Presentation 2

20 Minute Lesson Plan

Prepared By:

Inez Franco

House:

South House

　
　

Essential Question What is the best way to write a successful screenplay? 　:

Objective:Students will learn how to disect a screenplay for production. The assignment is a boring and tedious one, but I believe it highlights the importance of the screenplay. While students are doing the activity I will briefly distinguish the differences between screenplays and stageplays (which is the history of the screenplay) and give a debrief on the processes that screenplays go through to get bought.

　
　

	Teacher Guide	Time
Introduction	Hey South House, my name is Inez and my senior project is on screenwriting. My Essential Question is: what is the best way to write a successful screenplay? So just to clarify my question for you guys, what i mean by successful is a screenplay that people want to buy, not successful in terms of money. If the laater were the case my answers would sound like marketing strategies and would clash with what I believe a successful screenwriter is.	1 min	Three Important Sources1. Bernardo Solano: playwright and my interviewee 2. Screenwriting for Teens (book) by Christina Hamlett: professional script coverage consultant 3. Philip Miller: service learning contact/ ROP instructor
Verification(Steps to check for student understanding)	● So what do you guys know about screenplays? Or if you don’t know what it is what do you think a screenplay is?● And; Who was William Shakespeare and what did he do? So what is the difference between a playwright and a screenwriter, or what do you think the difference – if there is one- is?● And; How important is a screenplay to a film?● End: Check for understanding by…asking: So what is the difference between a stage play and a screenplay?● And; How important is the screenplay to the film?	4 min

　

Body(Give and/or demonstrate necessary information)

Break down what you plan on talking about into manageable sections.● Literal● Interpretive● Applied: Why are the things I explained in interpretive important to my EQ? Understanding the difference between the two mediums – film and stage – really helps me understand how screenwriting works in advantage to certain stories and the disadvantages of it as well. The reasons why the expensive spec scripts are worth mentioning is because it is the anti-thesis to what I believe success in screenwriting is. It is great to make money off of doing what you love – but it shouldn’t be the pursuit. Filmmakers should not be con men, they should be artists. : After explaining the history I can talk about the differences between the screenplay and the stageplay and give examples. The give some records of the most money spent on buying a spec script and explain how rare these occurences really are and how they are misleading. Also I can talk about why so much money was spent on those scripts.: History of The Screenplay. How they are sold. - is the stage play- Many famous playwrights like Shakespeare- act as an outline for the movie, and is like the skeleton of the film- Talkies are introduced and reshapes the way screenplays are written- One greeat screenwriter that I admire is Orson Welles, he was black listed... if i have time I could tell the story...- speculative scripts are written and then sold- when a spec script is sold it is either- optioned: bought outright for a period of time- guaranteed: aka the front end, just guaranteed money- bonus: aka the back end, its a bonus if the film goes into production.- Or a deal that sounds like 300,000 against 500,000 which means 300,000 now and 200,000 more if it gets produced- Screenwriters can also be paid to rewrite other people’s scripts.- Or they work on feature assignment (which only happens if they have a contract with a studio, company, or producer)

● Literal: 6 min● Interp: 2 min● Applied: 2 min

Visuals A prezi presentation with figures for when I am describing the prices in how screenplays are sold, and examples of how screenplays look, and maybe some prominent screenwriters and playwrights as well.

　

Activity(Describe the independent activity to reinforce this lesson)

● What is the activity: disecting the script for production notes● 　How it will be done: I will give all the students a sample script and a guide on how to disect it. Walk them through everything and then ask them to disect it.

4 min

Materials - sample script - guide - crayons - script breakdown sheets

　
　

Conclusion

I will ask a random person for something they learned today that they didn’t know before – about screenplays. Then just say that the screenplay is the center, and if the center doesn’t hold then nothing else will an in my opinion the screenplay is the most essential component of the filmmaking process. It has to be solid! Then ask for any more questions. And thank the class for their time of course.

1 min

　
　

I will upload as a google doc later... my computer won't let me right now.