Hello everyone, just like to introduce myself firstly. I am Oscar Knott, I make short films and all that stuff and really intreseted in it all (http://www.youtube.com/oscarknott69)
I have finished school in Australia and now living in England for a bit. I will later be coming back to apply for the “Australian Film Television and Radio School’s (AFTRS) Foundation Course” for 2011 (http://www.aftrs.edu.au/courses/foundation-diploma.aspx).
At the moment im dreading over the application for it, their are no pre-requisets for it (which im kind of suprised about) but the tasks are a bitch:
“Tasks to be completed as part of the application process:
- Set Task 1: Submit a 2-3 page scripted scene between two strangers in which something substantial changes for at least one of them
- Set Task 2: Write an outline of your creative work and experience (300 words)”
As you can probably guess its not so much task 2 im worried about as I have a fair amount of creative experience on my record, both personal and proffesional. So as for Task 1! JUST BECAUSE IM JOINING THIS COURSE DOESNT MEAN IM A WRITER! Any one who has ideas for this please share, i really need some inspiration. My plan is to simply write as many scripts as I can untill then and decide which is best by the end. I will also be posting these as I finish them for advice from you guys!
As some of you may know, AFTRS is super prestigious and ultra selective so it will be an acomplishment if I do manage to get in. I have also noticed that their arent enough journal/blogs online of the stressful AFTRS app process and what the experience is actually like so I plan to give you as much detail as i can as to what to expect.
Alternativley if I dont make it into AFTRS (god forbid) i will end up at tafe to study film and tv
the course looks alright but the fact that their is no application requirements and all you have to do to get in is show up on the day kind of puts me off.. so lets hope i dont wind up their…
Lastly I would like to officially announce my new film which I will have more details on in my next post. So they new film is…. get ready for it! ….THE FACE (4). If you are familiar with my past films you will likely be dissapointed by this news and not suprised either. But their is more to this sequal (or should I say reboot) then meets the eye. So as I said befor, I will go into more detail with this in my next post and put up the first image (or images if ur lucky haha) of the film.
So that was my first blog, hope u cum bak for more!
Sounds really interesting Oscar, good luck to you and your writing.
As far as ideas go I might be able to throw you some opitons, do what you will with them.
You could have,
*a doctor and a patient, were the doctor has to reveal the patient has a terminal illness.
*post man and a elderly woman at a duck pond, discussing late mail, and late husbands (dead). Probs a bit morbid again.
*A poker game.
*A quarantine were someone gets caught bringing something awkward/illegal into the country.
The other thing I would do is read some stephan king novels. He’s got some great charcters you might be able to borrow or adapt, if only very simply.
Good luck with that. I guess the hardest part will be writing something substancial with only three pages of writing.
Thanks Jack those are some sick ideas, espesh the doctors patient one, myt put that to some work n post it up for u to critque haha. Cheers
Thats all great and well to hone your writing ability and all but the criteria for 2011 selection hasn’t been posted yet. That conversation is the 2010 application stuff. I’m also applying so might see you at the interview, if we’re lucky. Quick query though, is 2-3 pages in proper script format or just story dialogue. Proper script format = shakespeare style play?
Yeah I came across that the other day actually, it was in such small print i never noticed it before, well pissed off about it as i had started writing practice scripts for it. But yeah Im curious as to what the new task will be as this 2010′s was really different from 09′s.
Gues i will have to wait and see…
I was wondering about the format too actually and it is screenplay format i think as i saw a girl from last years app that did it as a screenplay and got in.
do you have facebook would like to chat to a sum1 else applying?
Hi Oscar (and Sohum),
I’m also thinking about applying to the Foundation course for 2011, although I doubt my chances as I don’t really have much experience in creative fields. Still, I’ll do my best on the application and see what happens – I imagine that the tasks won’t be too different from last year, so I wouldn’t worry too much about having some spent some time already on last year’s ones. Then again, it seems they’re being fairly secretive about the tasks (they’ll be released late August from what I understand), so perhaps they will have changed a bit…
Anyway, good luck!
Patrick
Did you end up making it into the AFTRS course?
No I didn’t actually end up doing it, thinking bout going for it next year but not sure if it’s really that necessary to get into the industry after a few chats with some influential peeps