IndieTalk: The Movie (Story Development)

Contempo's got a terribly challenging job. Plus, I don't know about anyone else, but it would take a bit of time to write a first draft feature length script, and the faster it's written, the crappier it will be. Unless you're a genius. And only Clive sits on that throne, IMO
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Kind, but so, so untrue -- the genius part anyway -- All I ever do is read Filmy's tutorials and posts about screenwriting and then do what he says.

Development of a first draft feature film, if you can put 24/7 into it, works out at about seven to nine weeks.

A week to find a strong high concept, through brainstorming and then honing of the idea.

A week spent exclusively on research and character development - Using Filmy's questionaire.

Two weeks spent on building a fourty-five sequence 4 act structure -- using Movie Outline

Then anything between three to six weeks to actually write the draft - averaging five to seven pages a day


Doing it part time and by committee you're looking at doubling that timescale at least.

If you really, really needed to get the job done fast, I think you could do it in eight days -- four days development, four days writing at twenty five pages a day. (But you'd be wasted at the end of it) and I can guarantee the thing would then need another week's worth of tidying.

I am a Marine, and we use cuss words on a regular basis. I didn't know my fellow filmmakers were soft? I would like a refund, being that I can contribute nothing to this project because I am "rude". Grow up.
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Total respect to you as a Marine, I have a lot of time for the Corp -- but this is one of those times when Gung-Ho isn't gonna cut it and we've all got stow our shit and show a little adapability -- if you think of CVF as a raw 1st Lt. with his first command, you'll see why he's a bit skitish about any insuborbination. Cut him some slack.

Oh, and US Marines aren't the only people that can get salty! ;)
 
JackRyanLangston said:
How do I go about getting a refund? I said, "GAY SHIT". I am sorry if that offended you. I am a Marine, and we use cuss words on a regular basis. I didn't know my fellow filmmakers were soft? I would like a refund, being that I can contribute nothing to this project because I am "rude". Grow up.
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For the record: I'm a fellow filmmaker and I'm not "soft". But I see no reason to cuss people out as they throw around ideas.

Tell you what Jack. If you don't want to be constructive as Kane suggests and really feel you have nothing to contribute, I'll send you a refund out of my own pocket.

Deal?
 
People. When i set the date at the 8th of may, i didnt mean the script. I meant a good outline/plot, just a little more than a single idea that we have been throwing up. And i also said its a tentative deadline, so if people had a outline they just couldnt figure out, we would wait to decide til after they had finished their outline. I couldnt agree more, if after the 8th we dont still have anything good, we'll just give it a little more time :)
Cheers.
 
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My last comment about the Jack is a rude crude idiot thing. I did not cuss at CVF in that post. I was joking about how were not really going anywhere with the project. I said we should settle on an idea and start writing. If someone doesnt close it up soon we will never get started. YES I did use a cuss word but it was at no body and that is no reason forme to get hate mail. If youcant handle cussingI will stop but pleaseask indietalk to put in fine print, *attention 18+ - please refrain from cussing because there are young kids in here who will cry if they see that word. With that last sarcastic remark I will never speak of the subjet again, Jack
 
JackRyanLangston said:
My last comment about the Jack is a rude crude idiot thing. I did not cuss at CVF in that post. I was joking about how were not really going anywhere with the project. I said we should settle on an idea and start writing. If someone doesnt close it up soon we will never get started. YES I did use a cuss word but it was at no body and that is no reason forme to get hate mail. If youcant handle cussingI will stop but pleaseask indietalk to put in fine print, *attention 18+ - please refrain from cussing because there are young kids in here who will cry if they see that word. With that last sarcastic remark I will never speak of the subjet again, Jack
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i don't think no one really has a problem it the cuss words prehaps the way you word you're posts... they come across all wrong... next step back and look at what you have written before you hit submit.

this is a team game... you're not helping you're cause with poorly worded posts.
 
JackRyanLangston said:
My last comment about the Jack is a rude crude idiot thing. I did not cuss at CVF in that post. I was joking about how were not really going anywhere with the project. I said we should settle on an idea and start writing. If someone doesnt close it up soon we will never get started. YES I did use a cuss word but it was at no body and that is no reason forme to get hate mail. If youcant handle cussingI will stop but pleaseask indietalk to put in fine print, *attention 18+ - please refrain from cussing because there are young kids in here who will cry if they see that word. With that last sarcastic remark I will never speak of the subjet again, Jack
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I didn't see any crying here and I don't see any hate mail. If people PM'd you, take it to them - not to the board. My point was to keep the discussion civil. If you feel you must use profanity, use it. But I'm going to call you on it. If that makes me - in your eyes - a young kid who cries when I see that word , I'm cool with that. However, sometimes it isn't the person reading the profanity that needs to grow up.

Do you still want that refund?
 
I have a rough first draft of a script I will throw into the pot for consideration. I'm not experienced at creating snappy loglines, but I will try to offer as consise of a summary as I can:

"Tim brings his new girlfiend, Kaitlyn, on a double date to introduce her to his best friends, Andrew and Samantha. The night progresses from uneasiness to outright torture as Sam and Andrew show their disaprroval of Kaitlyn, and Tim just can't decide who's side he's on..."
 
So, back to story development... :)

I was struck by Poke's idea of the traveling pen. I have one 'vingette' already sketched out on it. Tell me what you think:

The pen makes its way to the home of a young(ish) family. There is a great deal of pain in the family caused by dealing with the stresses of schizophrenia/paranoia from which the dad/husband suffers. In a series of scenes, his wife and children love and try to help him, but he just can't feel their love. In the end, he kills himself. His suicide note is written with the pen, which his young daughter takes and keeps as a momento of the father she loved.

Fast Forward twenty years to pick up the pen in the daughter's life, which is radically different than that of her father: Love has found her and she struggles to find her family's acceptance of her alternative (gay, broke and artistic) lifestyle. Particularly with her paternal grandparents who are very orthodox.

The closure comes from the fact that the father had a great many unresolved issues with gender identity and money. Through his child, all is healed.

Just a thought or two. Any feedback?

If you don't want this one, I am going to make it myself. It is based in small part on the recent suicide of my brother-in-law who left his wife and 5 year old twins at the mercy of his parents.
 
The pen makes its way to the home of a young(ish) family. There is a great deal of pain in the family caused by dealing with the stresses of schizophrenia/paranoia from which the dad/husband suffers. In a series of scenes, his wife and children love and try to help him, but he just can't feel their love. In the end, he kills himself. His suicide note is written with the pen, which his young daughter takes and keeps as a momento of the father she loved.

Fast Forward twenty years to pick up the pen in the daughter's life, which is radically different than that of her father: Love has found her and she struggles to find her family's acceptance of her alternative (gay, broke and artistic) lifestyle. Particularly with her paternal grandparents who are very orthodox.
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Interesting -- Who is the protagonist?

I'm assuming it's the daughter -- how does it get resolved? -- does she heal the rift with her family?

"Tim brings his new girlfiend, Kaitlyn, on a double date to introduce her to his best friends, Andrew and Samantha. The night progresses from uneasiness to outright torture as Sam and Andrew show their disaprroval of Kaitlyn, and Tim just can't decide who's side he's on..."
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What is it they disapprove of? How does it get resolved? Is it a comedy?
 
Lilith said:
The pen makes its way to the home of a young(ish) family. There is a great deal of pain in the family caused by dealing with the stresses of schizophrenia/paranoia from which the dad/husband suffers. In a series of scenes, his wife and children love and try to help him, but he just can't feel their love. In the end, he kills himself. His suicide note is written with the pen, which his young daughter takes and keeps as a momento of the father she loved.

Fast Forward twenty years to pick up the pen in the daughter's life, which is radically different than that of her father: Love has found her and she struggles to find her family's acceptance of her alternative (gay, broke and artistic) lifestyle. Particularly with her paternal grandparents who are very orthodox.

The closure comes from the fact that the father had a great many unresolved issues with gender identity and money. Through his child, all is healed.
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It could actually be broken up into two vignettes -- one about the father's suicide, the other about the daughter twenty years later. Normally, one does not hold on to a pen for twenty years, but since it was the pen her father's last words were written with I could see her hanging on to it.

Even if it was told as one long story, I could see a flash back at the end of the story to show how the pen progressed to the next person -- maybe a detective picks it up, or it get's tagged and bagged with evidence where it stays until someone that works in the PD archival section desperately needs a pen.

Good work Lilith.

I like the idea of the pen cause you can go so many ways with it, and the pen can be mailed to the other crews (if we choose multiple crews) like clive suggested.

Poke
 
Clive, I believe the character in possession of the pen is the protagonist for their part of the story. Having said that though, it would be best to see the illness through another character's eyes than just the father's, so the daughter would be a great window into his world.

Yes, I do think she heals the rift, although it comes in a painful denoument with the grandparents. Where they finally see the damage they've done by being judgemental and withholding. I am seeing the grandfather succumbing to his love of his granddaughter and forcing the issue with his wife.

In an aside here- I feel I may not ever be able to type the word "that" again without thinking of you. Yikes. :)

Poke, I think the daughter sneaks the pen from the scene and hides it (perhaps in a small jewelry box). The 20 year fast forward comes when she opens the box to write the fateful letter to her family about her lifestyle. Symmetry there, I think.

I can just see the box closing with the little girl outside it in one shot, and opening to a bright, beautiful room, hung with indian tapestries and the like- the camera being the pen for a moment, until our heroine sits down at her vanity to write, then the camera shows us the little girl "all grown up" in the mirror.
 
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clive said:
What is it they disapprove of? How does it get resolved? Is it a comedy?
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On the surface, they disapprove of her younger age and apparent lack of intelligence. However, in truth, they have a secret agenda. The resolution is something of a story twist involving the secret agenda. comedy? -- depends on your point of view. I would say it walks a thin line between drama and DARK comedy.
 
Just to settle this, as directorik & quinny said, Jack, its not the use of cuss words itself, although it doesn't help, its what and the way you say things. In your previous pm's to me, its the same thing. You never offered me any words that could help the project, rather hinder it, like right now. Also, i dont know who would of pm'd you with hate mail, cause i didnt, and i was the one that spoke out towards you in the first place, so that puzzles me??? And with the type of forum/board we are in, an adult type of environment, working on films, there is no need for profanity. Thats THE END of this topic.
 
Oh, and with the pen idea- I don't think we need to think of it as something with multiple shooting crews. One crew can shoot the vignettes, another crew can edit them, etc. Just felt I should clarify.

And thank you Poke for the compliment.

How does the pen move on from this story to the next? She drops it when she moves out of her apartment and either the new tenant finds it, or someone happens upon it on the street. Voila next story. :)
 
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Sorry to monopolize guys, but I have a more promising idea for how the pen moves on...

After the big 'todo' with the grandparents, the daughter prepares to move on into her new life, passing the pen on to her younger brother, an arrogant ivy-league over-achiever who has always lacked self-awareness.

He takes the pen home with him, intending to stow it somewhere, but finds himself bothered by its reminders of his father, who was self-involved as opposed to self-aware. Therein lies the guy's problem. He confuses the two. On the train home, a young woman asks to borrow a pen. He reluctantly hands over 'the' pen and the two embark on a journey of self-discovery. In my pollyanna world, he learns it is not weak to unconditionally love another and mends his heart from his father's death.

Even if you guys all hate this, I am sooo loving it. I need to look at Filmy's 4 act structure, etc. to get cracking on a draft. :)
 
I'm on board with the pen concept, for the record. I liked it when it was first submitted and now it's taking on some interesting developments. I'm interested to see where it goes. :yes:
 
My husband weighed in with his take on the pen... Throwing it out there for you...

The pen is a way that the father sometimes communicates with his loved ones from beyond- not in a creepy way, though.

Example: When the daughter writes her letter to her family, his words come through.
Example: The daughter gives her brother a list of things to get from the store. When he gets to the store, the paper instead holds an apology from his dead father. (creates some pathos for the brother/sister relationship).
Example: The brother (or the girl on the train) writes a note to self with the pen, and it's a message.

The pen doesn't always channel the dad, just when it's most needed.

I am slowly warming up to this, but I am not there yet.
 
I have a friend who is a very sucessful UK author and he's always said that the secret of his sucess is sending people hand written thank-you notes, scribed with a fountain pen.

An antique fountain pen would be something that people held onto as a family heirloom -- it would have a history.

expensive fountain pen

This would be particularly true if the family was originally European -- from either the French, English or German middle classes.

A family where personal notes were significant, would suffer more if the suicide note was written with the same pen.

So, if the Father was in the habit of writing notes and leaving them for people to discover as gifts of love -- love poems to his wife -- fictional messages from the Faery Queen for his beloved daughter -- then, the day he stopped doing it would be, in their minds, the start of his descent into mental illness.

The suicide note, therefore, could for a brief moment (before being read) be seen as a sign that he was on the mend -- it's sometimes the case that people commit suicide at a point when people believe them to be on the mend.

If handled properly that could be both a deeply poignant and ironic moment -- especially if the audience already know he's dead.

Hmm -- interesting

Can I suggest before you start plotting that instead you spend some time on character development.

Filmy posted a link to a pair of pdf - character profiles that he's developed that would be a good place to start.

I think starting with the grown daughter's fears that she's just like her father -- does she read more, ad eeper significance into the icon of the pen? -- Is her real fear that she's keeping it for her own suicide note?

I can see that working, because it casts futility and death as the anatagonist.

In which case is the real antagonism between her and her family the same unspoken fears -- "my God, she's just like her father -- why won't she let of of that damn pen?"
 
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