Notes: Gasman in Relation to Marilyn Milgrom's 'The Script'

The following notes looks at Lynne Ramsay's Gasman, and uses it as an example to think about the 'problem' section of Marilyn Milgrom's 'The Script'.

Making the problem manifest to the audience

You need to make them see it, as they are not in the protagonists head

Gasman (1998)

Wizard of Oz reference- 'no place like home', is ironic when her idea of home is somewhat distorted 

Mother is seen as antagonist, she is not the girl's favourite parent

The girl definitely favours her father

The silence and facial expression shows the first moment in which something doesn't feel right

Narrative is fairly long. The problem is introduced at 5:02, and so a 5 minute narrative will have to be introduced much sooner

Seen as an ideal Christmas party for the little girl

Neglect seen from adults whilst children are misbehaving and fighting

The colour palette and camera movement tells audience that something bad is about to happen

The girl thinks about throwing the rock in the direction of the girl and her mother, but doesn't; the audience isn't told all the answers so they can guess what she is thinking

This is the end of the journey; literal and metaphorical

The girl has come to the realisation that the world isn't a perfect place

Are the Stakes High Enough?

When the filmmaker sets up the narrative to show what the character has to lose, the audience can understand why they need to resolve this issue.

The Best Point of View
A different point of view changes the meaning of a story, as each character has a different ending.
Many short scripts fall down when the point of view switches to someone else half way through, as the audience can't connect with either.

What Does My Story Mean?
Awareness of the meaning of the story is important when refining and developing the script.

The Tone of the Film
Tone is intimately connected to genre, which can cause implications as genre isn't seen to be as important to classify short films. It also causes implications because the audience are not expecting the tone for a cynical narrative to be set up in comical way, for example.

Tone emerges from the way each narrative element supports the underlying meaning fo a story.

Summary:
There needs to be a change in protagonist. The audience will feel underwhelmed if the change isn't great enough.

The change in character/event must be:

*Universally significant- make sure it expands what you are passionate about to others too, must effect other people

- a moment that is of significance to the protagonist - whether they know it or not

- are the stakes high enough?