The New World Of Screenwriting

The New World Of Screenwriting

The Dslr revolution amongst low and micro budget film makers has changed the way that screenwriters are looked at by film makers. 
 

   There are now two worlds. The Hollywood way of looking at screenwriters. The screenwriter is a tool that is to be used, abused and when it begins to make noise to be replaced with a younger and cheaper version. Hollywood believes in the need for quality screenplays, but not necessarily the need for writers. You can still get rich there, but you stand a better chance of hitting it big with a novel as you do with a dozen quality screenplays.

 The indie world of film making offers the screenwriter far less money up front. Face it most of us will be working of spec, but the script will get made and the power of the screenwriter in the micro budget world is like that of the writer in the world of network television. You matter more and if you want to be the film maker then all that is required is a great deal of hard work, a few dollars, a strong computer to edit on and a dlsr camera. Christopher Nolan wrote and directed his first film Following for a few thousand dollars with a bunch of friends. The film was shot over the span of a year of weekends.

 

 
 

  Look at it this way. In the Hollywood system you as the screenwriter is looked upon as a house elf who may serve long enough to earn your clothes. In the micro budget universe you at worst a high ranking resistance fighter and at best a long lost Jedi Knight.Your skills are viewed as important as those of the leading actor, the director or producer.

 


The thing that I wish to leaved you with today is a single piece of advice moving forward. Decide on what kind of screenwriter that you wish to be. A Hollywood writer or an indie writer. 

 Can’t I do both? 

Yes and no is my answer. 

A low budget writer who pens a film like Mad Max can write films like Thunderdome and Fury Road. A guy who writes the Evil Dead can do three Spiderman films scripts. While someone who did Star Wars films for twenty years cannot think in terms of less than thirty million dollars or once you have done big budget horror films such as the Village and the Happening you think that spending five million dollars to shoot The Visit (most indies could have done it shot for shot for less than a hundred thousand) cannot got micro budget. 

Decide which type of writer you are, not want to be, but are and you will be on your way. 

Thank you for visiting today and my final piece of advice is to study film making this cannot help but to make you a best writer of film.


 

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.