Tuesday 27 October 2020

Keys / Busybody - An award-winning script I wrote

 

Keys is a short film screenplay about the dangers of private renting and how our obsession with watching other people can sometimess go a bit too far.

Keys - A Short Film Script ... by Peter O'Brien

The original script was called Busybody.

I wrote Busybody for one of the filmmaking assignments of my BA (Hons) in Creative Writing with Film and Screen Studies, and it was awarded a first. 

The adaptation of that first script won the Critics Choice Award at the end of year showcase.

Busybody went on to be used as the university's go-to practice filmmaking script and it now has something like twenty different adaptations made from it.

However, I was never happy with the intial and rushed Busybody script. 

Eventually I got round to revising it into Keys, the new (and better) script that is featured here. 

The story between the two scripts is exactly the same, the Keys version just presents it in a polished way that I would be very happy to film. 

You can read the original Busybody version here.

The idea for the script was developed from a true story I heard about a landlord in Bristol who had installed secret cameras in his properties. 

It is also written as a partial homage to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

In the video below, which I recorded shortly before I jumped back into finishing the Keys script, I talk about how I developed and wrote the Busybody script...

Google stabilization algorithm went a bit haywire on my vid.

To find out more about the development of the Busybody script and the various adaptations that have been produced from it, check out..

Story is everything: developing and writing a script - Busybody

Developing a Script, Part 1: Outline - Idle Time


The First Adaptation: Busybody

Busybody: The other adaptations

Busybody: Martymachlia - The best adaptation yet!


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