An Experiment in screenwriting
If it is a game – come and play.
If it is a challenge – come challenge yourselves.
If it is a creative outlet – Express yourself.
Call it whatever you may, I will call it a creative collaboration of enthusiastic minds.
The experiment is simple. There have been many such experiments done in other platforms – for story writing. Some of you might have played it as a game on a rainy day with your friends at home.
The game is “complete the story”. The only difference is that we do not alter basic characters in the name of introducing twists and we try to write it up more visually (for screen writing purposes) and write it probably one sequence at a time (lets keep it at a healthy 15 minutes screen time). If one can provide a cut to cut (or shot by shot) screen script, it is well and good. For the less experienced (like me) whatever details that one can come up is fine. There is no judgement, no criticism, no debate as to whose material is better. If you link up your comments (in the body of which you put in your screen writing inputs to complete the story), it is your screen play in the end.
The 15 mins is described along with preferably dialogues (decent ones, keep swear words and racist abuses out). If one is not great in dialogue writing, it is still fine, some one else can come up with dialogues.
So all in all , it is a fuzzy open ended field, where the boundaries are your creativity and discipline is self imposed. Once the feel that the screen writing is sufficiently deep and complete, new story and characters will be chosen and the chain will roll on. Let us see how far we go in these chains.
This is no contest, no endorsements, no awards, just your exhilaration of expressing ideas in a coherent manner. PFC’s featured authors may or may not join in. It is their wish, so this is no opportunity to seek a career opening either.
Let me start by providing a brief sketch of story and character outlines. I leave the ending open, so it is to be filled by some of us…
The Story…
titled “The Stone”
Once upon a time (probably two years before), there were four friends.
All of them graduated from IITs al across India.
Lets look at them in the increasing orer of GPA.
8.5 - Anil nambiar – Native of Cochin – currently doing masters in Ohio State University, average height, but well built and an ardent footbal fan and player. Focus area for him is Biomedical Engineering and dates Chitra nair of linguistics department
8.8 - Senthil Kumaran – Madras – He is the proverbial pearl in the snail’s shell. Born in an impoverished and backward family, he shined in academics like a diamond breaking all the visible and invisible glass ceilings to get into IIT – Mumbai. Writes on socialism and solves crossword puzzles and writes regularly on atheistic blogs, though free from the oppression of the caste system in an alien land, the shyness imposed by generations of subjugation still makes him need an icebreaker like anil to open up.
9.0 - Malavika Sharma – Allahabad- This Rothak girl is as Nanditaesque a tech girl can get. Another Glass ceiling breaker with super cool credentials in quantum mathematics – she holds some flames for the inert Senthil.
9.2 - Chadrakant prasad – Ranchi – This material physicist plays with theories and treatises of upanishads and other gnostic books of all religions and spiritual streams as much as he enjoys digging deeper into Feinmann’s lectures. He is the counterbalance to the team when it comes to vitriolic conversations on religion and spirituality
All these studs are not just tied by the aluminus of IIT, they are the members of “World Skeptics Society” and pack their bags in a mail’s notice to corners of the world to destroy the credibility of fake God men and miracle workers. Once they enter a place to bust a myth, they have been careful enough to reinstate true knowledge and wisdom in the place of the deposed charlatans.
A little rewind of the world to 1971, there was a cosmic event that is regular once every 12 years, but hardly gets any notice – mainly due to the scale of the event – An astroidal fragment about the size of a ping pong ball makes a silent yet carefully guided entry into the orbit of the earth maneuvering itself to slide into and make enty into earth’s atmosphere around Delhi and touces down finally on the crystalline Gantaki in Nepal. A sheperd boy notices it and goes to look at the shining green glow in the river. He is amazed and portals are opened to a new adventure on earth. An adventure that might take decades to result in something that would redefine the course of a sizeable portion of humanity on the earth, much like many similar events in the glorious past of the bipeds.
Now back to two years before now, we see a ” you have new mail” in Anil’s Eudora account, while he is fast asleep after the exhilirating Chelsea Vs Liverpool contest last night…
From now on, this is a fodder to PFC junta’s creative brains to develop in any way they like to, but with some sensible course corrections by some of the authors and editors.
Tags: challenge, experiment, game, Screenwriting
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
8.5 points someone:d
this is story of briliant guys nd not average guys….
as destiny decides….
maoists rulers in nepal have freed charles shobhraj….
CPrasad is in kathmandu.. he is doing searching mystery behind power of rudraksh…. he meets shobhraj there… nd thus begins an odd relation betwen a former international criminal nd an iitian… both are disappeared… Sherpas say they were seen climbing the mountains …..
senthil kumaran becumes interested in politics nd joins bjp.. sudheendra kulkarnee is retd. now…
nd senthil becomes advisor of narendra modi who is now bjp president….
rahul gandhi is pm of india now nd as destiny plays the role… malvika meets sam pitroda some how nd laater with old ex president dr kalaam nd leads a big science nd technology project… nd rahul nd she fall in luv nd now she is mrs ahul gandhi…
4 this reason also senthil kumar hates rahul nd joins bjp…
Anil is appointed as youngest prof. nd director of new IIT opened in Srinagar.. his research in developing sensor for identifying illness in body when its just started has earned him nobel prize… nd his wife chitra runs a ngo in kashmir
this is 2016….
rest in sequel…:d/
bab re!!
Krishn bhai!!
App climax hi likh diya!!
I thought you would come up with the next 15 minutes of screen time, you effectively made a freeze frame narrative of the entire story and made this into a super short film in fast forward mode!!!
great, but I am expecting a lot more force from you with substance!!!
oooopppppssss…. sorryyy
im no writer… cant write :(
pls delete cmnt…
if its fine… then writers can have 1st nd last nd can middle portionn:d
U r no writer?
u think i am?
what you have written is definitely a synopsis of the whole thing and we can write millions of small episodes taking the outline though. I liked te criminal IITan nexus. donno what the IIT guys are gonna say though.
u like it…..??
its hindi movies efect:d:))
c prasad nd charles shobhraj union is from my nephey studying in 8th std.:o
he found me reading shobraj ……nd asked abt him nd i told him……all i know nd then.. v both read ur story…..
for fun…v wrote cmnt…nd he suggested…wht if an iitian meet shobhraj….?:-?
**********************
after successfully busting yet another myth our team of skeptics are sitting in a cafe somewhere in Brazil enjoying the bright and colorful mood of the cafe and fresh and finest Brazilian coffee…
Anil is submerged in the nearby television… soccer news in background with some rushes from recently played Real Madrid game…
Senthil is in his monk like ponderous mood where he appears to be looking at the painting on the wall…(camera is looking at the painting….now it is focused on Senthil’s eyes)… but a close look in to his eyes tell a different story…his eyes are wide open…seeing through the painting and piercing through the wall….focused at infinity…(camera focus back to painting and the screen starts appearing blurry as the camera focus changes from near to far as if it is following Senthil’s eyes)….
sound of chair scratching the colorful tiled floor…Mallika and Chadrkant sit across the table with their cup of coffee. Mallika taste her coffee and decide to add some more sugar into it…while pouring sugar she asks,”do you think people of XXXX (a twon in Brazil) will be able to come out of this shock…I mean this superstition was part of their support system?”…
Senthil: “… all because of this horrible notion of religion”…a rather rare outburst from Senthil…Mallika couldn’t resist the surprising look…(seems like Senthil was reliving something in the past when Mallika and Chandrakant interrupted him)…
Chandrakant (C): “you mean superstition, right? and not religion I hope?”
Senthil (S): “religion is at the root of this… and several other tragedies in the history of mankind”…
C: well religion is a system and it has its flaws like any other system. But it has served the humanity well so far…
S: It is high time we the mankind replace this system with something better may be more scientific.
C: But there is no better system yet? why would you think religion has survived so far?
S: Thats the point…religion has survived and thrived where as the mankind has suffered…
(Mallika wonders about Senthil’s past…)
C: You are diverting from the point…I thought we are discussing the system level flaws and possible solution here… and not the not so reliable historical evidences…I could argue that mankind would not have survived without religion and there is no consistent way of either proving or disproving it.
S: Fine. Lets talk about fundamental flaws in the religious system then…the biggest problem is: it it faith based and there is no room for logic and reasoning…even though it is not consistent.
C: Well Science as of now is not entirely consistent either.. (Mallika wants to say something almost out of reaction but holds back)…and our learning in science also starts with some faith…
S: Yes…but once we develop logical reasoning and analytical skills…we are allowed to question it if we find it inconsistent…
S: Look at how religion works…people are brain washed in to believing in the religion at the very tender age… why do you think a kid needs to be reminded about a shloka from Geeta or a verse from the Bible or Kuran every day?…Insecurity??
(S looks at M as if seeking some short of support or agreement)…I mean…why not ask them to recite laws of Thermodynamics and laws of motion everyday?…we don’t need that because these laws are logically consistent and you will be able to understand it and derive it if you use logical reasoning, observation and common sense…where as religion is neither logical nor common sense and hence there are so many different versions and there is insecurity and the need to brain wash the people…
Chandrakant: but…
“Hey guys!..”…take a look at this…Anil interrupts them….
*******************************************
whewww…man…I wonder how people write entire screenplay…I am not even half way thorough this scene…I haven’t even commented upon my characters’ clothes and paraphernalia…
V.P. Jaigansh, thanks for this article…and this opportunity… don’t mind the quality and length of my writing please…I never thought I would be able to write more than 2-3 lines but…
one question though…why Quantum Mathematics ????
Feedbacks and suggestions/criticism are most welcome.
Vikrant!!!
^:)^^:)^
awesome detailing .
Perfect lines for a conversation. Take time and we can elaborate this further. I took a week to complete the draft and what you have come up in a short span is an awesome extrapolation. Keep it coming and try to complete your 15 mins or dialogues for the 15 mins that is already there. Your points on the religion question is absolutely spot on and totally consistent with the character’s reason process.
Quantum Mathematics – simply becuase that is the most fundamental to the modern physics and hence the “holy grail” for many modern theories and precursor to tomorrow’s technologies and it is probably the closest to metaphysics and spiritual studies.