Bristol University - 'Lifelong Learning' - April 2010

Asked by Cathy Poole of Bristol University's 'Lifelong Learning' Short Course Department, to give a lecture to 'Literature and Creative Writing' students about Animation and Scriptwriting for Animation. And then later to tutor those students particularly interested in this this area.

More soon.

Bristol University - April to June 2008

At the start of April I was contacted by Cathy Poole from Bristol University (via Helen Brunsdon from Aardman) to mentor / script edit 3 short animation scripts for Bristol University's short course 'Creative Writing for Performance'. I first met Cathy 6 - 7 years ago when she ran the education side of the Bristol Watershed Media Centre - I took a couple of courses she ran and later pitched her the idea of the Watershed having a regular Screenwriting Workshop (I think this has now become a reality) - so it was great to hear from her again and I had no idea she was now working at the University. Cathy runs many short courses in Drama, Film and Media throughout the year, a couple of which have screenwriting / writing for animation elements to them.

A few days after talking to Cathy on the phone about the students and my role on the course, I was emailed short treatments for 3 animated films: 'Edna's Stone' by Alice Fewtrell, 'Shadows' by Stella Shaw and 'Hush' by Amber Winter.

Alice's story was about a family visit to rainy and windswept beach and a young girl's discovery of a magical stone. (Think 'We're going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury)

Stella's was a woodland fantasy about a young girls unrequited love for an unattainable and damaged man. (An ambitious LOTR / 'Romeo and Juliet' retelling)

Amber's was modern tale of redemption focusing on the broken relationship between a mother and daughter, and the birth of an unplanned baby. (Think Mike Leigh)

Three very different stories and three different approaches to / use of animation. Alice's a hand drawn, impressionistic piece of poetry, Stella's a dark medieval/gothic fantasy, and Amber's a difficult family drama, that animation would bring a particular and useful distance to.

With all three projects, I suggested initially writing the drafts with out any dialogue and to tell the story visually (with one line of text/action for each shot/beat of the story) to simply aim to place a series of images in the mind of the reader. Some writers fall in love with their dialogue and refuse to let go of their precious lines, and I wanted Alice, Stella and Amber to use dialogue only if the story needed it, rather than because they wanted it.

Overall what I was looking for, was each of the writers being able to answer the questions: Why do I want to tell this story? What does it mean to me? and What is it 'really' about? And hopefully by the end of the process, we were able to get each script further towards this goal.