#step outline

[2nd-rate-film-school]

You’ve reached the last step of pre-writing! This week, you will be fine-tuning your story, working out the final details before you begin the script. This week, you will be turning your treatment into a step outline. Often when pitching to producers, you will be asked for an outline of your film, which is a more fleshed out than your treatment summary, and more “professional” than your preliminary outline.

In a step outline, you break down your script into scenes. Each scene should begin with an underlined scene heading (such as: INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY) Under each scene heading, write a summary of the important plot points that happen in that scene. Each scene should have a point to it and be its own “mini” story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Just like the treatment, you should avoid writing dialogue in your summaries. The outline should be typed in 12pt. Courier font.

By next week, July 28, 11:59pm (CT), complete and submit the following:

Create a step outline of your short film/pilot. The more detailed you make the outline, the easier it will be to write the script. You must include every scene in your story. The format should be as follows:

Courier 12 pt. Font. Present tense, 3rd person.

Each scene has an underlined heading in caps that follows the format INT. LOCATION - TIME

Under the underlined heading, in parentheses, list the main characters in the sceneA summary/description of what happens in each scene.

Resources for this week:

Coffee Shop Critiques Workshopping Group

Challenge Masterlist

Previous Challege Posts (1, 2, 3)

Example Step Outline (in Drive, by @no-appy-polly-loggies) 

Happy Writing!

Jules

[2nd-rate-film-school]

You’ve reached the last step of pre-writing! I know it’s a lot, but it will make the writing process so much easier. This week, you will be turning your treatment into a step outline. Often when pitching to producers, you will be asked for an outline of your film, which is a more fleshed out than your treatment summary, and more “professional” than your preliminary outline.

In a step outline, you break down your script into scenes. Each scene should begin with an underlined scene heading (such as: INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY) Under each scene heading, write a summary of the important plot points that happen in that scene. Each scene should have a point to it and be its own “mini” story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Just like the treatment, you should avoid writing dialogue in your summaries. The outline should be typed in 12pt. Courier font.

By next week, July 28, 11:59pm (CT), complete and submit the following:

Create a step outline of your story. The more detailed you make the outline, the easier it will be to write the script. You must include every scene in your story. The format should be as follows:

Courier 12 pt. Font. Present tense, 3rd person.

Each scene has an underlined heading in caps that follows the format INT. LOCATION - TIME

Under the underlined heading, in parentheses, list the main characters in the scene

A summary/description of what happens in each scene.

Resources for this week:

Coffee Shop Critiques Workshopping Group

Challenge Masterlist

Previous challenge posts (1, 2, 3)

Example Step Outline (In Drive, under “Screenplay Challenge”)

Happy Writing!

Jules

[thefinalsolutionfilm-blog-blog]

Step Outline: Minute 5 - End Scene (draft 1)

End Scene: Show Keyin Ntombi before the filming begins→ human stuff, sitting at a desk, drinking water, talking to the camera people. She begins to talk and we watch the video for a while, then we pan to nature and get further away from Ntombi until her voice is washed out by the sounds of nature. “To my fellow citizens, though this may never be seen, I address you today with a heavy heart in saying that we have lost the war that we have been waging for so long. The Final Solution has failed. In the beginning, we believed that we could survive. We built a thriving civilization from the ruins of the awful tragedy that killed half of our population and began searching for a solution to the Final Problem of the entire human species: that of our declining population and spiral into extinction. Nature has finally triumphed over human will and resilience. You have been told that the world will survive for many generations to come. This is a lie. The world will crumble before your very eyes, you will all watch it decay around you. Blissful ignorance is the only gift we could give to you at this time of crisis, for the loss of hope would be far more damaging than any fabrication we feed you. I can only hope that what I did was enough to protect you and that you aren’t forced to pay any price of this sorrow nor bear any burden of this failure that I will take with me to my grave.”

[thefinalsolutionfilm-blog-blog]

Step Outline: Minute 4 (draft 1)

Minute Four: Another hallway scene, structured the same as the first hallway scene… maybe an elevator? Her standing there, looking up as the door closes. Cut to Keyin Ntombi’s office, she’s behind the desk, glasses on, flipping through the file. Slowly she puts in down and takes her glasses off, still holding glasses. “Are you sure about this?” Tamiko gives a small nod. Ntombi sighing, putting glasses down, pinching bridge of her nose. “They can’t know,” she says. “Our system is too fragile, it would crumble into anarchy. We’ll tell them the results were inconclusive, but there is an indication that warrants further testing.”

[thefinalsolutionfilm-blog-blog]

Step Outline: Minute 3 (draft 1)

Minute Three: As she opens the door (filming from the back), the sounds of the news clips cuts off and the people stops talking. Over her shoulder at her staff and their faces, then cut back to her face. Cuts to Tamiko alone in a room, darkness, looking out over the city with a drink in hand, the file discarded on a table. She takes a drink and holds the glass away from her, hanging her head. The door opens, but she doesn’t look up. The person talks “Keyin Ntombi wants to see you.”

[thefinalsolutionfilm-blog-blog]

Step Outline: Minute 2 (draft 1)

Minute Two: Present→ show Dr. Tamiko walking down the hall from the back (white hallway, white lab coat), cut in with news clips. OR do transitions from the back, to the front, to face, to extreme closeup with news as transitions in between. Each news clip is more and more intense. (description, to lack of resources, to riots, to death counts, to announcing the impending results of Final Solution) Close up on name on lab coat. She starts walking, then begins to run.

[thefinalsolutionfilm-blog-blog]

Step Outline: Minute 1 (draft 1)

Minute One: Video cuts in (fuzzy quality) with Keyin Ntombi sitting behind a desk, hands folded across it. She begins to address the rest of the world: “To my fellow citizens, I address you not with despair, but with hope that we may live to see many more generations after us. The Final Solution gave forth valuable information which warrants further experimentation and testing. The results were generally hopeful of a bright future and the continuation of our Great Society, which has been formed from the ashes of despair and desolation. The Final Solution has succeeded. Nature crippled us, but we responded with equal fervor and determination. Human will and resilience has proved to be more powerful than any force, and will continue to be powerful through the hard work of the Final Solution and the faith that the people have in our Great Society. ”  We watch the video for a while before it transitions to a voice over and cuts to scenes of destruction (Public School Four?) as she talks about how they created a thriving civilization, almost everything she says contradicting the video.

[film-book]

Film Term of the Week: Step Outline

http://dlvr.it/3bY4PN