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.


 

Screenwriting, A Lose Of Suspense

Screenwriting, A Lose Of Suspense

When people think about writing a low budget screenplay they tend to turn in one of three directions. Comedy, drama or horror. I understand this. These are the movies that populate theaters and cable tv these days. We write what we read and we write what we see. That old run of writing what you know comes into play. The problem is that the two dominate forms of screen writing has all but been lost during the last decade.

We no longer write westerns. I understand this based upon budget to a certain extent, but the micro budget rules can apply to a western as well as other types of films. If you are the writer and the film maker and you live in an area of the country that offers a western setting then you should not be afraid to write a western.




The suspense script is not so much about budget as it is about technique. Most of you have not been taught how to write a suspense script. Many confuse suspense with mystery. For most of the past century suspense was king and horror lived in a back room. Hitchcock dominated the box office with one suspense story after another. Suspense films still are a large part of the international film market it is just here where the suspense film has been filed away.

Why should you consider writing a suspense script?

Suspense offers the best of all worlds. A little horror, comedy, action and drama. When done well they stand the test of time. They will challenge you as a writer.

What are the rules for writing a suspense story?

One rule applies always. This rule is the exact opposite of a horror script.

In a horror story something is chasing you. In a suspense story you are chasing something. You being your lead character of course.

Jason, Michael Myers, Freddie and the shark from Jaws is chasing the lead. They are always being stalked or menaced by the creature in the darkness.

In a suspense story the lead is doing all the chasing. He or she is trying to track down the monster. Find the threat before it is realized. Locate the bomb before it can go off. Get the wife or child back before it is too late.

Modern suspense classics are Disturbia (remake of Rear Window), Taken, Basic Instinct, The Usual Suspects and Momento. I recently saw the movie Stoker and this disturbing little film reminded me of what world class suspense is like. I watched the movie the first time as a writer and the second time as a film maker. The budget is listed at twelve million dollars. I imagine that a lot of that budget went to pay the stars and for once I have to admit they earned their salaries. Every performance was pitch perfect and the suspense does not work nearly as well if the number one person who is in danger is not some one that we as viewers are not familiar with. The movie need Nicole Kidman in the same way that Hitchcock’s films need Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly.



Okay back to the budget. If you take away the salaries for the stars and the director and shot it using a small digital production crew this film could have been shot on an ultra low budget.

You need to look at movies and read script from films shoot in the forties and fifties. Many of the great suspense films from those days were low budget B suspense films. Many of the rules that apply to micro budget film scripts were learned from those films. Limit the cast and the locations and the number of sets. Find a lead character that can not let it go. A character who has to chase the answers down. A character who does not blink and then let them go for it. Or you could show us two sides of a characters personality. One side decent and kind, the other side dark and violent. Which side will come out in the end? Which person will reveal themselves and to whom? Suspense is built that way. It comes down to when will the bomb go off. Just keep in mind that sometime the bomb is a secret or sometimes it’s a person.

Okay that is it for today guys. Good luck with your no budget screenplay. Please take a moment to stumble us on stumble upon and to share this post with a friend.

Your Screenplay, The Classic Film Lessons

            Your Screenplay, The Classic Film Lessons

    It seems that the majority of film critics agree that the best year ever generated by film makers was the year 1939. At least 10 four star all time classic films were released that year. The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Young Mister Lincoln, Destry Rides Again, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Wuthering Heights and The Oscar winner that year, Gone With the Wind.

    All of these movies have one thing in common. They are almost pure story from beginning to end. Every scene has value. In movies like Gone With The Wind almost every line of dialogue is there to reveal something about the character who delivers it.

    “How can these movies help me to write my micro budget screenplay?”

    I will go back to what I just told you. These films were pure story. Some had the equal of multi million dollar budgets and some did not. All of them had great story telling at their core. In the low to micro budget world story telling will have to make up for massive special effects and overpaid actors.

    We live in a world where board games become major summer releases. Pointless and plot-less releases that are quickly rejected by the movie viewing public. A great story well told is what we should all aim to produce.

    The problem is that no one knows exactly how to do this because no two people tell a story in exactly the same way. I can suggest things to you, but I cannot give you a special formula that will get it done every time. The best screen writers on earth have written great films and turned around and written something lifeless and boring. You are the writer of your no budget screenplay.

    One of my favorite modern horror movies is Jeepers Creepers. I love the script for that movie. The writer/director of the film based it largely upon the great Universal films of the 1930's and the Creature from the Black Lagoon from the 1950's. My favorite Vampire film of all time  Fright Night (1985) and the movie Disturbia is based upon the Hitchcock classic Rear Window. The writers of these films took lessons from these movies and gave them their own spin.

     Learn to watch classic films in a new way. Not just as a member of an audience, but as a writer. Watch how one sense is connected to another. Study how dialogue is selected to tell you all that you need to know about the characters and their motivations. The greatest scene ever written of this type is in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life.  You find out everything that you will ever need to know about these characters by what they say about themselves and about each other. And it is all done in one minute.  Violet, Mary and George are revealed to us through this little exchange.  Here is a except from the shooting script of It's A Wonderful Life.

 INTERIOR DRUGSTORE —– DAY

MEDIUM SHOT –– George comes in and crosses to an old-fashioned
cigar lighter on the counter. He shuts his eyes and makes a wish:

GEORGE
Wish I had a million dollars.

He clicks the lighter and the flame springs up.

GEORGE (cont'd)
Hot dog!

WIDER ANGLE –– George crosses over to the soda fountain, at which
Mary Hatch, a small girl, is seated, watching him. George goes on
to get his
apron from behind the fountain.

GEORGE (calling toward back room)
It's me, Mr. Gower. George Bailey.

CLOSE SHOT –– Mr. Gower, the druggist, peering from a window in
back room. We see him take a drink from a bottle.

GOWER
You're late.

MEDIUM SHOT –– George behind soda fountain. He is putting on his
apron.

GEORGE
Yes, sir.

WIDER ANGLE –– Violet Bick enters the drugstore and sits on one
of the stools at the fountain. She is the same height as Mary and
the same age, but she is infinitely older in her approach to people.

VIOLET (with warm friendliness)
Hello, George.
(then, flatly, as she sees Mary)

VIOLET
'Lo, Mary.

MARY (primly)
Hello, Violet.

George regards the two of them with manly disgust. They are two
kids to him, and a nuisance. He starts over for the candy
counter.

GEORGE
Two cents worth of shoelaces?

VIOLET
She was here first.

MARY
I'm still thinking.

GEORGE (to Violet)
Shoelaces?

VIOLET
Please, Georgie.

George goes over to the candy counter.

VIOLET (to Mary)
I like him.

MARY
You like every boy.

VIOLET (happily)
What's wrong with that?

GEORGE
Here you are.

George gives Violet a paper sack containing licorice shoelaces.
Violet gives him the money.

VIOLET (the vamp)
Help me down?

GEORGE (disgusted)
Help you down!

Violet jumps down off her stool and exits. Mary, watching, sticks
out her tongue as she passes.

CLOSE SHOT –– George and Mary at fountain.

GEORGE
Made up your mind yet?

MARY
I'll take chocolate.

George puts some chocolate ice cream in a dish.

GEORGE
With coconuts?

MARY
I don't like coconuts.

GEORGE
You don't like coconuts! Say, brainless, don't you know where
coconuts come from? Lookit here –– from Tahiti –– Fiji Islands,
the Coral Sea!

He pulls a magazine from his pocket and shows it to her.

MARY
A new magazine! I never saw it before.

GEORGE
Of course you never. Only us explorers can get it. I've been
nominated for membership in the National Geographic Society.

He leans down to finish scooping out the ice cream, his deaf ear
toward her. She leans over, speaking softly.

CLOSE SHOT –– Mary, whispering.

MARY
Is this the ear you can't hear on? George Bailey, I'll love you
till the day I die.

She draws back quickly and looks down, terrified at what she has
said.

CLOSE SHOT –– George and Mary.



    It has never been done better.  You will know who George is, who Violet is and who Mary is for the rest of the story. George is a dreamer. Mary loves George and Violet is well Violet. Their characters are defined in that one scene.

    Okay that is it for today. Sorry that the post are coming about a month apart, but I am working on a script and it is taking longer than I thought. It always does doesn’t it. Remember to add us to your google plus.