Screenplay

EXT. STREET, SCHOOL -- MORNING

　

JIMMY (Voice over)

Another typical Monday at my boring school, (word appear on Screen).

INT. CORRIDOR, SCHOOL -- CONTINUOUS

JIMMY (Voice over)

As in all schools you got all the different social groups, the musically talented.

Music group are shown, they have HEADPHONES and INSTRUMENTS, which they are PLAYING.

JIMMY (Voice over)

The only instrument I can play is the triangle.

INT. MUSIC, CLASSROOM -- FLASHBACK

The sound of a piano can be heard, JIMMY is seen holding a Triangle.

Counting UNDER his BREATH, trying to get the timing right. He then hits the triangle.

　

INT. CORRIDOR, SCHOOL -- MORNING

　

JIMMY (voice over)

Then the typical geek, that get into school an hour early for some light reading. The library is their Sanctuary. Mine is my bed.

　

JIMMY laughs. GEEKS appeal on screen, wearing LARGE GLASSES and surrounded by PILES of BOOKS. They are dressed in too short trousers with WHITE socks, their image is OVER EXAGERATED.

GEEK ONE

EUGENE, what is the square root of 7225?

　

There is a pause and a look of deep thought on EUGENE'S face.

　

EUGENE

Well if my calculations are correct

…

The answer is 85.

　

The rest of the geeks CLAP and praise EUGENE.

　

JIMMY (voice over)

And then you’ ve got the popular group, the envy of all. Pretty boys and the wannabe wags.

　

Popular group are shown LAUGHTING and BULLYING the geeks.

KATE

Daddy is taking me on a trip to Europe… Is Europe meant to be a hot country?

Her friend stare at her with a look of shock on their faces.

　

JIMMY (Voice over)

KATE is the most popular girl in school, she’ s a daddies girl with a LOW IQ.

A BALL of paper lands at JIMMY’ S feet, he bends down to pick it up, throws it in the air and catches it. We then see his face for the FIRST time.

JIMMY

And then there’ s me, struggling to make it through college…

INT. HOUSE, HALLWAY -- EARLY MORNING

His MUM enter carrying washing.

MUM

Ah look at your hair, all scruffy,(picks up a comb. There you go my handsome little boy, (PULLING at his cheeks). Your going to have all the girls.

INT. CORRIDOR, SCHOOL -- MORNING

He begins walking further into the school, but stops when one of his CLOSE friends enters the scene.

　

MARK aka ELMO, is a tall boy who wears round glasses. In his attempt to fit in with a social group he has dressed himself in; baggy trousers, a white t-shirt and a backwards baseball cap. He also carrying a book titled ‘how to become cool’ .

ELMO

Yo Yo Elmo in the house, what’ s up dude

(referring to his book)

　

JIMMY doesn’ t look surprised to see how his friend is dressed.

JIMMY

What group are you trying to fit into today?

　

ELMO

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, mate. They’re all well impressed man, I’ m liking the new garments.

　

They both begin to walk . Kate appears to be looking over and waves in the direction of JIMMY. They Stop.

　

JIMMY

Is She waving at me?!

　

He smiles at her then begins to wave back before realising that her friends Brad is standing, just a few feet behind him. In an attempt to hide his wave, he scratches his head. ELMO notices this and laughs.

ELMO

real smooth!

　

JIMMY

Shut up (PUSHES ELMO)

　

INT. SCHOOL CORIDOOR, TOWARDS CLASSROOM -- CONTINUOUS

They continue walking into the school and head towards an ajar door. ELMO begins to laugh again. They enter a class room, where a few other people are. JIMMY and ELMO take seats in the far corner of the room. JIMMY SLUMPS into his chair. ELMO opens his book and flicks through the pages.

JIMMY

Why did I wave ?

ELMO looks up from his book and directly at JIMMY

ELMO

Because you’ re a twat!

JIMMY says nothing. Elmo looks over towards the door, as if he is waiting for someone to enter.

ELMO

Well here she is!

Nods his head in the direction of the door. JIMMY turns his HEAD SLOWLY to see KATE enter the room. He then looks around at ELMO.

　

JIMMY

Oh God, what do I do?

He look at ELMO for advise, but he just smiles at him.

ELMO

Well don’ t start waving at her for one.

ELMO laugh (LOUD) and a few people in the room turn towards them. Before JIMMY could reply, a well dressed female teacher enters the room, carrying a large stack of books. She turns towards the class, who all fall silent.

　

Teacher

Class, today we will be starting our project, I assume that you all have your notes from last lesson! I will place you into pairs of my own choosing. No one will be allowed to swap pairings, so any problem that you may have with one another I suggest you sort them out. Right Mark your with John; Megan with Sam ; Holly with Jack ; James with Roger; Eugene with Brad and Jimmy your with Kate. You may move into your pairs and begin working.

　

MARK aka ELMO lets out a SMALL laugh, before moving over towards his partner. JIMMY does not move and sinks low into his chair. A few minutes later KATE appears beside him, carrying her belongings. She puts her stuff on the TABLE and takes a SEAT NEXT to JIMMY. There is a moment of silence. JIMMY looks awkward at KATE. JIMMY clears his throat, but says NOTHING.

　

JIMMY looks at her, then opens his mouth as if to speak but no noise comes out.

KATE

So have you got your notes from last lesson?

She says this in a blunt and aggressive tone.

JIMMY

Oh, um yeah

…

here

KATE begins to look at his notes and JIMMY stares over in ELMO’ S direction as though looking for help. ELMO laughs.

Costume List

Costume List

• Jimmy- any clothes casual
• Elmo-Round glasses, baggy trousers, white t-shirt and baseball cap
• Eugene-Short trousers, white socks, shirt with a tie and glasses
• Geeks- same as Eugene
• Kate- handbag, jewellery and casual clothes
• Popular people- same as Kate
• All others - casual clothes

Story board

Prop List

• Triangle (Jimmy music flashback scene.)
• Guitars (Musical Talented)
• Books-maths books (Geeks)
• Calculator (Geek)
• Book of Europe (Kate)
• Handbags (populars and Kate)
• Make up (populars and Kate)
• Washing basket ( Jimmy’s mum)
• Comb (jimmy’s mum)
• Scalf-pink (Jimmy)
• Notebooks( students in classroom)

Locations Pictures

Treatment - The idea for our coursework is a younger based romantic comedy set in a british school but with sterotypes seen in America. This is the plot that we thought out while in class and talling ot over what would work and keep the conventions but also have good characters and story.

• Music that is younger and modern and bold titles- 'Smooth' is title
• Boy(Jimmy) and comical friend(Elmo) are walking to school.
• Get to school and see popular girl(Kate) who the boy likes. She waves and Jimmy thinks she is waving at him but she isn't so he turns the wave into smoothing his hair which Elmo tells him is smooth and tells him he has not got a chance.
• Kate was waving at her boyfriend(Brad) who is a bullybut a popular boy who is everything Jimmy is not.
• Kate and Jimmy are partnered together in which he says something stupid and she ignores him for the rest of the class.
• This will be the opening sequence where the audience will meet the characters and get to know a little of the story but not what is going to happen between them. However we did think of what would happen in the rest of the film if we were to continue it.
• However Kate comes into trouble with her work and asks Jimmy for help and the friendship grows.
• Brad finds out and beats Jimmy up in which Kate sees and sticks up for Jimmy then breaks up with Brad.
• Kate loses social status within school and blames it on Jimmy.
• Have to present the final project andJimmy helps Kate.
• She realises how good he is and they get together.

This we are thinking is are first plot if there was a whole film and we are in the stages of what is going to happpen in the opening sequence but we have got an intial idea of what we want it to be like and the characters. It is a romcom for teenagers very much like 10 Things i Hate About You and that sort of typical story but in a British school. This would be the twist to set it apart from these films. There would be certain conventions we will show to keep it within the genre. These are

• Young modern music
• Bold Titles
• Monolouge
• Generic characters
• Location- school
• A clear story of romance.

Research

For part of the researching of our chosen genre we had to watch the opening of some romantic comedies and also some gangster movies as at this point we were not sure of which one to do. The object of this task was to get an understanding of what happens and what is used. One of the first films I watched was ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ which starts with a monologue from the main character. This happens in many other films such as ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ and ‘John Tucker Must Die’. I think that the effect of this is that it makes the main character seem more real to the audience and one that they can get to know more intimately. It makes them feel part of the journey. Therefore it is useful for us to consider using a monologue of the main character. The main character is usually a someone that makes mistakes and says the wrong things and is so put in comedy situations in the case of Bridget and also with Charles in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral.’

What also seems to reappear in the films I watched is a ridiculous friend of the main character that offers the comedy side of the film if it is more based on the romance. This happens in ‘Notting Hill’ when Will returns home and the audience see his roommate Spike who is a eccentric welsh

wannabe artist or in Bridget Jones’s Diary where audiences meet her mother who is dressed in something that looks like a carpet and is constantly interfering. It makes fun of the types of people that everyone knows. However some films do this differently. Some romantic comedies are targeted at teenagers such as ‘10 Things I hate about you’ and ‘John Tucker Must Die.’ In these films there were certain things that were changed to suit the younger audience. For example in most of the romantic comedies I saw, most of the titles were subtle and part of the shot. However in the films that are targeted younger the titles were in the middle and young like as if someone had written them not subtle and part of the shot. This was not all that changed there was younger more up to date songs playing rather than the classic love songs. It is these sort of slight changes that we have to take into account when deciding what sort of romantic comedy we will do.

One of the ideas that came up was doing a gangster movie or fusing the idea of gangster into a romantic comedy. Therefore we did look into some gangster movies. This was to give us an idea of what was included in a gangster movie generally. In the gangster films I saw they were very alike like romantic comedies are and have their generic characters. This was found in ‘Layer Cake’ where it followed Valadim Propp’s idea of archetypes. There was the main character, then his right hand man that helped him but was not a developed character on his own. The boss of all gangsters seemed to appear as well as the wannabe gangster that made mistakes. It was very similar to the romantic comedies which also had it’s archetypes. For the younger targeted films the characters changed to fit the stereotypes in schools such as the cool jock that everyone wants and the lovable but geeky main character that wants the head cheerleader. This draws in the younger audience as it is particular to them as does the characters in the romantic comedies that are for older audiences. The mise en scene of both of the genres is really important as it makes the genre its’ own and is similar to those that are in the same genre. For example gangster films usually contain if not always something to do with violence.

However from the research I think the group is going to look into romantic comedies that are based for younger audiences such as ‘10 Things I Hate About You’. This we feel means we can include what we know which is being a teenager and we know more about what school groups are like and we can incorporate this into our piece. It enables us to be more creative but research more into films of this type so we know what conventions are used specifically for this particular type of romantic comedy. From the research we also got an understanding of what is used to engage the audience such as the music and monlouges etc and got an idea as to what is used commanly in the romantic comedies and the gangster films if we decide to go down this route. This will be useful and we can look back to the research when diciding what conventions to use. The Mise-en scene is also similar within the genres so we can take this to use in the coursework.