Tadpole: the writing of a first feature length screenplay

• Main Author: Neo, Joel Rui En
• Other Authors: Christoph Hahnheiser
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Arts and Humanities; Media art (filmmaking); Art, design and media; Screenwriting
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/175734
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Robert Mckee, Hollywood’s father of screenwriting best known for his Story Seminar, once said that “writing is a marathon, not a sprint” (Young, 2022). As the title of this paper suggests, Tadpole: The Writing of a First Feature Length Screenplay is the culmination of a year-long journey embarking on the writing of my first feature-length screenplay, titled Tadpole. Set against the backdrop of Singapore’s fading rural landscape amidst rapid urbanization in 2010, Tadpole is a coming-of-age story told from a child’s perspective about an unexpected friendship that blossoms in the unlikeliest of circumstances – a spirited 10-year-old child protagonist wandering the streets amidst her parents’ bitter separation finds a confidante in an equally vivacious 49-year-old proprietor of a faltering family frog farm. This report will dissect and discuss the motivations of wanting to embark on a solo final year project, the story development and writing process, the challenges encountered, and the eventual learning outcomes of this fledgling attempt at the seemingly insurmountable feat of writing a feature-length screenplay for the first time.