/swg/ - Screenwriting general

How deep is too deep?
What's the single worst character name you have ever come up with?
9/11 movies - yes or no?
What's the single worst line you have ever written? Be it dialogue, description, whatever. If it's terrible and you wrote it in a script - post it.
Writing real people into your scripts - yes or no?
What obscure real-world event should be a movie? Anything at all.
What are you not working on by browsing Sup Forums right now?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=ycfdfinG_P8
youtube.com/watch?v=hXDNGS9V4Us
youtube.com/watch?v=m4DyTjrruVo
youtube.com/watch?v=JcVGDV67L-g
youtube.com/watch?v=o_rz1bluG_k
youtube.com/watch?v=JLUjMWRCzic
fictionpress.com/s/3206139/1/
knowyourmeme.com/memes/keit-ai-finds-a-way/
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

>9/11 movies - yes or no?
yes

...or no?

- What?

- Don't know.

- Sure.

- For my self, I don't know. I recently watched Scream on MTV (the series) and it was shit.

- Sure, that may even increase its marketability since actors want to play larger than life roles. If I recall, the reason Imitation Game got so much buzz was because DiCaprio eventually wanted to play Turing.

- Emu War

- I have crippling anxiety

HO BOY IT'S TOO LONG FOR JUST ONE POST

1/2

>How deep is too deep?
When the plot and characters get lost in symbolism and metaphor that distracts the viewer, that's 'too deep'. For example, Breaking Bad crosses that line with stupid, pointless 'too deep' scenes. In the episode Fifty-One, Walt cuts himself shaving and a close-up of his head is shown. One could argue that it's a representation of him crossing the light between light and dark (the shaving cream and his skin) through spilling blood, or that it's just a really artistic shot showing him not having such a deft hand after being emotionally shaken up by Skylar's antics earlier in the episode. There's many ways you could twist it, but none validate the pointless scene and its pointless symbolism. Pic related.

>What's the single worst character name you have ever come up with?
Rektor, a fantasy warrior character I made for WoW and continued to hold onto for some short stories.

>9/11 movies - yes or no?
No. Even if you can get past the disrespectful nature of making a Hollywood movie out of tragedy, it's already been done (the 2006 movie World Trade Center), and a decade of 'buildings being destroyed' disaster and superhero films have taken away the impact of seeing the towers fall. Pointless.

>What's the single worst line you have ever written? Be it dialogue, description, whatever. If it's terrible and you wrote it in a script - post it.
"You'll be swallowed up by the darkness if you face it alone, but we can fight it... together." Just kill me.

2/2

>Writing real people into your scripts - yes or no?
No. Take inspiration if you like, but literally translating a real person into a script is like writing fan fiction- if you didn't come up with the character yourself, they're not your toys to play with in a script. And, of course, you'll naturally 'get it wrong' by not fully knowing them from all angles like you can for a fictional character. Leaving that side of them a mystery or filling in the blanks yourself ruin the point of putting someone in a script, anyway.

>What obscure real-world event should be a movie? Anything at all.
I'm not a big fan of 'based on a true story' bullshit, but the story of how Youtube came to be could be the next Social Network if the right people made it at the right time. The story of them trying to get hot girls online to use the site to attract visitors, for example, would be eye-opening for those that didn't already know that.

>What are you not working on by browsing Sup Forums right now?
A script about a loner being convinced by a recruiter to visit a church that focuses on community instead of religion, trying to make it work for him despite an unwillingness to drink the leader's kool-aid. It gets dark and weird, but it has potential.

>get semi good idea for movie
>think about it for a few days or even weeks
>have a few scenes in most scenes in my head
>time to get writing
>can't come up with the missing pieces
>script doesn't sound as good as it does in my head
>instead of having a full movie of good scenes I end up having something like Suicide Squad where there are good/cool scenes but they don't make sense or add with the rest of the plot

I don't know why but I can visualize a scene in my mind and it looks cool but when writing it out it just sounds dumb, or I just end up having a semi plot with a few scenes but can't fill in the rest.

This is why I need backup a partner to help me out.

Seriously sucks.

I can come up with plots/pitches for movies and even can think of actors that I would like to portray my characters, I can come up with scenes but I just can never fill up an entire story. I just can't seem to finish a full 90 paged script. I always end up with 20/30 pages at most.

I have worked on at least 20 different scripts but never finished one and most end up getting deleted.

any advice???

Sometimes the blanks fill themselves in if you let the idea stew for a bit. The main way to easily fill them in, for me, is to figure out where the story goes and what the point of it even is.

For example, say I have a story that, at its core, is about a mother and daughter's relationship changing during an invading army's occupation of their city. Where is it meant to start and end? What are the three arcs of the story defined by? What journey do I want these two characters to go through? This introduces characters important to their story, cuts aside useless subplots and puts important scenes together.

Say that I decide that the mother, out of work, has to get supplies and food by whoring herself out, which her daughter is morally disgusted by because she's an idealistic youth. There's a few scenes already: the mother convincing a stranger to bed her, the mother trying to keep from crying as she gathers up a day's earnings to count it all up, the daughter refusing to eat a meal bought with whore's money, etc. You even have new characters who could have an impact on the plot, like customers fo the mother or someone who bullies or propositions the daughter because her family now has a certain reputation.

It's like creating a puzzle. You don't start off by taking little blank pieces and drawing a picture in. The first step is knowing what the picture is meant to be when put together, then putting the pieces together that match. Hell, the 'work on the border pieces first' idea is a perfect metaphor for building the story's framework in three acts with structured plans laid out.

Damn, I'm all ramble-y today.

Outline more.

The simple advice that really helped me with my stories' structure is the 'three things' theory, described by Max Landis in his video "screenwriting advice: how to control your story".

Basically, your movie is about three things that happen. The way they go about is made up of three more things, and that's the structure of your three-act story.

Here's his Matrix example:

1. Neo gets freed from the Matrix.
2. Neo trains to become the One.
3. Neo becomes the One.

And there's the three acts. How do you figure out all of the scenes in each act? Break them down into three specific things that need to happen for the story to go forward:

1. Neo gets freed from the Matrix.
-Neo's normal life is established.
-Neo is brought into the real world by Morpheus.
-Neo is told what the Matrix is while he's introduced to the 'real world'.

2. Neo trains to become the One.
-Neo learns how to fight and begins his training.
-Neo learns what the One is meant to be.
-Neo learns what the Resistance is and aligns with them.

3. Neo becomes the One.
-Morpheus is kidnapped.
-Neo has to save Morpheus from the Agents.
-Neo becomes the One.

Start with this structure and outline the rest.

>How deep is too deep?
When it's not fun anymore

>What's the single worst character name you have ever come up with?
When I was 12 I wrote a story for school with a protagonist named Watermelon.

>9/11 movies - yes or no?
Sure, if they can be done well, but I have never seen a good one.

>Writing real people into your scripts - yes or no?
I wouldn't do it, but referencing real people is different.

>What obscure real-world event should be a movie? Anything at all.
The Tamam Shud case

>What are you not working on by browsing Sup Forums right now?
M-my first screenplay
;_;

Can you stop separating the threads? What the fuck.

I am writing a story where the main villain is rapist baby murderer

And I am writing a memoir about my life.

I am a less sympathetic person than that baby murderer

So what program do you all use for your epic gnarly screenwriting, and why isn't it Trelby?

...

>How deep is too deep?
No such thing as "deep".

A boy falls in love with a girl.

Unable to confess, he is gifted by a deus ex machina with the girl's phone number. Never minding the strange area code, he immediately calls her, and is overjoyed to find out that she has a crush on him as well.

But, the next day, when he recounts the previous day's confessions to the girl, she only looks at him with a perplexed expression. After some investigation, he finds out that the girl he called is not the same girl he fell in love with. In fact, she doesn't exist in this universe at all. She is the girl's alternate universe counterpart, who has fallen in love with the MC's own AU self, who too is blissfully unaware of her crush.

Hijinks ensue as the two strike up a deal to give each other their darkest, most private secrets in order to equip the other with the weapons they need to conquer the heart of their other selves. While the two chase their respective loved ones, DRAMA ensues as they begin to fall in love with each other instead and question the NATURE of LOVE.

OP: youtube.com/watch?v=ycfdfinG_P8
ED1: youtube.com/watch?v=hXDNGS9V4Us
ED2: youtube.com/watch?v=m4DyTjrruVo
PV: youtube.com/watch?v=JcVGDV67L-g
EP 1: youtube.com/watch?v=o_rz1bluG_k
EP 13: youtube.com/watch?v=JLUjMWRCzic

Stop posting that because it's already a thing.

fictionpress.com/s/3206139/1/

...

It's already a meme, so you don't need to post it anymore.

knowyourmeme.com/memes/keit-ai-finds-a-way/

...

need advice from /swg/

I can take a screenwriting class this semester but still a bit undecided. Should I do it? Is it worth it?

happy to see this thread up

just wanna say that i love all of you guys and i wish you the best of luck (yes, even you there writing the generation-defining, groundbreaking sci-fi time travel movie with a disillusioned early 20s male protagonist). keep grinding fellas, and don't let your dreams be dreams

>The Tamam Shud case

>90 minutes of people standing around going "huh..."

Why does Sup Forums have the worst memes?