Years ago when I started this blog I took a lot of heat from writers who did not understand what I was trying to tell them.
Five years ago I suspected that no budget screenwriting would be the future of the industry and those who had dreams of million dollar options hated everything that I had to say.
How can you write a screenplay for a movie that cost less than fifty thousand dollars to produce? Who would even make such a movie?
Who would watch such a movie?
And how would I get paid a living wage?
I saw the Dslr revolution coming to the low budget film world. I was part of it. I understood that film could be shoot in 4K on consumer cameras and edited on laptops. I understood that the days of the big screen premiere were coming to an end and the days of streaming content had arrived.
Netflix started it and now there are half a dozen giant screaming services and dozens of smaller ones. To be a working screenwriter you have to think like a working middle class film maker. These filmmakers need to produce massive amounts of content.
This means that they need screenplays.
This means that we are in a golden age for writers who care about seeing their work produced. Writers who are willing to enter into partnerships with filmmakers and gamble on playing the long term game of profit sharing. If you are willing to learn the basics of micro budget filmmaking then you can and will see your work produced. From films to online series, the sky's the limit. There is a need for content out there and this is now the golden age for the content producer as long as he or she is willing to understand that the fifty million dollar star-driven suspense thriller has been replaced by the fifty thousand dollar indie horror film.
Please do not panic. The road to fame, fortune and glory do not end there, it can begin there. Many writers of micro budget films have gone on to work at the major studios. To achieve that goal all that I believe that you have to do is to write a few micro budget films and get not only paid but the experience along the way.
