What writers will get from attending The Impact premiere? By Ben Marshall
19 April 2022 · 2 min read
I was a newbie writer when I entered 50 kisses – the first Create50 feature project. My script didn’t get picked (I wasn’t ready) but I watched the bold and diverse film it produced and read all 50 winning scripts to learn the craft of a super short. I believe this prepared me for tackling the Impact challenge. My script “Rock. Paper. Scissors” made the fifty and I wrote a second produced film “School’s Out”. Since then, I have written a number of super shorts and, with the same Impact team (Director James Skinner and DOP Robert Campbell), we won the Depict 90 second film competition at Encounters in 2020 with our film “Fabulous”. There is no formula for super short story telling but I do see patterns with those which do well. Techniques which work not only for shorts but also enhance my approach to writing scenes or sequences in features. The Impact will exhibit many of these tools which include:
Internal conflict – The Impact premise pre-determined the external stakes for most stories. A meteor is about to hit and you have two hours left – deal with it. Making that situation personal by adding internal conflict drives many of the chosen films. Creating an intriguing character and giving them a compelling choice is key.
Subvert expectation – Another way a concept can stand out is to turn the expected on its head. Many of the Impact scripts focused on parents protecting their children from the news. In Rock. Paper. Scissors I focused on two girls managing the news for their drunk abusive father.
Keep it visual – Some of the films have no dialogue at all. A powerful and purely cinematic experience. Where dialogue is needed, keep it tight.
Interesting but familiar settings – A setting must not be humdrum but, in my view, for a super short a familiar setting which does not require exposition works well. There is too little time to build a world and introduce new rules. In School’s Out I love the scene of students learning of the news during an exam. It’s a unique setting but is instantly recognised and so instantly stirs the senses.
Start late and finish early – True for any scene, but even with a stand alone short try starting with (or just after) the inciting incident and finish as (or just before) the resolution unravels. This way three acts can be told in very little time.
Written by
Chris JonesPassionate about all things film, I have spent my life watching movies, making movies and helping others make their movies too. Most recently I have been directing Splinter Unit on 'Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning', parts 1 and 2 for Paramount. I also executive-produced 'The Enfield Poltergeist' for Apple TV+. Deeper into my past, my early major projects include action thriller 'The Runner', serial killer thriller 'White Angel' and paranormal horror 'Urban Ghost Story'. I co-created and authored The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook series, published by Bloomsbury. There are now eight books in the series. More recently I have run a series of London-based festivals, kicking off with the London Screenwriters Festival which attracts over 1,000 professional screenwriters from around the globe annually. I also set up and run TEDxEaling, an annual TEDx conference on storytelling and human communication. In 2009, I made the multi-award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted 'Gone Fishing', the whole process being heavily documented on my blog. In 2014 I completed my fourth feature film, the crowd-created 50 Kisses which entered the Guinness Book Of Records for most screenwriters on a feature film. Following this success, I founded Create50 to continue the idea of crowd-created projects. Twisted50, our first book, was published on Halloween 2016 and immediately toppled Stephen King from the top spot on Amazon. Five books have followed in the Twisted50 series and we are working on the sixth now. During the summer of 2016 I trained to become a master Firewalk instructor and now regularly take people across the hot coals for charity. Late 2017 I directed the short film 'Seeing Him' which collected a ton of awards too. Over the following years I continued to make award-winning shorts, such as Meet The Nativity and Never Too Late. In the summer of 2022 I premiered Impact 50, the second feature-length movie from Create50. This time I directed the segment at the start of the film, with Olivia Williams as the President, and written by Joe Eszterhas. In the summer of 2022, I also joined the Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 productions as Splinter Unit director. At Halloween 2023, the Apple TV+ show that I co-executive-produced, 'The Enfield Poltergeist', premiered. I run regular filmmaking workshops for filmmakers both online and in person. Some people ask how I began making films? Like most filmmakers of my generation, it was with a Super 8mm camera, summertime and school friends, usually after watching a behind-the-scenes TV programme on a Hollywood movie like Star Wars. My first film was a zombie horror called Necronomicon, heavily influenced by John Carpenter's The Fog. And I was hooked for life. Contact me at Ealing Film Studios, Ealing Green, London, W5 5EP, UK
