Screenwriting/Filmmaking

What do you do when you can't get a feel for or related to any of your characters? And any change you make feels wrong.

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Make them shotas.

You have to work on the details of the characters, then. Feeling related to a character is really based in the details.

And ultimately, you have to figure out the character's purpose in the movie and orient who they are around that.

I'm not a shota, I don't even know what that is.

What are you, fucking gay? How can you detail a character you can't relate to? Literally kill yourself, you're career will never happen

>On /teevee/ asking for screenwriting advice like anyone here could be trusted with such a task
>doesn't know what "shota" means

Confirmed shota. Underage b&. MOOOOOOODS

None of the details I add feel right.

That's because you're 10. MOOOOOOOOOOOOODS

>Been working on a movie idea for 5 years
>Go see Logan yesterday, almost the exact same premise, and done way better than I ever could

holy shit shut the fuck up already

That is when you quit, my friend.

...

honestly what I do is just write someone I know in real life and change enough details that they cant sue me, then people are blown away by how realistic my characters are

I don't know anybody in real life I'm an 18 year old virgin with no friends

rip off little known internet personalities if you follow any and things like that then

>rip off little known internet personalities if you follow any
I don't.

rip off posters' behaviour on Sup Forums's vaunted Sup Forums board

Probably because you have the wrong character. Incorporate whatever details you like about them into a different character, delete it entirely, or change the story.

>Probably because you have the wrong character.
What? I need you to back up a bit. What do you mean by "I have the wrong character"?
Like, they're not suited for my story?
>Incorporate whatever details you like about them into a different character
There's no details I really like about the characters I have so far.

You're obstinate and only interested in failure. Please quit now and stop interacting in this thread. There's no point!

...

Why would you start writing about characters you don't feel anything for?

I haven't actually begun writing yet.

Find characters you're interested in first.

Fuck you, bitch.

How am I supposed to find characters? Where do I look for them?
If I steal characters from other movies, books, etc, they'll just end up being lifeless copies.
I know characters are most important, but I came up with the story first, kind of.
I have a premise, but I'm not sure what I'm doing with it.

Fuck you, bitch.

Throw that script away and start another one.

Fuck you, bitch.

there is no script yet.

I write all my main characters like Frank Black.

Dead inside from seeing all the horrors of humanity and your wife left you for saving her life.

>stealing the best alt rock singer-songwriter's handle for your stupid xfiles spinoff
fuck chris carter

Fuck you, bitch.

Wasn't there a discord channel for film making? Wtf happened to that.

was there? Do you think it could still be up?

bummp

That's literally how I felt with Moana.
Only it wasn't done better, it was done in a way where I saw I could do better.
Only know I never will because if I do it's going to be called a Moana rip-off even though I worked on it for 4 years.

Yeah, Moana was shit, I'm sorry that happened to you.
What was your plan for it though? Was it going to be animated?
I'm interested, how much like Moana is it? It can't be that similar.

I had this idea for an animated movie where the basic premise was that it was set in a world where the continents do not exist, but instead the people live either in floating islands in the sky or within the ocean (think of it like Nausicaa/Castle In The Sky meets that episode of Samurai Jack where he meets those water aliens). And neither of these populations know about each other's existence because their leaders were at war with each other and convinced everyone the other group does not exist. The main idea is to have one character from the "sky people" somehow fall down and meet one of the "sea people" and eventually both would develop a strong friendship as they tried to get along despite their differences and in the process uncovering the truth as to why their world is so broken.

>how much like Moana is it?
The movie's story would be heavily mythological.
The main characters would have been a young girl and a man.
The girl would have been a free spirit, forced to grow up and mature from an early age, compassionate despite irritable. Sort of a loner who doesn't know much about the world but understood a lot about people. Basically a female character who's strong without really being a fighter (he wouldn't have been a princess, far from it actually).
The man would have been an ageless, immortal warrior who had spent a countless time exiled from his own society for his deeds as a warlord in days long past. A physical god with tremendous power but little aptitude to wield it for anything other than destructive purposes. Unlike the girl, he would have a lot of experience in wordly affairs, but he would be very socially clueless and incapable of adjusting to change.

Yeah, it really was that similar.
Although if anything Moana showed me that this idea really was generic and that I could probably try and create something more unique

It's pretty damn similar, but you can still make that work, I'm completely fucked over with the Logan thing.
Your young girl character already sounds a lot more interesting than Moana. How old is she?
Moana was around 16, you could make her younger.
For the immortal warlord god, have you considered making them a woman? An impulsive warrior goddess could be neat, like a female Drax or Jasper from Steven Universe as a main character.

I'm not gonna lie, I think your idea is interesting and if it makes you feel any better, straight off the bat it reminded me more of The Sneetches, Battle Angel Alita, and Ernest & Celestine than Moana.

Thank you. I honestly stopped working on it after Moana and decided to focus on my other projects but I'll see if I can try and get back on it.
>How old is she
I haven't really thought of it yet, but she's old enough to more or less sustain herself while still being a child. I was thinking something along the lines of maybe 16 or 15, idk. I don't really conceive the specific age of my characters.
>have you considered making them a woman
No, not really. I do like to come up with female characters but I'm not too sure if I could, or would even be able to, make this character into a woman.
But, when I think about it, it does seem like it would make for a more unique concept to have these two eventually develop into a more "mother-daughter" type of relationship which isn't really common in movies let alone animated (Brave tried it)
I could try working with this. Thanks for the suggestion

What was your idea that got fucked over because of Logan ? I'm interested in hearing it.

Yeah, try making the girl younger and the warlord a woman and see where that gets you.
>she's old enough to more or less sustain herself while still being a child. I was thinking something along the lines of maybe 16 or 15
I don't know what background you have written out for her, you said she was forced to grow up early, so remember that sustainability is based around life experiences.
Someone who grew up in bad circumstances might know more at 12 or 14 than someone else would at 23.

My idea was already basically a ripoff of Akira so Logan coming out and being so popular makes it worse two times over. Stranger Things didn't help either.

It's about how in the future prisons are abolished in America, and the police are replaced by garbage men who kill criminals instead of imprisoning them.
The garbage men, unsurprisingly, are corrupt and largely racist. This leads to a huge decline in black and brown populations.

The main characters are a Japanese-American garbage man (and former gang member) and this young black girl, who's currently in a gang.
She's kidnapped by the garbage men and taken to a government facility where they experiment on her, trying to create a human weapon.
The operation is a success, she becomes telekinetic and too strong, breaks free.

The Japanese man (and possibly several others) are sent to capture her and kill her, but he finds her and instead tries to help her escape.

That's really all I have. I'm not sure where the actual plot will go.
I had an idea that the movie would be about trying to stop the KKK from completely infiltrating the government and there would be a presidential election, but then the Donald Trump shit happened and I didn't want people to think I was inspired by Donald Trump and the president trying to get elected in the movie was based off him.

Had another idea it would be about revealing institutional racism, but institutional racism's been revealed time and time again without any real change.

>My idea was already basically a ripoff of Akira so Logan coming out and being so popular makes it worse two times over. Stranger Things didn't help either
Honestly everything in Stranger Things is a rip-off from something else so you shouldn't pay attention to that (you should, however, try to avoid such a comparison).

Your premise can be interesting but it sounds a bit gimmicky, it feels like something that belongs in a Black Mirror episode (especially considering you want to add a racial angle to the thing). And it's not that original either, other shows have handled the "dystopian future with no crime but horrible alternatives" several times before. If I recall even V For Vendetta had the killing police.

I like the idea of a former gang member and assassin bonding over with a runaway girl, but that's also because I like Leon The Professional. Again, this idea has been done a lot of times before, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

The adding of psychic elements comes off as kind of uneccesary, especially considering there is already a solid ground for a story that is the dystopian elements of a future America. If you ask me, you should focus on that (without making it too heavy handed of course). Also good on you for removing that idea of KKK infiltrating government.

From what I could gather you seem very earnest and very intent on making movies that focus on the topic of racism and how it can exist in society.
I think you should focus more on the stories themselves and let the racial subtext come naturally instead of trying to base your stories around it.
Everything that you told me has been done before extensively and I'm pretty sure you are aware of that, but just because has been done before doesn't mean it can't be done again. As long as you can provide your own spin on the idea and try to do something unique with it.

>especially considering you want to add a racial angle to the thing
It just felt like the natural thing to do, it was originally going to be a grown woman that he was trying to protect, someone he was attracted to.
I changed it to a young girl because putting your life on the line because you want to fuck a woman up the ass seems a bit silly, protecting a child less so.
Then it became a Race to Witch Mountain type thing where he had to get her to a certain spot and there would be people chasing them.

There's already a lot of racists in law enforcement now so white power groups becoming the majority in the new system of law enforcement where it'd be easier to get away with killing people didn't seem like that much of a stretch.

I added the telekinetic stuff because like I said, I had the Race to Witch Mountain stuff going on, and Akira is my favorite movie.
I had considered she'd be more wild at first, like there would be a scene of her accidentally killing her parents because she doesn't know how to use her powers.
And she would become like a cult figure to the underground resistance. It's basically genocide going on and then out of nowhere there's an angry young seemingly invincible black girl tearing shit up in the street. She's like Moses.
>The adding of psychic elements comes off as kind of uneccesary, especially considering there is already a solid ground for a story that is the dystopian elements of a future America. If you ask me, you should focus on that
You may be right, but then what would they be running away and hiding out from?
>Also good on you for removing that idea of KKK infiltrating government.
I didn't really remove it, just shelved the president thing because I don't want to be seen as some gimmicky Donald Trump hater, I don't care about Donald Trump.

(cont)

(cont)
>I think you should focus more on the stories themselves and let the racial subtext come naturally instead of trying to base your stories around it.
You're right, I think I'm putting way too much focus on how it could be racist or making it about racism, what I'm writing needs to be more like Get Out.
Have you seen Get Out? I'm not gonna spoil it, but the victims in that movie were all black people, but they didn't need to be.
The premise for Get Out doesn't have anything to do with race, it becomes racial by the details in the dialogue and casting.
The racism should be incidental, makes me feel like I need to scrap everything and start over completely.
>I like the idea of a former gang member and assassin bonding over with a runaway girl, but that's also because I like Leon The Professional.
I actually started watching Leon in order to help me come up with ideas for this movie, didn't finish it, and didn't really like it.
The villain was entertaining, but didn't leave much of an impression, and 12 year old Natalie Portman trying to get fucked by that grown man I didn't like at all.
>If I recall even V For Vendetta had the killing police.
See, I was going to rewatch V for Vendetta for inspiration too, I was 7 when I last saw it saw I don't remember much.
>And it's not that original either, other shows have handled the "dystopian future with no crime but horrible alternatives" several times before.
Has it really?

And I forgot to mention in my last post, another driving force behind the government experimentation thing were the Tuskegee Experiments.

>I had considered she'd be more wild at first
I'd say invest on that, give her some more character and a reason as to why she needs a guardian and a parental figure (someone to help keep her wild temper under control). Logan did it.
AKIRA uses telekinesis in a pretty interesting way as we can see it clearly taking a huge toll on the people that use it, and it's power comes with pretty heavy costs. I'd say invest on that too, maybe part of the reason why she would have such a wild temper is because her power messes up her brain or something.

The reason why I point out it seems tacked on is because telekinesis is the only supernatural element in your story and that the reasons for it to be there (to give the characters something to run from) can be easily achieved with something else. To further draw comparison, AKIRA managed to introduce it's supernatural elements into the story neatly by grounding them in the setting in both the political (the government needing to have a super weapon) and religious aspects (the cult led by Miyako), as well as Tetsuo's personal reasons for desiring power. AKIRA was tackling multiple things at once, and the premise of kids with psychic powers allowed it in to be able to deal with these multiple aspects in a unique way. There were multiple reasons for the characters to have these powers and for the story to enable them

What I'm saying is, if you want to incorporate telekinetic abilities into your story, and make something interesting, you should be asking yourself as to "why" you want to include these powers in the first place. If you are just going to do it because AKIRA did it and you want to add conflict, you would be better off just scraping them off the story to avoid unnecessary baggage and avoid dealing with a suspension of disbelief you aren't preparing your viewers to accept. By all means, homage AKIRA as much as you want, but understand why it worked if you want to make something of your own.

Literally sounds like Give Me Liberty by Frank Miller

So Lucy, then?

Not Ronin by Frank Miller? I never heard of Give Me Liberty.

(cont)
>Has it really?
Teen fantasy loves to use dystopian governments with oppresive systems that act as replacaments to prisons. Hunger Games for one. And that's just one example.

>I was going to rewatch V for Vendetta for inspiration too
Honestly I would tell you to not do it because I think V for Vendetta is a terrible movie.
But then again we seem to have different thoughts in film (I for one think Leon is a wonderful movie) and probably in politics as well so maybe it could be useful to helping you put your own ideas in motion. V For Vendetta is actually pretty similar to what you are trying to do.

And no, I have not seen Get Out but I can see what you mean.
>makes me feel like I need to scrap everything and start over completely
To be as blunt as possible, yes, I believe you should rethink some of your ideas.
I'm not terribly interested in movies that deal with racism but I see potential in your ideas. I think what you need is to rewrite, polish your work, and try to find out more about what you can do as a writer and find a unique voice for yourself.

>I'd say invest on that too, maybe part of the reason why she would have such a wild temper is because her power messes up her brain or something.
I mean she probably can't handle the power physically, I was going to do a thing like in Brian De Palma's The Fury where using her power makes her get nose bleeds and shit.
And then I had an idea that she would lose one of her limbs like how Tetsuo loses his arm, except it wasn't going to be like that at all and I didn't write it down.
>AKIRA was tackling multiple things at once, and the premise of kids with psychic powers allowed it in to be able to deal with these multiple aspects in a unique way. There were multiple reasons for the characters to have these powers and for the story to enable them
I needed to read that because my story so far was just stapling a bunch of shit from other stories together backwards.
I knew it was bad, but I couldn't figure out why.
>give her some more character and a reason as to why she needs a guardian and a parental figure
I can't figure out what to do with her parents, maybe she should be in foster care, maybe her parents died because of the garbage men.
It's better than her being black and having two black drug addict parents.
She's a gang member and her parental figure becomes a former gang member, that's interesting.

I doubt Lucy is that similar to what I said.
My character is like 14 and it's not based around "full brain percentage".
At the end of Lucy doesn't she like ascend into being a supreme consciousness or something? I haven't seen it.

I could read the comic instead of watching the movie, and I should rewatch Leon, I thought some parts of it were beautiful, like when the girl comes home and sees her family dead.
>I'm not terribly interested in movies that deal with racism
Is anybody? I don't think I am, must of them are heavyhanded and are written from the perspective of white people who haven't really experienced racism.
I hope there's potential here, I've been working on it for too long, and my Wizard of Oz adaptation seems very shit and generic.

everyone's asleep but bump

sup Sup Forums. I made this improvisational comedy short yesterday. I was supposed to make another short but the weather fucked us over so I just made a short about that. It's a total fucking meme and doesn't really work in English but I had a lot of fun making it.

youtube.com/watch?v=sFHmMjuvnfc

I like this thread because it's mostly just one guy posting to himself

I really feel like making a short documentary but I haven't gotten a good idea.

What do you guys do in your scripts when you don't know how to end a scene? I always have characters talking but no natural place for the discussion to end or transition to the next scene

The scene will naturally end once the purpose of the scene is fulfilled.

If you don't know the endpoint for your scene then you are just writing shitty dialogue with no point.