his room

*Julian is on his phone, texting and smiling shyly*

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scene 8:Julian and Romeo under a tree

*The two look into each others eyes, and then kiss as music swells*

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's been a change of plans!

So while writing my script, it kind of occurred to me that I don't need to film the whole film, which is kind of what I'd been planning, inadvertently (took me six tries to spell that). So I'm going to put up an updated version of my storyboard, after I've finished my script.


During the script writing I realised a fight scene would be really hard to get done, but it doesn't need to be included due the aforementioned (only one try!) change of plans.

POST THREE: REVENGE OF THE SCRIPT

YES I KNOW IT'S NOT "TOMORROW" BUT HERE WE ARE

I'm going to put my storyboard on here - it's not the best, and I think I've said before that I can't draw, so I'll add annotations as we go.

So the first shot of the trailer should be three people walking down a corridor (or up stairs, that bit isn't so important) chatting about nothing in particular. We'd have a rolling cam (me walking backwards) that stays on the faces of my actors. The three people I need are Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio.

 

The first scene ends when they enter a classroom, and the room has the whole cast in it - all but Prince sit in small groups (the Montague's and the Capulet's), until Prince quiets them down and brings up the play. The group are amateur dramatists. At first we hear the group discussing the play, but then Romeo sees "Julian" and the camera (from over his shoulder) fisheyes. Lovey music plays, Romeo smiles, the whole bit. 

This part of the trailer is the where Romeo and Julian actually talk (it's one scene, but with two parts) - following the trend of R+J trailers, I'll adapt the balcony scene. To speed things up, this leads directly into the equivalent of Tybalt dying - a fight between Julian's Ex and Benvolio, with Romeo stepping in to sort it out.

This is Romeo being expelled from Verona - Prince telling him off for fighting. I'd like Mr Brody to do play that part, but I don't think he will.

Those four tiny pictures represent little snapshots of moments between Romeo and Julian, the two of them texting, hugging, followed by the two of them crying in the rain.

 

This last picture is the list of scenes I figured I needed before I made the storyboard. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO DO

To do

Thing

Script

Issue

I'm really bad at writing human speech - it's hard because humans are weird and unpredictable.

Solution

I'm going to get the Creative Writing students to workshop my script to make sure it's believable - I've done Creative Writing, and workshops are really useful.


I'll add more things and repost this when I come up with other issues.

Post #2

We were all doing character and setting research in the genre of our films this week - I'm very lucky, because although my "genre" is RomCom, there are soooo many Romeo and Juliet films, plays, books and comics that each character is fairly well established in both the canon script and culture in general. It'd be weird for me to describe someone as "acting like Tybalt" but I think the majority of people would now I was calling someone overly intense and confrontational.

That being said, I have made a brief outline of each character that's actually important to the film trailer - I've also decided that besides Romeo and the character I refuse to call Julian on general principal, gender is largely irrelevant in casting (in everything else as well, but that's a personal opinion). I'm just going to cast whoever I have that is willing to do a role - I'd prefer Prince to be played by an adult, but if I can't convince one of my teachers then I'll rope a friend into it.

Low-down of R+J characters

For each character I'm going to list the significant character traits (the bullet points are from TVTropes, the most useful website to ever exist, but I selected the only relevant ones from a much longer list), then a short summary about how I'm going to have then played

Romeo:

• Though we only see him with Juliet and at the tail end of an ill-fated romance towards the beginning, Romeo is suggested to have courted several women since the play's beginning.
• Locks himself up in his room with the curtains drawn, writes depressing poetry, and generally mopes about Rosaline… until he meets Juliet.
• His impulsive behavior has him marry Juliet the day after meeting her and kill Tybalt for killing Mercutio. About an hour later
• His main problem is his near perpetual state of being completely blinded by his love for a girl, and quietly brooding to himself when he isn't.
• Romeo is strongly idealistic in regards to love and romance. He first loved and pined for a girl named Rosaline and then when he realized that their romance was not going to work, he gave up on love. But then he first laid eyes on Juliet and he instantly fell in love, completely forgetting about the fact that he was previously in love with Rosaline. He met Juliet just hours before he decides to marry her.

So Romeo is mercurial, lovesick, a little bit childish and very naïve - he should be played as though he's always slightly dazed, not paying attention - he's a romantic to busy with his own thoughts.

Juliet

• Juliet refuses to marry Paris the second time her parents bring it up, though not the first time. She married Romeo in between, but her parents don't know that.
• She disobeys her parents, follows her heart, and braves disownment and being trapped in a tomb to stay true to the man she loves.
• Juliet is way more practical and level-headed than Romeo. She's the one who proposes they get married, and worries about Romeo being caught by her kinsmen when he's climbed up to her balcony.

Juliet (Julian, Jules? I still haven't decided) should be much more reasonable - he's down to earth, the foil to Romeo's brash behaviour. But for Romeo, Juliet's plan would have worked.

Prince

• Despite his disgust with the feud, in the end, the prince accepts that he, too, played a part in the tragedy.
• He acts as an authority figure, especially in the Baz Luhrmann version - he was literally a police chief.

I want Prince to be a teacher -  Like John Keating from Dead Poets Society, benevolent and conciliatory, just wanting to help the kids. When they kick the Romeo character from the drama club (Romeo being exiled), they should be disappointed and sad rather than angry.

Mercutio

• He is usually presented as the muscle among the Montagues, despite not being a Montague.
• Romeo is heartbroken about Mercutio's death... at least during the scene where Mercutio actually died. After Romeo kills Tybalt to avenge him, Mercutio is pretty much forgotten. Romeo expresses far more grief over Tybalt's death than Mercutio's.
• Mercutio is callous next to lovesick Romeo, cynical where he's naive, and proud where he is mostly unassuming. And so they are best friends.
• Makes plenty of puns throughout the play. He and Romeo even get into an epic pun-off in Act Two.
• The funny one in the trio. After he dies, the amount of 'funny' in the story drastically decreases.

As stated above, Mercutio is comic relief. They are the link between the two halves, the favourite of Prince. When they're there, no one can stay angry for long (Apart from Tybalt, who is a special case). They also should have proper screen presence, be truly there - Mercutio takes up space, refuses to be ignored (some might say obnoxious).

Tybalt

• Is supposedly a perfect gentleman, beloved by his uncle, and the best friend that Juliet's nurse ever had. We get none of this from his three scenes.
• Tybalt is the name of the hot-blooded prince of cats from the folk tales of Reynard the Fox. Tybalt is made fun of for this, and is actually hot-blooded.
• Is introduced as a showy hothead, but after his death, we learn that he treated both the nurse and Juliet with kindness and was presumably a lot nicer when it came to his own clan.

Will fight for their friends and family until their dying breath - they are nice in private, but this is largely irrelevant because we'll only see them be angry and then fight. I always think of Tybalt as a contrast to Mercutio - hotheaded when Mercutio is chill, rude and mean where Mercutio is kind and gracious - right up until Tybalt kills them (I don't know how to reconcile this with my setting, but I'll give it some thought).

Closing

I've also annotated a load of posters and written about them, but I want to put those in a separate post and also it's 5 to 1, so I will post those, and my storyboard, tomorrow.

First Post

I'm still not really sure what I'm using this blog for - I figure I'll just use it as a place to keep all of my notes, and links, as that seems like what this is for.

I'm going to lay out what I want to do for my coursework now, so that everything else makes sense.

We're all doing task two (I think? The one that's a trailer for a film.) and I wanted to a version of Romeo and Juliet. So the idea is this: A high school drama group wants to put on a play of Romeo and Juliet, but during the discussion of how to do the play, they get into an argument over different interpretations of the play. 2 guys are pulled apart by their friends who care about this much more than they do, and the group decides to split up and do two versions of the play. The two guys (Jerome and Julian, until I come up with something less cheesy) fall in love with one another, and the plot of Romeo and Juliet proceeds at a modern high school level, rather than that of Venetian nobles, so much less death and much more being told off by the teacher. 

We were told over the summer holiday to do a storyboard of the trailer - which I've done.

Sort of.

I can't draw to save my life, so my "storyboard" is a few stickmen, some arrows and a few camera angles, followed by 3 pages of explanation (in an A6 notebook, so not actually that much - maybe 2 paragraphs) for each of the scenes.

Romeo and Juliet research

As literally the best place to start any research on a writing project, I checked out TV Tropes first. They have a page that describes all the tropes that come up most commonly in versions of Romeo and Juliet, and explain different interpretations, as well as a list of all the versions made (Wikipedia has a more comprehensive list, but I probably shouldn't cite it as a source) and a walkthrough of each film, book, comic, manga, anime, song, play and musical even slightly inspired by the play. I'll probably read some of the books and watch some of the films to round out my knowledge of the play.

I do know the play reasonably well, but it's also a really dense read due to the "ye olde englisc", so I'd like a way to get the same story without wanting to set something on fire after a few hours.

The version closest to what I want to make is a crappy 2005 direct to TV film called "Pizza my heart", which lays its scene on Verona street, where two great pizza houses both alike in dignity etcetera - which looks both terrible and hilarious.

I also did some research on RomComs, because I'm sick of films where the gay couple ends up sad at the end, and also because RomComs are awesome.

I used TV Tropes again, which has a massive list of codes and conventions, but I also looked at the research others had done for this same course, all conveniently saved on slideshare or prezi. I will definitely follow all their links at a later date, down whatever research black hole that takes me, but I had work every night this week so I kind of just came home and slept - research at school is tedious, because any useful website is blocked, including this one.