YOU WANT TO BE A HOLLYWOOD SCREENWRITER

YOU WANT TO BE A HOLLYWOOD SCREENWRITER?

I understand the feeling that comes from the idea of being a successful Hollywood screenwriter. It is like getting a lifetime membership to the country club. Vision of wealth and fame fill the imagination. That is the reality for those who reach the tip top of the food chain. For the average screenwriter you are going to struggle. The hard work that you did to get there is going to double once you get a foot in the door. 

 

This is not the worst thing that can happen if you learn the basic rules of how to write a quality screenplay. If you are doing something that you know how to do and that you love to do then no amount of work will seem too much for you. I love to write once I sit down to do it. I am sure that most of you love the process as well. Here at this blog I hope to share a few lessons that I have learned along the way and to offer you advice that have been posted by others.

I know that some of you are wondering if I have ever sold a screenplay to a Hollywood producer. When I was younger I entered the contest and tried to network my way in, but the game was not for me. Thankfully I decided to walk away from that chase just when the indie micro budget film making revolution was getting started. I found people who could shoot movies for under twenty thousand dollars and since I enjoyed the work more than the idea of wealth I have had the time of my life for the last few years and who knows if I ever write a breakout hit I could get to continue to have fun and freedom doing what I love and make a lot of money too.

Here I an excerpt from my book On Low Budget Screenwriting. You can find it at audible and on Amazon, to do so click image of book cover below.

   


 

BOTH SCREENWRITER AND FILMMAKER

In a world where film has largely been replaced by digital the modern screenwriter needs to consider the idea of being both screenwriter and filmmaker. 

 For the first century of film making the writer hoped to be part of the film making process as a voice on set or to work their way up to directing someday. This was because movies costed so much to make. Millions of dollars meant that there was a system that allowed very little if any vertical movement. Now low budget films are shot for under a million dollars. The ultra low budget film can be done for less than one hundred thousand. The micro budget film can be done and done well for under ten thousand dollars.


 If you want to be the writer, the producer and the director you can now do this. You do not have to use your own money either. You can shoot a scene of a minute or two to prove your concept and then use it in a crowd funding campaign. You can now craft a no budget screenplay, shoot it and use it to market your skills as a writer or better yet the all in one filmmaker. Let's look at the no budget short film.


 

  Perhaps it is time to consider that the best way to become a successful screenwriter is first to become a film maker. 

If you wish to learn how to craft a micro budget screenplay I have written a great little book that you can check out. It is a paperback that soon will be for sale as an audiobook. What I have suggested here is one path to becoming a successful screenwriter. 

In the next post we will look at the Hollywood way. If you wish to learn more about micro budget film making I would suggest visiting my other blog on the subject. Click here to do so. 


Thanks and good luck with your screenplay.

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.


 

More About Found Footage

            More on Found Footage

    I have just spend a week trying to analyze what is right and what is wrong with the found footage craze.
    I believe that the craze began with Paranormal Activity. After the Blair Witch there were a few attempts at making found footage films, but that movie was basically a one and done. Even the sequel is not found footage (that was a major mistake on the producers part).

   We could go back further to the first great found footage movie. All the way back to the 70's there was a notorious movie titled Cannibal holocaust. It is so dark and bloody that most fans over look this minor master piece. It is about a band of so called journalist who travel to the Amazon to document a lost tribe only to first create the story they are there for and then later become victims of their own curiosity.

    I believe that curiosity is the key to the quality found footage films. In Cannibal Holocaust these jerks ( I am being kind) keep filming from a safe distance while someone is raped, later while the same thing is happening to one of them and then they keep film while one of their own is being killed. It is a film that shows that the person or persons with the camera does not have to be a hero or likable. You can give that camera to a murderer or a thief or a total coward.

    I say that you can do this because you are doing this. You are picking who holds the camera and reveals the action. We are trying to follow rules here and there are no rules. Anything goes in this new genre.

    I would argue that the biggest problem with this genre is the sticking to the rules of normal films. Look at most of them, they are still stuck in a 180 degree world. They are shot as if there is still a crew of fifty people behind the camera.

    To prepare for this post I looked at a few movies that I had not seen yet. The first one was Paranormal Activity, Tokyo Nights. A sort of remake of the American version. You can see the whole thing on youtube if you wish. I like the pacing of this version. There is a rule about Japanese horror film making. It is said that American’s try to startle their viewers while the Japanese try to disturb them. Their style of filmmaking is to get under your skin and scratch away.



    The other film was one that I had high hopes for, Area 407. This could have been a great film instead of just an okay film. The people who boarded the plane that crashes in this film are much smarter than the ones who crawled out of the wreckage. I would have rather watched a movie about the flight and the crash without the monster portion. All the stuff that happens on the ground reminded me of the playstation 2 games I did not like enough to finish.

    Challenge yourself and your characters to be smarter than the audience. Characters who go out of their way to get killed are characters that no one will remember.

    Okay that is it for now. If you have any suggestions leave them as a comment. If someone disagrees with me so much that they wish to respond in post form I would be happy to post it here if it is well written.
Lastly remember to stumble us on Stumbleupon and if any of you are interested in learning to turn your no budget screenplay into your own no budget movie please visit my new site where I offer advice and tutorials on different types of filmmaking. You can visit it by   clicking here.

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, 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

The Ultra Low Budget Script

            The Ultra Low Budget Script

            Your Screenplay, Time to Write It

    1.
    As someone who has written a few of these things my advice for
the beginner is just to get it down on paper.  Beginning, middle and end
as fast as you possibly can for this reason, gravity will take over other
wise.  What I mean by Gravity is the pull of the other (dreaded better)
idea.  The story that you are trying to write will not seem nearly
as fresh or as interesting as the one you have just come up with.
Gravity is the weight of everyday life.  The normal doubts
about whether or not you can do this thing.  After all who do you
think that you are trying to write a screenplay.
    Other people write movies, but not me.
    They are so long and so complicated.
    These are the myths that will weight down.
    Allow me to kill these two myths.
    First screenplays are not that long.  90 pages and less than
20,000 words on average.
    What?
    90 pages sounds like a lot.
    Unless you are writing a silent movie over half of these pages will
be dialogue.  That is a lot of white space.
    I don’t know the format.
    Really?
    Really, I do not know the format.
    Fine, go online.  Google your favorite movie, search for the
script and read it.  It will not take long to read.  A good script is a
quick read.  The cool thing about doing this you will read where there
were changes made that are not even amongst the deleted dvd scenes.
Also the software that you pick may help you with the formatting. Last
bit of advice on this subject and it is the best writing advice I ever
got.  Get a notebook and a pen.  Sit down and hand copy 3 pages
of the favorite screenplay that you have read.  By doing this simple
exercise you will learn so many subtle details you missed by just
reading it.
    Secondly, it is not complicated.  Bad scripts are complicated.
Good ones are so simple that you wonder why there are not more
good movies.
    My girlfriend loves the Notebook.  As a guy it makes me
cringe.  As a writer it makes me smile.  On the surface it looks complicated.
Only because it bounces back and forth along the time-line to keep
you guessing.  The truth is that it is just a boy meets girl story.  Boy loses
girl, boy gets girl back, boy loses girl to illness and each day boy gets
girl back again.  Wow, that is so complicated.
    Need more examples?
    Fine.
    Lunatic tortures people to make them appreciate their lives more, Saw.
    Young couple falls in love on doomed ocean cruise, Titanic.
    Brain dead couple make all the wrong choices when dealing with a violent
supernatural entity, Paranormal Activity.
    Get the picture?
    Not that complicated at all.
    But my idea has twists and turns and surprises and is filled with deep
symbolic elements.
    Good grief who let M. Night in here?  Who told mister Happening,
mister The Village where we would be having our little chat?
    Fine, okay, I can deal with this.
    A group of strangers discover that they are trapped in an elevator with
the devil, The Devil.  Story by our good friend M. Night.
    Cut this nonsense out and make an entertain movie or all the studios
will stop answer your calls is a great motivator huh?
     Now you need software.
    Final draft is the best.  It cost a good amount.
    There is also Movie Magic screenwriter and Script Wizard.
    You could go for a free program.  There are 3 that I like.
    Scripped is a site where you write and save your screenplay at their
online site. You can even register it there.
    Celtx is a nice little free formatting software.  It also will help you
with the full production of your movie, but that is another article.
     I really like a freeware program called Roughdraft, it is bare bones
basic, but if you already know the elements of screen writing then it is a
solid program.
    Good luck with your screenplay and remember if you write just
3 pages a day for one month you have a screenplay.