For your first feature film: Make something for everybody or do whatever you want?

[Theauteur14]

I finished my third short film a few weeks ago. I've been trying to write the screenplay that I intend on directing and starring in next summer. I have written screenplays before. But this is huge as this will be something that I know will be a huge labor of love.

After going through a few ideas I settled on a pretty cool story. The genre would be horror/supernatural/thriller with comedic moments in the darkness. Think Twin Peaks meets Zombieland. I actually want to write the script, create a graphic novel to go along with it, and present it to investors. I think it's my best idea yet.

But then the thought came to me: Should I stay in line with what I have made. The three shorts that I have made all had to do with love, passion, and relationships. The first was through the eyes of a kid (it was also a stop motion short), the second through a young man who hasn't gone through too many serious hardships, and the last was about a young man who was going through a life changing crisis.

I then started to think and adapt Romeo and Juliet. The idea would be a modern day adaptation set in New York. Romeo would be black (I am black) and Juliet white to add race to it.

I know that Romeo and Juliet would probably be an easier film to get made and distributed. The first original idea could be done for what I am targeting ($3 million). But I am going for a David Fincher/David Lynch/Brian De Palma/Vince Gilligan/Terry Giliam feel with that one and they use huge budgets. Romeo and Juliet would be more in the tone of Woody Allen and Richard Linklater. That could be achieved with that kind of budget.

And the first idea might be too out there for investors to go on with a first time feature film director. With Romeo and Juliet and I am adapting the greatest writer of all time. I have a strong theater background (that workshop that I went to on Romeo and Juliet in college might have paid off). I understand the play very well and I understand the type of acting it needs.

There is this thing in business that at first you give the people what they want, then after you build a customer base you weed out true customers by doing what you really want to do. That does apply to film.

Thoughts?

 

[FilmmakerJ]

I finished my third short film a few weeks ago. I've been trying to write the screenplay that I intend on directing and starring in next summer. I have written screenplays before. But this is huge as this will be something that I know will be a huge labor of love.

After going through a few ideas I settled on a pretty cool story. The genre would be horror/supernatural/thriller with comedic moments in the darkness. Think Twin Peaks meets Zombieland. I actually want to write the script, create a graphic novel to go along with it, and present it to investors. I think it's my best idea yet.

But then the thought came to me: Should I stay in line with what I have made. The three shorts that I have made all had to do with love, passion, and relationships. The first was through the eyes of a kid (it was also a stop motion short), the second through a young man who hasn't gone through too many serious hardships, and the last was about a young man who was going through a life changing crisis.

I then started to think and adapt Romeo and Juliet. The idea would be a modern day adaptation set in New York. Romeo would be black (I am black) and Juliet white to add race to it.

I know that Romeo and Juliet would probably be an easier film to get made and distributed. The first original idea could be done for what I am targeting ($3 million). But I am going for a David Fincher/David Lynch/Brian De Palma/Vince Gilligan/Terry Giliam feel with that one and they use huge budgets. Romeo and Juliet would be more in the tone of Woody Allen and Richard Linklater. That could be achieved with that kind of budget.

And the first idea might be too out there for investors to go on with a first time feature film director. With Romeo and Juliet and I am adapting the greatest writer of all time. I have a strong theater background (that workshop that I went to on Romeo and Juliet in college might have paid off). I understand the play very well and I understand the type of acting it needs.

There is this thing in business that at first you give the people what they want, then after you build a customer base you weed out true customers by doing what you really want to do. That does apply to film.

Thoughts?

If you want to venture out of your comfort zone, as it were, after having made three tonally and narratively similiar films, then whatever audience you have garnered in the past will likely be turned off by a horror/supernatural/thriller. There's nothing wrong with wanting to diversify your stories and your interest areas, as well as your ability to direct different styles of films. But if you have sort of corralled a lot of people around you based on your previous three shorts, I can't say if those same people will stick around if your genre suddenly changes so dramatically for a feature-length film.

So, do I think that you should go with Romeo and Juliet? Personally, no. And for an obvious reason. The story has been done enough.

There are only so many ways you can twist the Romeo and Juliet story, or the Beauty and the Beast story, or any other tales of forbidden love before they all become recognizable and obvious. And once they become obvious, they really don't allow for people to look past the same old story and see what a new version can bring to the table as far as unexpected developments, different characters, different environments, and so on.

I think you might be wiser to go with a romantic/dramatic storyline, but maybe try to find something a little less on-the-nose than Romeo and Juliet. I think the only other direction that that story hasn't been taken in yet, is with Alien societies in another galaxy. Because it's been done with Seals, it's been done with Gnomes, it's been done with sea-creatures, it's been done with 1950s teen gangs, it's been done in modern-day with rap and hip-hop... Heck, High School Musical was built off of the Romeo and Juliet structure.

So, maybe try to find another historical romantic tale that could serve as a more subtle and unknown basis for a modern-day retelling.