Your No Budget Screenplay,No Money is Good

Your No Budget Screenplay, No Money is Good

    For the short term having no money to produce a big budget epic is a good thing.  If you had an unlimited budget to work with and access to all the actors and locations on this world and how ever many others that could be computer generated then you would not have to learn the basics and you could happily go off and produce your version of  Dune.
    If that is your goal then you do not need any help or advice, go forth and create your epic piece of what ever Dune was.  Do not get me wrong Dune is an entertaining film, but it is in that accidental kind of way.  Sort of like a Three Stooges kind of car wreck.  The sad thing is that we can not say that for 99 percent of the mega budget flops that hit theaters each year.  These movies are usually written and produced by those who never bothered to learn the basics.
    Are you familiar with the films Batman the Dark Knight and Inception? 
    Christopher Nolan did both films. Wrote, produced and directed.  This is a man who learned the basics while making low to no budget films. 
    Most people think that Nolan’s first film was Momento.  It is a film with a million dollar budget and that was not where this great writer/filmmaker began.  He started with a movie titled Following.  It was a 6,000 dollar little movie that he wrote and shot on weekends for almost a year.  It is the hard work and lessons learned while writing this screenplay is what helped to make him someone capable of creating a film as unique and massive as Inception over a decade later.

    When you have to be inventive to solve problems rather than throwing money at the problem you will actually be learning the fundamentals that will help you years down the road to create epics.
    Do not look at having to limit your locations, the scope and number of characters as a handicap.  These are the lessons that will make you a better writer.
    Keep in the back of your mind while doing the first draft the number of locations that you are using and the population of your screenplay.  Remind yourself that locations cost money and that actors cost money.  What about extras they work for free?  Hey in the ultra low budget world your stars will most likely work for little to no money, but they have to be fed.  Extras have to eat.  Even if it is pizza and pop tarts they have to be fed.  Food cost money, so extras cost money. 
    If you have a script that requires a cast of less than ten people then that cast can most likely be held together by the producer and or director for many weeks or months if the weekend way of shooting is required.

    Keep these things in mind and try to write something every day.  Even if you are just writing notes.

Your Screenplay, I'll Believe Anything Once

    Your Screenplay, I’ll Believe Anything Once

    Movies are about the suspension of belief.
    The audience enters into a willing contract with the storyteller. This contract states
that they will believe absolutely anything that you tell them, once.
    I repeat ONCE.
    Do not go beyond that unless you are writing a comedy.  Comedy is the art of
the ridiculous.   All else requires that the once rule be put into place.  Test this rule
out on almost any and all bad movies that you have seen.
    Why didn’t you like the movie Insidious.  They broke the one thing rule.
Yes they did hint at what was to come, but it was too much all at once and it took
the movie in a completely different direction. You had a really solid and creepy
horror film going and the whole astro projection thing was a bit too much that came
along much too late in the movie.
    Let us look at the anything once rule in full effect.
    I see dead people, The Sixth Sense.  You are told that and the movie never looks
away or turns away from that premise.
    The devil is in this elevator with us, The Devil.  Simple and easy to follow.  Well
done little movie.
    My child is possessed by a demon and needs an Exorcism, The Exorcist.  Greatest
horror film ever made and yes there is a bit more to the story than that, but the basic
concept is followed through without blinking or looking away.
    Killer shark has selected an island community as its feeding territory, Jaws.  The
big shark is not genetically engineered.  It is not from outer space.  It was not
bullied in school.  It is just a big bad eating machine and it likes the taste of people.
    Keep it simple.
    If your story is a spy thriller or a mystery you are allowed and encouraged to
make it complicated.  Those are puzzles and are meant to be studied and reworked by
the viewer.  While if you are doing an action or horror, or suspense or drama story I
am telling you that simple and straight forward without grand twist are the best
way to go.
    Imagine that your script is an arrow that you have just shot from a bow.  Do you
want this arrow to fly straight and true toward its target or do you want it to twist
and turn and do loops like in a looney tunes cartoon?
    Anything once will be believed, trust me on this.
    Any one thing.  If you want to hold your audience one shot is all you will get. If
this was good enough for Dickens and Shakespeare then it should be good enough
for me and you. 

Your Screenplay,The business

Sometimes the business aspect of screenwriting and running a blog such as this is overlooked.  Part of creating a blog is getting it publishes 3PZXBQDJT4D8  to as many sites and to obtain as many links as possible.  Part of being a screen writer is understanding that although this is an creative thing it is also a business.  Part of doing business is making sure that you understand the correct format.  Understanding that others will have to become involved at
some point.  At one moment you go from creating something that is totally isolated to something that has to be viewed and judged by many.  Even if you are going to be the writer, director and producer your work is going to be read and judged either positively or negatively by those who will become involved.  Be prepared for this.  Do not allow your feelings to get the best of you.  This is business and not personal.  Good luck blogarama.com

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Your Screenplay, Is a Love Story

The Descent

            Your Screenplay, The Love Story







    All screenplays should be love stories.  Not between the characters on the page, but between you and your characters.  The saddest type of movie to watch is one where the writer clearly hates some if not all of his or her
characters. They have constructed characters who’s sole purpose
is  to show up long enough to eat up screen time and be gotten rid
of in the most gruesome manor possible.
    This has become standard in both action and horror movies.  Just because it
is standard does not mean that you have to follow that rule.  It may take a little more
time to write about characters who have lives and are interesting to both you
the screenwriter and the viewer, but hey no one said that this job was going
to be easy.
    You can turn on Fear net or Showtime Extreme or the Sci-fi channel and
see countless movies populated by characters created to first fail and then die.  You

will never create a great script this way.
    What about Friday the 13th?  What about Halloween?  What about Mad Max?
    What about them?  Do not think about the sequels.  Think about the originals.
Think about the first of each.  Friday the 13th is filled with actual characters.
Halloween spends time letting you get to know the star and her friends.  Friends
who have lives and dreams and plans.  Dreams and plans that do not include
getting slaughtered by a masked killer.  They were not made to be killed, they
mostly happened to be in the way.
    Mad Max is filled with memorable characters.  It is the loss of these characters,
concluding with his wife and child that turns a cop with an unspoken mission to give
the world its heroes back that drives Max over the edge.
    Let me give you a modern example of what is becoming a genre classic.
    How many of you have heard of the movie the Descent?
    You have not only heard of it, but seen it?
    Cool, so did I.  As a matter of fact I was lucky enough to see this movie at
a film festival.  It was the North American premiere and it was one of those rare
moments when at the end the audience, including myself, stood up and applauded.
    This movie held its audience from beginning to end.
    There are no easy kills in this movie.
    There were no empty lives.
    Each character is introduced and defined.
    They actual die as they have lived.
    They actually seem to know each other.  They interact as friends would.  They
all share a common history that has lead them to this moment in their lives.  What a
great job of writing and directing.  There are moments when they don’t like
each other but still care about each other.  If these characters were lost in
the woods and there was nothing chasing them this would have still been
and interesting film.
    The Descent is not a perfect film, we could talk for days about the
alternate endings, but it is a great example of how to populate your script with
characters whom you as the writer and view will get to know and
care about.                                    

Hannibal Lecter

                            

    The lesson is that if the writer does not care about character C then why should
the audience?  Care about them all, even the villains.  Even if the villain is a monster.
Hannibal Lecter is one of the most evil characters to ever appear in a film.  Audiences
can not get enough of him.  His creator must care about him, perhaps even
admires many aspects of his personality.
     Find things to like about as many of your creations as possible and where or
when you can find things to love about them.  It will show up on the page
and hopefully on the screen.  Love your characters and they may in return,
through the gift of fame fortune and glory, show you love in return.

Your Screenplay, Four Corners

    Your Screenplay, Four Corners


          Here is a little advice I picked up from a well known Japanese director.  When asked how he writes a script he would say that he would start with a story board in the shape of a comic script.  Four corners to tell the whole story.  He would draw the 4 most important images in the whole movie
and then write toward those visual moments.  Take some of the greatest
movies of all time and see if you can come up with four shots that tell the whole story. 
    Next about the most important character.  The Antagonist.
    Yeah, you heard me right.
    Heroes are the characters that we love. They are our babies and we treat them
as such, but it is the villain who drives the tension of the story.  The antagonist is the
one that makes drama possible.
    The great Bond movies all had great villains .  The bad guys made Sean Connery
number one.  He had villains who were fun to be around and to watch get it in the
end. Treat them, while they are on the page, as if they were the stars of the story.
Also following a comic book rule here is not the worst thing you could do.  The
hero is usually the mirror opposite of the villain.
    The villain is strong where the hero is weak.  In superman his arch-enemy is the
smartest man on earth.  If your hero is made of water your villain should be made of
fire.  Keep this in mind.  And now some advice from the last action hero.  The
bigger the obstacle the bigger the hero must be.  I like Woody Allen, but he has
never fought aliens and saved the world because no one not even himself
would believe it.
    Also try to keep your characters, both good and bad guys, on their feet.  Tie
their shoes tight and make sure that they do not stumble and fall in moments
of crisis.  In Friday the 13th the girl always falls while running from Jason. 
In too many action film the hero is saved by the villain stumbling and falling
at the moment they are about to win.  Only in comedy should you have
characters flopping like Ric Flair in a title match.
    Let me  leave you with this.  If you want to learn more about writing scripts
read them.  Read your favorite movies, they are mostly free on line.  If you
want a master’s class on the subject read Hitchcock’s The Birds, or North by
North West or Psycho.  He did not do the actual writing on these scripts, the
director influenced every one of them and the attention to detail in these
scripts is why Hitchcock is considered the greatest of all time.

Your Screenplay, Your Location is King

The Movie Saw

    Your Screenplay, The Location is King




    The one thing that will determine the budget of your script more than almost
anything else is location.  It is not so much the location that you chose it is
moving from one location to another.
    Every time that your story changes locations you will have to move cast
and crew.  You will have to also set up again and then there could be electrical
concerns.  There could be new permits that have to be gotten.  How long will you
have access to the new location?  How to feed the cast and crew there?  When you
move locations you are moving everything.
    In the ultra low budget world if you have more than ten locations you are
no longer shooting a low budget movie.  Unless you own or have unrestricted
access to all the locations.  This is why so many low budget movies are in the
woods movies or on the road movies.  These locations are free.
    I am not telling you to set your script in a closet and it will only cost ten bucks
to make.  I am saying that you need to know your locations before you write.
    Saw has a central location, half the movie is spent there and this really saved
the producers a lot of money and surely cut down on the shooting schedule.    The movie
Saw is a good example.  You can have that central location.  Your main characters
spend most of their time there.  Most of the story is told there, but for the sake
of making it more cinematic the script takes us on short trips to other locations.
    Let’s look at easy to find locations.

From The Movie The Devil

    An apartment or a house.  A good sized house is better than an
apartment because it can double for multi locations while at the
same time not requiring the production to pick up stakes and
set up across town.  One bedroom could be in character’s A
house, while another could appear to belong to character B who
could live in another state or even country.  The kitchen
becomes a location, the living room, the basement, the
backyard and the garage if there is one.
    A car and or cars can become separate locations.  Whole movies have
been shot inside of cars.  The last half an hour of the Stephen King Film Cujo
is shot in and around a car. The great budget saving feature here is that the
car does not even have to be working.  It is better if it does not.  The production
saves on having to travel with the vehicle and spending money on gas.
    When you write a script do not let this be the first thing in your head.  The
story comes first, but when you re-write it consider location and budget.
    Parks and wooded area are great to save on money.  Parking garages are
cool too.
    Locations where there is just enough room for conflict, while the tightness
of the space also adds to the conflict are great as well.  The movie The Devil is
a good example, mostly shot in an elevator.  Even if you have to build the
elevator set this is okay.  It does not cost that much to build four walls and a ceiling
that can be moved depending upon the shot.
    About special effects, do not be afraid to include them.  Effects are
cheaper and easier to pull off with the available software today.  I am
not saying that you are free to write the Matrix or Inception, but write the
story and later decide where you may have to cut or alter.
    If you remind yourself that location is important then you will have less
trouble down the road with your script.  It will be far more appealing to a low
budget producer if they can tell early on that you understand the basic facts
of the business.
    This also applies to television movies as well.  Most of them have limited
locations and limited set up’s.  Look at the movies that Hallmark Channel and Lifetime
makes.  Most of these movies are limited locations and limited shooting time.  These
made for television movies are usually shot in eighteen - thirty days.  A low budget
film shoot could be and usually will be between five and twenty one days.
    Knowing the value of locations will help you create a script that will be
more attractive to producers and much more budget friendly if you decide to shoot
it yourself

Movies Talk Too Much

            Movies Talk Too Much
                  

           
    They use to call movies Talkies and for a reason.  In the early days of sound
film characters could not seem to shut up.  They were 90 minute long talk fest.  This
was in large part due to the fact that producers and directors decided to shoot stage
plays once sound arrived.
       I would argue that is was the Hitchcock film Murder that changed forever the
direction of film making.  He used sound like he was conducting a symphony. 
For the first few minutes of the film he allows visuals to tell his story.  And then
during the titled Murder he allows what is heard to tell the story rather than what
is seen.  He balanced both sight and sound better than any film maker ever. 
Hitchcock understood that both were a tool.  Having started out as a silent film
maker he understood the power of the visual when done well.
    Characters will have to talk, but they do not have to talk us to death just because
you are working with little to no budget.
    Let me quote Hitchcock for you, If I want to see people sitting around and talking
for two hours I would stay in the theater lobby.
    But if you want to dazzle all with your Woody Allen or Quentin Tarantino like
grasp of dialogue fine.        
    Look it is your money.  At least I hope that it is.
    But just ask yourself this question, can it be shown rather than said?
We listen to the radio, we watch movies.
    Isn’t that what we all say?
    Let’s watch a movie.
    I am watching tv.
    I saw this great film.
    Never I heard this movie.
    In other words try always to show rather than tell.
    Movies are about visuals.
    What do we see?
    Did you just say something?
    What about the Godfather?
    Exception to the rule?  If you got a Godfather in you then go right ahead,
but I would like to respond with this.  The most memorable scenes from that film are
when Michael is having his enemies killed all at the same time.  We hear the
christening of the baby, we see Michael’s hit men doing their jobs all over
town.  We remember most a fat man running up a flight of stairs, a man
being shot through his glasses, the fake cop doing a hit on the church
steps. Did I mention a horses head on a bed?
    I believe it is at this point the Don would grab you by the shoulders and start
shaking you back and forth while yelling  “Be a Man, What’s the Matter with you,
Be a man, be a man.  Show, don’t tell!”