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Screenwriting Help
- Thread starter GRob1211
- Start date
Welcome!
I have a question. You don't know me because you probably haven't read many of my posts, so I will
start by saying that I mean no disrespect, I'm not trying to be rude, nor am I trying to trick you or
bait you - I'm genuinely interested.
If you don't have an idea for a movie, why do you want to write a screenplay? Isn't it usually
the other way around? You have this great idea for a movie so you need to write.
I have a question. You don't know me because you probably haven't read many of my posts, so I will
start by saying that I mean no disrespect, I'm not trying to be rude, nor am I trying to trick you or
bait you - I'm genuinely interested.
If you don't have an idea for a movie, why do you want to write a screenplay? Isn't it usually
the other way around? You have this great idea for a movie so you need to write.
GRob1211, that's like asking how to come up with the next big invention 
. Rik is right, but there are ways to get your creative juices flowing, I think that is what you are really asking. You have to figure this out for yourself. Meditate, isolate yourself, read the newspaper, make papier-mâché hats for troll dolls...
Oh, and
. Rik is right, but there are ways to get your creative juices flowing, I think that is what you are really asking. You have to figure this out for yourself. Meditate, isolate yourself, read the newspaper, make papier-mâché hats for troll dolls... Oh, and
Are we talking about a short film or a feature here? That may sound like an odd question, but it makes a world of difference.
Also, do you want to make an award winning festival film or a nasty slasher flick?
The truth is, there isn't a single method for coming up with an idea for your film that covers all of those areas.
However, as a starting point you could try buying half a dozen newspapers and reading them from cover to cover, until you find a quirky little story that sparks your imagination.
For instance, say there is a story with the headline "Missing girl discovered trapped in well"... that might inspire you to write a short film about what it would be like for a girl to be trapped in a well for three days (cool film, one actor, one locations... it doesn't get better than that! LOL)
or.. you might write a horror film about a ghost who frightens people into falling into a well, so your film ends with her at the bottom of the well with bones of previous victims...
Or it might inspire you to write an art house story about a girl who believes she is a mole and who really wants to be in the well.
Basically, you use a true story to spark your imagination... which I think is your real question.
If you do this, you'll get much better ideas than if you just try to pull something out of thin air, simply because most wannabe film makers spend too much time watching films and the TV and not enough time living in the real world. That means they tend to draw their influences from other people's work instead of from life.
Which is where the word derivative comes from... an idea derived from another person's work.
Also, do you want to make an award winning festival film or a nasty slasher flick?
The truth is, there isn't a single method for coming up with an idea for your film that covers all of those areas.
However, as a starting point you could try buying half a dozen newspapers and reading them from cover to cover, until you find a quirky little story that sparks your imagination.
For instance, say there is a story with the headline "Missing girl discovered trapped in well"... that might inspire you to write a short film about what it would be like for a girl to be trapped in a well for three days (cool film, one actor, one locations... it doesn't get better than that! LOL)
or.. you might write a horror film about a ghost who frightens people into falling into a well, so your film ends with her at the bottom of the well with bones of previous victims...
Or it might inspire you to write an art house story about a girl who believes she is a mole and who really wants to be in the well.
Basically, you use a true story to spark your imagination... which I think is your real question.
If you do this, you'll get much better ideas than if you just try to pull something out of thin air, simply because most wannabe film makers spend too much time watching films and the TV and not enough time living in the real world. That means they tend to draw their influences from other people's work instead of from life.
Which is where the word derivative comes from... an idea derived from another person's work.
This and all of the above = good advice. When you write, you are expressing yourself, how you view the world. If you've heard the adage "write what you know" usually that is interpreted with regards to external stuff, and generally that's true. But if you need to write about a story in Africa, and you've never been there, you can always go there or do a lot of research and fix that.
Writing what you know is writing about you. Not about your daily life or experiences. It's about your view of the world. Good storytellers always have something to say.
No offense meant by this, but I really, really disagree with this. If you want to write about Africa, then you have to go spend time in Africa... no amount of book research and internet browsing is going to give you the information you need to do the job properly.
However, to be fair, Hollywood is equally guilty of shoddy research of the "oh this'll do variety" which is why so many of their products that deal with international issues are so laughably bad.
As someone who has actually travelled in Africa as research for a screenplay, I can tell you for nothing, that getting onto the streets of the country you're writing about is the only way to do it for all kinds of reasons.
Where the lack of "on the ground" research really shows is in dialogue and in cultural differences. So, for instance in Ghana the locals use the word "Abruni" to mean "white man"... and kids shout it at you in the streets as you walk past... and they do the same to visiting Afro Americans, who get really, really upset about it, for obvious reasons.
Now, where a lot of screenplays by wannabe writers fail miserably is in a lack of credibility, caused by the writer's lack of understanding of the subject matter they're writing about. I can't tell you the number of "drug" related movie scripts I've read, written by people with no understanding of the drugs subculture, how it works, or even why people take drugs... that's the reason Trainspotting was such a great film... because it's about the closest representation of reality I've ever seen of the Edinburgh heroin scene... and that includes documentaries.
You're right, people should write what they know... and writers should actually get out there and have a life in order to have something to write about. Hemmingway is a brilliant writer because he actually did stuff and then took us into the world's he'd explored. If all you've ever done is watch movies and play video games, then of course you've got nothing to write about.
Clive, no offense taken. I do think I said "you can go there", but the example was meant to be an example with a point, not to be taken as specific. Some things you can research, others you might want to get more hands on, which is research anyways.
And getting your nose dirty isn't always a payoff. In this example, imagine if you are writing about a particular area in Africa where your presence is not welcome. Even if you are allowed into the area safely, the people may be guarded with you and the experience you gain may be in no way indicative of the actual realities of that world.
But I'm not saying that is the norm, just that one should have an understanding of the best way to go about researching their subject matter.
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Get your ideas from...
Anywhere...
Watch other movies and ask yourself WHAT IF I DO IT THIS WAY INSTEAD?
Read the newspaper or magazines... Go to the library and find periodicals on subjects you know nothing about and read through them... Listen to the news. Read books.
All the time while you do ANY OF THIS -- be of the mindset that you're looking for that new idea for your own screenplay.
Everything you read can easily lead you to a new idea for a screenplay but that's the easy part... Once you get an idea, the hard work begins!
After the idea, you have to figure out a story to go with the idea. None of this is easy... It takes a lot of work to get it RIGHT.
The idea is JUST THE BEGINNING.
filmy
Anywhere...
Watch other movies and ask yourself WHAT IF I DO IT THIS WAY INSTEAD?
Read the newspaper or magazines... Go to the library and find periodicals on subjects you know nothing about and read through them... Listen to the news. Read books.
All the time while you do ANY OF THIS -- be of the mindset that you're looking for that new idea for your own screenplay.
Everything you read can easily lead you to a new idea for a screenplay but that's the easy part... Once you get an idea, the hard work begins!
After the idea, you have to figure out a story to go with the idea. None of this is easy... It takes a lot of work to get it RIGHT.
The idea is JUST THE BEGINNING.
filmy
Basically, you can write a script from anything... a news story, a situation you were involved in, etc. I could write a story from me writing this response on a message board... if I could give it some extra life in the way of developing it into a larger concept. Once you see how the idea develops into a screenplay with structure, it makes it very easy to invent stories from scratch, with no more than a simple genesis of an idea. The idea is the easy part as filmy said. The hard (or should we say more talented part), is taking the idea and giving it a solid plot, well developed story and characters, and interesting action and dialogue. Thats the part where writers earn their money.
That's why I say if you're new to screenwriting, take a high concept idea and work from there. The high concept will help to write the action, dialogue and story for you so you can see how the process flows. High concept is also much more marketable than character study or the oversaturated genre market. Not until you're REALLY good at development should you try to make a character study drama or comedy... they require a finesse that very few indies possess early in their writing careers.
That's why I say if you're new to screenwriting, take a high concept idea and work from there. The high concept will help to write the action, dialogue and story for you so you can see how the process flows. High concept is also much more marketable than character study or the oversaturated genre market. Not until you're REALLY good at development should you try to make a character study drama or comedy... they require a finesse that very few indies possess early in their writing careers.
Actually, completely forgot to mention brainstorming...
Try this method, it works a treat...
Pick a genre, then give yourself three minutes to write down as many dreadful ideas as possible... the trick is to concentrate on getting as many really, really bad ideas as possible.
This process works best if you've got a few mates and everyone kicks in the worst possible film in that genre they can imagine.
The basic rules are the this: ideas have to be bad and you don't make any judgments about them until after you finished brainstorming.
When you've got a list of about twenty really bad ideas... then take a close look at them, because 97.3% of the time you'll find a good idea hiding in the dross.
If you look for a "great idea" you'll just get plagued by writer's block... bad ideas are easier and the only difference between a bad one and a good one is the work you do on it.
Try this method, it works a treat...
Pick a genre, then give yourself three minutes to write down as many dreadful ideas as possible... the trick is to concentrate on getting as many really, really bad ideas as possible.
This process works best if you've got a few mates and everyone kicks in the worst possible film in that genre they can imagine.
The basic rules are the this: ideas have to be bad and you don't make any judgments about them until after you finished brainstorming.
When you've got a list of about twenty really bad ideas... then take a close look at them, because 97.3% of the time you'll find a good idea hiding in the dross.
If you look for a "great idea" you'll just get plagued by writer's block... bad ideas are easier and the only difference between a bad one and a good one is the work you do on it.
grob how to think for a film idea???
very simple keep you eyes wide open when you are out of home...if you have a sharp mind you will see many people on roads with a story. you just have to discover it....but these type of ideas are realy commercial....you can say they are a little bit more on art movies side..
i found my friend who is a writer at a tv channel roaming here and there talking to people on streets , hotels, talking to beggars ...always having a sharp eye on roads, bus stops and well his first attempt (he wrote a 13 epi drama) is selected for some best children pacific award from pakistan....thats the tip he gave me...that if you have no idea come out and see the world clearly...
as wide shot said
what happened with me , i had few comedy scenes in mind and wrote them with detail...after that i took reverse techinque and started developing characters(though i am still in the process).after that i told my younger brother about the first few scenes which i had in mind and you will not believe it in just an hour we had a rough movie idea which we are writing these days and after that we will rewrite it ...making the story more free from mistake
so it is not that big problem
very simple keep you eyes wide open when you are out of home...if you have a sharp mind you will see many people on roads with a story. you just have to discover it....but these type of ideas are realy commercial....you can say they are a little bit more on art movies side..
i found my friend who is a writer at a tv channel roaming here and there talking to people on streets , hotels, talking to beggars ...always having a sharp eye on roads, bus stops and well his first attempt (he wrote a 13 epi drama) is selected for some best children pacific award from pakistan....thats the tip he gave me...that if you have no idea come out and see the world clearly...
as wide shot said
wellt hats true......if you join it with the saying of Clive
what happened with me , i had few comedy scenes in mind and wrote them with detail...after that i took reverse techinque and started developing characters(though i am still in the process).after that i told my younger brother about the first few scenes which i had in mind and you will not believe it in just an hour we had a rough movie idea which we are writing these days and after that we will rewrite it ...making the story more free from mistake
so it is not that big problem
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Everyone knows that humans originated on Mars and colonized Earth as Mars began to die. That shouldn't be too difficult to research. I have a telescope that can bend space and time that should allow you to get a glimpse of the ancient civilizations if you'd like to borrow it.
That's why I'd never take on a script like that... who has time to build a spaceship and a time machine?
Of course, if you build a time machine, I guess you do have the time! LOL
But... all joking aside, one of the things that has always bothered me in the film industry are screenwriters who make movies about cultures they don't understand... and film makers who think it's OK to rewrite history to suit their story.
Yeap, I'm one of those guys who were genuinely offended by the exclusion of English and Canadian troops from the Normandy landing scenes in "Saving Private Ryan"
I think part of a good writer's skill is to understand people who are different than they are - in fact, that's kind of a basic. Obviously, you can only learn so much by reading and watching some DVDs, and it's always better to do research first hand, you do as much as you can in the script stage and hope that 100 rewrites by damned dirty apes from now, when they actually make the film, they hire some advisor and do some research themselves.
I have never flown in a stealth fighter plane, but I did read a book written by a pilot about his experiences. Helped me get into his head.
And, as someone who has done a bunch of police ride alongs and enough cop research for a dozen scripts, I am *constantly* having facts changed into the movie version by some idiot director or actor or producer. One script, I went out of my way to show how movies always get it wrong... and they changed all of the real stuff for the movie (getting it wrong).
You'll be happy to know, the British and Canadian Martians will be shown in my script.
- Bill
I have never flown in a stealth fighter plane, but I did read a book written by a pilot about his experiences. Helped me get into his head.
And, as someone who has done a bunch of police ride alongs and enough cop research for a dozen scripts, I am *constantly* having facts changed into the movie version by some idiot director or actor or producer. One script, I went out of my way to show how movies always get it wrong... and they changed all of the real stuff for the movie (getting it wrong).
You'll be happy to know, the British and Canadian Martians will be shown in my script.
- Bill