what's the best diy filmmaking gadget you built in your garage edition
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hmm
h-heh, I guess everybody's out f-filming
it's a movie and i wrote it
Glad there's a new thread up.
I want to ask again since I didn't get much of a response last time. How do I do a villain twist in my movie without people thinking I'm ripping off Disney?
They've done a villain twist for their last 4 movies and I know audiences must be tired of it. How do I make it fresh and exciting?
Normal OP here. Don't worry if it's quiet, there are some hours of the day that are just dead and I haven't quite figured them all out. It's been a busy day for me (not filming sadly, just lots of normal work).
As to the question:
I've only built one thing. I took an extending light changing pole like this:
homedepot.com
took off the light changing part and screwed in a threaded rod that I then screw my shock mount onto and use it as a boom for my NTG2. It's worked out great so far though it's definitely a little heavy and it would be nice to be able to have the XLR cable run through it. I've got a birthday in early September and might see about getting one of those.
I think I need lights more than I need that though. I have no clue what to get in terms of lights and there's not a lot of great info out there that I can find so if anyone has any recommendations ($200-$600) in that area I'd be happy to hear them. All I've got right now is clamp/scoop lights with socket splitters in them.
>How do I make it fresh and exciting?
There's no way to freshen an overused trope unless you subvert it by making it cliché on purpose.
What kind of twist are you talking about anyway? The villain who nobody suspected?
Plenty of other movies do villainous twists so I don't think anyone will think that specifically.
If you're telling a good story and not just setting up 'the twist' then people will like it. How to do that specifically is a bit complicated. What kind of story are you writing? A lot of it will deal with the world you're making to begin with.
I was wondering what I would need to do a live broadcast from my car.
I got one of those cameras that can connect to wifi, but thats about it.
likely there's a way to connect the camera to your phone and let it use the phone's internet connection
Will you be driving? If so that will be a difficult thing to do because you'll need a continual connection to the net. Using your phone you're gonna destroy your data cap. You can use one of those roaming internet connection things you can get from Verizon and run it to your computer but I think that will start to get expensive.
what am i supposed to be learning when i watch films
Nothing
Read scripts
>The villain who nobody suspected?
Yeah. It's actually very similar to Wreck-It Ralph with the hidden princess thing, almost identical.
>so I don't think anyone will think that specifically.
The thing is, I want the movie animated too.
>What kind of story are you writing?
Fantasy for a family audience, with underlying themes of overcoming depression and moving on.
I mentioned on the last general that I'm thinking of writing a live action Scooby doo reboot.
I want it to be rated R and be a little bit scarier and darker.
I also had a idea for a movie about a girl (around mid 20s) spending a day with her best friend doing things they would never do.
I have the ending sorted so I need to build around that.
I don't know about everyone else, but watching movies and TV shows teaches me about writing more than anything else.
Editing completely escapes me when watching movies, I almost never notice it.
>I mentioned on the last general that I'm thinking of writing a live action Scooby doo reboot.
Warner Bros. is already working on that, but it's probably going to be shit.
I love Scooby Doo and have ideas for the franchise too, but I wanted to do it as a live action TV show.
m8 don't worry about freshness, every animated movie is soaked in the same cliches because that's what people like to see. Removing the human actor variable from a movie makes it a lot easier to get away with all sorts of things.
God Scoob doesn't sound good at all.
I want my movie to be a lower scale and personal movie ffs
This isn't helpful at all, you're just telling me to be mediocre.
But mediocre is what all Disney animation is, but it's mediocrity polished to the level of perfection, turning it into the conventional standard of animation, Are you seriously trying to talk about mediocrity when you're considering a villain twist? Get real and watch the formula.
Personal how? I only want my show to be live-action because I want it to be older audience, but I think I rather have it animated, it's less forgettable that way and I wouldn't need to worry about crappy TV budget effects.
I would also change the race of some of the characters. Who would work better being black, Daphne or Fred?
>But mediocre is what all Disney animation is
It's the same formula applied consistently. It's good to watch, but there's nothing else to it really.
okay.
If you have to ask you'll never make it.
I guess a beginning would be to look at how characters are introduced, what are they telling us about these characters, i.e. what weakness is shown?. How are the plotpoints introduced?
>>If you have to ask you'll never make it.
kys
Just memin' on you son.
Took 2 weeks to write the first draft of the treatment of my movie.
"The end." Felt so fucking orgasmic holy shit i felt SOMETHING. Im usually flegmatic as FUCK.
I've been working on the script for a month now, but i dont think anyone will ever buy or let me make the movie i guess.
Bro you just said it yourself, I told you to follow the formula and you said you didn't want to be mediocre. You pretty much admitted it yourself, don't need to be pained about it.
>tfw just want to write for wwe and save the company
I don't want to make a faux Disney film, what would be the point of that?
My villain twist would probably come in the middle of the movie so I guess it's not exactly alike. I'm just trying to figure out a better means of execution.
>written over 11 pages of scattered notes for scenes/dialogue/plot/characters over the course of 2 weeks from the day I first had the idea
>started writing a detailed timeline of the script yesterday (basically a medium-sized description of all the scenes chronologically ordered)
>tfw already covered the first 10-12 minutes this morning, already introduced the catalyst and I'm stoked for tomorrow
It's a great feeling to know how your 'first draft' will look like even before you start typing it.
...
Alright I get you. How involved is the villain with the main character?
Brotip: Watch bad movies and you'll learn a lot more than watching good ones.
Y-you too Satan! *brofist*...heh...
Anyway. Im starting to work like that next week too. Im just wondering if my themes are strong enough and if im missing something (like, if the b-plot line good etc.)
in the vein of what said, how about clearly defining him as a villain from the get go then quickly make him good only the redo a last minute change of heart?
It feels convoluted like that but I'm sure it could work with some hidden background story.
>How involved is the villain with the main character?
Barely. They meet for the first time a few days before everything goes down.
The villain is a lot more involved with the secondary protagonist seeing as how he murdered her family, took her spot on the throne, and makes her out to be a terrorist to the whole country.
My personal tips goes to watching movies with subtitles (you get a better sense of writing because the actor's performance sometimes can overwhelm you, but they are still words put on paper)
Also try to mentally write descriptions for the scenes you watch. Also think about why from the dozen different ways to film a scene, the director chose to approach specifically that way. Think about all the other different ways he could have filmed it and the impact it would have had on the scene.
this too
Change your villain from whatever main character's friend he was to the actual main character. Last minute villains are cliche, but last minute hero having been the bad guy all along is still rare.
Okay that is a good premise. Is the audience supposed to never really know who the villain is until the reveal? Is the villain playing a nice friendly persona or a 'mean and harsh but nothing to suspect about' sort of king?
I know you mean well, but this response made me really angry.
Making my villain the protagonist would ruin the story and isn't something I want to do. It's not about him.
He's not a last minute villain, he's a villain in hiding.
>Is the audience supposed to never really know who the villain is until the reveal?
Yes, but the reveal would come pretty early on in the movie, and he's playing a nice and friendly persona, everybody loves him.
Originally my plan was to base him off of Stalin and the fantasy country on Communist Russia. You know how Stalin exaggerated his role in Lenin's life with movies and shit? That's what I was going to have him do. The villain is a newcomer in the country and murders the royal family so he could claim the throne, but there needs to be a reason for the countrymen to vote a foreigner into royalty.
I wanted to have the gang be on a smaller scale rather than being in a organisations like the reboot.
I'm not particularly bothered by race I mean If I found a black actress or actor that fit the role then I would want them.
I wouldn't have a issue with animation desu I just think live action would be more interesting since it's not done much with the franchise anymore.
>but there needs to be a reason for the countrymen to vote a foreigner into royalty.
What do you mean vote? In monarchies the dynasties are usually started either through coups, annexations or the higher ups the closest to the royal family when no other heir is available. You can maybe have the villain be from the royals of a neighboring kingdom and get him an arranged marriage to seal a contract of peace, and then have him murder all the royals so he's the only available to rule.
Act I
Introducing badguys.
Montage of heroes history.
Heroes get to know to the problem.
Heroes train. Their teacher longs back to old times. Rewards the heroes.
Hestitantly permits them to do a thing. They do the thing(to a badguy) but other hero becomes a murderer while other goes PTSD mode.
Act 2
They get punished. Murderer blames himself.
Introduce family values of PTSD (plot point b).
Teacher punishes them and gets to way of plot point B.
PTSD gets angry and heroes flee to find the villain.
World exploration. Light moments.
Badguys doing bad things. Heroes stop them.
They get hang of the villain, but villain was one step further and nearly kills the heroes.
Good guys have a crisis!
Plot point B goes forward. Slowpace.
Heroes reunite. They fight villain. Other dies.
Villain kills the B-plot.
Act 3
Good guy PTSD returns to Teacher.
Finishes his training MONTAGE.
Villain returns. Shows B-plot.
Hero flees. Teacher dies.
Hero recovers. Final battle.
The end.
What am i missing here?
>I wanted to have the gang be on a smaller scale rather than being in a organisations like the reboot.
I think anyone with good taste that actually likes Scooby Doo would want that. WB are dumbasses.
And I only want to change the race of the characters because I'm changing the city from a small town to a big city.
Freshmen aren't a bit young? It's an interesting idea. Why do they do it?
>If I found a black actress or actor that fit the role then I would want them
I seriously hope it's only because you're desperate to find absolutely anyone at all unless you desperately want to be flagged as traitor to the source material.
a budget
I suggest you delete this comment because that idea is fine as fuck and if Seth Rogers and James Franklin were here they'd probably steal it. It's really really really a great idea full of teen comedy potential, I can see it already.
A friend of mine is a major fan of Scooby so ive been talking to them about it cus I don't wanna piss off fans.
My main aim is to do something new while pleasing the long time fans unlike ghostbusters.
A story to put in your template.
You get a feel for genre, pacing, story structure tropes, visual language, camera movements etc.
While important, there's plenty to learn from watching movies.
This sounds kind of like Inside Out. You can still make an original movie but I might consider changing your plot so it's less like the movies you've mentioned.
The Scooby Doo story may be fun to work on but I'd be more interested in seeing the second movie if you're able to come up with an engaging reason for why they're doing it. Something beyond a medical diagnosis or bucket list type situation.
Editing is something that largely escapes me as well user. I'm working on paying more attention to how it's used and I've found it very enlightening and I can feel my opinion on how things should be edited based on which cuts I like starting to grow.
To be fair user you did say you're basically aping Wreck It Ralph plotwise. That's not saying you're going to be mediocre but you should push for something more creative and less tropey if you want to rise above.
Not necessary user. We try to maintain a tone of constructive criticism, not just shitting on people or attacking them.
Nobody will give you a million dollars to make it sure, but that doesn't mean you can't make it. The benefit is that it gets to be exactly your vision (within reason) but the con is it's quite difficult to do and can be somewhat costly.
Congrats on finishing a script though! That's a huge milestone to cross and you should be very proud of that.
Great job user! Keep the wheels turning! Would love to hear about it if you feel open to posting any kind of overview or logline.
This does not sound like a surprise villain user. It actually kind of sounds like the movie is starting where would have ended if Hans had been able to take over the throne.
Yeah, here's the thing. This guy in my story, the villain king, he's from another world. It can't be a coup because the people of the country adore the royal family and wouldn't like the new king if they knew he killed the old one.
The most difficult part of this story is actually figuring the level of technology in this fantasy world. The people of the country need to think he's magic. Think Army of Darkness.
Well congratulations, you know how an action movie is structured. Now what's the next step of your master plan?
Taking the literal sense of heroes and villains, I wrote a short story a while back that was superhero/capeshit focused.
One of the team members had fire powers. A particular villain had ice powers, but was typically masked. The fire hero was never seen while encountering the Ice Villain, for a clue.
As it turns out, they are both the same person; his real alias is Frostfire and he can control both.
Dumb but, you know, capeshit.
Money and status pretty much. I don't know if I'll keep them as freshmen though.
It's inspired by Casino, Wolf of Wall Street, Dope, and that fundraising episode of the Boondocks.
So i guess im ready to write this.
Damn, this brings smile to my face.
I was thinking if it needed something... more?
I mean, is it good idea to introduce two main characterers and move the story forward without a clear protagonist?
No one would jerk off to nigger daphnee/vera though, not sure about fred; we do live in a pretty fucked up era.
I feel like it'd be safest to make Fred black.
Basically the reason why the girls do the stuff they wouldn't do is because she is gonna kill herself and she wants to remembered by the small town she lives in.
>A story to put in your template.
I was not complimenting you.
>is it good idea to introduce two main characterers and move the story forward without a clear protagonist?
it's literally what happens in pulp fiction
People already know about this concept. Brick did it with drugs a long time ago. This would just be it in a genre other than noire.
I want the girls to be cute for sure.
My story is ready. I just have to write it on computer and i can share it. Its ridicilous but fun.
Good point!
>I mean, is it good idea to introduce two main characterers and move the story forward without a clear protagonist?
Not in what appears to be a straightforward heroes and villains story. You can have a gang but focus should be on one, like in Star Wars with Luke Skywalker.
Is it going to end with her finding out that she doesn't want to kill herself because of the events of the day?
No I want her to do it unless I find something better.
Could do two endings.
Okay if he's not human then you're not as restricted. Maybe have him mind control one of the royals to convince the rest of the family that he has royal blood or something. The mind control can only last so long which is why he kills them all in a very mysterious accdent.
I tried to make it simple as possible in storywise, but there is a bit complex characterer developement (i'd like to think) in core.
Its about two child soldiers who start their own war.
Yeah mine would be more like a comedy
>sponsored by Icyhot, no more back pain
Good. It turns it into a bucket list kind of thing but with a bummer ending like Seeking A Friend for the End of the World would make it better.
You could go even darker and make them do it before going into school and shooting a bunch of people and then themselves.
>This sounds kind of like Inside Out.
It's kind of similar because it also involves moving, but there's nothing I can really do about it, it's based off my life and experiences. I've been developing it for years.
>I'm actually able to get this movie produced but it gets panned by critics for being too similar to recent Disney films.
Good God, that would be shit.
>you should push for something more creative and less tropey if you want to rise above.
Again, I had these ideas way before the Disney films came out, I don't know what else I could do. And I can't change my story too much since it's based off a public domain property.
>This does not sound like a surprise villain user.
Yeah, my bad.
I like that actually I mean if I'm going dark I might as well push it.
That's a good route to take it. It's a good premise and it's got a bit of an edge to it which I think would attract people to it especially if the kids in it really looked like kids. What type of clique would these kids fit into?
My first thought when I read it was either some of the smarter kids making their own alcohol kind of like freshman Breaking Bad or you could do a smuggling ring type thing. They've both got funny directions.
What are some good screenplays to read? I am trying to get back into screenwriting but need some insight and idea of how to get started and figured if I read some good ones it'll help me out.
I've always thought it was an interesting idea and plays off of the "They were so normal" thing that people always say afterwards. Like, no one would think that's where the movie was going but then it takes a sudden and dramatic left turn towards it. I've wanted to make a school shooter movie for a long time but never actually pursued it. It's just one of those concepts that's always near. I'm nervous about how people would react to the story though. It would definitely be controversial.
It would be a bit of both. Loser kids trying to make a quick buck who eventually stumble into something way over their heads.
The one thing that worries me is having to write comedy. The thought of being funny for 90-120 pages intimidtes me.
shane carruth's a topiary is the best script i've ever read
I wanna make a movie about a suicide bomber in the US as the main character people can sympathize with. I would then make him do gradually more atrocious actions (yet justified by himself) just to see to what length Western people would buy it.
reminds me of uwe boll's rampage a little bit. which is probably his best flick.
Comedy is definitely a difficult thing to write. It might be worth watching some other things involving high school stuff to try and jog your memory for things that happen in High School, what happened to you etc. Things like Freaks and Geeks, 21 Jump St., Fast Times at Ridgemont High, etc. As well as writing down all of the funny things that occur to you while you watch and in real life. An event that makes you laugh will probably make an audience laugh and can normally be worked into a screen play somehow.
Also, just think of how things can go wrong. There's always humor when things fail.
The Fight Club script is so ingeniously crafted it might as well be its own independent piece of art. You can sense the rhythm just by reading it, it's amazing.
School shooter movies are like religious movies no matter what you do someone will complain.
Shane Carruth's A Topiary is a must
I like that idea of turning the usual harmless prankster bad guy into a realistic murderer. Would watch
>his best flick
any of his movies would be improved ten folds if he kept his hands far away from the fucking camera. All this zooming in and out is infuriating.
Hey` user i need your help or advice.
James cameron is going to film avatar 2 very soon and i just want to be part of the crew, I feel dead inside, like I dont know why I am even alive anymore and I just, I need this.
I dont care if it is exhausting and stuff, I will be doing something that its worth sacrifice.
What should I do?
This isn't Sup Forums, racism isn't allowed.
Find a no-name crew literally no ones knows about. Kill him and impersonate him. You can lock him away too but you'll be fucked afterwards.
No, no, he is human. He travels from our world to a fantasy world.
kys reddit
the only legitimate role for a nigger is scoob
It depends on where you are user. If you want to work on crews for his movie you need to live where he'll be shooting. Start trying to get a job as a PA on a set if you can. That's the most entry level position on a set. You'll be working long hours for relatively low pay and hard work though.
Fight Club is a garbage ass movie though.
Can he bring something back from the fantasy world? Maybe that thing could kill the royals and he'll use his transportation ability to send it back and appear as a hero to the common folk.
Though I don't love Fight Club or anything, it's hard to call it a garbage movie. Overhyped maybe but it's still well put together and terrifically shot as well as being pretty well acted.