This week we were assigned to two-part task. First was to pair up in groups of two or three people to select a story to adapt it for the screen - sources can be novels, poems, theatre, radio plays or other sources. We only had to present a spec script of the first two pages. Second part was to fill out risk assessments on locations and deliberate on the suitability of the shoot or if it could be possible and to rule out any risks to avoid etc.

For this task, I paired up with Morgan Hardisty. Initially, Morgan gave the suggestion for using a song and adapt it to our liking to construct out a spec script from. Her song suggestion was of Lucy Spraggon. I originally didn't connect with the song and what intention she was aiming to go for the script so she sent me a draft of an old script of hers. With those two sources, I threw in a suggestion to use Tame Impala's music. It was a way for me to connect with the material as well. I incorporated both of our influences and pulled aspects from Morgan's old spec script to structure out the two pages for the first part of the task.

The starting prompt I used to brainstorm and do character tables was "What if your rough upbringing becomes your downfall?” This story could portray the lives of people who weren’t afforded a chance to get a better head start on their life and have been left aside to deal with their own faults. It was to portray a young teenage girl with home problems desperately looking for a way out from the cycle. I brainstormed with the character table first before diving into the first pages - I wanted to know the characters well enough to able to play out the events properly.

Here is the link for the draft of the script, "A Desperate Escape"

Here is the link for the document entailing out the idea generation and rough character tables for the script:

Once I had made the changes, I met up with Morgan and we discussed in further on how we saw the story going forward and how we wanted to set up the position of leading on the events throughout the script. The end result was a good middle ground conclusion of what we both were happy with and wanted to reflect from the story. The deliberation was helpful as it put us on the same page on what we had to present on the group crit.

I did the risk assessment initially and added in pointers afterwards with Morgan during deliberation. Our location for the first two pages was school entrance steps and outside the police station. We didn't really document the space enough due to the fact photographing those locations isn't allowed without permission so I decided on going to where the police station was in town and jot down details of the surrounding area around the station. That way we could communicate where the actual majority of the scene would be taking – near the road-side parking space area. These details were all added in the assessment on how safe and secure this would be to carry out the shoot and for the crew/actors to effectively do their job.

Here is the risk assessment for the shoot:

Our pitch in the group crit went well and we had received positive feedback on how we carried out our risk assessment. This task helped me frame perspective into my ideas on how to realistically bring them out and in what ways I could achieve these etc. This was a method of practice I want to further implement in everything I do forward and in my own personal projects.