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I'm tired, depressed, and about to lose hope.

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firefox

Short Film (Why is my story weak? )

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
The story has been modified and you can find it on page 3 or by clicking this link
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?p=160107


I don't know why every time I come up with an idea, it sounds boring to whoever I send it. I don't know why I can't seem to write the story clearly on papers as it is clear on my mind. I never took a screenwriting class, nor am I doing this for a living. This is a hobby (Making short films), but I love it so much.

Let me tell you guys what I have in mind, hopefully someone here will help me succeed. This is for a short film 3 minutes long.

This is my theme: I'm trying to show how some people waste their time playing video games by going over the limit. The issue here is addiction and poor time management.

- Who is the main character ?
Safaa - Male

- What is this story about ?
This story is about an addictive guy who loves playing video games 24 hours a day. He becomes connected to his favorite game 'Fight Night Round 3' that one day sees himself fighting with his best friend on a boxing ring 'Dreaming' . When he wakes up, he sees blood on his face realizing everything that happened was a dream and that the blood was a result of him punching himself unconsciously.


I added twists to the story 'A dream inside a dream', but I didn't write everything here. This is more like the summary of ACT 1 and 3. I didn't mention anything about ACT 2. I want to make sure the story/idea is good first.

What can I do to make the ending better or the story as a whole?

Thanks!
 
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In writing for mass consumption, it seems to me that begging with the premise that generalizations are TRUE allows you to work towards tweaking the readers brain. I mean, every movie we watch depends on the audience making generalizations about whats on screen.. good guy, villain etc, its become part of the language of film.

We like it when some of our generalizations are upheld, but we REALLY like it when they are used against us to force a unique understanding.
 
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Stories vs. Screenplays

With any hobby, you get better with practice. You mentioned several things in your original post. Rather than quote them all (some which others have already addressed), I'm going to offer my observations from my own work and reading the works of others.

First, there is a difference between a story and drama. While both have a beginning, middle, and end, drama involves a tension or conflict which drives the story to resolution. A story, by itself, can just be a sequence of events. "The man was thirsty. He filled the kettle with water and heated it. It whistled and he removed it. He poured it into a cup and added a teabag. He sat in his chair and enjoyed his tea."
A screenplay takes drama a step further by incorporating audiovisual elements to convey context.
"OUTSIDE A BITTER COLD WIND BLOWS RATTLING THE WINDOWS. The man is muddied and slips off his dirtied boots. He glances up at the clock which shows 8:25 PM. He leans back in the rocking chair in front of the fireplace. He heaves a sigh and moves to the kitchen. ...."

If you want to improve your screenplays, you will want to understand the idea of the "Six Act Format". While rather structured when you first begin, it is a good place to learn how to create tension. On this forum you will often see short screenplays often 3-15 pages. I think it is best for new writers to start with the six act format and allow 1-2 pages per act. So you have 6-12 pages. If you follow industry format, that translates to roughly 6-12 minutes of production. Without tension/conflict, you don't have drama, just a sequence of events.

Now I know you originally asked about your videogame concept and were disappointed because friends found the *idea as a movie/video* boring. A good story is not a good movie/video by itself. You need to often take a story apart and try to figure out what happened before you started to tell the story. If one thing were different, how would the story be different? What if the central character were watching himself or someone else? What if roles were reversed? These mental exercises help get the creative juices flowing and suggest new ways of tackling a situation.

In your story, how do we know Safaa's addicted? What does that really mean? What is the nature of their friendship? Why that particular game? What is the result of the bloodied nose? What happens after that? As most writing instructors drill into students, don't use the proverbial "And then he woke up." Well it does get used, but you need to be damn clever about it. What would be a surreal explanation or result?

I enjoy screenwriting (as well as short stories and novels) because it allows me to share creativity with other professionals. I don't have to detail costumes or locations. I layout the basics of a good drama and let it play out. It can be a fun hobby. And if you choose to develop it, a marketable talent.

Screenwriting requires a pretty thick skin as it is intensely competitive. There are so many scripts written and submitted. Don't let yourself be discouraged. Do it because you enjoy it. And sometimes you put aside a script which you come back to later. You polish it up with fresh eyes.

Because you have a very contemporary situation not requiring elaborate sets or costumes, you might try scripting and filming it yourself. One advantage is you get to see firsthand how your story translates into a visual medium. And with digital recorders, it is very inexpensive to play around for your own education. Hearing your script read outloud prior to making a film can be very eye-opening.

Don't give up hope. Good luck. Keep writing.
 
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Short Film Idea

After I took what you guys suggested, here is what I come up with.

Here is what I need from you:

Ask me questions, tell me what's wrong with the story, what do you think about it, how can I make it better and give me all of your opinions. If something is not clear, tell me and I will explain it. If something doesn't work on the story, help me fix it.


Objective
1: To show that playing video games for a long period of time is bad.
2: Playing games such as 'Fight Round 4 (Boxing) - Call of duty - Black OPS' can cause violence.

Main Character:
Safaa

Video Game:
Fight Round 4 (any boxing game)

ACT1:

Safaa is setting inside his room playing video games by himself while his friend Mike who lives with him is setting on the kitchen feeling a little bit sick. Mike opens the refrigerator, takes out a bottle of milk, pours some of it into a cup and then puts a pill inside it. Mike asks Safaa if he would like to have some milk also, Safaa answers 'yes please', so Mike pours some milk into a different cup and asks Safaa to come and get it. Mike unintentionally goes to the sink to wash his face and hands. Safaa comes to the Kitchen quickly, takes the wrong cup of milk the one with the pill . Safaa drinks from it as he's walking to his room, but as soon as he enters it, he starts seeing posters of boxers from the game he was playing. Safaa walks surprised to his xbox 360, takes the controller and as soon as he clicks 'START' to continue the game, he disappears from his room and sees himself in a different place. Safaa starts hallucinating - imagining- dreaming :)

NOTE:

When Safaa drinks from the milk, his blood cells will change like in this video. And that's when he starts hallucinating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPbTvyI3XXc

ACT2:

Now Safaa and Mike are in the basement, but they are far away from each other. Safaa takes out a bracelet from his bucket to remember his best friend who gave it to him long time ago. Mike gives him an evil look and thinks about trying the bracelet on his wrist to see how it looks. Mike approaches safaa and asks him if he can take a look at it, Safaa slowly and cautiously hands it to Mike, but tells him to be caution about it, it's the ONLY one left. When Mike puts it on his wrist, he acts like it belongs to him and walks away from Safaa. Safaa holds Mike on his shoulder and asks him to bring it back. Mike turns pissed and says 'Don't you dare to put your hand on my again.' Now Safaa aggressively pushes him with his two hands asking for the bracelet back. Mike takes two steps back and then swings a punch to Safaa's face. Now Safaa tries throwing a punch, but Mike blocks it and swings another one. Safaa tries again, but Mike keeps blocking. Same failure punches happen again and again. Now safaa puts his knees on the ground, closes his eyes and soon as he opens them, he sees himself with Mike on a boxing ring. He looks around shocked while dressed up as a boxer and so does Mike. Fans are shouting and taking pictures just like a real fight would happen. They fight for some time, but Safaa seems to be losing. He has blood all over his face and a black eye. Mike takes few steps back and swings a deadly punch that completely knocks him down. As soon as Safaa's head touches the ground, Safaa is back on his room. (Stopped hallucinating - imagining- dreaming)


NOTE:

Safaa's blood cells will go back to normal and that's when he stops hallucinating. (I will reverse the same video)


ACT 3:

He looks shocked 'what the hell did just happen', then notices the clock/time didn't change. Now Mike enters the room and Safaa starts swearing that they were on a boxing ring fighting each other. Mike makes fun of him and tells Safaa 'everything will be okay, no need to worry, go get some rest.' Safaa tries to convince him that the fight was real; he explains that Mike took something from him and before he finishes the sentence, he sees the bracelet on Mike's wrist. Safaa is completely shocked, scared, and about to lose his mind!

CUT !!!

:D
:lol:
:huh:
​
 
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suggestions for Video Game Addict

Here is what I need from you:
Ask me questions, tell me what's wrong with the story, what do you think about it, how can I make it better and give me all of your opinions. If something is not clear, tell me and I will explain it. If something doesn't work on the story, help me fix it.

I'm writing my comments in green.
Having the act summaries really helps get a sense of where you want to go. I like the idea and think with some work, it would make an interesting short feature. My suggestions below are meant to guide you in deciding how to enhance the elements.

A quick overview of the Six-Act format: 1. Set-Up 2. Opportunity 3. Change of Plans 4. Progress 5. Major Setback 6. Resolution. At least initially, you want to have your story follow the basic pattern. It's okay to have the three acts: Act 1 - Setup and Opportunity, Act 2 - Change of Plans/Conflict and Progress, and Act 3 - Major Setback and Resolution.

Objective
1: To show that playing video games for a long period of time is bad.
2: Playing games such as 'Fight Round 4 (Boxing) - Call of duty - Black OPS' can cause violence.

These don't come through in your presentation. So my suggestion is to decide if the storyline is more important than the stated objectives. You want to better convey that Safaa is playing video games for an extended period and the games cause violence. The storyline doesn't convey either of those ideas.

Main Character: Safaa
Video Game: Fight Round 4 (any boxing game)

ACT1:
Safaa is setting inside his room playing video games by himself while his friend Mike who lives with him is setting on the kitchen feeling a little bit sick. Mike opens the refrigerator, takes out a bottle of milk, pours some of it into a cup and then puts a pill inside it. Mike asks Safaa if he would like to have some milk also, Safaa answers 'yes please', so Mike pours some milk into a different cup and asks Safaa to come and get it. Mike unintentionally goes to the sink to wash his face and hands. Safaa comes to the Kitchen quickly, takes the wrong cup of milk the one with the pill . Safaa drinks from it as he's walking to his room, but as soon as he enters it, he starts seeing posters of boxers from the game he was playing. Safaa walks surprised to his xbox 360, takes the controller and as soon as he clicks 'START' to continue the game, he disappears from his room and sees himself in a different place. Safaa starts hallucinating - imagining- dreaming :)

NOTE:When Safaa drinks from the milk, his blood cells will change like in this video. And that's when he starts hallucinating.

The events you describe are sequential. It lacks a 'hook' to make me wonder and watch. Why should I watch this? One way to do that is to explore the Safaa's character through Mike. For example, "Mike rolls over in his bed coughing. He puts a pillow over his head. Outside he hears a video game. He gets up, dragging himself to grab his robe. He heads out to the kitchen, past Safaa who's busy playing a video boxing game. He comments to Safaa, who doesn't respond. He goes to the kitchen, pours himself some water and adds a medicine. He yells at Safaa telling him needs to close it up and then runs to the bathroom ill. Safaa gets up to get something to drink, sees the glass, and drinks it down. He goes back to playing. Mike comes back and yells at Safaa for drinking his medicine. He pours another glass and heads back to bed.

In this setting, I have taken your Act 1 and introduced a conflict--Mike is sick and Safaa seems totally oblivious because of his game. Safaa drinks Mike's medicine. (Here is the setup). Safaa is playing the game, when things blur. He looks at the glass and ignores it going back to his game. As he plays, the game 'boxer' turns and talks to him. He looks up at the clock and sees it's 4 am. He saves and heads to bed. (Here is the opportunity/conflict)

ACT2:
Now Safaa and Mike are in the basement, but they are far away from each other. Safaa takes out a bracelet from his bucket to remember his best friend who gave it to him long time ago. Mike gives him an evil look and thinks about trying the bracelet on his wrist to see how it looks. Mike approaches safaa and asks him if he can take a look at it, Safaa slowly and cautiously hands it to Mike, but tells him to be caution about it, it's the ONLY one left. When Mike puts it on his wrist, he acts like it belongs to him and walks away from Safaa. Safaa holds Mike on his shoulder and asks him to bring it back. Mike turns pissed ... Now Safaa tries throwing a punch, but Mike blocks it and swings another one. ... Same failure punches happen again and again. ... he sees himself with Mike on a boxing ring. ... They fight for some time, ... Safaa ... has blood all over his face and a black eye. Mike takes few steps back and swings a deadly punch that completely knocks him down. As soon as Safaa's head touches the ground, Safaa is back on his room. (Stopped hallucinating - imagining- dreaming)

This is the part where you need to grab the audience. The bracelet has no meaning to the audience, so you need to make it have meaning. Who was this best friend? Is this a gay or straight relationship? It should be evident that the bracelet is important. Act 2 should provide a new challenge and develop the idea. One way to do this is to flashback and develop the prior relationship. Give the bracelet a meaning for being both sought and fought for. You need to develop a reason why Mike would fight Safaa.

ACT 3:
He looks shocked 'what the hell did just happen', then notices the clock/time didn't change. Now Mike enters the room and Safaa starts swearing that they were on a boxing ring fighting each other. Mike makes fun of him and tells Safaa 'everything will be okay, no need to worry, go get some rest.' Safaa tries to convince him that the fight was real; he explains that Mike took something from him and before he finishes the sentence, he sees the bracelet on Mike's wrist. Safaa is completely shocked, scared, and about to lose his mind! CUT !!!

Now Act 3 is where you need to finish strong. You had a major setback, so you need come-back/ climax, and resolution. He lost the boxing match. Now what? Does he hallucinate Mike laughing at him? Does the recollection of his friend drive him to a rematch? Do the characters from the video game incite him to 'get even'? He has a vision of fighting Mike once more and this time beating him. As he awakens with the dawn, on the couch the video game is in pause. He has the bracelet on his wrist. He also sees blood on his knuckles and perhaps some blood dripping from his nose. He glances over a Mike's open door. The scene fades at that point leaving it open whether he did fight Mike or not.

In this revised Act 3, you have Safaa overcoming an obstacle. He is triumphant ... except the blood on his knuckles suggest he's done something horrible. In the revisions I've suggested, in Act 1 you get a sense that Safaa is obsessed well into the wee hours. Throughout Act 1 and Act 2, the videogame theme is emphasized. Finally in Act 3, the triumph is turned to horror as he imagines that he may have acted on that theme.

In this way, I have tried to show how your objectives can be met in a dramatic way by exploring your story elements, developing tension/conflict, and engaging the audience. Now write it up using an industry format. I suggest you write it as a "six act" by outlining the parts distinctly, though I've suggested how they can be worked into your three part format. This is likely a 10 page screenplay [Act 1 (3 p.), Act 2 (4 p.), Act 3 (3 p.)] which will be about 10 minutes. If you do a good job, it should be a good indie film to shoot at home.

Good luck.
 
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firefox said:
Mike gives him an evil look and thinks about trying the bracelet on his wrist to see how it looks. Mike approaches safaa and asks him if he can take a look at it, Safaa slowly and cautiously hands it to Mike, but tells him to be caution about it, it's the ONLY one left. When Mike puts it on his wrist, he acts like it belongs to him and walks away from Safaa. Safaa holds Mike on his shoulder and asks him to bring it back. Mike turns pissed and says 'Don't you dare to put your hand on my again.' Now Safaa aggressively pushes him with his two hands asking for the bracelet back. Mike takes two steps back and then swings a punch to Safaa's face. Now Safaa tries throwing a punch, but Mike blocks it and swings another one.
Click to expand...

I think that whole deal with the bracelet doesn't make much sense. Or rather, it makes too much sense and we understand why Safaa gets upset. Wouldn't your point be stronger if he got unreasonably angry? This little plot point with the bracelet seems to work against your theme.
 
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(My apologies, FireFox, I am assuming you are a 'he')

I had to go back and check, but I didn't see he was limiting himself to 3 min. As I understand it, he is trying to develop his idea. While I appreciate that you and others have an intuitive idea what makes a good movie, my hope was to help give him an idea how to proceed on his own in developing his idea without actually telling him, "This is what you need to do." Would his idea work as a feature film--obviously not. Can he still structure a good visual story, yes.

For many experienced screenwriters, yes, this could be a 3-5 minute story. Given this is his hobby and first time, my suggestions are aimed at getting him started. FireFox continues to make better choices. Most of us have wildly different approaches. My suggestions have tried to keep true to FireFox's presentation with ideas he might develop to tell his story his way.

If he wants to advance, he needs to solidify in his mind certain fundamentals: creating drama through tension/conflict, thinking and conveying concepts visually, and writing his ideas in an industry format. I don't care how good the idea, if it doesn't look like an industry script, it will be tough to have anyone read it. And just a sequence of events does not make a compelling story. I'm preaching to the choir here.

For me, the "three minute" short is extremely hard for new writers. Having them write one page for each stage (or act), tends to work better. Once they are all done, it often shortens up on its own to 4-5 pages which in actuality is 3-4 minutes. Getting a workable idea and telling it visually is the hardest part. Condensing is often easier. I like to encourage full creativity at the beginning and then harness the particulars afterwards.

Plus he wants to put in visual effects (weird blood transformation) and other elements. He needs to look at "does putting this in advance the concept or detract?". I won't make that decision for him, but he needs a framework to begin asking himself those kind of questions.
My advice was not aimed at time criteria but helping him to craft a better screenplay by examining the elements of his story and make decisions.

The question in my mind was "How does he learn to tell his story in his way that makes it engaging?" not "Can he do it in three minutes?". As he described it, I was imagining he would have 6-10 pages of industry format script. I don't see that as bad since it's his story.
But, you're right, it's not three minutes.

It would be an interesting thread to put out a logline and have various screenwriters put out their interpretations of the idea for comparison. There is no right or wrong, just variations on a theme.
 
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FantasySciFi, you are an amazing figure at this forum and we are lucky to have you here. I have to admit that I loved your ideas and the six act format. I really wanna be like you one day, 'ahhhhhh' if I just have your talent, I will create amazing stories. Right now I'm at the very bottom, but hopefully with the help of some people like you, I will make it. I'm actually learning everything from screenwriting to editing and its too much for me. I will do my best to make this story better anyhow. I will also merge my ideas and yours and see how amazing it will turn out to be.

For the people who said I only want 3 minutes, that's not very accurate. I'm looking for even 1003 hours, but as I look at it. This video will go to Youtube and people love 3-5 minutes videos. I don't mind if it goes to 7 minutes or even longer as long as its catchy/interesting the whole time. When I'm done rewriting the story, I will post it here. :blush:

thanks to all the members who posted their feedback. :pop:
 
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directorik said:
My fault. I apologize. When I read:

...I thought you meant the script was for a short film 3 minutes long.

Sorry about saying something that isn't true.
Click to expand...



No need to apologize and yes I wanted it to be about 3 minutes before. I don't mind if it goes more than as long as its interesting. I mentioned this on the first page by the way somewhere in the middle. :seeya:
 
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I like your approach, a slight modification to your process might get you to a finished screenplay faster. It will seem counter intuitive but I suggest reducing this to a story you can tell "verbally" like you would tell a bed time story (no pictures!) remove all the quotes, dialogue, etc from your story form.

With something like that, you have a story you can tell in five or ten minutes. Memorize your story and invite a friend out for a cup of coffee, your buying, and while they drink the joe, you tell them your story. They will ask you questions, or need you to explain this or that, which will point out gaps in your story that need to be filled.
 
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Wait a minute!! This guy gets four pages of sugar tit for complaining about not knowing what to do. But I can't get much of anything when I'm working on an actual project? I call BS guys. No offense Firefox. I see you received a lot of good help. Hope you story turns out well.
 
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Murdock said:
Wait a minute!! This guy gets four pages of sugar tit for complaining about not knowing what to do. But I can't get much of anything when I'm working on an actual project? I call BS guys. No offense Firefox. I see you received a lot of good help. Hope you story turns out well.
Click to expand...

With great power comes great responsibility. (more B.S.)
 
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