Exonerate- Documentation
Treatment, Reflection, and Annotated Bibliography
Hi! Before you start reading, have you read ‘Exonerate?’ Well, you might want to give that a little read first; I’ve linked it below :)
https://medium.com/@crystaljadalewiswrites/exonerate-58b3e9e2b42
Treatment
Logline- A young woman receives a letter from the bartender that suggests her friend has been kidnapped. She must help exonerate her friend in order to free him. She finds herself in a new universe with more problems than she expected, and unwillingly, she deviates from the main goal. Finally, her friend is found, but sadly, time has caught up with her. But she has her friend back, as well as a new perspective on life and friendship altogether.
Act 1 Setup- Amelia is at the bar waiting for Jay to arrive; they’re having drinks to celebrate her new promotion. Amelia is early and decides to get a drink. Fast forward. It’s an hour later, and Jay still hasn’t arrived. Amelia assumes he’s running late. She’s drunk now and hasn’t realised that three hours have passed.
Inciting Incident- The bartender hands her a note and explains that a guy left it for her when she was in the toilet. Amelia thinks it’s from Jay but finds it strange that he’d leave a note instead of just texting.
Plot P 1-
- Debate- Amelia laughs, stuffs the note in her pocket and continues to drink until the bar closes. She stumbles out of the bar and orders a taxi home. Amelia opens the door to her flat and shouts out after Jay but assumes he got caught up at work.
- Turning Point- The audience sees Jay’s room and his phone on the bed.
Act 2 Confrontation-
Intro to Subplot- Amelia awakes to police standing at her door. They explain that her housemate Jay is involved in a murder investigation. She is bought in for questioning. Amelia meets Val, who also received a similar note the night before her girlfriend Chelsea went missing. Together, they try and solve the case.
Midpoint- Amelia and Val find themselves in an alternate reality where they believe Jay and Chelsea are being held. Amelia discovers that she has magical abilities and tries to understand both this world and her. Amelia and Val discover clues (riddles) along the way.
• All is Lost- Chelsea and Val are reunited, but there’s no sign of Jay, and Amelia begins to doubt her abilities.
Plot P 2-
• New Plan- Amelia retraces her steps and pieces together the clues. She completes the sequence, which takes her to Jay.
Act 3 Resolution-
Climax- She finds Jay, but he informs her that there are rules in this universe. Her punishment is to stay here for eternity.
• Denouement- Amelia and Jay are seen laughing and catching up in a bar. However, Amelia looks troubled, and it’s possible that she might try and find her and Jay a way back home.
Reflection
In this unit, we discussed character, tone, structure, and how to improve our scriptwriting skills. When studying the unit, I knew it would be challenging, as I was not a confident scriptwriter and felt out of my depth with this form; I was used to producing work in a prose format. When it came to brainstorming ideas for the assignment, I wanted to try writing a piece that combined drama and mystery. For example, on the unit, we looked at ‘Detectorists’, a comedic drama about two men interested in uncovering buried treasure. This piece was entertaining to us non-detectorists because it had this undercurrent of normality to it, as well as humour, to keep the audience engaged. This is a technique I attempted to replicate in ‘Exonerate’. I set the scenes in familiar settings to the audience: a popular bar on the weekend, an evening on the sofa drinking wine to provide comfort. I then layered them with tension, to remind the audience that there is something complex amongst the characters' normal lifestyle. For example, Amelia is enjoying herself at the bar, but then she receives a mysterious note. Similarly, Amelia is dancing freely in her kitchen until the police knock on her door. These hiccups in the protagonist’s reality were intended to create nervousness and suspicion to get the audience (as an active reader) to speculate about the character’s fate and events to come.
In appendix A, I set up my assignment with the first scene. Although I knew the importance of setting up the narrative, I found myself getting lost in the beginning scene, and half of my assignment was only focused on Amelia in the bar. Upon reflection, I decided to go further into my treatment and incorporate a variety of scenes from different points in the script. As a result, the changes in structure gave a wider view of the narrative and exposed the reader to the different characters involved. Another hurdle I faced was dialogue. When writing the interactions between Amelia and the guy at the bar, I wanted to create that witty, charismatic tone that actor Tom Ellis embodies in the show Lucifer. However, during the free-writing process, the dialogue came across as snappy and arrogant, which was not what I intended nor wanted for Amelia’s character. Therefore, I reviewed the interactions and tried to apply a more light-hearted tone. In addition, in the TV series, the writer uses multiple flashbacks to explain Lucifer’s past and present. Similarly, I wanted to use flashbacks to show Amelia’s personal development. In Act 2, Scene 4, she is piecing together the details of the night before Jay’s disappearance. After the flashbacks, Amelia gains perspective and is one step closer to the truth. I think the flashbacks were perfect for understanding her thoughts and creating depth.
Amelia’s character is complicated. It is clear from the beginning that the protagonist enjoys drinking and socialising. Perhaps her drinking is her flaw, but through the screenplay, she takes on a more active and present role in her life. When creating the protagonist, I drew inspiration from Lucifer, specifically Chloe Decker and how passionate and focused she is on her job. This is the tone I wanted to channel for Amelia, determination and a sense of urgency. This primary personality trait shows the reader how much Amelia cares for Jay and how far she is willing to go for the people she cares about. Amelia is not a villain; however, Villanelle’s persona in the TV show Killing Eve is strong and unexpected. I also wanted Amelia to embody that mindset: take a stand and take control of her fate.
Overall, this unit taught me how to write a treatment using techniques such as dialogue and characterisation to create a compelling screenplay. If I were to do this assignment again, I would include scenes that hint at the magical element or something supernatural. This would have set the mood for the narrative much earlier in the script, telling the reader that nothing is far-fetched in this story. This unit has allowed me to experiment with multiple genres and themes and sparked my interest in scriptwriting. Moving forward with my studies, if approached with scriptwriting again, I would feel comfortable creating something in the genre.
Appendix
Annotated bibliography
References from Articles and Books
Akers, M, W. (2008). Your Screenplay Sucks! 100 Ways to Make it Great. United States of America: Michael Wiese Productions.
William Akers is a writer known to produce novels and content for independent producers and television networks. This book is an informative guide with tips on how to produce a successful screenplay. This source goes into detail about the elements of screenwriting in a humorous way, making it a fun read and easily accessible. For example, the book discusses the following topics: characters, descriptions, structure, dialogue, etc. The text aims to get writers to acknowledge flaws in their script and teaches them how to eliminate/repair them, along with bad writing habits. This book is aimed at writers that have completed several drafts of their screenplay and are in the finalising process of their script. This is a great source for new writers, as well as those wanting to reflect on their work through a fisheye lens.
Masterclass. (2021) How to Write a Film Treatment in 6 Steps. Masterclass. [Online] [Accessed on 23rd August 2022] https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-a-film- treatment-in-6-steps#whats-the-difference-between-a-spec-script-and-a-treatment
Masterclass is an online platform which provides lectures and tutorials by professionals in the industry. This resource outlines the different components of a treatment and what to include. The source explains what a treatment is and how long it should be; it helped me to discover the four elements: title, logline, characters, and summary. Although this article seemed to reference a treatment with a larger word count, I believe it is still relevant to my work, as it gave me background knowledge of what a treatment is. I found the information on forming a title particularly useful and decided to use the premise of the script for my title. Overall, this was a great source to refer back to throughout the writing process. I would recommend this website to students looking for further guidance on scriptwriting, prose, and poetry.
Leighfield, L. (2022) Film Treatment Guide: How to Write a Film Treatment + FREE Template Download. Boords. [Online] [Accessed on 23rd August 2022] https://boords.com/film-treatment-template
In summary, this text pointed out the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of a treatment. This source aims to break down the details of a treatment, as well as to provide a template for your treatment. This blog post was useful to solidify the checklist that I had created for my treatment. The area of the text I focused on most when writing my script was the examples. For example, the treatment of the TV show ‘The Circle’ was written in a way that seemed straightforward, informal, and not too heavy on detailed descriptions/prose. So, I used this text as a reference in the editing process in order to keep my treatment concise. Although my script is not set in Alaska, the treatment for ‘The Circle’ was linked to a murder investigation which was an important part of my subplot; it helped me become familiar with the different characters involved in crime investigations. Equally, I use the ‘Spider-man’ and ‘Terminator’ examples to compare tone. This source is beneficial to those who need guidance on how to structure a treatment.
Masterclass. (2021) Three-Act Structure in Film: How to Write a Screenplay in 3 Acts. Masterclass. [Online] [Accessed on 23rd August 2022] https://www.masterclass.com/articles/three-act-structure-in-film
Masterclass is an online platform which provides lectures and tutorials by professionals in the industry. This article focuses on The Three-Act Structure specifically, the set-up, inciting incident, and the various plot points you can include to strengthen your screenplay. This text helped me to structure my treatment and acted as a template and checklist to make sure I included the relevant points, in relation to The Three Act Structure. This source is well structured and easy to follow. I would recommend this source to beginners/new writers.
SubsLikeScript. (no date) Lucifer (2015–…): Season 1, Episode 1 — Pilot — Full Transcript. SubsLikeScript. [Online] [Accessed on 23rd August 2022] https://subslikescript.com/series/Lucifer-4052886/season-1/episode-1-Pilot
This is the script for the first episode of Lucifer. In this episode, the devil (Lucifer Morningstar) has left his duties in hell and taken a vacation in Los Angeles. This source provides a line-by-line breakdown of the language choices of the writer. This episode immediately introduces the audience to Lucifer’s charming personality and witty humour. I was inspired by how Lucifer engages with others, specifically his confidence and need for careless fun. This was a great source when deciding how Amelia would communicate with others. In my annotated draft, I aimed to replicate the wittiness. I think this source is great for those wanting to create a screenplay through the eyes of a bold, exuberant character.
Literary Devices. (no date) A Huge List of Common Themes. Literary Devices. [Online] [Accessed on 23rd August 2022] https://literarydevices.net/a-huge-list-of-common-themes/
This source provides an extensive list of literary themes. Literary Devices aims to show themes as well as analyse of well-known plays, songs, and literature. This website acts as an encyclopaedia for grammatical terms, techniques, and essays. The themes are categorised into the following: literature, movies, and poetry. (The themes I drew from this source are listed in the appendix). This source was very beneficial, as it listed a lot of themes I had not thought of. However, it would have been great to have been given an example with each theme, perhaps a poem or piece of literature that was centred around each theme. Overall, this source got me thinking about the different themes I could delve into in my prose. From this, I devised a list of themes to refer back to when completing my assignment. This source is great for someone who wants to improve their knowledge of literary terms and wants to experiment with different themes and essay formats.
Malik, A. (no date) Anjum’s Writing Workshop- Loglines. Manchester Metropolitan University. [Online] [Accessed on 23rd August 2022] https://moodle.mmu.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=3194091
Anjum Malik is a scriptwriter and one of Manchester’s first Multilingual City Poets. She is known for creating content for various channels such as the BBC, ITV, and the stage. This document is designed to help students understand the elements involved in a treatment and teaches writers to question their protagonist’s personality, motives, and challenges they may face. I found the colour-coding in this source very helpful when identifying what was absent in my treatment. This source is great for those looking for guidance on how to begin formalising their ideas on characterisation. This source inspired me to ask myself questions about the choices I was making throughout the writing process.
References from Videos
BBC iPlayer. (2018) Killing Eve Series 1: 1. Nice Face. [Online Video] [Accessed on 26th August 2022] https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p06kbg8t/killing-eve-series-1-1-nice- face
In episode one of Killing Eve, we are introduced to the assassin, Villanelle. She is given a task in Tuscany to kill a young boy's grandfather. To which, she is successful, and assassinates him using a poisoned hairpin. This source shows how to create action and tension. This text inspired me to use questioning and music to build and retain tension. This video source is beneficial for those wanting to create a thrilling, dramatic, dark comedy.
BBC iPlayer. (2014) Detectorists Series 1: Episodes 1. [Online Video] [Accessed on 26th August 2022] https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04jy45z/detectorists-series-1-episode- 1
This show is directed by actor and writer Mackenzie Crook. In episode one, detectorists Lance and Andy meet a history student and set out on a quest to discover the ultimate treasure. I was inspired by this text, and how it focuses on a niche (being a detectorist), a hobby most would view as dull. This source aims to entertain, as well as give others insight into the lives of two people living a lifestyle quite different from the average person. This source would be helpful to writers aiming to create a comedic screenplay and for those who enjoy a comedy.
References from Images
Lowe, D. (2017) What If Chemical Discoveries Had Followed A Different Path? Chemistry World. [Online] [Accessed on 23rd August 2022] https://d2cbg94ubxgsnp.cloudfront.net/Pictures/2000x1125/6/6/5/129665_tighter-Hero--- Portals_to_alternate_universes_artwork-SPL_rt.jpg
This image displays three dark stone doors leading to what I believe to be three alternate universes. I used this image as inspiration to fuel the mood for my screenplay. In Exonerate, there are themes of fantasy and time travel which my script is leading up to. This source was a good muse, as it opened up my imagination and got me to think about what universes the script will take place in. The scenes I propose in my assignment take place in a normal, mundane reality; the second being an alternate reality, mirroring the visuals of the mundane world whilst challenging the laws of physics and possibility.
Shum, T. (2019) A Summer Afternoon At Terre Bleu Lavender Farm In Milton, Ontario. [Online] [Accessed on 23rd August 2022] https://i0.wp.com/harltonempire.com/wp- content/uploads/2020/01/Terre-Bleu-Lavendar-Farm-2019–9.jpg?w=1600&ssl=1
This image is of The Yellow Door, situated on Terre Bleu Lavender Farm in Canada. The Yellow Door has a quote written above it which reads, “walk through the door, your worries behind you, your joys are ahead”. I wanted to use this image as inspiration to remind myself, whilst writing Amelia’s character, that throughout this narrative, she is continuously gaining a new perspective on life, what she is capable of, and the people surrounding her.
Other References
Manchester Metropolitan University. (no date) MMU Harvard. Manchester Metropolitan University. [Online] [Accessed on 11th May 2022] https://www.mmu.ac.uk/library/referencing-and-study-support/referencing/mmu-harvard#ai- 32646–0
This website breaks down how to reference different sources using the Manchester Metropolitan Harvard referencing method. This source acts as a step-by-step guide to those who are new to referencing; it shows examples of how the reference will look as a citation or as part of a bibliography. This is a great source to refer to when looking to include a variety in the texts such as books, articles, videos etc. This source inspired me to section my bibliography and include different sources. I used this website regularly to structure my references; this website is key to completing my referencing at the end of an assignment. MMU Harvard is for people doing original work and who want it referenced so that others can look at the external reading around the topic and access any links.
Thesaurus. (no date) Thesaurus.com. Thesaurus. com. [Online] [Accessed on 14th May 2022] https://www.thesaurus.com
Thesaurus is used to find synonyms and antonyms of words. We have access to a long list of alternative words to use, as well as the word pronunciation and a comparative function that allows you to compare up to three synonyms at a time. The website is great at including examples of the words in sentences, and overall, is a very reliable source. This source has helped me try different synonyms within my work. Thesaurus is ideal/great for those who want to expand their vocabulary.
