RESERVED

------Reserved for scan of Storyboards ------

Story boards are coming but my scanner decided to play about, if worst comes to worst i'll have to take pictures with my phone and post them up (1 frame at a time) rest assured they will be up by tomorrow.

Refinement 2?

This is the final story i settled on, the wording is a little off in places but that's just because i didn't have my thesaurus with (!)

Deep behind the Afghan border, a group of soldiers were preparing for their daily patrol. They were part of what was known as Operation Shrew, and consisted of four close friends. A daily ritual that would occur every night before patrol consisted of all 4 men pledging that if something happened to them while on patrol, they would deliver a pre-written note (Carried on them at all times) directly to their wives or parents. They even went through the hassle of learning every word of each others note (or a basic idea) in case the note got destroyed. The previous patrols went without a hitch, a few stone throwers but nothing the group couldn't handle.

They set out on the patrol at exactly 21:00 hours with another car patrolling with them. They made sure that they were equipped and ready to handle any situation that arose. The patrol was lead by Sgt Dawson, who was the oldest of the group, his eyes hid a darkness behind them all the killing he had witnessed had had an effect which he's never truly recovered from. The pitch black roads only lit by the light from the Jeep made viability on a patrol awkward but they'd become adept at scouting this certain route, or so they thought.

The night seemed to pass quicker than usual, and nothing had happened that wasn't expected until the Jeep rode over a hidden IED and was shot into the air as the explosion from the bomb covered the road. The Jeep rolled in the air three times before landing on it's roof and completely dismantling the body. The following Jeep wasn't effected as it was far enough back to avoid the explosion, but they witnessed everything that happened.

Sgt Dawson was killed by the weight of the fall as the Jeep landed on it's roof, his neck was severely snapped and death was instantaneous. The 3 surviving soldiers awoke dazed and confused as to what just happened. All men shouting each others names to confirm that they were ok with no reply from Dawson. The following group rushed from the Jeep to help the soldiers but before they even got there the three men pulled themselves out of the wreckage and all three helped to pull Dawson's still corpse out.

The note, protruding from his top pocket was still intact and sticking to there vows they took the note and planned to deliver it when they were on leave. They all clambered onto the still intact 2nd Jeep and headed back to base.

A few days later the group were offered leave as the squadron knew about the pledge and it was still fresh on Mrs Dawson's mind. Although the guys lived miles away from each other they all traveled together towards Dawson's home, in loyalty to what they all promised each other every night before patrol.

They finally reached his home after what seemed an eternity. Delivering bad news is a good experience but the feeling of sorrow was growing the closer they got. They walked the steps to his door, each step feeling like they were walking on Death row. Three raps on the door were all it took for Mrs Dawson to answer. A dead look behind her eyes were all the soldiers needed to see before explaining who they were and why they were there.

I'll be honest, I'm not the best storyteller out there, and for some reason i tried to make this so stupid complicated by making it like a novel (not that i did it anywhere near well).

This was the final i story boarded on.

Synopsis?!

"A group of close comrades find out that friendship is more than just a word. A usually Un-eventful patrol turns into more than they expected. Through the death of a friend 3 men pledge that they will stay alive to personally return a written note to the deceased comrades wife."

I was thinking of something that'd be perfect on the back of a DVD case (Which after all are all basic synopsis's(Is that a word) of the film). Or one of those stupidly cheesy voice over trailers.

"In a world gone bad" etc.



Although personally i prefer John Thomson's version on Monkey trousers, sadly couldn't find the clip though :(

Refining.

The story i first made was shit....let's be honest. So i scrapped it and tried to refine a story that wasn't well.....shit.

Once upon a time deep in Afghanistan there were a group of soldiers who were in a squad named "C-squad).

Everyday they would patrol the roads in a bulked out Jeep. Mounted with guns and a bulletproof shell it was perfectly weighted and able to move over terrain quickly.

One day, after missing a roadside bomb the Jeep and the squad were thrown into the air as the explosion caught front wheel. The Jeep landed with a thud and there was nothing but the roaring flames of the car.

This lead to one of the soldiers dying after the weight of the drop crushed his neck, his name was Sgt Dawson and he had a wife and son back at home.

Because of this the 3 soliders who survived pledged to stay alive for his sake and make sure they personally told his wife (as a group) about how he died and the man he was.

The day came when the men were allowed to take leave. Although all 3 men lived miles away from each other all 3 of them decided to travel to the house of Sgt Dawson and tell his wife the bad news (she had received a letter already) but the men felt it would be better for them to go.

When they arrived at Dawson's house they passed his personal belongings onto Mrs Dawson and told her the story of both what happened and the man he was.

Now obviously i was still using some of the sentence starters from the previous task but this was just the basic, i refined it again later on.

We were then "kind of" asked to categorise our "story", i wrote it as a kind of group/family thing with the over riding word being "friendship" i tried to implement the idea of honour and loyalty into the group.

So as Steve said it's a kind of "Buddy story" the kind of story you could imagine "You're my best friend" to play over (Although that would seem hugely out of place in a war film where someone dies) but yeah...you get the point (I hope).

Square-Triangle-Circle

This wasn't so much a task, more of a class excercise. We were shown these 3 shapes and asked what came to our heads. The class seemed rather quiet but i decided to put my balls on the line and give off my opinions (don't usually need to be asked before my opinions take centre stage)

I have no idea why this happened, but as soon as the shapes were shown, i automatically associated the Square with my Dad. I thought the Square to be a reliable, lovable, trusting, honourable kind of neutral person. If it was asked to side with anything it'd stand on the fence but it also (to me) had a working moral compass.

The Triangle on the other hand with it's sharp edges and rather "polished" shape suggested to me, something "bad". I associated with a business WOMAN rather than a man, and imagined them to be a posh, up their own arse egocentric type of character.

The Circle on the other hand i once again associated with a Female. Maybe it's the fact it has no edges so seems more welcoming? I associated it with a person who's comforting and caring but someone who doesn't really have their own opinion? Instead they'd side with whatever has the most numbers conforming i thought.

It was an interesting idea and when the 3 were later revealed i found that i was "kind" of right in what i said. I was off on a few points but i thought i did well (This coming from a Square :D).

VERY basic story.

We were shown a bunch of "Sentance starters" for lack of a better description that we had to create a short story to.

My first attempt was just horrible now i look back at it, but here it is anyway;

Once upon a time a man by the name of George was awarded a medal for producing the best burgers in the whole of the United Kingdom. .

Everyday he would wear his medal like a badge of honour.

Untill one day his house gor burgled and his medal was with the possessions taken and because of that his burgers started to become less special.

Because of that his custom went down..
Because of that his best friend received a medal instead of him.

Untill finally after cleaning his house, he found his medal underneath his sofa.

And since that day he now hangs his medal on a nail in his room.

I originally came up with a stupidly stupid moral that isn't even a moral

"The moral of the story is keep your house clean or you may lose your dream" more of a tag-line for an advert than a moral....Steve then broke the story down and we agreed that the moral is in fact

Don't let awards control you (In similar words) - Basically you shouldn't be effected if you own an award or not, it shouldn't change the person you are.

Nazi -- Launderette !

We were giving a task that seemed simple but thinking of a joke from scratch in 3 minutes wasn't as easy as it sounds.

My group made a rather simple "Why did the Nazi go to the launderette?....Because he died". It wasn't really taking it serious and i wanted to try and nail it so i thought hard for a good 10 minutes and came up with this (don't be too impressed)

A Nazi walks into a Launderette and asks the person next to him "Excuse me, but do you have any Fuhrer softener?" The man replies "Don't you mean Fabric softener?"...to which the Nazi replies "No, zi Fuhrer is getting rather tense".

The ending made no sense but i played around with "Zi Fuhrer is rarzer harsh to zi touch" and others alike but none seemed to fit. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere. (If you look hard enough)

Breakdown

-----------------Story ------------------

• Exposition - The introduction of essential characters, setting, circumstances of a story or play.
• Inciting - Something that incites or provokes; a means of arousing or stirring to action.
• Progressive complication - "Beats" in the story that change the outcome.
• Crisis - The main conflict(s)
• Climax - The point of the conflict (The end) can be either good or bad.
  
• Solution - The fix/cure of the plot.

Steve took us through this rather simple breakdown of how a story is created, it's the foundation in all stories from Romantic comedies to Horror films.