VERTIBLOG Film School III - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part 2
OK.
$1,500 isn't a lot of money. But, it IS enough to make a feature film.
But in all honesty, probably not a very good one.
People with established talent demand money. Good established actors, good established cinematographers, good established sound mixers, and so on. Working professionals usually work professionally. And a $1,500 feature film budget is not a professional environment.
That's not to say that you can get talent for free. You most certainly can. You probably just won't be able to get established talent for free.
So, that means you have to seek out talent and discover it. More on this later.
THE STORY
We'll get to the script in a sec. First a little Storytelling 101.
What's your story about?
I don't mean plot. I'm talking about premise.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS isn't about a young FBI tracking down a serial killer with the help of another serial killer. Sure, that the plot. But it's not what the picture is really about. It's not what drives the characters or what drives the narrative. It's not what makes a film that won Best Picture, a film that is widely recognized a near-masterpiece, a film that in my opinion is one of the 20 best movies of all-time.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is about a women trying to find her place in the world. It's about a young character, unsure of who is she is and what she's capable of; it's about how far she'll go to determine the answers to those questions... about what she's willing to reveal, what she's willing to risk. Clarice is struggling with her past, with where she came from, and trying to find out if she's "good enough" -- as a daughter, as a woman, as an FBI agent, and as a person.
What's your movie about?
Great films aren't about their plots. Great films are about something else.
THE SCRIPT
Remember... pragmatism. Be realistic.
Don't write in stunts. Don't cast children. No animals. No pyrotechnics. No car chases. Don't have dozens of extras. Don't have 12 principal speaking roles. Don't write long passages of dialogue that amateur actors will mess up take after take. Don't have a dozen key locations that are miles and miles apart from each other. Don't write 'walk and talks', which are a nightmare with continuity and retakes... for long dialogue scenes, keep people stationary. Keep it contemporary, set it today, not in 1970 or 1885.
What to do: Keep it simple: a small cast of characters. Few locations. Try to write a lot of scenes to take place outdoors. Outdoors, you don't have to light -- huge timesaver. However, outdoors you have to battle the sounds of the outdoors, so keep it far from the street, and not next to a construction site.
Also, you should take advantage of locations. You know somewhere cool. That old derelict train trestle back behind your uncle's property, overgrown and rusted, but an incredibly interesting looking structure. Or the cool empty silo that your friend's cousin knows about.
That place by the river.
The movie theater where your buddy works.
Rack your memory, and ask your friends and family if they know any unique, super cool locations. I guarantee you they will. And exploit them. Let them inspire you.
The scene you were going to shoot in your mom's kitchen is going to be a hell of a lot more interesting at the old abandoned amusement park way up near Mount Tom.
I'm working on a feature, DEAD DUDES, written and directed by my friend, Karl Konopka. Karl decided he wanted to make a zombie film. He loves zombies. The budget is probably around $750.
Karl wrote his script with the intent to shoot it, which I'm assuming is your intent, too. He wrote it with few characters, few locations, and cleverly had the whole film take place in a day (certainly helped with wardrobe and makeup continuity). That was all smart.
He did another smart thing. All of his characters, with only one exception, are between 19-25 years old. Why was that smart? Because he was able to hire students. The other role? He wrote it with his college professor in mind.
Then Karl did yet another smart thing. He decided he wanted to write about something.
The script's plot is about a couple of guys trying to avoid zombies while they're trying to avoid the mob. Simple. And if that was all that the movie was about, it could very easily fail; let's be honest, for $1,500 you're not gonna have much in the way of zombie action +/or that many cool mob shootouts.
Karl's idea was to use the zombie story to look at the values we hold dear in society today. What's important to us? And if faced with a zombie onslaught, would it still be important? Would we try to protect only ourselves, or would we choose to help others. Are a bunch of mindless zombies only interested in eating your brains that much different from a bunch of people only interested in saving themselves?
These are pretty good ideas. And they will separate his zombie movie from the countless other zombie movies out there that are about, well... zombies.
An aside here. Scriptwriting is a singular writing discipline. There is a very specific format that we must adhere to. There is wiggle room, sure, but all correctly formated scripts look pretty much the same. There's a lot of white space, a lot of things abbreviated and capitalized. I'm not going to go into screenplay format... there's a whole lot of other books that devote dozens and dozens of pages to that.
A wonderful, and widely recognized, reference book for screenplay formatting is "The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats: The Screenplay", by Judith H. Haag & Hillis R. Cole. Here's a handy link to it on Amazon.
Screenplay fomatting software is also a must. For years I just used Microsoft Word and really got to know the tab key. The industry standard is Final Draft. But that's going to cost you about $200.
Before you splurge, try either Simply Screenplay or Script Maker, two freeware apps that utilzise macros within Microsoft Word. They're certainly a little clunkier than Final Draft, but you save 20% of your budget!
Finally, if you haven't already: READ A LOT OF GOOD SCRIPTS. Go here now: SimplyScripts.com. This website compiles pretty much every script that id available for free electronicall on the web. Everything from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY to THE BOONDOCK SAINTS to THE PACIFIER (though I'd only recommend the first). There are easily a few hundred scripts availbe for download, free of charge. Beware of transcripts, though... which are simply scripts that have beenn typed up verbatim by people that have way too much time on their hands.
PRE-PRODUCTION
(continued)
© 2006 by Marty Langford
$1,500 isn't a lot of money. But, it IS enough to make a feature film.
But in all honesty, probably not a very good one.
People with established talent demand money. Good established actors, good established cinematographers, good established sound mixers, and so on. Working professionals usually work professionally. And a $1,500 feature film budget is not a professional environment.
That's not to say that you can get talent for free. You most certainly can. You probably just won't be able to get established talent for free.
So, that means you have to seek out talent and discover it. More on this later.
THE STORY
We'll get to the script in a sec. First a little Storytelling 101.
What's your story about?
I don't mean plot. I'm talking about premise.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS isn't about a young FBI tracking down a serial killer with the help of another serial killer. Sure, that the plot. But it's not what the picture is really about. It's not what drives the characters or what drives the narrative. It's not what makes a film that won Best Picture, a film that is widely recognized a near-masterpiece, a film that in my opinion is one of the 20 best movies of all-time.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is about a women trying to find her place in the world. It's about a young character, unsure of who is she is and what she's capable of; it's about how far she'll go to determine the answers to those questions... about what she's willing to reveal, what she's willing to risk. Clarice is struggling with her past, with where she came from, and trying to find out if she's "good enough" -- as a daughter, as a woman, as an FBI agent, and as a person.
What's your movie about?
Great films aren't about their plots. Great films are about something else.
THE SCRIPT
Remember... pragmatism. Be realistic.
Don't write in stunts. Don't cast children. No animals. No pyrotechnics. No car chases. Don't have dozens of extras. Don't have 12 principal speaking roles. Don't write long passages of dialogue that amateur actors will mess up take after take. Don't have a dozen key locations that are miles and miles apart from each other. Don't write 'walk and talks', which are a nightmare with continuity and retakes... for long dialogue scenes, keep people stationary. Keep it contemporary, set it today, not in 1970 or 1885.
What to do: Keep it simple: a small cast of characters. Few locations. Try to write a lot of scenes to take place outdoors. Outdoors, you don't have to light -- huge timesaver. However, outdoors you have to battle the sounds of the outdoors, so keep it far from the street, and not next to a construction site.
Also, you should take advantage of locations. You know somewhere cool. That old derelict train trestle back behind your uncle's property, overgrown and rusted, but an incredibly interesting looking structure. Or the cool empty silo that your friend's cousin knows about.
That place by the river.
The movie theater where your buddy works.
Rack your memory, and ask your friends and family if they know any unique, super cool locations. I guarantee you they will. And exploit them. Let them inspire you.
The scene you were going to shoot in your mom's kitchen is going to be a hell of a lot more interesting at the old abandoned amusement park way up near Mount Tom.
I'm working on a feature, DEAD DUDES, written and directed by my friend, Karl Konopka. Karl decided he wanted to make a zombie film. He loves zombies. The budget is probably around $750.
Karl wrote his script with the intent to shoot it, which I'm assuming is your intent, too. He wrote it with few characters, few locations, and cleverly had the whole film take place in a day (certainly helped with wardrobe and makeup continuity). That was all smart.
He did another smart thing. All of his characters, with only one exception, are between 19-25 years old. Why was that smart? Because he was able to hire students. The other role? He wrote it with his college professor in mind.
Then Karl did yet another smart thing. He decided he wanted to write about something.
The script's plot is about a couple of guys trying to avoid zombies while they're trying to avoid the mob. Simple. And if that was all that the movie was about, it could very easily fail; let's be honest, for $1,500 you're not gonna have much in the way of zombie action +/or that many cool mob shootouts.
Karl's idea was to use the zombie story to look at the values we hold dear in society today. What's important to us? And if faced with a zombie onslaught, would it still be important? Would we try to protect only ourselves, or would we choose to help others. Are a bunch of mindless zombies only interested in eating your brains that much different from a bunch of people only interested in saving themselves?
These are pretty good ideas. And they will separate his zombie movie from the countless other zombie movies out there that are about, well... zombies.
An aside here. Scriptwriting is a singular writing discipline. There is a very specific format that we must adhere to. There is wiggle room, sure, but all correctly formated scripts look pretty much the same. There's a lot of white space, a lot of things abbreviated and capitalized. I'm not going to go into screenplay format... there's a whole lot of other books that devote dozens and dozens of pages to that.
A wonderful, and widely recognized, reference book for screenplay formatting is "The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats: The Screenplay", by Judith H. Haag & Hillis R. Cole. Here's a handy link to it on Amazon.
Screenplay fomatting software is also a must. For years I just used Microsoft Word and really got to know the tab key. The industry standard is Final Draft. But that's going to cost you about $200.
Before you splurge, try either Simply Screenplay or Script Maker, two freeware apps that utilzise macros within Microsoft Word. They're certainly a little clunkier than Final Draft, but you save 20% of your budget!
Finally, if you haven't already: READ A LOT OF GOOD SCRIPTS. Go here now: SimplyScripts.com. This website compiles pretty much every script that id available for free electronicall on the web. Everything from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY to THE BOONDOCK SAINTS to THE PACIFIER (though I'd only recommend the first). There are easily a few hundred scripts availbe for download, free of charge. Beware of transcripts, though... which are simply scripts that have beenn typed up verbatim by people that have way too much time on their hands.
PRE-PRODUCTION
(continued)
© 2006 by Marty Langford
posted by Marty at 8:47 AM
1 Comments:
Interesting website with a lot of resources and detailed explanations.
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