Apparently, there’s a script floating around Hollywood, but everyone’s afraid to mention who wrote it. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but it seems like the consensus is that the guy has poor grammar, confuses common words like “their” and “they’re”, “to” and “too” and has other grievous spelling mistakes and formatting mistakes.
1 story. 5 directors. 5 different visions. Ariel Winograd, Rodrigo Garcia Saiz, Plastico, Cayetana Vidal, and Nicolas Parodi came up with 5 shorts for the same script. It’s really interesting to see each director’s style and technique come out.
What would you do with the script?
I was born with some sort of flaw in one of my eyes.
The right eye sees normally, but the left one sees in 35 mm.
My life has always been a mix between reality and cinematographic vision.
Sometimes I go from romantic comedy to erotica and then to horror.
Every night, I edit those images in my visual memory.
Yesterday, I accepted an offer for my eye, which was impossible to turn down.
But no, dear audience, my vision is too personal to be put on sale.
My right eye sees me as a jerk. But my left eye sees me as a hero.
Billy Ray, best known for writing Flightplan talks about screenwriting. He talks about the virtue of reading bad scripts, mainly to learn what not to do.
Subtext. Most writers have their characters say what they’re thinking. I think this stems from two things. First, the fear that the audience or the reader doesn’t get it. Two, that you, as the writer, have spent all this time coming up with the character’s back story, you want to show it off. A lot of times, this back story is for you and the actor. Have it come out in the parentheticals; give your actors something to work with.
Dilemma. A lot of characters don’t have a dilemma, a difficult decision they have to make. Where, no matter what they choose, things may turn out badly. This adds drama and conflict. Everyone can relate to this. Characters are keys for the audience to hook into your story. They empathize with them and relate to them. They can appreciate the difficulty that they’re being put through. Even with action movies, it’s really the characters that draw you in and make the action engaging.
A few weeks ago I discovered Wordplayer. It’s a great little site filled with writing screenplays and the industry. If you’re an indie, you’ll want to read this. It covers a lot of basic screenwriting knowledge and how the system works. Coming from someone on the inside, it’s great to have something available to us.
Have an idea. I’m not trying to be stupid. The key here, is that YOU have to find the idea interesting, otherwise, you won’t want to make the movie. Regardless of what other people say about it being cliche, or boring, make the piece that you want to make. Isn’t that the whole reason we got into this? Oh right, the millions of dollars. That’ll come one day. For now, write what you love.
What are you trying to say? Now you have an idea. It’s a seed, a starting point. Sure, it may be exciting, but does it matter? There are plenty of movies that don’t say anything, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But think about your favourite movies. Think about those movies you consider the cream of the crop. Even if they don’t explicitly “say” something, there’s some sort of theme that drives the movie. Does your story have a theme? Is it trying to say something?
Write a treatment. You have the idea, start writing out all the scenes and action that you want to see. If there would be dialogue, just leave a note for yourself that “// dialogue goes here”. The idea is that you want to get the structure of your movie down on paper. Now is the chance to look at the pacing and move scenes around or shore up plot holes.
Write the script. Now, find all your “// dialogue goes here” notes, and replace them with real dialogue. Think about your characters, model them after friends, family, enemies, just give each one a unique voice. Give them something fun or interesting to say and try to stay away from exposition. If you’re finding that you’re explaining the plot, then write a scene that SHOWS what’s happening.
Take a vacation. Done with the script? Save it! Put down your pen, or whatever media you’re using to capture your thoughts, just, step away. Your natural inclination is to go back and make edits and to think about your script all the time. But you’ve just spent all this creative energy making your masterpiece. You need to rest and rejuvenate. Just like runners need to rest after a marathon, you need to rest as well. Go somewhere warm, preferably, with food.
Rewrite. How was your vacation? Sunny? Fun? Relaxing? Wonderful! Now open up your script, pick up your pen and reread what you wrote two weeks ago. Doesn’t it suck? Now rewrite it. Make your characters stronger. Make your plot more interesting. Make sure what you’re trying to “say” with your script is clear.
Let people you trust read it. Now is your opportunity to start sharing it with your trusted cabal. There should be a set of people who you trust to give you honest and fair feedback. People who care about you and want to see you succeed. Some of the things that say will be mean. Your favourite scene may end up being trash in their eyes. That’s perfect! You know why? Because now, you can go back and go through that scene and every other scene and try and prove to them why it’s not garbage. In doing so, you may realize that there are things in your head that you didn’t get down on paper. Or maybe they’re right. It is garbage and it should be cut. The script is more important than your ego.
Rewrite. Armed with the knowledge of your trusted cabal, go back and rewrite. Again. At this point, you should WANT to rewrite it. Because you care THAT much about your script.
Here is the second installment into the forray of film. You can start at the beginning with Love Angle: My First� Movie.
I just about wrapped up the script. The first revision was a disaster. I had the unfortune to sit next to Ninja as she read and made faces at the script.
After the table read, both the cast and I felt that there were a lot of deficiencies in the script. Some of my actors weren’t happy with the direction I took their character. We spent a lot of time brainstorming and thinking of solutions to some of these.
During the week, I felt that the way we lead up to the ending was just such a huge contrivance. So, I ended up rewriting a good part of the script.
As we approach our shooting schedule, I’ve come to a point where I’m okay with the script. It could probably use the addition of one or two more scenes, but for the most part, the structure works.
I’m going to try something, and post the current draft. If it works, take a gander and post in the comments. Otherwise, stay tuned for more updates.
