Hi I'm Akash Vijay many of us have this wish to do a short film or to be a filmmaker But we did not take up any course or gone to a film school for those for those who have interest in filmmaking but don't know how to materialize it We are starting this series for you guys. In this series about film making we will be answering every question of “How to” you ask from the comments will be taken and done as video every week. The topic for this week is “How to write a story” Story is the base and so
ul of the film other process in film making is to give embodiment to the story. So let's start from the story before going into that I want to clarify two things 1. I didn't go to any film school just like you so If you find any points to be wrong please forgive me 2.) What we are going to say is only for beginners If you can create a unique and fresh script sorry this episode isn't for you this is for those Who only have a plan to make a short film but have no idea how to proceed any further Le
t's get into the topic first of all we should understand the difference between story and screenplay A story should describe the start and end of a film within two lines or two pages, Whereas screenplay is to develop the story scene by scene that describe, Which should be first and last in a sequential format. For example if I'm going to take a movie about 'a day in my life Now I will have enough data of 24 hrs of my life which includes watching TV, sleeping, eating etc., of my life and some inc
ident and some incident and how I overcame that now if I'm planning to present it as a film would I simply include every aspect No I will include only which conveys the story and important parts to the understanding of story this is screenplay. We won't be seeing on 'how to write screenplay' which can be done as a separate video itself. In this video we will be discussing only about how to write a story. For debutant short film makers the first problem they face is story Fix yourself whether you
are a writer or an director if you can direct well But you have problem in writing don't lose hope there are many good writers you can collaborate with them As there is no necessity that you should be the one writing & directing it If you start to believe in yourself and start writing a story with confidence the first thing you should do is observation. We should observe how they described the story in films up to this date then we can find out all possibilities to write a story by ourself. The
re are some shortcuts to write a story that we found out by observing some films we will share some of that with you First one to develop a story from a plot which means To develop a story using an interesting scene, incident or a situation By giving front and back and include new characters into the story, A good example for this would be the Hindi film "Andhadhan" if you look at this film, they took a scene from a short film from a different language and Created a front and back to make a feat
ure film out of it. The scene is a husband in order to surprise his wife asks a blind pianist to come and perform in his house, The blind guy also agrees to do so Upon arriving the husband is murdered by the wife and another man while the blind pianist plays This is the scene, the interesting aspect in this scene is the guy is just a fraud who is posing to be a blind pianist. Now they have taken this scene and made a head and tail for it by giving a flashback as why he is posing to be a blind pi
anist And how he is going to move across with the information and how is he going to react with it and they created a big feature film out of it. Like this we can also take up an interesting incident out of our life Our friend may have told us some interesting thing Even a small line from newspaper which is interesting can be t aken as a plot and create front and back and create a script. Another style is to develop a character and develop a story out of it, What we should be doing is to develop
a unique character and place the character in a different scenario and how it reacts to it We have many examples for this type inTamil movies like MICHEAL MADHAN KAMARAJAN in this movie the extension of the Brahmin character played by Kamal is the movie NALA THAMAIYENDHI starring Maadhavan how this character will survive if travels to a foreign land and loses his passport and visa is the plot of the film. Another example is the character from DHASAVADHAARANAM “Balram Naidu” they tried to make a
feature film out of this character (SABASH NAIDU) but the film didn't get released what should be taken from this is we can develop a story out of a character What we should do is observe every character in our lives in our society and note down any peculiar characters .. we can develop a story by this way too. Another style is same plot but from a different time zone with different backdrop we feel like another story Examples for these are Tamil movie VIETNAM COLONY and Hollywood movie AVATAR
are similar to each other even Telugu film BAHUBALI 2 has the same plot from Tamil mega serials which are sibling disputes and fight between mother in law and daughter in law even if it is funny to hear this is the reality Same plot with different backdrop with new characters it creates a new flavor to the film and conveyed as different film to us. If you are capable to think and write a story by yourself just keep in mind the six questions we are going to ask you 1.) Who is the protagonist in y
our story it can be either male / female even it may not be a human being But keep in mind audience should connect to this character and travel through the film By stating the objective, motto, behavior, ideologies this will clear and keep reasoning the activities of the character in future. Next we should be clear of the antagonist of the story this can also either be a human / a problem faced by our protagonist. The difficulty of the problem should be clear and How the protagonist faces them w
ith his activities and what they are Because the activities should come under his ideologies and beliefs, Example if we take the Tamil film 'SARKAR' a character like Sundar Pichai comes to know that his vote has been faked and already cast What he does he being an educated and highly influential person he looks for a solution through the law and that is how the story moves, Like this the activities of the character should influence their ideologies and belief. 3.) Protagonist should have a chara
cter arc in our story meaning that when the protagonist gets into a conflict and comes out he should have some transformation If you write a flat and blunt character it won't create interest among the viewers Example OK KANMANI Tamil film the character AADHI has different ideologies in the start of the movie Seeing Prakash raj and his wife, he take up transformation within himself by the end at climax he will appear to be a different person this is character arc another recent film is KAIDHI Tam
il film The character DILLI strongly says no to helping police officers but by climax he will gift an earring which he bought for his child to the policeman's daughter This change is character arc in our story too when the protagonist gets into a problem and comes out he should have some transformation in him. 4.) We should be clear about the genre of our story horror, thriller or action so that audience will have clarity, While taking a thriller if you include more of comedy sense audience will
lose grip in the story. 5.) Style and color tone should be decided during writing, Style meaning that shot divisions, and dialogue writing should be decided in writing which will have a good impact on output of the film. 6.) The content you write should be clear in whose point of view the story moves along either the protagonist point of view or third man perspective, Shifting from protagonist to 3rd man perspective maybe tough for beginners and will impact the film badly. Keeping this six poin
ts in mind if you write a script you may develop a good story. So far the points I told are for beginners if you are going to take an experimental film you can devise and write script as you wish these point don't apply for you. If you have come up with a script with above points it is called rough draft, before moving onto final draft just check for three more points 1.) The thing you want to convey through dialogue, try to visually frame it instead by this lesser dialogues and let your picture
speak. 2.) Check whether every scene you wrote is helping to convey the story If you feel it is unnecessary however best the scene maybe, cut it out 3.) Most important point the dialogues you write for the character should not be written as how you talk transform into the character and write the dialogues. if there is a conversation between a police and thief Both will have different attitudes feel and portray both the characters in their mannerism. If you follow the points above mentioned you
can write a better story If you have any doubts mention in comments section we will rectify them, And if you come up with a script using these points you can personally mail us we will give our suggestions too. In this video we saw detailed analysis on how to write a story In future we are planning to do the same for screenplay, direction, dialogue So remember to subscribe Take Ok channel.
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