PLANNING: TREATMENT

RESEARCH: TOPLINE AND BIG QUESTION

As part of my research, I watched FutureLearn video on Digital storytelling, presented by Frank Ash. Frank Ash is a Creative Consultant working for the BBC academy.

Throughout the video, Frank Ash explains that a good way to prepare, strengthen and develop the story, is to look at it from the audiences perspective - what do they want from the stories we tell? Ash spilts this process into four questions you can ask yourself whilst attempting to emotionally engage an audience: What is the story? Whose story is it? What's the Big Question? What's in it for the audience?

Firstly, Ash informs us that a great way to answer this question is being able to write a topline. A topline is "one beautiful elegant sentence" to sum up stories narrative. In order to answer the next question it is essential to give the audience a sense of anticipation and suspense about the characters: Will they win? Will they lose? Will they survive?

Moving onto the Big Question, Ash asks us "what is the question that you're going to pose at the beginning of the story, which is going to give the audience a sense of anticipation and suspense?" The Big Question is used to engage the audience right from the start. The Big Question is an outline of the stories mystery put into a question: How will it all turn out? Will the character achieve their goals? The final point Ash makes is that you must find a way to relate the story to the audience. This can be done through finding a specific theme which incorporates you, the story teller, and the audience. If you are able to find the theme which adds value and richness to your story, it enables the audience to connect to this material, and almost put themselves in the story.

RESEARCH: USING SCOOP.IT TO GAIN INSPIRATION AND HOLD MY IDEAS

To help spur and hold ideas, I decided to use SCOOP.IT as a place to collect useful news-articles, movie trailers and other content. This was an essential part to my research as it was such a useful tool when needing a platform to hold all of my ideas for my own production. Here is some examples of the content I published: