Here are some tips for film-makers and teams looking to adapt, ‘DAY ONE’ scripts into webisodes.

Moral rights do not apply to the works

What does this mean?

It allows the film-maker teams to adapt the works as they see fit provided the original writer is credited and advised.

In other words, you can alter it as you see fit provided we credit the original author and acknowledge it has changed from their original concept.

You can also ask other writers to create adaptions but always consult the original author. (Respect the writer or you’ll find yourself written into some episode of, ‘Californication’ as an ass. Excuse me, all the characters in, ‘Californication’ are asses but you get what I mean).

Values and message

It’s difficult to address values and message in short form content.

To do so, establish with the writer/s what the subject material is, the values you are dealing with and the message.

Values are explored by taking an issue and exploring it from two different perspectives, in conflict. The perspectives should be authentically motivated and both be valid, arguable positions.

Message is delivered by the revelation at the end of the work where a third way is revealed, (somewhere in between the two values in conflict).

This kind of writing is advanced and normally reserved for features or TV series but I won’t say it cannot be done in a webisode.

Sometimes there are no values or message, it is just genre-specific content, (that’s when the girl, hair still wet from the shower, white towel, hanging by a thread, opens the door you know she shouldn’t open. No values here but plenty of genre specific content will follow).

I can watch both.

Transitions

So far, we have seen demonstrations of extreme outcomes and that’s OK but I was hoping to catch the moment of transition when we realize something is very wrong with another person, that they have transitioned to more animal than human or that we see evidence of a force controlling them against their will.

For example, you know what it’s like when you catch someone looking at you. That look may be adoration or it may be primal. You get my drift.

Apply that to a polite social dinner conversation and the results are very stark. “Cut the meat darling”, will mean something very different. Find the unique moments of transition to demonstrate the shift from pretense to primal.

Gap

Gap is the moment where we want the two lovers to kiss but they don’t. Into that gap, the audience is drawn.

Reversal

Reversal has long and short form application. You take what you think you see and turn the tables, the values, the choices and so forth around and turn the story in a different direction.

Why, ‘LAW AND ORDER’ doesn’t have dinosaurs

‘Law and order’ is an impressive franchise. Dinosaurs are also impressive. ‘Law and order’, with dinosaurs would be not so impressive.

You could argue anything goes in a supernatural fantasy but you would be wrong.

Achieving scale and being true to genre is critical.

To entertain you must hypnotize.

You must seduce, lull, lure, entice, leave gaps and create breadcrumbs for your audience to follow so be true to genre and seek to take the audience on a journey.

Alternatively, you can go caveman, whack them over the head and pronounce, “Get out your chainsaws, the Zombies mutants are coming and they want to eat your brains”.

Nothing wrong with that but arguably, ‘Journey of the seeds’ is a deeper track.

“Don’t stop, please don’t stop”

Create mystery. Exit on a page turner. Leave the reader begging for more.

Keep it simple

Seek to achieve those unique transition moments and if possible to explore values and message but KEEP IT SIMPLE. You have up to four minutes. Whatever your final choice, KEEP IT SIMPLE or we’ll be reaching for our Stanley Kubric – ‘Guide to film-making’, manuals, volumes 7 – 24.