The most frequent reason a script doesn’t get made is because it’s just bad. They say you will need to write 3 scripts before you have something adequate to film. I’ve worked with a bunch of partners over time and plenty of times the ideas seem excellent when we’re working away at them but when assembled into a finished project they just fail. Sometimes our ideas seem kind of bland but as the bigger whole they work, you just never know until your finished. On the feature I actually filmed, after I finished editing the rough cut of the film I realized what we did wrong when we finally wrote the script. The most sensible thing I can say is perform a lot of rewrites and do plenty of rewrites that you can stomach in the treatment phase. Once your done get as many people that you can to read it and give you feedback.
Today I meet with one of my two new writing companions. He came up with a lot of really good ideas since our last meeting. And once we went through them I revealed to him that our story isn’t low budget anymore. The concepts are actually really very good. They remind me a little too much of the matrix but it worked for our concept. The issue is that there is no way I could film the screenplay without a bunch of money. Our original goal was to write something that we could do all on green screen. My idea was to set the story on a space station. Anyway it has evolved into a monster of a project with guns, chase scenes and numerous locations. He even added a dog. I assume next week he will introduce a kid as one of the characters and essentially we are hitting on all the no no’s for a low budget.
It was a struggle today also because I wanted to go through the 4 page treatment he emailed me last night and he wanted to talk about movies and other fun things. I know he already knew what was on the four pages but I wanted to go through them with him. I wanted to give him feedback. Also I wished to insert my ideas in the story and see what he thought about them. He put together a pretty intriguing first half of the story with lots of conflict, tension and mystery. Three important elements for a good story. We ended the conference with a debate about how intriguing it would be to set the film in the 70′s. He told me that’s so unique. My thinking was sure and the matrix stuff was also unique. I advised him to start heading to goodwill and find out fits and props now and I’ll cast actors that can fit into them. Then I counted the number of characters we have in the 70′s stuff and I came up with 15. This is in the first half of the movie before you realize we are on a space station. So add up the characters on the space station and we are well over the suitable number of actors for a low budget film. Oh and vintage sets are another no no for low budget because you have hairdos, clothes and props.
So my controversy tonight is how do I handle this issue. I like the tale. It’s not what I originally envisioned but it’s actually kind of an fascinating script. Can I convince this guy that we should write the story and then try to sell it? I would be happy to sell it to one of the studios for six figures. I know the truth is that it would be like winning the lottery. The original goal was to write something small budget that was festival deserving and submit it to the Sundance Film Festival. Honestly this is a commercial story that probably wouldn’t play so well at the film festivals. It’s a story that probably also requires a star or two to get it to work.
My own goal is to get a movie straight into sundance. That’s on my list in my life time. I’m going to search for another writer to get started on a different story. Something that can be filmed on a small budget for the film festival circuit. Maybe I’ll continue with this particular dude and finish the movie for Hollywood. The moral on this story would be to avoid concepts like sci-fi, space stations or something that could possibly be big budget if you prefer a story to produce yourself.
Learn more about Making A No Budget Movie. Or 10 Hints To Being A Film Maker.
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