I originally wrote a short story titled People Watching in a creative writing class last semester. I wanted to explore the descent of a man into madness caused by a seemingly simple interaction. For this project, I wanted to adapt that short story into a screenplay for a short film. I was drawn to this genre through my love for film. I have always enjoyed a great movie and a great short film, and I have always wanted to try my hand at creating something in that realm. While I’m not a director, I am a writer, so the idea to write a screenplay came naturally to me.

 

Entering this genre required research. I’ve watched countless movies but had never read a screenplay in my life before starting this project. I quickly came to realize through my research that while every screenwriter uses their own style of writing and chooses to include more detail or less detail, all screenplays use the same basic conventions. They all follow the same format, with scene and shot descriptions and dialogue. I read multiple screenplays before I tackled writing mine, and in each of them I learned different aspects of screenwriting and conventions that I tried to apply in my screenplay.

 

I wanted to accomplish writing in a completely new genre, and I wanted to adapt my written story into a visualization of that story. Throughout the writing process, I had an audience in mind of directors. While I do not know the first thing about direction or filming a movie, I wanted to write a screenplay that someone who did know those things could use to make a full short film. My dream with this project would be for it to turn into an actual film, so I kept that dream in mind by keeping the audience of the director in mind throughout my writing.

 

I created a full screenplay titled People Watching for a short film. I believe I accomplished my goal of adapting my written work into a visualization of those words. The short story is driven by the headspace and the thought process of the protagonist, an unnamed man who I called The Man in the screenplay. This made it difficult to translate into film as those thoughts are hard to make clear on the screen. I chose to utilize voice overs in multiple parts of the screenplay to convey The Man’s thoughts, but I did not want to overwhelm the film with them, so I used them sparingly. I also used scenes that strictly were in the imagination of The Man and quick flashing images in some scenes to further convey his thoughts and his increasing madness.

 

I learned a great deal about the genre of screenwriting and how to translate a story into scenes. I had to cut out some parts of the short story and alter the story a little to make it make the most sense for the screen, which I’m sure is something film adaptations of books or written work must do all the time. I focused on maintaining the conventions of the genre and keeping the scene by scene structure so that a director could pick up the screenplay and immediately be able to start filming. I tried to make the elements of the film clear in my descriptions of shots and camera angles, and even with the appearance of the characters. The screenplay is complex in areas where I dive into the imagination of the The Man and some things change, like the appearance of The Drifter, so I tried to make a clear distinction in the screenplay about scenes that take place in reality versus scenes that take place in the main character’s head.

 

This entire project was both fun and difficult at the same time. Entering a genre that was completely foreign to me required research and a lot of decisions on what to include and what to leave out. I started this project with no knowledge about screenwriting, but I believe I created a screenplay that a director could read and start to shoot. My goal is to find a director who enjoys my screenplay and potentially make it into an actual short film. Being a part of the process from story creation to screenplay writing to finishing a film would be an incredible experience. Maybe someday People Watching will be a short we can all watch.