The development of the narrative for the Global Warmning piece is two fold. Firstly I am looking to create the set up for what could be a much longer possibly a feature film project. In the time I have left o the course this is an impossibility so it will become a long term project. However the development of the storyline and the set-up of this I feel can be achieved in the time that I have left so this is the second element. I can carry out the research for the whole piece and storyline it but deal specifically with the set-up in the piece that I will create for the course and final Exhibition piece.
I have broken the process of creating the narrative down into the main areas I need to consider and given my reasons for the choices I have made here. I remember watching a great documentary about Paul Abbott the scriptwriter who wrote Shameless and State of Play and someone whose work I greatly admire. He said of State of Play a real political thriller that the story had to come first, the drama, characters and conflict as that was what would grip the audience. he said that a rudimentary knowledge of the political system law etc was important in the story but if it was introduced too early could override the drama. So he wrote the story first and then manipulated it a little to fit the facts and to make sure that the details were correct. I am going to apply this same philosophy to developing the narrative for my piece story, characters and conflict first and then details and facts later.
The aim of the piece is to create a fictional "movement" and two characters who existed in the late 60's early 70's who "predicted" that global warming would happen. Then by mirroring today when for 20-30 years there have been naysayers and sceptics of the organisation. However by jumping in a time machine and going back to "create" this fictional version of them predicting what would happen to the planet real irrefutable facts can be used to show that they did get it right. So using and fiction to sell a real fact. This could then be used as a lesson to show how it may possible go into the future and people may sit up and notice. I am looking for the installation piece to be no longer the 15 minutes for the gallery audience .
To re-cap the areas I am considering to tell my story in a multimedia multi stranded way in the installation are as follows. These will all be dependent on having an overarching narrative though and that is what I am setting out to do here.
- Real (faked) TV News package on Ben Wrights reappearance. Also quick was to do back-story and exposition.
- A documentary/IV with someone who claims to be Ben Wright. Style and mood and tone currently not 100% clear.
- Ephemera from the early days of the movement. Photos, posters, film, tapes, books, newspapers, badges, letters, documents etc.
- Wikipedia presence/entry.
- A blog supposedly by Ben Wright.
- A website collating all of this possibly by the film production team working on the documentary on the back from the dead Wright.
- Possible performance piece with the actors/cast walking around the exhibition in and around the audience in character if anyone spots them.
STRUCTURE
This will deal with the flow and key conflicts and action will be considered. Most film and TV drama and a lot of narrative deals in a three act structure and I feel this will suit my piece. This is usually has been defined as the following by various academics and theorists. I have looked into some theorists and applied their findings to developing a structure of my own. What I am going to do here is outline the narrative structure of the piece I am making for the exhibition but say how it will all fit into the idea for a bigger more expansive possibly feature film script.
ACT 1:
This is what generally happens in generally the first quarter of a screenplay. So if we say a standard screenplay is 120 minutes this is what happens in the first 30 minutes. Within the structure of the whole piece this is what narrative theorists and academics Tzvten Todorov calls the equilibrium and William Labov orientation. Screenwriting guru Syd Field calls them the set-up. this is where all of the details of the character and their everyday life are set up BEFORE they are launched into a big adventure it is their ordinary world and sows the seeds for what may come next.
This is what generally happens in generally the first quarter of a screenplay. So if we say a standard screenplay is 120 minutes this is what happens in the first 30 minutes. Within the structure of the whole piece this is what narrative theorists and academics Tzvten Todorov calls the equilibrium and William Labov orientation. Screenwriting guru Syd Field calls them the set-up. this is where all of the details of the character and their everyday life are set up BEFORE they are launched into a big adventure it is their ordinary world and sows the seeds for what may come next.
In my installation I need a fast and easy way to set-up the story. In my mind the story is the here and now and the return of Ben Wright from the dead. However this does not make any sense unless we have the backstory as to why he was thought to be dead, what is his character all about, motivations etc etc. There will be lots of exposition and storytelling here as I contextualise his story to the audience.
The story will be about two friends and who met at Cambridge university in the late 60's who will be our central characters and hero's. These will be quiet Ben Wright who studied climatology and the charismatic Joseph Griffiths studying sociology they shared ideas and research and concluded that consumerism and population "Baby Boom" would lead to more energy, fossil fuels and consumerism and that the knock on effect of this was that it would seriously affect CO2 emissions and lead to the global warming of the plant. They graduate and start the GLOBAL WARMNING movement late 1960's and their research exactly predicts the global warming crisis the world is in we have today. However all good stories have conflicts and twists and turns and this will be no different. Early 70's as the movement is getting larger Wright becomes disillusioned with simply campaigning and starts some directs action getting him in more and more trouble with the powers that be and ever more fanatical. Add in a love triangle between the two men and Fleur a campaigner who marries Joe but as their marriage falls apart seeks support from Ben. Joe's mysterious murder following threats from the fossil fuel establishment/government and we have some real conflicts. Finally threatened documents leaked to the movement by a former friend now also within MI5 and Bens vanishing presumed suicide and we have some real intrigue and enigmas to engage the audience.
There is obviously a lot of storytelling and set up going on in here and I feel that all of it does not need to be explicitly communicated and some can be implicit if you read between the lines. What I need is a device to get this story told quickly and entertainingly but simply to an audience. This is where the fake TV news piece will come in. These generally run to about 3-4 minutes and cover a huge amount of ground and feel that within it I could cover the whole of the set up and act 1. I have sen these used i other films to get audiences up to speed such as 28 Days Later (2002) by Danny Doyle which uses a montage of such clips to get audiences up to speed after the virus is released.
In my set up I need to cover the following.
The role of the fake TV local news section will serve is a good set up for the video content that I am assembling. In about 3 minutes it does a really good catch up of the story so far, gets out of the way lots of exposition and back story and also has the sense of enigma I am after.
The story will be about two friends and who met at Cambridge university in the late 60's who will be our central characters and hero's. These will be quiet Ben Wright who studied climatology and the charismatic Joseph Griffiths studying sociology they shared ideas and research and concluded that consumerism and population "Baby Boom" would lead to more energy, fossil fuels and consumerism and that the knock on effect of this was that it would seriously affect CO2 emissions and lead to the global warming of the plant. They graduate and start the GLOBAL WARMNING movement late 1960's and their research exactly predicts the global warming crisis the world is in we have today. However all good stories have conflicts and twists and turns and this will be no different. Early 70's as the movement is getting larger Wright becomes disillusioned with simply campaigning and starts some directs action getting him in more and more trouble with the powers that be and ever more fanatical. Add in a love triangle between the two men and Fleur a campaigner who marries Joe but as their marriage falls apart seeks support from Ben. Joe's mysterious murder following threats from the fossil fuel establishment/government and we have some real conflicts. Finally threatened documents leaked to the movement by a former friend now also within MI5 and Bens vanishing presumed suicide and we have some real intrigue and enigmas to engage the audience.
There is obviously a lot of storytelling and set up going on in here and I feel that all of it does not need to be explicitly communicated and some can be implicit if you read between the lines. What I need is a device to get this story told quickly and entertainingly but simply to an audience. This is where the fake TV news piece will come in. These generally run to about 3-4 minutes and cover a huge amount of ground and feel that within it I could cover the whole of the set up and act 1. I have sen these used i other films to get audiences up to speed such as 28 Days Later (2002) by Danny Doyle which uses a montage of such clips to get audiences up to speed after the virus is released.
In my set up I need to cover the following.
- Contextualise the setting late 1960's early 1970's.
- Introduce Ben Wright (protagonist) and his friendhip Joe Griffiths.
- Say about their academic credentials climatologist and sociologist credibly. Get across the point that together they were pioneers in global warming research. Set up 40 years later we can see that they were right!
- Mention the global warmning movement being founded at university and growing.
- Introduce the antagonist the fossil fuel companies and governments.
- Let them know about Joes increasing move to direct action, and threat to go public with dirt on fossil fuel companies. Perhaps communicate Bens displeasure at this confrontational approach.
- Joes horrific murder after threats to go public and conspiracy theories.
- Bens apparent suicide a few months after and more on conspiracy theories.
Now Syd Field argues that in the set-up at the end of act 1 you have a plot point that takes the action so far in act 1 and spins it off in another completely different direction taking our hero out of their ordinary world. This would also add a hook in the piece. So lastly...
- In the case of Ben Wright this would be the fact that he may be back.
ACT 2:
Field called this middle section of a screenplay the confrontations and generally it was the longest act taking up 50% of the stroy. Todorov problems/enigmas and Labov complications and once again they are really saying the same thing. We need conflict to generate interest and hurdles to jump over and hoops for our hero to jump through to create drama.
I think for this section we need evidence that Ben Wright may be about or may not. By creating a sense of enigma we can keep the audience guessing and create some conflict. Eventually though we will need to see Wright and to find out why he is back? What he is planning to do? Why and how?
I feel he has to have had a reason for going into hiding for 40 years and the conflict is finding this out. He is obviously conflicted about his having to disappear and that the global warming issue is 40 years later still not being taken seriously and acted upon. I want to give him a god reason for disappearing and feel this should be linked to Joes mysterious murder. The link to his threats from the fossil fuel establishment/government and the alleged incriminating evidence in documents leaked to the movement by a former friend now also within MI5. If they were threatening Joe then they would have been threatening Ben too.
I want it to feel as if Ben has run away faking his own suicide scared due to pressure and leaning on from the powerful organisations. However he really did not run because he was scared for his own life but the lives of his nearest and dearest were being threatened so he left to save them. Now they are not around any more and the path is clear for him to return. However he does not want to dwell on this but fight for the cause that is dear to his heart and has not really moved on in 40 years. there will be real conflict as his reappearance IS the story but he wants global warming to be.
In the pieces that follow we now need to try and create some drama for the audience. The character whose journey we follow is Ben Wright and even though he is not playing out all of the drama in these his story and character arc is what takes the audience through the installation. Drama comes from conflict and for Ben this is in the form of not being acknowledged, conflict with governments and the fossil fuel companies, his past having faked his own death and run away. There are also the larger less personal and overriding conflict against the climate change issue he is fighting and creating awareness and change.
The middle section of a narrative (Act 2) needs lots of conflicts and episodes then. On my budget of very little a large scale conflict will be tricky so I need to create some smaller more personal conflicts and battles. Hoops for Wright to jump through and obstacles to cross.
The areas I need to cover in act 2 are.
The blog and website will be useful tools for announcing his reappearance and if we combine these with possible video elements we can let him address the public about some of these issues and re-establish him and his message. the drama could be through his denouncement as an imposter and also pressure from the powers that be as mentioned in here. We will have set up the Vlog in the TV news piece and what it is so we can get straight to business here. Ben will protest against apathy, fossil fuel spin, governments being bought and use this as a real call to arms. As of yet the enigma will still be there as to if it is actually Ben or not at this stage.
However he also needs to fight a visible threat in the piece to create drama and conflict and this is where the documentary interview could work. If we set up a filmed documentary we could get Ben to answer some of the trickier questions and be grilled by a journalist/reporter/filmmaker. This could create real conflict in the style of a game of chess ben wanting to push his agenda of global warming and use the interview as a platform to do this. BUT the interviewer wanting to get the dirt, scandal and conspiracy theory stuff that ben does not want to reveal. Frost Nixon (2008) by Ron Howard is a good example of this. This could create real drama if their is such a battle of wits between the interviewer and Ben. This could also cover all of the areas mentioned each one being atopic raised in the interview. The IV would have to be arranged on the premise of Bens wishes but then he finds himself ambushed and conflict ensues. It may be good to add intrigue to the set up of the interview too by making it cloak and dagger the film crew being blindfolded and taken to a secret location for the interview.
This will be the audience also finally getting to see Ben in the flesh. The piece will be a sit down interview with a film-maker (myself) which he has been led to believe will act as a platform for his cause. However the film-maker whilst interested in the issue is really after the big expose and stories behind Joes murder, Bens faked suicide, and all of the conspiracy theories and dirt that surround this story. A game of cat and mouse ensues as I try to get him onto this topic and he dodges the issue before finally exploding at the end as mentioned and storming out of the interview.
Field called this middle section of a screenplay the confrontations and generally it was the longest act taking up 50% of the stroy. Todorov problems/enigmas and Labov complications and once again they are really saying the same thing. We need conflict to generate interest and hurdles to jump over and hoops for our hero to jump through to create drama.
I think for this section we need evidence that Ben Wright may be about or may not. By creating a sense of enigma we can keep the audience guessing and create some conflict. Eventually though we will need to see Wright and to find out why he is back? What he is planning to do? Why and how?
I feel he has to have had a reason for going into hiding for 40 years and the conflict is finding this out. He is obviously conflicted about his having to disappear and that the global warming issue is 40 years later still not being taken seriously and acted upon. I want to give him a god reason for disappearing and feel this should be linked to Joes mysterious murder. The link to his threats from the fossil fuel establishment/government and the alleged incriminating evidence in documents leaked to the movement by a former friend now also within MI5. If they were threatening Joe then they would have been threatening Ben too.
I want it to feel as if Ben has run away faking his own suicide scared due to pressure and leaning on from the powerful organisations. However he really did not run because he was scared for his own life but the lives of his nearest and dearest were being threatened so he left to save them. Now they are not around any more and the path is clear for him to return. However he does not want to dwell on this but fight for the cause that is dear to his heart and has not really moved on in 40 years. there will be real conflict as his reappearance IS the story but he wants global warming to be.
In the pieces that follow we now need to try and create some drama for the audience. The character whose journey we follow is Ben Wright and even though he is not playing out all of the drama in these his story and character arc is what takes the audience through the installation. Drama comes from conflict and for Ben this is in the form of not being acknowledged, conflict with governments and the fossil fuel companies, his past having faked his own death and run away. There are also the larger less personal and overriding conflict against the climate change issue he is fighting and creating awareness and change.
The middle section of a narrative (Act 2) needs lots of conflicts and episodes then. On my budget of very little a large scale conflict will be tricky so I need to create some smaller more personal conflicts and battles. Hoops for Wright to jump through and obstacles to cross.
The areas I need to cover in act 2 are.
- Where was he for the last 40 years and how did he stay in touch with the global warming issue.
- Why come back now? No threat any more or no-one else to concern himself about.
- Trouble establishing himself again in the public. he is still in hiding for his safety.
- The antagonist of global warmning is still there and at it's tipping point.
- The antagonist of the governments who allegedly threatened Joe and possibly killed him and led to Ben going into hiding are still threatening him.
- The alleged secret documents exposing wrong doing by the fossil fuel giants and governments.
- The general public are still apathetic and making no ground
The end of this piece of content will be what Syd Field calls the second plot and Labov the climax. This is where something happens that moves us towards act three and a conclusion.
- In this piece I feel it will be ben right finally exploding due to frustration at his cause not being heard and threatening direct action and to go public with his evidence of corruption and cover ups by the fossil fuel companies and governments.
This will be the audience also finally getting to see Ben in the flesh. The piece will be a sit down interview with a film-maker (myself) which he has been led to believe will act as a platform for his cause. However the film-maker whilst interested in the issue is really after the big expose and stories behind Joes murder, Bens faked suicide, and all of the conspiracy theories and dirt that surround this story. A game of cat and mouse ensues as I try to get him onto this topic and he dodges the issue before finally exploding at the end as mentioned and storming out of the interview.
Act 3:
This will be the final act and what Field and Labov both call the resolution and Todorov the new equilibrium. It is not really a happy ending and itself has a sense of enigma as it is basically Ben's war cry for action "by any means necessary" to fight global warming. He will set out his manifesto for change and motivate the public behind the cause and he is running very thin on patience. He will also make threat to the fossil fuel companies and governments making them very aware that he is about to go public with the incriminating evidence he has on them. The information that needs to be communicated here is.- A last ditch chance for fossil fuel companies to do the right thing.
- How we need to rise up and penalise them and make the governments react.
- Common sense solutions.
- Last chance for the public to react and get involved in the issue.
- Lastly a full on threat to go public with his dirt on the fossil fuel companies and governments unless they start to act.
- Lastly possibly he disappears again.
The web-site, blog or a video diary could do all of this except the last part. This may need an onscreen disclaimer saying that this is the case and that Ben has disappeared again leaving the audience with a sense of Enigma at the end. has he gone the same way as Joe? Has he vanished again? And why? to both of these.
This takes us to a really climactic ending. In the bigger picture if this was a 120 minute screenplay all of the above would be the first act but here it has been played out on a variety of platforms in hopefully no more than 15 minutes.
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