/swg/ /fmg/ - Screenwriting/Filmmaking general

We used to have these comfy threads on sunday evenings.

Any anons working in film/tv? Tell your stories.
Any writeranons? What are you working on?

Recommended reading (can be easily found on interwebs):
>Screenplay by Sid Field
The bible on modern screenwriting.
>Story by Robert McKee
Builds on Syd Field, goes more into depth of the workings of the screenplay. Probably the best book on screenwriting in existence.
>Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder
Becoming a sell-out Hollywood whore for dummies. Good to get an idea of the producer's perspective on screenplays.


Have an idea and don't know how to structure it? Ask away! Screenplay structure is hard to understand at first, but once you get a feel for it, everything becomes much clearer.

As a welcoming gift I'll gladly read scenes, short scripts, or treatments/synopsis and comment from a writer's perspective. Can be in english, german or spanish.

Come and get comfy lads.

Other urls found in this thread:

drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz7WR19NhKXqQkFxaHdnMXh1a2c
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

I'm writing a screenplay about drumpf and I'm wondering how I can make it more based and kino

OP here, I'll get this party started.

I'm currently working on a feature screenplay, a story about a criminal investigation. A secret service agent (not set in burgerland just fyi) is tasked with eliminating a rogue agent who is active in human trafficking.
MC and buddy (who isn't agent but collaborated previously) is sent to a small island where she's to meet an informer who has the location of the rogue agent pinned down on that unlikely island. MC meets with informer, but he gets killed right before he can tell her the information, which he hadn't told anyone else nor written down anywhere.
Against the orders of the superiors, MC starts to investigate who this informer actually was, and finds out that he was involved in the child trafficking ring (which initially isn't surprising since he was possibly a mole).
When another body is found it somehow points to the port on the larger island, which works as a sort of hub for child trafficking.
MC digs into that, and eventually discovers that the informer wasn't just involved, but he was the main contact on the island for continuous shipments from the major port (tho the main bad guy there only knows this guy as his contact, and nothing else about the place).
MC gets back, but gets arrested for the murder of the informer. Buddy helps MC flee from cops thanks to a girl he's flirting with who helps him. Girl then takes them both to meet "somebody", who turns out to be the rogue agent, who is actually not the perpetrator but was framed and went into hiding. So yeah, big reveal, then bad guys close in, third act, yadda yadda yadda.

cont'd bc too long

I'm terribly stuck on the part where MC starts investigating the informer and somehow has to eventually get to the major port to meet the local bad guy there. I can't think of much, other than paper trails and
>early exposition is that several girls went missing and they suspect rogue agent
>one was seen on the island of the major port but the sighting was inconclusive
>this somehow leads to MC "putting the pieces together" and going for the major port

I'd be grateful for any ideas on how to develop that part, maybe just some generic tropes of how to get the MC to investigate and somehow below the surface everything ends up pointing to said major port, as in
>hurr the body was found on this island but that would be too simple

I wrote a script and want to make it into a short movie. But all I have is my desktop microphone, computers, and a camera.

Make him the underdog fighting against a corrupt establishment.

Or a Wayan's-style comedy where a fat idiot somehow ends up always on top despite his fuckups

Ask drumpf for a small loan

It's based in kekistan and he's the epic knight who has sex

I should be working on a script but I'm getting baked and watching Survivor Series.
Woo!

Stop it, get baked and write.

Orson Welles once said something to the effect of
>A painter needs his canvas, a sculptor needs a stone, and a filmmaker needs a whole army.

You can try to get into contact with local film schools or any sort of gathering of amateur filmmakers. You will need some equipment, it can be very basic, but a semi-decent camera (DSLRs are usually breddy gud) and microphone is a must.
In larger cities it can be reasonably easy to find people with skills and equipment to join your project for free if your script is gud and you have a certain visual capacity (or at least make it seem that way).

I should be working on a script and here I am making faggy threads on Sup Forums.
Fuck it, it's sunday. Tomorrow I'll go on writing.

_Neon Blades_
Seriously tho, what do you think makes a good dialogue? I have 90 page action script ready but i hear the dialogue is awful.
I feel its borderline impossible to fix it; since its supposed to be cheesy.

If it sounds good in your head then you just need the right person to deliver it

I don't have any tips on writing good dialogue tbqhwy. I don't work in english, and where I'm at screenplay quality is generally so low that you have to be braindead to write worse dialogue than mainstream productions.

The only stupid suggestion I have is that you imagine your character, maybe visualize him being played by an actor you'd like for him/her, and imagine said actor reading the lines. Or you can do the same thing with acquaintances, try and have them speak out the lines in your head. It's how I do it, so far noone has commented that my dialogue is somehow poor (tho I'm aware that I'm pulling a Tarantino to a certain degree).

I have actor friends and people to help out, I just need equipment I guess. Its just a little sitcom. Have you ever tried filming anything?

Does format really matter in the beginning of writing a script, or is that something I should worry about when I actually start making serious drafts. I'm in the beginning stages of getting the ideas. I thinking of just worrying about format later because I know I'm gonna rewrite it.

I have actually, I shot a short film last year on a budget of about 6k europoors, which I got together from savings and asking my parents for money. I used that money mostly to rent some basic equipment, for renting the place we filmed in, and to shoot on 16mm film because I'm hipster scum.
I'm a filmschoolfag myself, so I from there I got some buddies to help me out.

Its all up to you, but theres a free program called Celtx that formats it for you. Pretty awesome program

>/swg/
These threads aren't the same without Bill giving us insights into the world of screenwriting.

drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz7WR19NhKXqQkFxaHdnMXh1a2c
Its supposed to be very corny, callback to 80's direct to VHS b-movie schlock. Think about Bad Taste and Karate Kid had a child.

To me, writing the actual script in script format is the very last step. I'd highly recommend you start out by getting your story together. A feature script is HUGE (narrative-wise) and you'll easily lose the overview even with a story you're familiar with. This is a huge difference I noticed from writing shorts, where you can just write away without losing the full picture.

On my feature I first spent a few weeks discussing the idea with my buddy (he actually started this project and eventually left me to finish it myself). Once the basic idea was clear and I was working by myself I then started by writing a 2-3 page synopsis. I then rewrote that synopsis about 20 times (this doesn't mean rewrote from top to bottom, just major changes which I then saved as a new document to preserve the previous draft). By then I had about a 9 page synopsis/treatment. From this I went to a more schematic version where I made a table where I kinda dividet the whole story into short paragraphs of more or less individual actions. This ended up being about 2-3 pages.
And from there I'm now working on the screenplay itself.

It seems tedious, took me about 3 months to start writing the actual screenplay, but by now it's largely "color by numbers". I don't have to think about what happens, just elaborate it and add dialogue.

Also I use Trelby which is free, I don't like Celtx because I think it saves your stuff on a cloud or something like that. I hear Celtx is a basic standard, but it doesn't matter which software you use if your formatting is ok.

who is Bill?

k, I'm reading, at page six, it's good so far. I don't find the dialogue to be bad. It has a bit of that cheesiness you say you're looking for, but for now it doesn't strike me as bad per say

So what I'm finding a bit weird is the timeline. It's 1993, how could John and Alex go to the cinema to see The Big Boss in 1971 if they're 19? Also 19 year olds wouldn't comment on "how the city has changed", even if we're talking about Japan in the 80's.
So far though it's just a few pointers here and there where stuff like that sticks out. Other than that the quality of the dialogue, within a reasonable 80's-style-cannon-films-tier cheesiness it's breddy gud.

Its 1983.

Oh, right, I misread that for 1993. My bad.

Btw I love how visual your descriptions are. My descriptions suck. Jelly af.

You must be new around here, friend

It's always funny to be called new despite coming to this shithole for over 10 years.

But please, enlighten me on this Bill. Does he live in a lighthouse?

I want to become a Hollywood star. Does anyone here have contacts to Weinstein types who haven't been exposed yet?

I was meant to be filming but am having location problems so I'll probably just kill myself.
Thanks for reading my blog post

I dunno so me and some friends are making a short horror film. Neither of us have taken film school or have made a movie in the past so it would be interesting.

So its going to be a stalker/slasheresk film with pov handheld shots to mimict the slasher pov shots.

So I have the basic idea. Mom goes on date. Girl is home alone. She starts hearing noises and gets spooked and starts exploring house or something. She goes in basement and the killer goes after her. Pretty generic stuff.

I was thinking of opening the movie with a pov shot doing an homage to films like halloween and ft13th.

Im going to have the camera walk around around outside of front of the house. We hear voices so we hide behind some bushes and we can see 2 figures come out of the house. The moms is going to walk to her car and the daughter is going to wave goodbye and go back inside to the house.

The
Im not sure how to get the killer inside the house.

>i was thinking maybe the daughter forgets to close/lock the door so we just creap right in.

aight so I read it all, seems pretty decent to me. One thing I'd correct on the dialogue to make it sound less cheesy while still being cheesy is shortening it. I notice there's a tendency to be too literary when writing dialogue, trying out shorter sentences, maybe with colloquial grammar, can help.

Cheers on the pages you've got so far.
Do you have the story lined out yet or did you just start writing for the hell of it?

Sure thing. Get in touch with my buddy Bob:
[email protected]

Tell him that Chris sent you, he'll know who I am

Handheld tracking shots look like shit
But your first film will be shit regardless so I guess don't worry too much (not a putdown, just an unavoidable fact)

Would you say it was hooking, i mean, would you finish the story if you could?
Its pretty much done; i have 85 pages of it, but it needs a bit more fleshing out. What you read was pretty much the second draft.

I've never heard of that dialogue trick, but i might test it out. Thank you!

I finished it pretty much year ago and its been on backburn now for awhile; many say i should bury it and move on (which i've done mostly) but its sort of my passion project and its hard to let it go.

This gave me a big smile, i dont hear good news often. Thank you! :)

Is there anyway to make it look better? I was thinking of investing in one of those chest stablizers.

Also why do gopro shots look kind of off when in film. For example hardcore henry was a great movie but it just looks a bit off. Is it because of the resolution/high framerate?
Good camera stuff is expensive and if we could use a gopro with chest stablizer with would be nice

Since this is also /swg/ I'm gonna be a cunt and say that your story sucks. Making a film based on a premise that's "pretty generic stuff" will inevitably be shit. Why are you even making a movie if it's just going to be a shitty copy of what everyone else is doing?

Go outside, have some ideas and write a minimally creative story with at least a teeny tiny bit of originality ffs.

A buddy of mine shot a feature slasher over the course of two years on literally no budget. And guess what, all of that effort was literally pointless because all they did was make a shitty plagiarism of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but without the charm or the originality.
Worst thing is, when you look at it it's not a complete failure, but the absolutely predictable storyline just makes it utter shite.

Do it well or don't do it at all. Writing a good story costs literally ZERO dollars, I don't get why everyone goes full jew mode on the one thing that costs no money and can make or break your film.

>Would you say it was hooking, i mean, would you finish the story if you could?
desu yes, and I'm not being patronizing. I like how you jump right into the tropes (in a good way), start out with some yakuza/triad stuff, and from there we go to the karate-kid-style-old man.

I really like the chemistry between John and Alex. I love how Alex is like the loser and John is the chad, it totally makes me root for Alex to eventually become the badass which he surely will become over the course of the movie amirite?

>I finished it pretty much year ago and its been on backburn now for awhile; many say i should bury it and move on (which i've done mostly) but its sort of my passion project and its hard to let it go.
If the story is good, if it keeps up with those early pages, then I don't see why you couldn't get it produced or sold. Not like we haven't seen much worse stuff on screen. The one thing that could hold it back is the possible expense in producing it.

>Is there anyway to make it look better? I was thinking of investing in one of those chest stablizers.
Yes and yes. You should really practise before you film though, but the film will act as practise I guess.
Depends what camera you use but look into flycams for relatively cheap, and gimbals if you have a higher budget

>Also why do gopro shots look kind of off when in film.
So the advantage is that you can stabilise these relatively really cheaply because they're so light. They look off because they naturally have fisheye lenses that you'd have to correct in post (they give you the software to do this I believe). The only other thing to worry about is that their sensors are so small that you can't get decent low-light. It will look shit
Gopros are designed for bright, sunny days whether it's on the beach or the side of an icy mountain. A horror film at night is not its intended purpose
Framerate and resolution are fine though

Read the dialogue aloud.

Yes. Aloud. That means audibly.

Alternatively, write something else, then come back to this.

So noone is going to explain to me who this Bill guy was?

I'll tell you few beats of the movie.
Mid-part the boys split because they flee the Master in hope to rule their own life and to fight the bad guys.
Alex goes home to his dad, but he feels that he abandoned his friend and so his dad gives him pep-talk and he goes back to help John out.
John dies in fight against Blue Ninja and this launches Act 3 and pushes Alex to become The Hero.
There's small twist at beginning of the climax to the audience: John was "the chosen one", Alex never even passed the belt test in the beginning montage.

Biggest problems are in Act 3 i feel, because it goes full board Commando. There's lots of revenge fueled ninja-cult slaughter and of course the final shodown (and even Sensei vs The Bad Guy).

How would you describe him? I suppose he was quite a large fellow, terrible insecure about it though. He really valued loyalty and loved flying. I remember one time he got really upset when a guy brought his friends along on a road trip. I wouldn't say he was autistic, he just liked his guys you know? He used to hang out with this doctor too, though I forget his name

Sounds good.

And yeah, it's difficult in these kinds of situations to come up with a good 3rd act that's anything else but action and violence. I'm having the same problem. Maybe have a plot device which requires a more complex strategy to beat the bad guys, easier said than done tho.

subtle kek

Have you ever worked professionally as a screenwriter? Reading your script makes me feel like shit. My story seems much less rounded-out and ironic than yours, nor is my writing at par.

Thanks for fucking up my self esteem.

No.
People mostly hate my stuff but i write things that interest me, so its fine.
I dont write much, but i come from novel background. I cant write two people having normal conversation at all and most feedback i get is "its shit".

But i can give you some tips.
1. Write what interests you
2. Work OUTSIDE-IN. Think about the big picture, think about how it starts and how it ENDS. Especially ending, think about whats the payoff and what led the story there.
Then write overall storyline, then move to spec-script or treatment. Dont go too much into detail yet.
3. No one wants to read your 90 page script, so write 5 page synopsis instead (or the spec script).
4. Focus on the weakpoints of your writing. They WILL keep popping up, same stuff, many times. Fix it, pitch it, reflect. Its still shit probs but you're moving forward.

I get where your comming from and you are 100% right. I want to make a kino film but im not original or creative (story wise) and like I said earlier I love film but I have never made one before.

I mean generic like the premise is somewhat done before but we never had a genuine scary "home alone" movie. Like the danger Is in somewhere you would consider "safe" and no one can help you because you are alone. I really want to make something that can capture the terror you get when you were little and home alone.

I mean yeah there are countless films where a group of people are home alone/ alone in the woods but its not the same as someone who is home alone in a place where they should be the safest.

I dunno I mean you are right. I do want to make a really good film but with this being first just for fun kind of thing I was thinking of using the short as practice. What are your thoughts

Read some screenplays. Write more. You'll get there.

There's two problems with writing. 1) To get better you have to do more writing. 2) You won't have a great script until you have the right project.

It's really just a case of extreme trial and error until you gain enough experience to level up.

>Especially ending
that's pretty shitty advice.
If you have a set ending you'll subconsciously prevent your story from growing organically if you're really set on it. Just get to the ending naturally.

Didn't we used to have a lovely pastebin?

>If you have a set ending you'll subconsciously prevent your story from growing organically

Depends on the writer.
See: a thousand arguments on gardening vs architecture style novel writing.

But yeah, there's an old adage about hollywood making movies by working backwards from the ending for a reason.

Either way you'll approach your story from a thousand angles, and you need to figure out the other angles to see the whole story before writing it.

Or you can just start writing it and do more rewrites until it starts to turn into something with an actual plot.

I'd say you're half right. It can be restraining, but at same time you're also setting yourself some line where your story ends.

This is where rewrites come in and you WILL rewrite the ending, which will most probably be something totally different than what you did earleir. Same happens to me everytime (in longer stories).

If you've planned your storyline, rewriting the ending is not much of a work and it will be very easy to steer it to some way or another.

I get where you're coming from, and I mean if you just want to shoot something for the hell of it, whatever. To me, making any sort of film, even a crappy short with my buddies seems like a wasted effort if I didn't at least try to have a somewhat creative premise. I want people to want to see my movie, so I'd think of something, anything that will make it stand out for the crowd, and this is even more true for genres that have been done to death like slashers and the like.
One idea could be to think metaphorically. Think of a simple worldview, and then create a metaphor for your story ie:
>hurr the murderer represents capitalism, and the girl who's home alone represents society, and the film is about how society has to assume its duty of defending itself and not relying on the state represented by cops
or some shit like that. Just basing your script on a concept like that will give you an anchor point on the basis of which your story will be much more unique, consistent and interesting.

Yes and no. This is only true when you're just starting to flesh out the story early on. You should have a basic idea of the main beats of the ending.
Writing the screenplay without knowing the ending won't make it grow organically, but turn it into a clusterfuck.

>but turn it into a clusterfuck.
if only we lived in a world where people iterated on their writings.

bump

>tfw noone ever cared to reply to me
I c-can post more b-beats if you want to, anons.

pls respond

Sounds to me like you need to work on your characters and their motivations.

Add some direct conflict from the evil rogue agent to provide actual antagonism and give your MC something to react to.

Think about some trailer moments for your third act.

Go back and do more learning on structure.

Serious question, how many other people ITT live in L.A. and are actually managed screenwriters/directors?