PRE-PRODUCTION; WRITER RESEARCH

A Quiet Place

A film that I really wanted to research was 'A Quiet Place'. It is a horror film released in 2018 starring John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. It revolves around a family who are living in a world where they can make no noise; and if they do, the beasts/aliens that have taken over earth will come for and kill them. The most interesting and different thing about this film was that there is next to no dialogue, a few scenes toward the end and flashbacks show minimal dialogue but most of the film is told through the action that the characters take, i wanted to know the approach that the writers took with this because for he lack of dialogue involved. The film was written by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, with the screenplay being edited slightly by director and lead of the film, John Krasinski. Through my research these are the main points that the writers had to say about the film

- Bringing on Krasinski as a writer (as well as lead actor and director) added an extra, more personal layer to the script; he had just had his second child at the time of writing so he made it more personal to his own experience in terms of the character/family relationships
- The writers found it really fun to write because they got to dream about what it would be like to live in a world where you can't make any noise; to help them they spend days living like this, making minimal noise and discovering how they communicated differently with each other in silent ways
- Within the film, the mother played by Emily Blunt gave birth; she had to go through that whilst being as quiet as possible, the writers were unsure whether this was too far for the audience, but they wanted to place that sequence involving a fairly real human experience into this strange world
- They believe that the characters should always be smarter and one step ahead of audiences, thats where plot twists and other narrative devices come from
- They made the daughter deaf, because it means the family had somewhat of an advantage when they were thrown into this world, they were already used to communicating with their daughter in silent ways so this gave them a slight edge for survival because they were somewhat used to this way of life already

- The writers were unsure if they should have a musical score in the film, however they ultimately decided to have one because they used it as something to help tell the story, they watched a rough cut of the film with a score on it and they believed it made the story clearer without having to change anything about any of the scenes
- They noted how when writing the had to think a lot more visually and directionally about how it would be brought to life
- A big topic between the writers was when to let the characters speak, they wanted to make sure that any dialogue used was about emotion, character relationships and how this family is affected by their loss
- They really like original ideas, things that have never been done before, they site M. Night Shylaman as  a big inspiration for this
- When they took it to the studio, Paramount, they wanted to make sure the script really tracked the characters, and that the rift shown between daughter and father was a huge talking point
- In terms of the ending of the film, they considered others but ultimately§ wanted to end with somewhat of a cliffhanger, but also provide a satisfaction that the characters are okay, and that they have accomplished what they need to
- They describe sound as 'one of the greatest tools in a filmmakers toolbox to generate suspense and horror'

The script that I am writing for our major project, we are trying to include as least dialogue as possible. Not in the same was as this film, but the character we have created is alone with his own demons so we want to really emphasis this by having a lot of scenes that focus only on this visuals and sounds rather than the dialogue. Through my research of the writing aspect of A Quiet Place, i think there is a lot that i can take from it. Firstly i know that sound is really important, but the way the writers of this put themselves in the position of the characters to get ideas for what to write is really interesting. I think that to help me with the sound I could use the locations we may be using, go to them myself and see what i hear and see and then write that in to the script. Also, the way in which they think more visually and directionally is again something i feel i need to take on, as I'm writing i know i need to be really detailed with the actions that i explain and then places i describe.