Screenwriting class: Building one story from so many options

It's a new semester, which means new classes and new ways to have a creative outlet to layout the stories I'm constantly thinking about.


Since I last wrote here I've come up with two new ideas, though they are similarly related. I've decided to forgo the short story and just jump right into a screenplay, since I am taking that class now and reading "Screenplay" by Syd Field, which I'm genuinely enjoying.
Here's a little bit of a synopsis of what I have so far.

Two main characters, Craig and Miles. Craig is a laid back, happy-go-lucky drug dealer with no real ambition. Miles has arguably too much ambition, but for the wrong reasons, and is constantly overwhelmed by society’s expectations of him.

The two meet randomly while Miles is in the middle of a family issue. Miles’ younger brother, Travis, pawned a family heirloom, an antique book, several weeks earlier that Miles went to collect, but had been bought in the pawn shop already. Craig is the buyer, but only Craig knows that, and he’s also aware of who Miles is, however Miles is completely unaware of the entire situation. He only knows his brother pawned it and that it’s gone.

Craig knows Travis as his dealer, and Travis owes Craig money, which is why Craig bought the book in the first place. Craig, even though he’s laid back and easy going, wants to see if he can somehow get what he is owed through Miles, by some sort of exchange for the heirloom. However, Craig decides to pretend to befriend Miles and “help” him find the book. He then finds out it is worth a lot more than he paid for it, but is conflicted internally because it has non-monetary worth to Miles, and Craig is an inherently good person despite his greed.

Miles ends up trusting Craig too much, too fast, because he is caught in this bind and is accepting of Craig’s help without question, and is also in need of a friend at the time.

Plot point one is when Craig decides to not tell Miles he has the book and to lie to him. They then search for the book.

Plot point two is when Miles finds out who Craig is and realizes what he is doing, but does not initially tell him right away.

As far as further research goes I think I need to watch some movies and read some screenplays, specifically Wes Anderson screenplays. I envision that almost awkward, dry and witty humor, yet often very real feeling drama. At the same time I really want good dialogue scenes to take place, so I think I'm going to read some Tarantino scripts, too.

I'll do a bit of research behind each character, but not so much that that's all I focus on for weeks.

That's it for now, I'm sure I'll keep updated often.

Capstone story update

I was watching The Twilight Zone and I watched an episode about how death was personified and appeared to a man who was supposed to die of natural causes, but because the man refused and didn't feel it was time for him to pass, Death moved on to another person to kill on order to meet his quota, so to speak.

I really liked that idea, of death personified. So I started writing a story more time appropriate and relatable to college age people. I think it could make a really interesting/fun dark comedy/thriller.
Another thing: I've continued to have ideas for it for the last week, something that hasn't happened with my other stories. I usually hit a plateu, but I think I can form this well enough to actually finish and really make a decent short story, to then be written into a screenplay for a short film.

I've linked it here:


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SchcbjUkAU6rh2fwnCrkOH2dt9e2blpdOT2-rSYaiMY/edit?usp=drive_web

I plan on continuing writing it, hopefully finishing by July. Although I'll be gone all of June, so maybe finished by August.

Darrin Fletcher - Story boarding

This may have been my favorite presentation from a guest speaker this semester. Mostly because it's something that I could see myself participating in, and possibly making into a career.

I like to draw and always have, and I am always looking to get better. It was fun to work on the story board for the first scene for the Picabo film, and I could see myself getting better and getting to enjoy it as time goes on.

As far as his presentation, I liked his back story and how he got started. It was definitely a blessing in disguise, being stuck in a hospital/in bed all the time and just getting better at drawing all the time.

Even though his start was time consuming and probably farily difficult to draw so much (for example with Transformers, how he would get all the busy and more time consuming jobs to do) it made him better. Challenges like that are meant to make people better at their skills, though we might not know it at the time.

His filmography/portfolio is impressive. As a '90s child, knowing that he worked on movies like "the Sandlot" and "Johnny Tsunami" was pretty exciting to me.

Speaking of challenges, I liked the stories he told about the directors and producers he has worked with who proved to be difficult. On the other hand, he's also worked with some amazing talents in those same positions.


His comment about watching a movie almost every day was interesting. Several years ago, I think it was in 2011, I tried to watch 100 movies in a year that I had never seen before. I believe I got into the mid 80s as far as quantity goes. Anyway, I'd like to start that again.

I wrote down a couple of quotes from "Fletch" that I enjoyed:

"Most of you will struggle; the walls are set high for a reason - those with the ambition get over the wall."

"Good ideas come from everywhere and you never know where they're going to come from."

"It's okay to fall down, skin your knee and get back up. School is a great place to fail."

New Idea for Capstone

With wanting to do a psychological drama/thriller sort of short film for my capstone project, I've been working on a treatment, which I posted previously so you can view it as I work on it. However, I've gotten a new idea this week as the staff of the Dixie Sun News has been the target of a reader who seems to aim at getting us into trouble for some reason unbeknownst to all of us.
From this incident (which is still ongoing so I can't really say much more about it at this time for several reasons), I've kind of come up with a new idea. I'm not sure if I'll be able to go anywhere with it because I'm honestly not sure where the actual incident is headed at this point, but I think it could be good to transfer into a screenplay into film.

That was so vague, and I apologize. I hope I can elaborate soon.

Story Treatment - Capstone

For my capstone I'm wanting to make a short film.
My first idea for it is a psychological thriller, however, I seem to be a terrible story writer, so I've been working on a treatment for it here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ymaUmrzp0up20kQTJYfoM43S86bWxEkgSd9TbHUH3kA/edit?usp=drive_web
I've never written one before, but it's a start. And it's not finished. I've actually been thinking about it a lot lately and wanting to maybe chang a decent amount of it. That's the problem with all my ideas; I end up second guessing myself and giving up on them half way through. In fact, this is probably the longest I've ever stuck to one personal project.
Anyway, if you end up reading it and have any suggestions let me know! Thanks.

"A Checkmate on Murder" - student film

This was a project for my Fall 2014 Intro to Film class, for which I acted as the Director of Photography, but really I'd like to say I was co-DP with about two others who did an awesome job when I was absent at work.