Writing the Film PremiseShort Film Screenplay

Aims

Students will be able to:

• Explain the relevance of writing a premise for developing a screenplay

• Analyse examples of film premises

• Write a film premise

What is a film premise?

• Short piece of writing – usually 2 or 3 sentences

• Captures, in a nutshell, what the film is about

• One paragraph – 40 words max • Present tense

King slays father, beds mother, learns truth and tears out his eyes

(Sophocles' Oedipus Rex)

What is the point of writing a premise?

• Giving clarity and focus to the story• Helping you finding the essential elements

of your story• Helping you developing your story• Allowing to pitch your story• Allowing you to follow where your story is

going to

A well written premise include:

The Silence of the Lambs PREMISE

Buffalo Bill skin girls to make his clothes. FBI trainee Clarice needs help of cannibal psychiatrist to stop him. What price must she pay? (24 words)

Genre, mood, atmosphere

• Psychological thriller• Black comedy• Romantic drama• An atmospheric

journey

Main Characters

• Names • Central roles • Essential problem• What makes them

different and interesting and worth writing about i.e. Confused teenager, eccentric homeless, obsessive artist

Dramatic Conflict

• Description of the main problem

• What is the protagonist goal and what is stopping (obstacle) her/her? i.e. Self-doubt, corruption, enemy, etc

• This should open up the terms on which the drama will be developed

Form

• Hint of narrative form/structure – only if relevant i.e. Circular, episodic

• Short or feature – only if relevant

Time and Location

• When is the story taking place?

• Where are the characters?

Active Question

• An answered question posed by, and directly arising from the terms of the dramatic conflict

• Its purpose is to engage or hook the reader’s interest

Citizen Kane

How could “Rosebud”, the last word of Charles Foster Kane, hold the key to the private contradictions and public speculation surrounding the death of the most powerful media mogul of twentieth century America. Feature film drama(36 words)

Low Mileage

London, Westminster, 1993. Can failing car salesman, Tony, execute his dark plan to dispose of Margaret and clear the path to Salesman of the Year in this short political film satire?

(31 words)

Rita

Cardiff, 2005. How can Rita reconcile herself to the cot death of her niece, the suffocation of her husband, and the oppressive influence of her mother as Rita lies immobile in intensive care? A short psychological film drama

(38 words)

Other Premises• Hancock

A drunken superhero, who has fallen out of favour with the community, meets a do-good public relations professional who tries to help him repair his image(26 words)

• Road to Perdition After his wife and youngest child are brutally murdered, an Irish mobster hits the road with his surviving twelve year-old son and seeks revenge on those who betrayed him(29 words)

• Midnight Run On his final run, an ex-cop turned bounty hunter must track a bail-jumping accountant/mob embezzler and drag him cross-country from New York to Los Angeles while eluding the FBI, the mob, and a rival bounty hunter(36 words)

• Braveheart In 13th century Scotland, a common man becomes a legend when he leads an uprising to overthrow English rule and gain Scottish freedom(23 words)

• L.A. Confidential Three police officers unravel the truth behind the ‘random’ murder of a corrupt policeman and expose the political and judicial depravity of 1950’s Hollywood(24 words)

REMEMBER

If you can’t explain your film in a premise, you don’t know what you are writing about!