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You have to write to be a writer. Write even if you don't think it will work, then read it over again. Talk to someone about it and you'll realize "OH, that will work in another way. I need to move this to X, depict this instead of that", and you're well into your second draft.
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Nov 22, 2010 22:15
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Rogetz posted:Ok, got a new draft of the webseries up. Reworked based on feedback I've received from different sources and I think it's much stronger now. I'll send it by email rather than hosting it this time. Send it to Golden_Bees at HotHotWicca.blog. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Nov 27, 2010 |
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Nov 26, 2010 03:09
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Synopsis: A thwarted heist leads a group of thieves on a hunt to regain their stolen goods, but an odd choice emerges: sex or success? Having read your script, I think the romance between Lars and Mac is the thing that stands out the most.
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Nov 29, 2010 23:01
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To be fair, the logline he gave was pretty accurate; it's an interesting but not very original take on the "our gang vs. their gang" story.
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Nov 30, 2010 06:42
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You want to have a writer in real life. You want them to discuss their ideas with you, in person, so you can ask questions, or you're going to waste a lot of money and end up with something you hate. What you wrote is perfectly reasonable; it's just not tremendously original. You hit all the points WELL, but they're exactly the points that have been hit before. Have Moody fall for Mac. BAM, now you've got a really loving oddball scenario.
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Dec 1, 2010 10:37
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I'm working on getting a table read set up, but between graduation and the rate of shows going up, it'll be difficult. What I truly want is to get the ideal cast to read it once, even if they won't be available when the play casts in January.
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Dec 7, 2010 09:19
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When an actor gets into a role, though, they can really improve it. In my stage play, my director's favorite phrase was "keep it in", which adds a TON of laughs to lines that were really just bridges.
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Dec 13, 2010 06:56
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Culdesac, have you seen the movie "Big Fat Liar?" If not, send me your script and I will make a lot of money off of it. Finish the pilot, that's your next step. Make a proof of concept video or trailer. Those are your immediate next steps.
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Dec 15, 2010 08:00
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I'd say you start with a concept, always. What or who is this play about? As you write, you'll find one character speaks to you a lot. For example, when I came up with the rogues gallery for the #1 Girl's Detective Agency, it made it much easier to craft the mystery. After that, I revised how I revealed the mystery, and then moved some of the events of the pre-story into the play itself. As opposed to my children's play, which I talked out beat-by-beat, scene by scene before I sat down and wrote it. Both I'm really happy with.
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Jan 16, 2011 07:33
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Notes: Up to page five, things are great. I can picture it. 5--dialogue is a bit on-point for Amy. "Lovers in love and all that" --I think this is you speaking. It doesn't seem pointed enough. Same with "I guess I've always been the conservative one." Read Amy's dialogue out loud in a flat, neutral voice, and see if it comes through as hurt. "She was still wet..." is a glaring entendre. 6--When does this scene change take place? Top of 8: A bit unnatural. Are they going for wordplay or trying to take something out on each other? Top of 9: Talking about dreams is kind of lazy. It's naturalistic, people do it, but can you make this idea come across better? Although Paul's response is quite good. This whole page is kind of a plotbomb. You'll do X, I'll do why, I like you because you Q... 10-: Paul's line should be start "But it's still there". --Wait, he's on a downward spiral? I haven't noticed that from his behavior. (Maybe it's a visual thing but nowhere in the script did it appear that it was happening). "So I like MY drink" is more logically "So I like to drink." The other is more affected and Shakespearean; unlikely during an argument. (There's a scene in the play Blue Window where a character says she "indeed truly" loves her girlfriend, and her girlfriend gets upset over how inflected the words are. "Like you were trying to score points with bystanders.") The rest: I read this all at a sprint, which meant it got me gripped. I'm not sure I like the ending (or even the hate gently caress. It just seems like the path of least resistance to end it the way you did. Also, It's a loving Beatles pun! PAUL IS DEAD! Did you not think 'Miss him miss him miss him' when you wrote that? I think you've got a great seed here, but you need to prune it so it grows in a more interesting direction. What are the characters objectives? What, in each scene, are they trying to get done? Maybe that's why the hate gently caress doesn't make sense. It doesn't fulfill Amy's objectives at all.
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Mar 20, 2011 19:13
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That's not a tagline (or a logline). It's a...description. A tagline is pithy text for a movie poster caption. "Slow justice is no justice." "In Space, No One can hear you scream." [This tagline stood up so well, it's still a force in pop culture decades later.] A logline is the basic plot of the movie, doable in a sentence. "A man learns that true wisdom can only come from winning the WPGA tour."
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Oct 2, 2011 05:50
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Rome sweet Rome is actually really, really detailed and was universally beloved by everyone who read it. Going off the back of Cowboys vs Aliens's success, it's reasonable someone would like the concept.
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Oct 15, 2011 18:30
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Are you specing Adventure Time? I can't believe I didn't have it considered (although I'm working on Archer and A.N.T. Farm, I don't know if there's no crossover there).
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Nov 2, 2011 00:49
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Hell, I'm glad not everyone knows how to write. It's hard enough to get a job with the amount of people around, and hard enough to decide what to watch between the 7-10 acclaimed series that I "absolutely have" to see. Working on my Archer Spec. It's liberating to work with established characters, instead of having to introduce new ones and make them clear and distinct while maintaining pace and tone.
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Nov 5, 2011 22:43
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Tell it to someone as a story. If you're excited while telling it, you'll be excited while writing it. If you're "Mehhhh" and can't figure out what you liked, then you don't even have to start.
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Nov 13, 2011 10:29
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I've written the majority of my projects cooperatively at some level, and agree with Lennon and Garrant (such a good book). Here's what I've found: Always beat together, as specifically as you can. Don't write in the same room (or at least not at the same desk). Especially if you really like your partner and you'll want to talk to them about unrelated stuff. Do, however, keep an open line of communications so you can send over bits of dialogue, a character trait, or something like that. Make sure you respect the hell out of your co-writer. Be a little jealous of their skills. The worst thing in the world is feeling you're dragging someone on a project (if one person is both more technically solid, funnier, and a better plotter, for example. Judicious partner selection will eliminate this.) KEEP DEADLINES. One of the best thing about writing with someone else is that you have someone who won't let you grab pizza, visit your buddy at an animation studio, do the laundry and then completely forget to write that day.
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Nov 30, 2011 02:04
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I am tired of writers saying "this gives me hope" when they aren't impressed, and "I am in awe" when they are. SCRIPTS ARE ONLY JUDGABLE AT THE SCREENPLAY LEVEL. Read the story of "Little Monsters" sometime. The studio had the original writers create their own -competing draft- while giving another team their first concept. We as writers need to avoid throwing other writers under the bus. What's on the page is a guidemap, not a geographic survey, of what gets sent to theaters.
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Dec 16, 2011 19:37
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Saw (most of) Harold and Kumar 3D last night. Arrived a bit late because some teens were holding up the ticket line. I want to say, it gave me a new perspective on inventiveness, in terms of setting up capers and events. But the B plot was basically abandoned and resolved in a visual joke.
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Dec 21, 2011 18:49
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If you want to, you can put in an action line that says "The following things take place just as Mom narrates them." MOM Taking out his garbage...getting rid of his old posters...and organizing his weed. What a goofball!"
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Jan 29, 2012 23:37
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Finish it. Otherwise you'll get to the ending and not know what to do. Drafts inspire iteratively; you don't know what'll happen til you try to make it happen. Your first attempt at anything is a first draft. That keeps it easy. I go up edition #s for huge changes, or third minor revisions. So I might go 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1. (This is because of my file naming method; every place has its own standard.)
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Jan 30, 2012 01:00
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Is it funny, or is it pedantic? Can you post some of your more egregious jokes? It's impossible to tell from your abstract if you wrote something Daily Show quality, or an industry formatted reddit post.
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Jan 31, 2012 19:03
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If you want artistic integrity and control, write any other medium. Plays, novels, sonnets, music, graffiti, all of them are art. Screenplays are not art. They are a BLUEPRINT for art. They tell designers, directors, actors, editors and crew how to create art. If you're worried to be connected with poo poo, do what Stanley Lieber did and create a penname. But don't be afraid to write just because someone MAY make it lovely. They could also make it great. Excelsior! (Personally working on both an archer spec and a twist on the old serial killer format, as well as two minor web series.)
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Feb 1, 2012 19:31
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Sounds like a goon project.
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Feb 2, 2012 02:49
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As someone who's studied westerns excessively, elections mean BIG WASHINGTON CORRUPTION. Lawmen selling guns for gold, or civil war generals consolidating their armies. Since the wild west is a place of near absolute freedom, elections are a signifier that the east arrived yesterday.
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Feb 4, 2012 08:53
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Don't listen to Neuro. Listen to me, when I say there's a glut of navel gazing. "Episodes", "Extras", and "Community"/30 Rock (or any other meta sitcom) are going to eat your lunch. Then again, Disney and Nick seem to have entire afternoons dedicated to Rock Star/Rock Band/Rocker shows, so who knows?
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Feb 7, 2012 03:26
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If you read this thread, not even all of US have what it takes to be compelling, so the average first-time writers are going to lag behind -that-.
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Feb 10, 2012 16:18
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Same here. First drafts are for getting the ideas out. Especially when working in film, which is the most visual written medium.
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Feb 10, 2012 19:15
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Choose better words and you won't need adverbs. "Don't walk - saunter" is a good, pithy bit of advice that supports my point.
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Feb 10, 2012 22:57
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Just finished my 1.5th draft of Nick Fellowship Spec. I chose A.N.T. Farm, because while it's a bit early in the show's run, it showcases my style of humor and I really, really like it. Sent it to a few people. EDIT:Since I've gotten such good notes from this thread in the past, I'm saving you guys for next draft revision. You catch more than the usual stuff. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 17, 2012 06:11
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Passion comes across through quality of beats, quality of dialogue and performance. The audience can't tell how hard you hit the keyboard, but if the structure improves, the story will seem effortless, like it exists naturally out of its components.
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Feb 21, 2012 19:32
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A.N.T. Farm Spec, in PDF: http://www.box.com/s/0g2qil032zrkc5b8l0m5 In FDX: http://www.box.com/s/j57xsdcqq7fnumbiotkd Please watch at least an episode of the show before giving feedback. The point of a spec is to be exactly in the format of the original, which means I need to improve it in SPECIFIC ways (like hopefully finding a way to begin act 2 on the A story, instead of the B). Thanks for your help.
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Feb 21, 2012 21:43
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The Pilot would work, but Skidmore (who features prominently in the A plot) isn't in it.
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Feb 22, 2012 04:11
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What'd you think of my draft, Griff? I want to redraft Saturday before I submit.
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Feb 24, 2012 08:46
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2nd is best. And remember to use a dissolve instead of a cut. It makes it easier to grok for a storyboarder.
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Feb 25, 2012 09:47
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Story limit, oddly. If I want to punch through a scene, I disconnect from the internet until I'm done. If I still have juice, I keep going. If I don't, I revise another project.
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Feb 26, 2012 19:53
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Anyone who speaks is In The Play. Even if they're recorded. Even if you're giving the dialogue to the person introducing the play (although that can sometimes be done in supplementary documentation, it's better to put it with the play). So you'd have something like this: HOUSE MANAGER (Off-stage) Cell phone jokes are cliche and will not be authorized during the play. Please do not text about having your cell phone on. If it's just off-stage sound (Wahwah, location noise, or whatever), just indicate it as a sound cue. Is it a phone conversation? Then you can use pauses, or action lines. The house manager pulls out his own cell phone. HOUSE MANAGER Yeah, I hear you. <"No you don't."> If I don't, how do I... Or HOUSE MANAGER No more Charlie Brown jokes, either. SFX: A Talking trombone disagrees.
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Apr 5, 2012 05:56
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T-Bone posted:edit: Golden Bee is a better authority than I but I swear I've seen it done both ways
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Apr 7, 2012 00:55
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Did you search for this? My friend ALSO has a 5 minute zombie series. (It's really hard to do if you have more than 2 characters to develop, that's my tip). Why zombies? What else can give you the same values without cliche?
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Apr 8, 2012 00:37
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As someone who's done both, you will get a LOT further if you know where you're going. Imagine you're crossing the country. If you make a left turn for every right turn and stay basically straight, you can get from the pacific to the Atlantic. But every time you stop for gas, get stuck in traffic or go to sleep, you have to reorient. Imagine you knew what monuments you wanted to visit, where you wanted to stay, and what you'd use for gas. You'd get a LOT further.
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Apr 8, 2012 19:59
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 18:47 |
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Just finished a sitcom pilot: The #1 Girl's Detective Agency. Here's the pitch: Three kid detectives take on evil twins, stolen comics, and minimum wage. Kind of "Encyclopedia Brown" with some of the weirdness of "Pete and Pete". [LINK REDACTED.] I want to make the conflict between Neeka and Violet more organic without putting their entire Agency on the line in the first episode. It's kind of a schmuck plot to have the first episode answer the question, "will this show have future episodes featuring its premise?" Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 02:45 on May 21, 2012 |
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Apr 13, 2012 21:10
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