Resolution High – A 3-month (72-hour) Screenwriting Course in Bangalore Indiranagar – Writing Scripts for Any Screen
FLUX offers Resolution High – A 3-month (72-hour) Screenwriting Course in Bangalore Indiranagar – Writing Scripts for Any Screen. The 2nd batch of the course starts on 23rd August 2021 and runs for a duration of 3 months.
Storytelling and Its Visual Comprehension
Story is how we humans learn. It is how we cope. It is how we grow.
This is how we make sense of and find meaning in life.
It is said that more than 50% of the brain’s cortex is devoted to visual processing. And most of this visual processing has to do with observing and then interpreting those patterns. Early humans’ survival depended on such observations and interpretations of patterns as potential sources of danger that they could avoid. However, once survival stopped being a serious concern, humans put their innate ability to observe patterns to other use.
Perhaps therein lies the origins of ‘story’. For, a story is observation of the human condition in all its colors. And then it continues as the summation of it within a dramatic structure.
Storytelling has evolved along with us. It did so from sounds to early languages, rock carvings, hieroglyphics, drawings, paintings, comics and finally to film.
The Birth of Screenwriting
Films started getting popular at the turn of the 19th century. Later, earstwhile “actuality” films gave way to films with stories. Thus began the glorious tradition of writing for the screen.
The idea of “scripts” had already been in practice for several centuries before that. Plays (i.e. for theatre) had already been employing scripts as a technical document forming the basis for staging of plays. Therefore, the term “scriptwriting” can refer to writing for both theatre and screen. However, once films started telling stories, there was a necessity to acknowledge several key differences between the two.
In plays, the spoken word assumes primacy. This is why theatre is often credited with being an actor’s medium. That is because most of the emotions express themselves through monologues and dialogues. With the advent of storytelling using the moving image (i.e. films), it changed its form. Filmmakers soon realized the power of the motion picture in conveying emotions to the viewer even without the spoken word. This is why films are considered to be a director’s medium. An artfully chosen combination of camera lens, camera movement, light and non-verbal sound can create wonders. They can tug at the heart-strings of a viewer in potent ways. This started becoming more and more apparent to filmmakers. Thus was born a new form of writing scripts, i.e. screenwriting.
Writing Scripts versus Screenplay
A script for the screen is simply a common blueprint for the cast and crew of film. It conveys a story visually employing characters, situations and dialogue. This all sits within the context of a dramatic structure and usually in a universally accepted format.
A Trip to the Moon, a film from 1902, was the first widely acknowledged screenplay. George Melies was the writer who introduced that script. It was the first instance where descriptions and action lines represented what would happen on the screen. The screenplay grew in importance as the American film industry evolved through the early twentieth century. The industry went on becoming lucrative and cinema houses started mushrooming.
Screenplay’s Role in Professional Filmmaking
These factors combined to fortify the screenplay’s role as a solid foundation to the process of professional filmmaking. One of these factors was the increased sophistication in the film-going audience.
Another was the growth in the scope and scale of the stories in the movies. This meant that more money was at stake and hence efficiency in the production process became paramount. Thus, the screenplay went on becoming more and more important in its role as an essential. By 1930s, Hollywood’s “studio system” was in full bloom. The heads of studios started seeing the screenplay as inevitable. It became a crucial element in ensuring productivity and profitability through the entire filmmaking process. This is how scripts often act as blueprints to the entire film making process. They don’t just ensure efficiency but also maintain continuity between the various departments. These departments include casting, acting, cinematography, art direction, production design, costume, sound, etc.
The Indian Context, e.g., Writing Scripts in Bangalore, India
Within the Indian context, storytelling through films has its roots in many local and global factors. These include the ancient epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata, classical Sanskrit theatre, Parsi theatre as well as classic Hollywood. In particular, Ramayana and Mahabharata have influenced Indian cinema in some key ways like choice of themes, narratives and ideology. Classical Sanskrit theatre has lent its episodic nature with emphasis on spectacle, music and dance. The vibrant Parsi theatre with a heavy European influence of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries played its role too. It provided a mixture of realism and fantasy with melodramatic narratives amalgamated in songs. Classic Hollywood cinema lent codes and conventions like the seamless narrative, eye-line match, the star system and the studio system.
Differences Between The Two
The West emphasizes change and development in the narrative through the dialectics of conflict. But the Indian narrative borrows themes from homegrown and time-tested mythology by inserting them into a syntactical structure. This type of narrative finds immediate connection with its audience due to its cultural and social familiarity. Songs elevate that connection as they have been an integral element of Indian oral traditions. Therefore, Indian storytelling in films is strongly melodramatic in its essence. And Indian films, until lately, have only marginally distinguished themselves through themes. The limited genre differentiation of Indian cinema can be further understood with the ‘Rasa’ theory of Indian dramaturgy. A rasa literally means ‘juice’ or ‘essence’. It represents the dominant emotion in a work of art. It also aims to explain the primary feeling that it evokes in the person who views, reads or hears it.
Due to these differences, until late twentieth century, the Indian context had its own separate development. Elements that were considered to be one unit in a classic Western screenplay were actually worked on separately. Also they were often worked on by different people in the Indian film industry. Thus, Indian films have the unique distinction of crediting entirely different professionals for story, screenplay and dialogue. On the other hand, all these functions are together credited as “written by” in the films made in Hollywood. In fact they are credited so anywhere else outside India.
Resolution High: A 3-month (72-hour) Screenwriting Course in Bangalore Indiranagar – Further Details
FLUX is offering Resolution High: A 3-month (72-hour) Screenwriting Course in Bangalore – Writing Scripts for Any Screen.
It is important to know the history of screenwriting and the differences between various screenwriting traditions. But one thing that is universally irrefutable is – without a good story, there can’t be a good screenplay.
Therefore, Resolution High lays a solid foundation of the basics of story and story-telling for the participants.
This rock-solid foundation emphasizes on skills and techniques including:
- Relevant research
- The three-act structure
- Dramatic arc
- The Hero’s Journey
- Character development
- Scene developmen
- Dialogue writing
- Script formattin
- And more.
Additional Screen Formats in Resolution High – A Screenwriting Course in Bangalore Indiranagar
This screenwriting course, Resolution High, is also structured to introduce the participants to writing scripts in Bangalore for various specific screen formats. These include:
- Short and feature-length fiction films
- Short and fiction-length non-fiction (documentary) films
- Web series
- Anthologies
- Promotional films
- Instructional films
- Films for social media (vlogging, etc.)
Last, but not the least, Resolution High also addresses pitching scripts to potential producers, directors or even actors. To this end, it is important to understand the various ways in which one can approach the vocation of screenwriting. Some of these are:
- Spec writing
- Writing on commission
- Assignment writing
- Script doctoring
- Writing for series (TV or web)
- And more
Course Facilitator:
Gokul Chakravarthy, the course facilitator, is a videographer, filmmaker and writer with over a dozen years of experience in the field.
He will be your facilitator on this transformative journey of Moving Image: A 3-month (72-hour) Digital Filmmaking Course in Bangalore.
The 2nd batch of Resolution High – A 3-month (72-hour) Screenwriting Course in Bangalore Indiranagar – Writing Scripts for Any Screen begins on August 23, 2021.
You may also be interested in Moving Image: A 3-month (72-hour) Film Making Course in Bangalore Indiranagar
Give us a call on 9606555607 with any questions you may have and enroll NOW!
