PLANNING: TOPLINE and BIG QUESTION

Watch this presentation by Frank Ash then write your own Topline and Big Question for your film opening. You write up a blog post explaining all this. You include a visual from the Frank Ash presentation, explaining who he is and what you learned from the presentation. Your blog post title is PLANNING:  THE TOP LINE AND BIG QUESTION

For Frank Ash, Creative Consultant who has taught storytelling and creativity techniques to teams across the BBC and beyond, it is important to focus on the audience: what will interest the audience? How will the narrative develop? 

"So, if you’re aiming for your film to reach a large audience online, making sure it has universal appeal will be key"

TOP LINE DEFINITION: Think about your favourite book or film or any ‘good story’ you recently watched online, could you sum up its narrative into ‘one elegant sentence’ to provide its ‘topping’

BIG QUESTION DEFINITION: What was its big story question, and how important was it to your appreciation of the text?"

TREATMENT See separate post for how to write a treatment. 

• After writing the treatment, you create a STORYBOARD  (hand drawn on the sheets that I give you)
• and a SHOTLIST (a collaborative document that you can do together in GoogleDocs).