HUMANS: The Playlist That Scored My Emotional Breakdown (AKA This Script)
This article is about the music that inspired my writing and pulled out my emotions so I could get into the scenes in my screenplay, 'Humans'.
Hi, in case you are new here, I write these here articles rather informally as a way to discuss the projects that I have available on my current projects list.
Firstly, I have been writing with music as the inspiration and the guide for years now, even when I was writing short films for me and my friends to film between jobs and life, I would create playlists that would fit certain scenes I could already partially imagine in my head and then I would play the songs while writing the scene or planning the scene out. I would fit the beats of the scene, blocking and talking etc, to the beats of the songs.
When I am writing a specific scene and need to get into the zone, like a death scene for example, I will play songs that fit the mood like sad heartbroken songs. There is a death scene in the film, and knowing that that would be what I would be working on and that it would be a very emotionally draining day I put it off until I was ready to be emotionally manipulated by myself, I decided to lock myself in my room so I was alone and play Sam Smith's 'Stay With Me' on repeat, other times its Lewis Capaldi but I tend to sing along more to those songs. I begin to write the scene, and the more I wrote the sadder I got, along with the music I am listening to I can get very emotional.
The characters that I flesh out before I start to write the script are characters that I already feel connected to, characters that would change the story. When I wrote the death scene for 'Humans' I had been with these characters for over a decade so I didn't need to relive moments in my own life of losing loved ones —although I am guessing that those experiences helped somewhat in that having experienced grief and loss in my own life I know how it feels and so I know I know how the other characters would also feel and experience the grief and loss.
The first song was a song I listened to almost 15 years ago. This song is not only the thing that sparked the idea for the whole entire plot of the film, but in a way the heart of it, and is still in the final scene of the film.
The story behind this song, Auld Lang Syne, being so connected to the screenplay 'Humans' is that I was a teenager and decided to watch the fireworks on BBC with my family, and we all got up and sang Auld Lang Syne—which was the first time I've ever listened to the song. After New Years was over, I was doing my coursework for either GCSE or A-Levels and decided to listen to the song again (The Slade Version) and learn the lyrics. Something about the song really stayed with me, and I came up with a bunch of humans on a mission and having to be away from home on the holidays and having to save and stick by one another.
The playlist that connects me to the film is:
'The Fear' - The Score
'Dark Night' - Dorothy
'To The End' - My Chemical Romance
'Famous Last Words' - My Chemical Romance
'Na Na Na' - My Chemical Romance
'Legends Are Made' - Sam Tinnesz
'Jungle' - X Ambassadors, Jamie N Commons
'Uprising' - Muse
'Bow Your Head' - Under Earth ft. Louna (A Royalty Free Song that I used with the concept trailer which is available to view via the button below)
If you haven't had a chance to visit my treatment page for 'HUMANS', the button below will take you to character descriptions, images, videos and simplified pitch decks.
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