Wednesday 9 October 2013

Reviewing Scripts

Being Human
Genre: Supernatural Drama
Series 1, Episode 1
We can see that in this script we are instantly introduced with one of the main characters, Annie, showing how early the main characters are introduced to maximise its effectiveness. We can see that the script itself regularly changes scene to scene to help set a mood and atmosphere within the scene such as how it changes throughout the introduction of the episode from a Hospital to a House, to even an exterior alleyway. By changing the scene regularly it briefly introduces us to the main protagonists within the series giving us a feel as to what and who we will be observing and expecting throughout the series which is done to instantly gain a fan base.
From further looking at the script we can see that a majority of the script is simply stage directions (which is bolded to stand out to show its importance) and what the characters should do which acts as a guidance towards the performer, which is something that is very common between a majority of screenplays/scripts. Another thing that can be noticed is the various abbreviations used on the script such as “V.O” (which stands for “voice over”), Cont’d (which stands for “continued”) etc which is used to save space and time of writing a script due to the costs of printing and such. Another thing that can be noticed is how every line said is numbered which makes the script easier to read and navigate due to how performers can catch up from saying “line 24” as well as the numbers help make the lines stand out from the stage directions acting similar to a bolding effect.









Heroes
Genre: Science Fiction, Serial Drama
Series 1, Episode 1
From first glance we can see that this script is instantly very different towards the “Being Human” script which I analysed prior to this which is shown by how this script has images/drawings on which is an alternative to using stage directions as it puts across how the scene is portrayed to look inside the writer’s mind so that the performers can be aware of how the writer wants it to look as well as their own interpretation they may already have. As well as that this script looks to use a bolding effect more than what the “Being Human” script used, whereas in this script it is used to highlight and make clear the vital stage directions that need to be done in order to set the scene as opposed to the other stage directions which are only used to add to the scene. We can also see that the scripts are very different by how this script starts with the name of the episode such as “In his own image” for this script and the “Being Human” doesn’t have the episode name.
However, besides the differences this script is very similar to both the “Being Human” script as well as the other majority of scripts out there. We can see that this script starts almost identically in how its put across by how it changes scene very frequently to introduce characters which is shown by how it can go from being in the “INT TAXI” (interior of a Taxi) to being in the “EXT CITY” (outside in the city). We can also see that both scripts have a variety of characters to help create mini-plots as well as the main plot which both of these scripts share such as how the Being Human script has Annie, Mitchell, George, Pizza guy etc and how this script has a cabbie, Suresh, Dean etc. 



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