Guest Lecturer - Matthew Spradlin...

On Monday, we had a visit from Matthew Spradlin, the writer of Bad Kids Go To Hell, to give us a talk on narrative, scripting, pitches and all things film/Hollywood orientated. It was nice to have another lecturer visit to give us an insight into the industry from a first hand perspective and to share his experiences; this is really invaluable stuff and can only help our knowledge grow and develop. He helped with the group project by giving us some examples of good scripts to look at, as well as recommending some films and comics to watch for their effective use of narrative. It was really interesting to see his show bible for 'Thriller', a TV show about four kids in a rock band who battle zombies. I particularly like the way we got to see a first-hand example of the type of work he's producing at industry standard, also giving us a really helpful structure chart to keep with us at all times as a guideline for writing structured narratives. However, he did specify that this isn't a 'set-in-stone' structure and that many great narratives break the 'rules' of this three act structure. He was also helpful in giving us an insight into the marketing side of the industry, providing examples of ways we can sell our products to the audience. A lot of the suggestions were ideas i had already considered, but he did come up with a few new ideas that we could use in our group. Overall, it was another enjoyable lecture which turned out to be more like a friendly and casual chat. Cheers Matthew and Alan...