The would-be screenwriters thread - Page 28

"Facing a bad guy shortage and feeling increasingly obsolete, the City's superheroes form a lottery to decide which of them will become the new archvillains."

Or something.

OK, I get it now. That is much clearer.

I found the mention of the heroine more intriguing than the group of heroes personally, but I can where that approach is coming from.

It certainly opens up a lot of questions, which is good, but I wonder if they are more along the lines of "well how would that work?".

I'm not trying to be obtuse here, Greg (just my opinion, etc. etc.) but put that way, I have a load of questions that you probably have great answers for but for me would be slight issues and may mean confusion as opposed to intrigue and mean me moving on.

I get no feel of who the hero/ heroine is or exactly where the conflict is going to come from.

I feel it's an amusing set up but beyond the contrivance I have no idea what to expect.

OK, so I get that half the heroes are going to become villains, but they're not real villains... yet.

At what point in the story does the real conflict kick in, and what is it? Does one of the put-up-to-it villains decide that being a villain is actually way more fun and decides to play for keeps?

Or something else? Thinking about it, you've come up with a very fertile idea. I'm not saying spell the whole thing out, but I wonder if it needs a little more.

Again, just my two cents so feel free to ignore/ tell me to go jump!

No worries Greg. Hope it's useful!

Actually, if no one minds any chance of some opinions on something of mine?

It's a project I've slowly been developing over a while. I've got a full treatment, first 25 or so pages, some artwork done and several avenues I'm looking to explore in terms of getting it properly going.

It's very much intended to be in the spirit of the orginal SW and Indy films and is intended to get back to the old school thrills and adventure. I think it could be great but as it stands it's very much a "perfect execution required". What I'm trying to get into the basic logline/ synopsis is the hook or the strange Attractor that Rossio and Elliot talk about (kind of in the way that originally Pirates was a straight up Pirate movie and grabbing people so much, until they added the supernatural/ undead pirate element).

This is basically the brief synopsis:

6012 - In a galaxy where Religion has long been outlawed, a wrathful God rises to wage bloody war on the disbelievers. Leading an army of fanatical crusaders, Deus carves a bloody crusade through the star system, hell-bent on discovering an ancient artefact before reclaiming the Earth for his zealous acolytes. When the Crusader invasion disables the Earth’s Orbital Defence Shield, mankind has just 12 hours before the rays of the Sun consume the planet in fiery Armageddon. Earth’s only hope lies with its most wanted man: the godless rogue and galactic fugitive: Finley Slade. A former off-world commando and planetary explorer now sentenced to death for crimes against the royal empire. Slade is offered a full pardon if he can lead a rag-tag team into the savage no-man’s land beyond the shield’s perimeter and recover the artefact Deus so craves before the Crusaders can and the Earth burns. But even if Slade wins that race, one inescapable dilemma remains: how can a man defeat a God?

Originally the leader of the Crusade was more like a bad ass Jesus, but I wonder if the hook is actually making him a God/ Deity.

Hence these briefer versions of the logline:

Log-line 6: 6012 - In a galaxy where Religion has long been outlawed, a wrathful God rises to wage bloody war on the disbelievers. When this fanatical Crusader invasion disables the Earth’s Orbital Defence Shield, mankind has just 12 hours before the rays of the Sun consume the planet in fiery Armageddon. Earth’s only hope lies with its most wanted man: the godless rogue and galactic fugitive: Finley Slade. But how can a man defeat a God?

Log-line 5: 6012 - In a galaxy where Religion has long been outlawed, a wrathful God rises to wage bloody war on the disbelievers. The Earth’s only hope lies with its most wanted man: the godless rogue and galactic fugitive: Finley Slade. But how can a man defeat a God?

Log-line 4: 6012 - In a galaxy where Religion has long been outlawed, a wrathful God rises to wage bloody war on the disbelievers. Leading an army of fanatical crusaders, Deus carves a bloody crusade through the star system, hell-bent on discovering an ancient artefact before reclaiming the Earth for his zealous acolytes. When the Crusader invasion disables the Earth’s Orbital Defence Shield, mankind has just 12 hours before the Sun’s rays consume the planet in fiery Armageddon. Earth’s only hope lies with its most wanted man: the godless rogue and galactic fugitive: Finley Slade. But how can a man defeat a God?

I guess I'm coming from a similar place Greg was, in terms of: what details do I need to include before it starts to get too much/ confusing?

Are there any limitations or guidelines as to what a logline must be? Length? Are loglines and taglines basically the same thing?

Most of your shorter loglines still feel long to me. So I'm leaning towards logline 5. Do you feel anything missing if it were stripped bare like this?

I feel that the details of exactly how the Earth is doomed (the Orbital Defense Shield) aren't important. Just the fact that it is doomed seems more than enough. I definitely like ending it with the HOW question.

yeah, I'm never sure about that. I think you're right, shorter the better and leave the details for the synopsis. I guess I could even trim out the godless rogue/ galactic fugitive part and leave it at most wanted man...

I guess at some stage, I've wondered if the whole ticking clock to save the world before the sun fries us was the hook, hence its inclusion.

Anyway, thanks man, appreciate it.

Oh, I actually like the ticking clock as the hook. Should've mentioned it. I was just talking about the specifics of how the earth would end. Knowing the when is nice. I think you should keep the 12 hour deadline. I also think it's worth keeping the godless fugitive part for Slade Though... in a world where religion is outlawed, is "GODLESS ROGUE" might read as redundant or confusing.

Ok, cool, thanks for the feedback.

I think loglines, etc are sometimes harder than the damn scripts.

Good point about the redundancy... You thinking galactic rogue and fugitive? Or just galactic fugitive

I'm having difficulty with my current script. It's a pilot, and the character and dialogue stuff is coming easily enough, its just the larger world building that is difficult. I now know why you don't see many movies set in Hell.

 

I mean, if we're taking a prison/death camp movie template here, characters always have the chance to interact and talk in their bunks/cell, because hey, you gotta let those guys rest and sleep or they'll die. 

 

But in hell, there would be no reason to let them rest or take a break, since they're already dead, and thus why would they be allowed to take a break for dialogue scenes? Wouldn't they just be forever burning in the lake of fire or constantly being tortured? Haha these things are making it difficult for me, and any advice I can gather would be appreciated!

Appreciate that! Though I do want to find the right balance between federal-prison/something the audience has never seen before. The federal prison aspect I'm pushing at first simply to make this strange situation a little more relatable. Later on I'll go into the more strange aspects...I was just worried about coming across as unimaginative. 

Just passing along a few links a screenwriting/filmmaking mentor of mine passed along.  I've never taken that leap into writing a screenplay, but I just love hearing him talk about it.  I have a lot of admiration for everyone here though and have enjoyed reading your processes.  

 

My mentor's name is Brian McDonald and he's a real old-school screenwriter (though I'm sure he'd hate that I'm describing him that way), if you know what I mean.

 

This is him speaking at a story seminar he does once in a while.

 

But otherwise, he mostly sends my friends and me a lot of links to writers and artists he admires (he even just recently linked us to the piece Devin wrote about the way story is marginalized in Hollywood) when it comes to the craft of story structure. 

 

Stephen J Cannell Writing Seminar pt 1

 

Pt 2

 

Pt 3

 

Pt 4

 

Pt 5

 

I always enjoy reading about this stuff because it always enriches the films I watch even if I don't necessarily agree with it.  

 

 

 

 

I'm dealing with a frustrating situation that I'm sure is the norm. I was commissioned for an action script, and I submitted my draft to the producers. Notes came back, and they strip away every bit of character or cool or 'wow, that's different!' that I had added. Now it's as generic as can be. The lack of ambition bugs me. You hired me, why not let me write something that's a little better than you're used to? Shockingly, I can write a better script than The Marine 2. (Or maybe they just want to painlessly repurpose this into The Marine 3...)

 

They actually want an ending where the two leads finally kiss, then we pan up over the city and fade out. Hrm.

What is often their rationale for what they want you to strip away?  I'm sure they give you no legitimate reason.  I just want to know if they even bother justifying their opinions.

There isn't a rationale, just 'change this.'  We have a conference call tomorrow, so I'm hoping to argue my side there.  It's a serviceable enough script, but that's about it.

 

I need to find the right balance.  On one hand, I have lots of ideas that can make this a more involving script, but on the other... is it an important enough story to me to really risk fighting tooth and nail, and maybe getting dropped in favor of another writer?  The paycheck's nice (hell, having just moved to L.A., it's really nice), but I want this as more of a springboard to getting a better agent and other assignments.  The concern I have is that if the script remains as generic as it is, potential jobs might go away because they think I'm unable to write anything interesting.

 

OK. My biggest fault when writing is that I tend not to say no to ideas. I have a 'what the hell' attitude when I'm shaping the story. Really I'm not posting here for advice, because I've got plenty of people willing to give it to me. It's just that when I get wild ideas I have to share them. These ideas have no place in the story, but I put them in anyway for a laugh, if only to see the expression on people's faces when I show them my first draft.

 

I'm on my second feature screenplay (the first is a monster I've given up on until my skills improve), I've done a lot of short screenplays, but this is my first real attempt to punch out a low budget idea that might have a slim (and I mean nanometers slim) possibility of getting made. I hate cliches, but I've saddled myself with a big one as indie movies go; I made my main character a junkie. I'm at the scene where he is confessing his past to the love interest. Very emotional and all, but as I wrote, it dawned on me it was also very very cliched. The whole scene is useless, something I was only writing to re-enforce the bond between the two characters. He confesses past sins, she draws in close, they kiss... My mind wandered at that point and a rogue idea got through. After a long, passionate kiss my main character whispers in her ear "and that's how I learned I was HIV positive." 

 

The scene is unnecessary and by all accounts will not make it into the 2nd draft, but god damn I want to leave it in there just to see people's reactions.

Keep it in! You know you want to! C'mooon! 

 

And one generally tries to avoid cliches, but sometimes they inevitably pop up. The best you can do is to at least try to put your own original spin on it, or approach it in a different way, offer a new angle, a new perspective, etc etc etc...

 

Oh, and I'm almost ready to submit the first two episodes of my pilot script to an actual company that reads scripts! It's the "Four people die, go to Hell and plot to break out" television series I had ideas for way back when. Monsters! Demons! Giant Centipedes! One-Armed Mosaad Agents! Anybody care to take a look-see? 

Sure, hit me. But give me a deadline or wait forever for feedback.

I just finished writing my first screenplay. I'm sure it's very first draft-y and riddled with more cliches than I'm even aware of, but overall I'm mostly happy with it as a first effort. The characterization and thematics are fairly nice, and that was my first priority in writing it so at least I can get satisfaction from the fact that I mostly fulfilled my objective. Not entirely sure what I'm gonna do with the script now, so any advice re: agents or submitting to companies would be VERY welcome.

 

I think my dialogue gets too Sorkinesque at times, but it's hard to resist getting quippy, especially when the plot demands that characters elicit joy from shutting each other down. Also I'm overlong by about 15-20 pages and have no real idea what to cut, so I'll probably leave it alone until I get suggestions from anybody who happens to read the script down the line. I used Blake Snyder's book Save the Cat for structure -- I would recommend it as long as you recognize that the author is an annoying, arrogant douche with no taste in movies.

Quote:

My advice would be to get people to read your dialogue out loud. Too often have I written what I thought was good dialogue only to find out that, when spoken, sounds very unnatural and not nearly as clever as I thought. Not saying thats the case with you, just saying its a good way to discover if what you've written truly works or not. 

 

I'm in a sci-fi mood lately, and I think I have a pretty decent concept I want to start writing. Plus I've heard that writing a sci-fi spec script is a good way to get a greenlight, it seems like high concept sci-fi stories get picked up every time I check Hollywood news sites, but I've also heard that you shouldn't even bother with sci-fi if you're an unknown writer. 

First, decide whether it's more important to you to sell something or to say something.

Also if you are trying to get your name out there it is easier to sell scripts which do not require a big budget. More people are willing to look at it, and not just the studios. I've been told that if you want to get a script shot as a independent film you should think of it as a play. Keep it in as few locations as possible, because every time the location changes the production has to spend more money. 

Can someone please kill me?

I was in the final stages of polishing a script I was most proud of, when today it was announced that a well-known director is going to tackle a script with the exact same title and with a 95% similar synopsis as to what I have here. And no, unless they went Inception on me there's really no chance anyone stole my idea as I have kept it secret for months now. I was about to send it out to my agent tomorrow.

 

I think I'm gonna cobain myself now.

 

edit: I may not throw it away, but in order to use it now, I'd have to completely change it in order to not be seen as the copycat

I hate when that happens. But the way I see it, it's proof that my ideas are potentially marketable.

I want to write a script.  Any advice?  I want to write a drama.

 

Is it okay if there are pages that are just description?  Like two pages of description, no dialogue?

 

I want it to be 106 pages, give-or-take.  Thanks!

Generally no, unless you're doing a brooding piece of austere silence or something. Description in general should be confined to the bare necessities with a script.

 

You should look at some screenplays online. They're about 90% dialogue, excluding slug lines.

 

That's if you want to sell it, though -- or at the very least have some professional-type people look at it. If you're just writing it for yourself then go crazy.

Got it.  There are some digressive scenes, kind of like in a musical or modern action movie, and I'm not really sure how to approach the sequences that are composed of them.  There are four or five scenes like this over the course of the movie and, as it stands, they consist solely of description.  Striking a balance between the concise and evocative seems like a challenge that will push the limits of my naturally self-indulgent diction.

 

Other than that it's mostly dialogue.  Except the main character doesn't talk much.  He's pretty passive for most of the story.

What I've been told is that any description you have in your script needs to be something that can be communicated visually.

 

So don't put in sentences like, "He nervously walked into the room."  If you really want to be specific, it should be more like, "He tip-toed into the room."

 

That's probably the right idea, not that I've adhered to it too closely.  Unexpected juxtapositions of verb and adverb are like my favorite; they let you write alchemically.

 

I'm averaging over 200 words per page, unfortunately, which seems like 20 or 40 words too many.  Maybe I'll add a lot of white space since my page count is low, too.

If I introduce a character in dialogue do I capitalize his/her name the first time it's used in dialogue or do I want until it's first used in general description?

 

Thanks!

Edited by Policar - 11/4/11 at 7:11pm

You wait for general description.  You don't write

JOHN
So, have you seen MALIK?

You go

JOHN
So, have you seen Malik?

 

A man walks in. This is MALIK (28).
 

Makes sense.  Thanks!

Did everyone in here commit mass suicide?  Kinda quiet.

I've been shirking. Not quite ready to start a Won't-Be Screenwriters Thread just yet, though.

I hope not.  I've been toying with entering the field myself and I'd hate to be alone in here.

Next year we'll have modernized/prequel/sci-fi reworks of Zorro, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Moses, The Crow, Godzilla, Scarface, Tarzan, Wilhelm Tell, Hansel and Gretel, Hellraiser, Robocop and Robin Hood in active production. Money is a big reason for those choices, sure. Known titles are easier to market.

But I do have a feeling right now the studios aren't exactly drowning in awesome unproduced scripts.

 

Do you capitalize new character names even if they don't have dialogue?  Where is a good place to look up these rules?

 

If anyone wants to give me some feedback I can send them what I've written.  That would be really awesome.

Been way too busy with work and school; hoping to take the month of January and do yet another rewrite of my noir script (which is actually the strongest thing I've written, it just needs one more polish/tightening up) and get a draft done of one of two projects I've been playing with: One a conspiracy thriller, the other a rock road trip musical.

Charlie Kaufman talks screenwriting.

 

The Hollywood Reporter 2011 Screenwriters roundtable discussion.

Forgive me if this has already been discussed (if there's anyone left to discuss this with). I don't think I've ever posted in here because I rarely feel like talking about my writing or works in progress, probably b/c I don't want to build up the expectation that I'll actually get shit done. Anyway, my very simple question is does anyone have the same issues with the geography of a setting that I do? I've come to realize that my poor sense of direction while driving is probably immediately related to my poor sense of geography when I'm writing. I believe that I have a very pliable imagination and an occasionally inspired ear for dialogue, but the spaces in which my characters interact often times become muddled when not set in an enclosed space.

 

Does anyone have a process for this? Is the work-through just all about research?

 

Edited by JacknifeJohnny - 1/14/12 at 3:35pm

Film Crit Hulk, smarter than everyone else as usual, has posted an incredible (book length!) essay on storytelling and screenwriting. I think everyone everywhere should read it, but everyone in this thread has to. I say so. Part one. Part two.

Wow, that looks ambitious. Can't wait to dig in.

 

Meanwhile: Jacknife: When you talk about geography do you mean distances traveled on roads or things like the layout of a room? Both are really the director's responsibility. Although if you have two or more groups of people operating independently in, say, an office building (I suddenly need to read the Die Hard script) it's probably a good idea to indicate that they're in different locations within that space and whether or not they can observe each other.

All I get from his little manifesto is that Film Crit Hulk needs to stop using the phrase "apropos of nothing" and should also learn him some basic grammar before putting out tomes about writing technique. Either that, or I am going to Hulk out!

How about Film Critic Hulk starts to use his real name and write normal. Sorry, thought the internet was and film sites in particular were pass the silly names and the goofy writing. I would love to read it, but between the way it is written and the all caps thing, it gives me a headache.