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It's probably not a good idea to use either of those movies in a log line (or near a log line, or ever).
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Oct 24, 2010 23:08
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Oh, what the hell. Here's a little ten-pager I've written in preparation for the Digital Filmmaking class I'm (re-)taking next semester: You'll Be All Right, Charlie ("Charlie tries a curious method of soul-searching in the hope of understanding things") I'm still thinking about trimming it considerably (I could probably even get it down to five or six pages, and thus it would qualify for the first six-minute project) but I'm happy with the overall structure. I love taking advantage of local stuff and the "farmland" is something I actually live right across the street from. It looks really neat, big telephone poles stretching way down to the horizon, enormous open skies, good for sunsets. Edit: HERE is a trimmed version, cutting the opening scenes and the Franklin character completely, and making the final beach flashback a little more of a climax. I think this is the only time a film has ever just rolled into my head in one big slab. I woke up and there it was in my brain in its near-entirety. Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Nov 15, 2010 |
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Nov 14, 2010 19:21
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Hey, look at me, ripping off George Furth again! So last year I wrote and directed a five-minute reverse-chronology short film, and I'm taking the class again and I thought I'd give that idea another shot. This time I'm being a little more ambitious, and I'm planning to use this for the longer 12-minute project. We're Gonna Be All Right The script runs backwards from January 26, 2011 to March 19, 2009, following the relationship of Amy and Paul from when they first move in together to when they finally move out (or vice versa). Backwards scripts are difficult because the idea is usually to end on an ironic or retrospectively bitter note, and the tough part is making the second half interesting, because instead of building up to a big confrontation it's flipped around, so the heavy dramatic scenes are usually all at the front and you have to find a way to give weight to the final, optimistic scenes, which have to otherwise rest entirely on their dramatic irony. I hope I've succeeded here.
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Jan 6, 2011 00:06
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Watched the film and read the script. I really don't see a reason for doing reverse chronology with these two stories. With your script, it's not even like the male character is reminiscing backwards about how the relationship de-evolved, because there are things that the audience sees that he doesn't. Also, it's tedious as the viewer to try to piece together the different dates and times. It's admittedly a gimmick. I really adore films where you have to piece things together (such as connecting the dots between the dream and reality segments of Mulholland Drive) and I've always been a fan of the reverse chronology concept because it presents such interesting possibilities for narrative puzzles. Unfortunately most people see it only gimmick and don't enjoy narrative puzzles as much as I do so maybe I'm totally misguided here. Did you percieve Paul to be the main character? I thought the focus was far more on Amy, though she doesn't do much besides be subjected to Paul's downward spiral, and maybe emphasis should be put on her and how she changes from a romantic girl to a fairly headstrong woman. I'd certainly rather have the audience's focus on her, in any case. Jalumibnkrayal posted:If you were set on doing this, maybe you could find a way to really show a distinct change over time? Perhaps change the tone, color, lighting, etc of your film from the dark brooding times in the beginning to the beautiful flowering sunny ending. So start it in almost black and white, then gradually turn up the saturation and colors until the ending? Doing it that way, you might even be able to do away with displaying the dates and times up on the screen every scene. The plan is to, as the film progresses, change from a realistic style, with a more naturally-lit and even grainy look and an observant, almost intrusive camera to a more removed, romantic style, with stronger, more cinematic lighting and camera moves. As an example, the first scene would play with a dolly shot, but it would be done in a clinical, almost Kubrickian way, moving backwards down the hall as she comes in and turning to look in as she goes for the box, and then ending on a high angle of her on the floor, whereas later dolly shots would be more musical, such as during the Valentine's scene, which would open with their glasses clinking in close-up and then moving out, like the beginning of a Lubitsch number. Certainly saturation would play in. I'd keep the interstitial texts, though, because I have a raging boner for those (except I might insert "X MONTHS EARLIER" because that's easier for people to process than specific dates; when You're Gonna Love Tomorrow was shown in my film class one guy thought it all took place on the same day). I've actually done a few more drafts on the script (it ends again in the bare apartment, this time they're moving in). Thanks for the feedback, though, it's nice to know where I should be directing my attention. Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Jan 11, 2011 |
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Jan 11, 2011 03:01
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Sure, I'll read it, erickson.alfred [at] gmail dot com Another draft of We're Gonna Be All Right. I'm actually really, really happy with the first few scenes, but totally, completely annoyed with everything after scene five (in the cafe).
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Jan 24, 2011 03:08
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Here's a script I've written that we may be shooting pretty soon: Kaleidoscope I don't know why I keep trying to write relationship-dramas, but if this turns out well then maybe I'll move on to something else. The "present" scene probably needs some polishing, admittedly it was written around the flashbacks.
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Mar 19, 2011 00:36
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Here's a rewrite: Kaleidoscope The flashbacks are the same but I think the "now" dialogue is improved, and there's a small, additional flashback. I'm not sure if it's helpful in cementing Amy as the protagonist (I've noticed that in every relationship drama I've made and filmed, at least one person assumes that the male character is the protagonist, when it's always the female) or just a waste of time.
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Mar 20, 2011 02:47
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Golden Bee posted:"She was still wet..." is a glaring entendre. Wow, I hadn't even thought of that.  I literally meant that she was still wet from the hot tub. Golden Bee posted:6--When does this scene change take place? Probably five months previous, when Paul meets Megan and begins his affair. Golden Bee posted:Top of 8: A bit unnatural. Are they going for wordplay or trying to take something out on each other? A little of both. This was probably me unconsciously trying to jam more Sondheim into the script. I think if the actress is particularly angry reading those lines it'll feel more natural. Golden Bee posted:This whole page is kind of a plotbomb. You'll do X, I'll do why, I like you because you Q... The "I like you..." bit is supposed to be kind of stab of irony, perhaps if I drop the exposition about them moving in together the scene won't be so clunky. Golden Bee posted:I read this all at a sprint, which meant it got me gripped. I'm not sure I like the ending (or even the hate gently caress. It just seems like the path of least resistance to end it the way you did. I don't think I like it either, it feels fabricated. I do know that I want him to die and I don't think that's too much of a leap, I just need to find a way to get there that isn't forced. Golden Bee posted:Also, It's a loving Beatles pun! PAUL IS DEAD! Did you not think 'Miss him miss him miss him' when you wrote that?  Golden Bee posted:Maybe that's why the hate gently caress doesn't make sense. It doesn't fulfill Amy's objectives at all. This is a really concise way to put it. Testro posted:Making Megan a twin sister brings a different dynamic to the table than friend or associate. Megan now isn't just anybody...what's her motivation in this? Why does she want to screw her sister's boyfriend? Does she hate her sister? Has she fallen for the wrong guy? Why has Paul gone with his girlfriend's sister? A couple choices were made out of interest in saving time in production (this is for a class). Twin sisters would mean we wouldn't have to deal with the schedules of two different people, and it does indicate a lot more. The concept of sleeping with your girlfriend's sister is sort of fascinating to me but I don't think I have the room to properly explore it here. I may change it to friend, altering the speech about virginity ("she told me once she lost her virginity at 13..."). Testro posted:...in fact, I think you could get away with scrapping the rest of that page. This is an excellent idea. Testro posted:On page 2, I'm slightly confused by what Megan says: "Aw, come on. We kiss in the play, four times. I count them." "I count them every night" might be more clear. In whatever play it is, he's the lead and she's the counterpart, and they kiss four times during the show. Testro posted:What are Paul's feelings here? Why doesn't he want to kiss her? Does he know that Amy's coming to pick him up and he's scared of getting caught? Or does he not really want to continue the fling that he's started? Is he starting to find Megan's temperament in comparison to Amy's a bit wearing? Certainly a mix of all of these. Paul's pretty selfish but he's aware that he's in the middle of an empty stage and anyone, including his girlfriend, could walk in and see. Presumably their affair has been on the down-low and he wants to keep it that way. "I know we do, but-" would probably have ended in the gist of "I don't think we should do this here". Testro posted:I don't really understand the scene on Page 4. On Page 3, Paul and Amy establish that they had been happy and then something happened...and on Page 4, Paul gets a part in the play. So the play made their relationship unhappy? Was he rehearsing too much? Is it because that's how he spent more time with Megan? This is me stealing from Merrily We Roll Along; he begins working nightly with Megan, they start to hit it off, and she's a general bad influence. I could insert something from Amy about his "downward spiral" beginning then. Testro posted:Page 5 suggests that either Amy and Paul weren't sleeping together (which seems unlikely) or that Amy was repressed in bed, so Paul went looking elsewhere for it. ...so I find Page 12 all the more confusing - why would Amy agree to let Paul sleep with her, particularly when he suggests it in such a cruel manner? The addition of 'staring at the ceiling' light suggests that she's quite passive - it wasn't her idea to have a goodbye gently caress, and she doesn't enjoy it, but she lets him anyway and then feels hurt by it? Women, am I right? I may, or probably will, scrap the hate-gently caress. I still think it's a splendid idea, particularly when he uses his pulling out to accuse her of being selfish (it's just such a lovely thing to do) but it doesn't fit Amy, unless she suddenly had a tremendous change within her. Testro posted:I do like the juxtaposition of the hate gently caress / making love scenes, and I like the idea of showing a relationship breaking down via flashbacks. I like the juxtaposition too but I don't know if hate-gently caress is the right way to go about it. Perhaps they move right into fighting and there are sudden flashbacks to more tender moments between them as they land punches and pull hair. Slow mo dollies. Testro posted:What I don't understand is why Paul and Amy were together in the first place, nor what Paul's motivation is for fooling around with Megan. You don't really have to answer these in the script if you don't want to, but I get the feeling that maybe you don't know yourself. It's something I need to do more exploring in.
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Mar 20, 2011 23:00
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TOMORROWLAND Mediafire pdf link This is a mutation of Kaleidoscope. Altered the main "party" dialogue and a good portion of some of the flashbacks, plus some other little things. Oh, god, we actually have to shoot this.
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Apr 3, 2011 00:47
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Think I've got a final-ish draft of Tomorrowland (Mediafire pdf). Lots of changes from before, and certainly from Kaleidoscope. Moved a couple flashbacks around, gave the party dialogue more shape.
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Apr 17, 2011 22:27
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TheMilkyNutBall posted:I just finished writing a short (13 pages) about two high school kids who find themselves in a horrible situation during a school fire alarm. I definitely need some objective, and honest critique's so if any goons want to read it let me know. I'll read it. Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Aug 29, 2011 |
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Aug 28, 2011 06:52
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It reminds me an awful lot of the scripts I wrote in high school, with the same odd, nonsensical humor and stilted dialogue. Humor and dialogue are two things that are honed over time so on that front I can only advise you to keep writing and, more importantly, listening. How do people talk? How do their thoughts string together? Your characters are spouting words in strings that are advantageous to the advancement of the plot. Naturally, dialogue should advance the plot, but it shouldn't appear to do so. When your characters talk it feels like they are progressing clumsily to a conclusion. You also have a basic issue in that the stakes are not high enough. You don't really have stakes at all, frankly. Adam and Drew's various offenses are really, really minor. A vaguely offensive drawing of a teacher, smoking weed, the dim fear of not going to a Good School, the threat of having a negative mark on their permanent record. Maybe that's the joke, that their issues are minor, but if that's the joke it's not a great one (or should be played up). You do have a couple funny moments ("It's awful...awful, Drew"), but mostly it feels like some sort of high school fantasy, stickin' it to the man and being rescued by an awesome dad. You're also running about ten minutes, which is admittedly average for a short film, but ten minutes can be a long time when there's as little substance as there is in this script. Try to figure out what you're trying to do here. In fact, tell me. What's your goal? What kind of film are you trying to make? Right now it's just a silly mess. There's really no conclusion. The dad comes in and says "nah you're good", then it turns out the Asian kid who turned him in for the drawing was in the bathroom, too. Okay, so? So what? Who gives a poo poo? That's the question you should ask yourself. Tape that to your monitor or something: "WHO GIVES A poo poo?". Try to make your audience give a poo poo. I don't give a poo poo about Adam and Drew right now and that's probably par for the course. Keep this stuff in mind when you rewrite it. Also, there are a few things in your script that really shouldn't be. For one thing you've got some grammar errors, most notably an "it's" in place of an "its" in your first sentence, which is really offputting, and there're a couple others (a "you're"/"your", and I think a "their"/"there"). Keep an eye on this stuff. You're also explicitly describing camera movements, which is generally frowned upon. Try to write descriptions that imply camera movements. Your descriptions are also kind of clumsy in general. "With the reality setting in, Drew practically kicks his stall open and runs over to the sink." And does what? And why? And how does he "practically" kick his stall open? Is he kicking it open or not? What does he do when he gets to the sink? Why does he go to the sink? Maybe he splashes himself in the face with water. Then I'd write it something like this: "Drew suddenly realizes the situation. He slams his stall door open and runs to the sink, twisting the faucet on. He frantically splashes his face with water." Or something like that. Give your descriptions some descriptive oomph. They should be terse but evocative. Screenplays are an infamously dry writing medium and you're not allowed to waste words, so choose them carefully. Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Aug 29, 2011 |
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Aug 29, 2011 08:15
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12 Angry Men and the Bottle Rocket short are good places to start. Bottle Rocket is particularly interesting because it tells a pretty good story with fairly detailed characters in an average amount of time and doesn't waste any of it, even with the inclusion of silly, frivolous-sounding dialogue. What is Bottle Rocket about? In the most basic terms it's about two guys who rob a bookstore. That's a plot but it's not really a story. The story comes in with the details. Take what happens in the very first minute: 1: The title, in stark black-and-white, pops up over a blaring crime jazz score. 2: The seriousness and danger is immediately undercut by dialogue: "But where's Huggy Bear?" 3: The main characters climb a fence and cross a lawn while picking apart the details of Starsky and Hutch, emphasizing what a cool cat Starsky is ("This is he"). 4: They throw their bags into some bushes and enter the house, sneaking around, obviously burglarizing it, accompanied by sassy jazz. Four things that, in sixty seconds, set up the entire film. We have the juxtaposition between the title and the characters, which indicates the style of humor. We have the Starsky and Hutch dialogue, which introduces the characters, who are young and immature and don't really know the world and who, as a result, are of great importance to themselves. Then they break into the house and the audience is immediately involved and stay involved because the film's script is a rondelet of questions and answers, which every good film script should be. There isn't much question-answer in your script because the characters are answering their own and each others' questions via mechanical dialogue. DREW: I thought you said there were no smoke detectors in here! ADAM: There aren’t - Drew, this bathroom has been out of commission for half a year, my Dad comes here to smoke every week for that very reason. Construction probably set it off. One character says "why?", the other says "because", and half the audience goes to the lobby for popcorn. You also mention 12 Angry Men and that you wanted to challenge yourself by keeping the film contained to one room, which you don't do. It might be interesting to do so but keep in mind that your characters know each other really well so finding ways to communicate their backstory without flashbacks is hard. I haven't seen 12 Angry Men in ages but none of the characters knew each other, which made it easier for the writer to have them tell each other about themselves. It's generally a bad idea to have a character say "Remember that time when..." because it looks and sounds really, really stupid on-screen, even if it's hilarious in real life to recall a shared incident. So if you are going to have a truly limited location you'll have to find ways to communicate past events. Your characters are getting high, and that could be a source of comedy. Perhaps one zones out and won't stop recalling an event, or the other becomes paranoid and lists, rapid-fire, the events that have led him to the precipice in his life. You're still stuck with really low stakes, though. I don't care if two pot-smoking high school students are in danger of not going to Yale or not being BFFs anymore. Make me care. I care about the characters in Bottle Rocket because they are interestingly flawed. It's amusing to watch them build themselves up to the ~*~heist of the century~*~ because the film is really about how small-town and immature they are (note that it is about the characters). Why would it be interesting to watch your film? What other things are going on? Also, as Sporadic said, you have something interesting in Mr. Mitchell. The moment with the desk drawer is reminiscent of Kiss Me Deadly. What's in the drawer? I'm curious. Everyone hates high school administrators so it might be amusing to take that track.
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Aug 29, 2011 19:11
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I'll read it.
Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Aug 30, 2011 |
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Aug 30, 2011 18:36
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Well, you've got a few problems. One is that you've got absolutely zero human interest. Your characters babble mindlessly and with no subtlety (what they think, they say), and are almost entirely uninteresting. Part of this has to do with a lack of contractions but mostly because they only talk about really trivial things, except for the bizarre, long-as-hell monologue about the ten animals that's basically unreadable and probably unlistenable. Reading this was like reading a car manual. Take the first scene, two minutes of a job interview. What is said? Nothing! You have, at the heart of the script, an interesting idea, but it's presented in the weirdest, dryest way. It's almost surreal how bland it is. It reads like a DMV pamphlet. And it goes on and on. In the first yuppie party scene, for example, is it necessary to have two pages of dialogue about the party-goers' cars and lives and pregnancies? Or the cook-off that goes on for four pages? It's page after page of nothing. What are you going for? What message are you trying to convey? And I will say again, at the heart of this you've got an interesting story (materialistic yuppies find creative way to settle their financial crisis), but not one that would take forty minutes to tell, not if you're trying to write it as a short film. You could tell this in fifteen minutes, tops, and save everyone passages like this: yourscript.com posted:AMANDA aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Trim it. Cut out everything that isn't essential. I can pretty much guarantee that almost no audience will want to sit through what you have right now but if you get to the meat of your story, then you might have something.
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Aug 30, 2011 20:36
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Technically you're correct. If you look at The Social Network, you'll see that the stakes and goals for Zuckerberg are incredibly ridiculous and petty - but the dramatic drive is that these petty frustrations and grudges push Zuckerberg to impressive (if loathsome) heights. The question shouldn't be whether your character will get into Yale but what to what lengths will he go to guarantee that he does?York_M_Chan posted:Edit: I will amend that you actually got the exact tone that I was going for... "presented in the weirdest, dryest way. It's almost surreal how bland it is." While on the other hand, you are right, an audience won't tolerate it. The yuppie dialogue is really weird and unsettling and in a way that's a good thing because I get what you're going for, but in a case like this you definitely have to balance the banality with entertainment (see also Dillinger Is Dead and Jeanne Dielman). Your script is a little bit frightening because I find blind consumerism and store-bought mediocrity sort of scary. It's like a total waste of a life, people who have no interests or thoughts. Naturally they're often the subject of satire but rarely in a properly visceral way as you've managed, however excessively, in your script. If you can tighten it you'll have an excellent and creepy black comedy. Mike Works posted:So my question is... is that okay? I know that these pacing rules aren't set in stone, but I can't see this scene/instance happening anywhere else. Well, like anything it depends on the details but a mid-film revelation or turning point is far from unheard of. It probably wouldn't hurt to ensure that the film leads up to it in some way, whether tonally or even by foreshadowing, and builds from it. A great (if high-concept) example would be Dark City. Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Sep 2, 2011 |
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Sep 2, 2011 00:31
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When I bought the blu-ray I watched the first scene five times in a row.
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Sep 2, 2011 01:28
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Oh god that sounds really long but I have nothing to do and I love both those movies and generally I like your posts so why not?
Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Sep 5, 2011 |
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Sep 5, 2011 05:44
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the Bunt posted:Awesome! Don't feel obligated to rush through it or anything. I would love to know how you feel about any part of it, even if you don't finish it. I got up to about the Tiki Bar scene last night and I'm looking forward to finishing it, but do you have a PDF version? Just as a word of advice, as far as I know it's pretty much the standard for sending scripts electronically. You're also missing pages numbers, which is a pain in the neck.
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Sep 5, 2011 17:03
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Hey Bunt, I finished Slur. It's quite a monster of a script. Very good throughout but definitely overlong. I know you have the ambition to film it and gently caress the time limit but it's not the kind of film that should be three hours long, or even two and a half. Maybe about two hours, like Fish Bowl. Compress the first half into maybe three distinct events (recall the rule of threes), maybe three major parties with smaller, tightened pieces of home life inbetween. Consider blending a couple characters because you've got a huge multitude as it is. I don't disagree with the ending, though it does come off as a little melodramatic. You've got an issue where Eve descends really far and then starts to normalize, and then suddenly she punches her friend's fetus and tries to choke her dad. It's just an issue of pacing. The last quarter is really dawdling and then suddenly action-action-terror. You have a chance to blend in some poetry, here, by the way. Blend in some mythological influences. Structure a party sequence around the Seven Deadly Sins, for example. Mostly you're lacking a strong structure. The whole script is an opportunity for some very beautiful cinematography. Some notes I started taking while I was reading: On page 101 where they ride the bungee launcher, technically that'd probably be really, really difficult to pull off. I'm getting Phoebe Caulfield vibes from Colin. You give Becca too much weight in the beginning of the script. She should appear only periodically, as she does in the second half. I don't think Becca functions well as a main character because she distracts too much from Eve (and she suggests her own, Dorian-Gray-esque script). She should be, throughout, a peripheral character with an off-screen evolution that relates or comments on, in some way or another, Eve's life. Basically you have to either put her in more of the film or make her mostly inconsequential. You're going to have to include, in dialogue, some indications as to what they're taking. On page 121 they take meth, which is essentially a horrible, bottom-of-the-pit hell-drug and that's enormously important, but it's not mentioned and probably wouldn't be visually obvious. The scene between Eve and her dad at the Arcade is basically meaningless right now. It has the potential to provide some answers as to Eve's personality. The scene between Becca and Eve on page 131 is too question-answer. Everything in their conversation could be implied (maybe she could already be eating Big Macs, provoking a reaction from Eve, which would at least provide some reason for her to bring up that she's not the same person she once was). On 133 you say "Some Guy", but he's given a name about ten seconds later. You could probably just introduce him as "Donn's friend Steve". Nice job on Eve going through meth withdrawl on the bus and being sick (134-140-ish), very gross and effective. 149, I don't get the birthday dialogue: "I forgot what day it is." "Christ, Eve..." Part two of Eve's dream ("Eve is Colin") is really silly and unnecessary. The first part in the ocean is very good, though ("golden light", "engulfed in flames"). Page 157, "It was good seeing you again, Evelyn" is a little weird because it seems like he just saw her a couple nights ago. Don't show Colin's dream, it's vivid enough spoken to evoke imagery. Think of the beach sex in Persona, never shown but so evocative that some audience members remember it as being in the film. The dream is also a little bit silly. Shorten it and make it more ambiguous.
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Sep 12, 2011 20:18
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And it's Magic Hate Ball.
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Sep 12, 2011 21:13
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What's he doing in that photo?
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Sep 12, 2011 21:22
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Orson Welles is always worth going off-track for.
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Sep 12, 2011 21:32
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Just some basic tips: -Try to think in terms of long, developing scenes rather than gradually accelerating montages. Plays are really fun because most deal with events occurring in real time. -Plays are far more about the dialogue and text than films. A film can get away with stodgy dialogue because it's predominantly a visual medium, whereas theater dialogue has to be woven with care. It can be terse, it can be excessively florid, it can be in iambic pentameter, so long as you put care into each sentence and phrase. -Though you should probably be thinking in terms of long scenes, remember that the theater is an extraordinarily malleable space. A blank stage can be anything with the proper suggestion. Consider the opening lines of Hamlet, which expressively and immediately lay down location, weather, time, and even prevailing mood. Films are hyper-real, which can be a benefit, but it means that they can't be as fluidly complex or suggestive as a stage, where you can have musical numbers, multiple simultaneous locations, shifting characters, etc. For example, if we wanted to show a character going to the store, going to a courtroom, and then going to bed, he could walk across the stage past a clerk who gives him his grocery bag, a judge who bangs a gavel, and then behind a blanket held up by two stage-hands. To some extent, commercials do this pretty often but it's rare in film. Mostly I'd suggest you check out some filmed plays and read a few of the classics. Albee's Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? is great because it's got stylized dialogue, larger-than-life characters, and a setting that can easily be suggested by sparse scenery (also, the film version is nearly verbatim to the play).
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Sep 14, 2011 02:45
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Certainly! Also, I'd recommend picking up Jeffery Hatcher's "The Art & Craft Of Playwriting", which picks over the various aspects of plays and playwriting in pretty good depth, and on top of which is really entertaining. Also also, go say hi in the theatre thread, you'll probably pick up even more help and opinions there.
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Sep 14, 2011 03:08
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MixMasterGriff, feel free to post those plays.the Bunt posted:Thanks a ton! This was very helpful. some things: It's not so much out of place as it is just another example of some of the excesses your script goes to. A lot of people had a similar problem with Fish Tank, where it crosses the line from crazily despondent to unrealistically melodramatic. Your script is mostly very realistic and that's a great thing because by staying grounded it makes Eve's descent all the more disturbing, but in the last third it veers further and further away from the reality that made it so interesting. Unfortunately my main suggestion is to trim the first half to hell, so you've got some work to do on the second half. Also, on the confusion as to the date, your script should be clear on the chronology. I understand what you're going for but it's an effect that should be reserved for the audience. Also also, just in case any of this is discouraging I should say that I really hope that you can trim this down to a more manageable length because the result could be exceptionally stunning.
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Sep 17, 2011 04:57
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MixMasterGriff posted:I'm doing re-writes, which I'm sure you know is writer's talk for: "Oh gently caress, this page is blank, how long have I been googling Wombats? gently caress, gently caress, gently caress." Yeah, I spent all day today watching The Sopranos, but I also created nine characters, so I was working, dammit. Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Sep 17, 2011 |
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Sep 17, 2011 05:24
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I'm really lame and don't have one at all. Part of it has to do with the fact that I don't have my own computer but even if I did I'd be loving off most of the time. I know a lot of people just hand-write but I write like half as fast as I think which is really frustrating. Every writer, though, has a different technique. The one I've heard most often is to set down an hour or two or three every day and do nothing but write, or try to write with no distractions (though the internet makes that really hard because your brain can find any tiny reason to look something up "for the script" and then ten minutes later you're giggling at macros on imgur).
Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Sep 17, 2011 |
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Sep 17, 2011 05:37
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If I could afford one I'd own one.
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Sep 17, 2011 05:57
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Remember that the best short films are little golden nuggets. It's nice to consider a languid pace but 23 minutes can be a terribly long time. Some of the finest short films I've seen have been less than ten minutes, and some of the most frustrating have been longer than 15. edit: just read your Adventure Pope script and it's a case in point. You've taken what could be a funny, sweet, light film and turned it into a massive monster that is by turns surreal, violent, and boring. You're all over the place here, with a lot of interesting connectivity and montage and you've got all sorts of creative, imaginative descriptions in your script but you're saying so little. It's terribly muddled and overblown. Trim it down. Maybe it's just against my tastes but why the grit? You have a couple very good, very cute moments, such as with the caricaturist drawing the kid as a pope, then turning to see the Pope, but you're crushing it together with heavy-handed moments like a troupe of gay men rollerskating around him, or a meth addict stabbing him. I dunno. What are you trying to say? Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Sep 18, 2011 |
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Sep 18, 2011 06:21
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Writing a musical is really, really hard and frankly I'd advise against it unless you're really familiar with music (jazz comes from the heart, but musical comedy is entirely mechanical - not a bad thing, merely a shift of skill). Comedy is hard as hell. I'd suggest, if you're writing a straight play, to look at some of the classic comedic plays. The books for musical comedies aren't a great place to start when it comes to comedy plays because they're almost always pared down, usually leading from one musical number to the next (though in the classic musical comedies - or musicals based on them, such as Merrily We Roll Along - the numbers are diversions and most of the comedic meat can be found in the dialogue). What kind of comedy are you trying to write? Witty one-liners, slapstick farce, schtick, character humor? JMBosch, it's great that you've put so much thought into this project, it doesn't really come through, mostly because you're being too blatant. The pope going on an adventure is a silly idea, almost like something out of a commercial, and it probably has to do with the fact that the pope is regarded more as an icon than a person, and you're trying to get what is essentially a symbol in a funny hat to go on this big metaphorical journey. It's just doesn't function well because "The Pope" is too big and the idea is too small. Either buff up the events or scale down the main character. He could be a naive priest. This brings up the other issue, which is simply that the basic concept is pretty old-hat. Making the main character the pope just adds a layer of weirdness that is let down by the relatively mundane, vaguely confusing script (your descriptions, by the way, are far too verbose). The concept might work if you were to elevate the whole thing and make it poetic. The pope on a slide is something you'd see in a commercial.
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Sep 19, 2011 00:57
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I do that with every film that features witty zingers because I'm terrible at witty zingers. Speaking witty zingers, today's distraction: transcribing an audience recording of Merrily We Roll Along from 1981 in Celtx. whyyyyyyyyy am i doing this
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Sep 20, 2011 02:06
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Post some of that dialogue, you might have a knack for it, though you also might not but it'd suck if you were throwing away a talent.
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Sep 20, 2011 03:24
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I'd love to see a film where all the dialogue goes as quickly as it does in The Social Network's first scene.
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Sep 20, 2011 03:57
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"Web Therapy" (and it's gonna be on Showtime).
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Sep 21, 2011 00:23
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How's that going? There are probably dozens of books you guys could read on the subject but Sondheim's Finishing The Hat is nearly priceless (as, I expect, will be part 2, which is due out in a couple months), and it's always, always worth it to read Jeffrey Hatcher's The Art And Craft Of Playwriting. Bookwriters are under-appreciated, remember that in any good musical the songs should come from the book, sometimes directly, in which part of a scene is replaced by a song. For example, "Franklin Shepard, Inc.", from Merrily We Roll Along, was originally a five-minute interview scene that without the crazed figures and patters of the song doesn't have much impact. What kinda projects are these?
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Sep 29, 2011 02:24
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What trouble are you having with the plot? And yeah, Look I Made A Hat is pretty much a day-one buy for me. I think I've read the first one like six times.
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Sep 29, 2011 03:48
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They do that a lot on Parks and Rec. I guess you could just set up the concept in the scene description, something like: INT. OFFICE - DAY Danny tries out various slogans - the dead time is edited out via jump cuts . DANNY "All ham is good ham"..."The winner of the ham battle is you"..."Turkey's for turkeys"...
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Oct 15, 2011 05:18
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Sporadic posted:Anybody want to give it a read and give me feedback? It is 113 pages long. If I can get through 180 pages of rambling drunkenness I can get through whatever the hell this is. EMAIL REDACTED BEEP BOOP Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Nov 7, 2011 |
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Nov 7, 2011 06:04
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:53 |
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Sporadic, I read your script. It's far from the worst I've read but it does have some major flaws. One is that it's too long for being so simple. There are only a handful of real "events", and each one gets a big fat long beat. There's just not enough stuff, too little of what happens on-screen is unimportant or aimless, so condense like hell. I can't imagine this script being longer than 80 or 90 minutes in its current state. You also need to work on your dialogue and identifying your characters. Everyone sounds kind of the same, even with dialects, because they're all saying things basically the same way. They just state things. When people talk they rarely do so directly and they rarely do so in the same way. For example, think of how differently various people in your life might tell you they think you're getting fat, how directly or indirectly they'd do it, the kinds of words they'd use. There's little variation in your character voices and it makes everything really antiseptic. There are suggestions that Katherine could be an interesting, if volatile character but her outbursts come so rarely in between long passages of dry, dry dialogue. In my notepad I have "'liberal fagfest' loooool" written down because it's emblematic of ear-grabbing dialogue and the kind of thing that hints at greater depth and interest in the character that mostly goes ignored. This kind of goes with the script's length but you've got odd pacing. You don't get to your first major conflict until almost an hour in (page 57), before that it's a long, relatively uneventful descent into whoredom. I can sum up your first hour really quick: Katherine's husband dies. Looking for money, she takes up a job as a hotel maid, but the work is too strenuous. She gets a call from a pimp and reluctantly agrees to work for him. The first couple days are awkward but the cashflow is good. She's a hit with the johns and her pimp decides to double her workload. She doesn't want to, and they get into a fight. That's like five beats and three major actions which is way, way too few. I like that you're trying to approach the economic struggle and such but you're not really hitting the mark. Katherine's journey is almost entirely solitary - she meets the same two people over and over again (except for the philosophical meth addict and her son, who provide the script's most engaging scenes) - but the effects of the recession are arguably most interesting on a social level. People sometimes go to great lengths to hide the depths of their desperation. Also, you don't use a lot of contractions, which is okay in descriptions and text but weird in dialogue. Most people wouldn't say, for example, "It is no problem" unless there's emphasis on "no". There's a lot of that in the script. "If you are busy", "It is too hot out here", "I told you I would call you back", etc.
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Nov 13, 2011 01:40
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