The jury is out on our in-house short film competition and the winner is.... Kelly Dillon with her charming story,
Bellyflop. The brief was to write a treatment for a short film between 4-6 minutes in length with no, or minimum, dialogue that is suitable for family viewing. The submissions were judged anonymously by the Triggerfish partners as well as two external judges, writer
Lauren Beukes and Jeremy Collins owner of
Juju animation.
Concept art for Bellyflop by Daniel Clark
Well done to everyone who submitted! It was a tough choice for the judges. Jac Hamman's
Hot Spring and Kane Croudace's
A Bag of Cats were the 1st and 2nd runners up respectively. As the winner of the competition, Kelly went on a script/story weekend workshop hosted by
The Writing Studio and took some time out of her schedule as Assets Co-ordinator on our upcoming feature,
Khumba, for a quick Q & A.
What is your story about?
An unashamed young girl learning to dive becomes frustrated when a talented contender with a flair for showing off steals the spotlight, but eventually triumphs as the hero of the day thanks to her persistent nature.
What inspired you to write it?
The character of Penny was inspired by a girl I au-paired for when I was at university. I remember when she started taking swimming lessons and admired her persistence in learning to dive properly, even though she wasn’t built as a swimmer. In
Bellyflop I wanted to show that nothing is worth giving up on and unexpected rewards can come from persistence. Even though Penny will never be a champion diver, she only wanted her moment to be recognised, and although it came from elsewhere, it was her persistent nature that resulted in this recognition.
Do you think your experience in production contributed to your understanding of the basics of story/story-telling?
My production experience helped when I was setting up the parameters of my story in terms of what the studio would most likely be able to make; I knew I wanted to write about humans - this would be a first for the studio and possibly provide an R&D opportunity ahead of a feature. I also wanted to set the story in a contained environment to minimise the required production resources, and adding a braai into the setting instantly made it local. Within these parameters I then put my writing cap on and worked out a plot that maximised good story-telling techniques.
What did you gain most out of the script-writing course?
The script-writing course provided inspiration and techniques to create interesting and absolute characters. Placing your characters in extreme situations outside of your story, and nailing their responses or reactions, helps define them and make them more real. I also learnt how important it is to dramatize events in your plot which will in turn reveal the depth of your characters.
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