So in a similar vein to Gregor Johnstone’s blog post abouthis process, i’ve also come on here to talk about a particular process i’m going through at the mo and have been for the last month. I’m talking about the story development stage of the Digital Shorts film competition (run by Digicult and Scottish Screen)  undertaken as a person in the talent pool this year.

It started off with one lone story outline and fortnightly meetings with Digicult, mixed in with weekly meetings with my producer, Anna Odell (with cake and tea, of course). It was quite a gentle easing in to the development process but that’s pretty much flipped around now. As of 2 weeks ago, it’s all about weekly meetings with Digicult and ‘whenever we think we should meet to talk about the film which is about 3 times a week’ with Anna. And this is all just for the story outline!

I never thought there was so much emphasis needed on your outline (I always approached it as something to just sum up your film for your audience) before you go to script. But when I think about it, it makes total sense. If you don’t know your story, how can you go on to write a script? Something i’ve definitely been thinking about.

In between all that, there’s been workshops with The Script Factory in Soho, London and The Story Room with Paul Welsh. They have made me think about my own stories in ways I wouldnt even have thought of. In terms of editing and sound design. Lessons on core themes and emotions, three act structures, writing visually etc… It’s a lot to take in…but priceless, nonetheless.

This is the very first experience i’ve had of professional short film development process and it defintely hasn’t been what i’ve expected so far. I’m not sure what I expected really. But i’m intrigued to see where it goes. I’ll be moving on to the script stage soon…

P.S And my actual process when writing? An insane amount of builders tea/and or Rooibos tea, a playlist full of instrumental music (lyrics are distracting) and my battered Powerbook. Then it’s just type, type, type!