Think like A Filmmaker

            Think Like A Filmmaker

    Do I need to learn about filmmaking to be a good writer?

  No. You can be a great writer and never learn anything more than the basic format of a script.

    Is there a but coming?

    Yes.

    But you need to learn something about no budget filmmaking to be good at writing this type of script. You need to understand that it is not like writing any other kind of script. The limitations of your no budget screenplay are fixed. There are certain things that you cannot include in a script because it cannot be done on a budget of under fifty thousand dollars.

    Here are some basics to keep in mind.

    You cannot count on CGI to save you. Computer effects can only do so much. Unless you or the director you are working with is a master at this and can reproduce scenes from the Avengers on his or her Mac you need to keep it realistic. The software required to make it look great will probably cost more than the film’s budget. Final advice on this subject if you are going to write scenes that require seeing a lot of monsters, explosions and space ships just sit back and watch what the sci-fi channel has on any Saturday. This should cure you. There is being cheap and looking cheap and sci-fi channel manages to pull of both.

    Next up is your cast. Do not include more than twenty speaking roles. I would suggest keeping it to around ten or less.

    Why?

    They need to be paid usually. Either up front or down the road.

Secondly you have to feed them. “So what,” you say. So just imagine having to feed fifteen or twenty of your friends sleeping in your living room for a week. They will need bathroom time and they will need food. Lots of food and you (the writer filmmaker)  will have to provide said food at least three times a day. Screenwriters do not usually think about this. The writer producer has too. Food cost money and did I mention coffee cost lots of money and people drink lots of coffee when it is free to them. This is one reason for a small cast of characters. The other reasons are the cost of wardrobe. The cost of transportation for each one of them. The added risk that someone gets hurt on and off the set. An injury to one actor who is in multi scenes shuts down the movie until they are able to work again. Keep your cast small. Here is a clip from a film that kept its cast small and I bet you never noticed.

    One more note on cast. Extras that show up for one day and one scene do not count. You do not usually have to feed them. They are people who just want to be in a movie and are going to be easier to deal with than your real actors.

    I will not talk about location here. I did a post on location. I will mention that one of the best things that you can do is actually see a movie being shot. Watch some behind the scenes tutorials. Visit a set if you can, even as an extra. Get your camcorder out if it shoots 24p and or if you have an iPhone download the filmmaking apps and shoot a scene or two of your script with friends to see how it flows visually. Trust me you will learn a great deal from this process.

    What was that?

    You do not know how to shoot a scene. Fine, I can help you. You can visit my new filmmaking site, (shamless plug coming) it is titled thephonefilmmaker. This site has basic tutorials on how to make a film using the iPhone and digital cameras and camcorders. Also a bunch of short films shoot with each. There will also be advice on where to go and get Apps and or basic equipment to shoot you little test films. To go there you can   click here. 

    Okay I think the next post will be about writing a short film. Good luck and remember to add this blog to your Google plus and Stumble us on Stumbleupon.  It is a way for me to know if this site is worth continuing. It is a way of knowing that there is someone out there that is getting something from these post. If you have a suggestion for a future post please leave a comment.

    Thank you and see you soon.

Busy Work

                  The Busy Work Curse

    Sounds like the title of a bad short film. If you like it then use it, but that is not the subject of this post. Busy work is. Busy work and why it is one of the great curses that afflict every writer from time to time.
    Busy work is the work that you do that keeps you from doing the work that you are afraid to do; writing your no budget screenplay.
    I am busy doing research, can’t write today.
    I am busy going over last years collection of bill receipts, can’t write today.
    I am busy writing the treatment for the new screenplay that I am planning, can’t finish the one that I am working on.
    I am waiting for the hairdresser I found online who moonlights as a demon slayer to come by and get rid of that entity who lives inside my playstation 2.
    Really?
    Seriously?
    Let it go.
    Push all of these excuses aside and make your busy work the actual act of writing. I am guilty of this myself. I have a dozen scripts that have died thanks to the curse known as busy work.
    The only busy work that is acceptable in this universe involves Jennifer Love Hewitt, a dwarf, a camcorder, silly string and Snapple. You figure it out and if your imagination has Jennifer holding the camcorder at any time you are both wrong and sick.
    Busy work is writing.
    Writing is your job.
    We avoid it because if we are good at it we open up and lose ourselves. We are not only revealing things about our characters, but about ourselves as well. That is a scary experience and on some level each of us who write realize this. Not one of us who manage to do this for a living will look back on the experience of writing and wish that we had done it less often. (Do I have to mention Jennifer Love Hewitt again? Why did she have to do that new show? I was recovering from watch the Ghost Whisperer. The medication was working and now its little maid outfits. Why does it have to be on demand too?)
    Okay I am back and that will not happen again. Well again today.
    Here is the perfect counter to busy work.

    Don’t you wish that we could all have an Annie to help us get off of our butts and write every single day?

More About Dialogue

                More On Dialogue

    I am returning to dialogue for this reason. It sort of sounded earlier
that I was anti dialogue. I am not. I am against the over use and dependence upon dialogue to progress the script. Dialogue pages fly by, while action and description takes longer to write.
    Secondly my problem with dialogue is that people are just not as good at it as they use to be.
    Hold it.
    Wait a second.
    Drop that protest sign.
    I want you to go and look up what are considered the top fifty or so films of all time. Do the same for television. Do the same for songs. After you have done this review go back and look at the years these films, tv shows and songs were written. They will have something in common. Most if not all were written before the internet age, before the way we communicated changed. Instant messaging, texting, twitter has changed the way we talk to each other. Sentences do not always have begin middles and ends anymore. And of the modern day classics how many of them were written by older writers. People who started in the 80s or 90s?  How many? Just about all of them?
    You have two golden ages in filmmaking and screenwriting. The 1930's and the 1970's. The music was mostly bad, but the films were amazing.
    Examples from the 1930's, The Thin Man, Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Destry Rides Again, Stage Coach, Public Enemy, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dracula, The Lady Vanishes, Murder, The Bride of Frankenstein, Duck Soup, Grand Hotel and I could list a hundred more films. Can you list 10 films from the last 5 years.

The scene is from the 1931 movie Public Enemy. the perfect mix of dialogue and action to tell you everything that you need to know about these two characters and their relationship.

    Let’s jump to the 1970's. The Godfather and its Sequel. The French Connection, The Exorcist, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Shining, Vanishing Point, Halloween, Rocky, Scarface, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Superman the Motion Picture, Jaws, Star Wars, Patton, Taxi Driver, Frenzy, Straw Dogs American Graffiti, Alien and half a dozen Woody Allen movies. I am leaving out tons of international films, Grindhouse movies, and the golden age of Italian horror films.

    Watch movies from both decades and read scripts from both. You will see that in the 1930's they had to hint and suggest what was really meant at times while in the 1970's they were allowed to hit you with a sledge hammer. The 1930's were about writing with a quill pen and the 1970's were about writing with a hammer and chisel. And the cool thing is that both ways were equally as effective.
    Recognize this and understand that you can do it both ways depending upon the story.
    Really? I don’t believe that. No one can tells stories using both styles.
    You are almost right. Most of us will find our niche and stick to it, but I would like to say that Hitchcock managed to do it. As a matter of fact he managed to produce classic films in both of the decades listed. I am not saying be Hitchcock. That is like saying go hit home runs like Babe Ruth. What I am saying is that Dialogue is a tool. Learn to use it and if you have to visit past experts that is okay.

One great scene from the Godfather. Basic one on one dialogue at its finest. The actors and writer made this look too easy.

Another Software Review

            A Software Review

    I have written about it, but I have not shown you the software in action and I have not allowed others to tell you about certain aspects of screen writing. For this I am sorry. There are a lot of great writers out there and their advice is as good as mine and sometimes better.
    I have gotten so caught up in teaching you how to write a low budget script that I forgot to focus enough on the basics. You will need a great deal of knowledge about the basics. You will have to be more fundamentally sound than those who write big budget epics.
    I would first like to mention a new free software program that I have been introduced to. It is called Adobe Story. Just google that and you will find the download page. So far it is a really nice free program that can be used online or downloaded.
    The two that I wanted to revisit today are Celtx and Scripped.
    Here is a quick tutorial from the guys at the Scripped site. If you are ever worried about losing your work via a crash or lose of your computer then this is the place for you. Store your work here where it is safe and you can revisit it any time.

    Now here is a tutorial on Celtx. Keep in mind that once you finish your script here you can import it, print it and if you wish to register it on site.

No Budget Screenplay Structure

            Building a Structure


    Let’s review the basics.

    We are telling a story.

    Your screenplay is a story and just about every single story have one thing in common. They all have a set structure. Someone tells you a story and it always boils down to this. The story will have a beginning, middle and an end. In screenwriting we call this Act I, Act II and Act III. If your script is one hundred and twenty pages then Act I will be about 30 pages, Act II will be around 60 to 70 pages and the final act should be 20 to 30 pages.

    I believe that the last act should be the shortest because of intensity if no other reason. The time for talk is all, but over and action on the page and on the screen is what we are looking for at the end on our screenplay. Look at one of my favorite movies, Taken.  Act I is over when the daughter is taken, Act II is over when our hero finds out from his former friend when his daughter will be auctioned. The final act is short and brutally sweet.

    From this point forward in the Blog I am going to try to offer as many video tutorials on the subject as possible. I do this to follow my own favorite rule about movies. Show and do not tell.

    Below is a video about structure.

    Good luck with your script.

Short on Dialogue

                    Your Screenplay, Short on Dialogue

    When writing your low or no budget script you need to consider the actors. I do not mean that you need to consider casting. You need to consider their limitations. Unless you are lucky the majority of your cast will be new to the business. They will not be use to being on screen. They will not be use to hitting their marks and the massive pressure of a low budget film shoot.
    You as the writer need to help them out as much as possible.
    How do you do this?
    Keep dialogue as short as possible.
    No, I do not mean keeping the scenes as short as possible. I mean that you you try to keep their speeches as short as possible. One to five lines at most. Your name is not Tarantino and this is not Kill Bill. If you are going to have stage trained actors who are use to memorizing massive amounts of dialogue then go for it. But most likely you are going to have people who have never done this before. Friends trying to help you out or models who are trying to branch out. It will most likely be their first time so follow the first time rule, be gentle.
    Acting is a funny thing. It is easier for a novice to react than to actually act. Some of the greatest movie stars of all time are not actors, but reactors. Go rent a Kevin Costner movie and watch one of the worlds great reactors.
    Your lead character gets the most dialogue and the biggest blocks of dialogue. Allow those who interact with the lead to have shorter bits of talk that when and where ever possible they are called upon to react to what is said to them.  Bill was killed, react. Did you hear that Mike died, react. There is a monster in the basement, react. Our son is missing, react.
    Make it easy on the actors and they will show their love by giving a quality performance.

What Do You See?

What Do You See?

What do you see?
This is an important question.
Why?
Because what you see is what the audience will see one day. Movies at the end of the day are visual. I would say go back to silent films and watch them, but the truth is a silent film is doing very well for itself right now, (The Artist). When writing a script dialog tents to take over. I understand why. It is easier to write. To eats up a lot of pages. It progresses the story in a way. On the page it looks great and there is all that clear white space around it. While description and action is usually that ugly block text that look like paragraphs in a text book.

On the screen that block text flows quickly while those lovely pages of dialog drag along. More than 90 seconds on screen of uninterrupted talk is like watching paint dry unless you are named Tarantino. What we see is more important than what we hear or in other words show do not tell. If you can show that characters do not like each other rather than telling us then do it. If they love each other love is what they do with and to each other rather than going on and one about who loves who. Save that stuff for soap operas. We are going to talk about dialog soon, but this is about the visual and what we see comes first second and third.
Does genre matter?
Same rule for all.
I do not care if it is Action, Horror, Comedy, Drama or Found Footage show me do not tell me.
But in comedy they tell jokes.
Really?
Take Dumb and Dumber, it is the stupid things that they do and not what they say that makes it a comic classic.
Action is obvious. The Road Warrior is all most a silent film for the first twenty minutes.
How many times have you heard when will they shut up and when will something happen in this movie?
I am going over some familiar ground here, but hey this point has not gotten through to some of you. Show them at all cost and then resort to telling them. With low to no budget film screenplays sometimes we have to tell rather than show. We can tell about an alien invasion or a murder spree rather than showing it because we can not afford to show it, but when or where ever possible we must show them.