My name is Jon Young and I am an amateur film maker. I have produced 6 feature low budget indiefilms and directed one feature. Unfortunately I spend most of my time in the writing phase. I saw unfortunately because not all my scripts have been filmed. The screen writing is really fun but the goal is to end up with a feature film. There are a lot of reasons why a script doesn’t get filmed.
The most common reason a script doesn’t get made is because it is just not good. They say you really need to write 3 scripts before you have something good enough to film. I have worked with a ton of partners over the years and a lot of times the ideas seem good when we are working on them but when assembled into a finished project they just don’t work. Sometimes our ideas seem kind of bland but as the bigger whole they work, you just never know until your finished. On the feature I actually filmed, after I finished editing the rough cut of the film I realized what we did wrong when we wrote the script. The best thing I can say is do a lot of rewrites and do as many rewrites as you can stomach in the treatment phase. Once your done get as many people as you can to read it and give you feedback.
Today I meet with one of my two new writing partners. He came up with a bunch of really good ideas since our last meeting. And as we went through them I explained to him that our story isn’t low budget anymore. The ideas are actually really good. They remind me a little too much of the matrix but it worked for our concept. The problem is that there is no way I could film the script without a bunch of money. Our original goal was to write something that we could do all on green screen. My idea was to set the story on a space station. Anyway it has evolved into a monster of a project with guns, chase scenes and numerous locations. He even added a dog. I assume next week he will insert a child as one of the characters and basically we are hitting on all the no no’s for a small budget.
It was a struggle today also because I wanted to go through the 4 page treatment he emailed me last night and he wanted to talk about movies and other fun things. I know he already knew what was on the four pages but I wanted to go through them with him. I wanted to give him feedback. Also I wanted to insert my ideas into the story and see what he thought about them. He put together a pretty interesting first half of the story with lots of conflict, tension and mystery. Three important elements for a good story. We ended the meeting with a debate about how interesting it would be to set the movie in the 70′s. He told me that’s so unique. My thought was sure and the matrix stuff was also unique. I told him to start going to goodwill and find out fits and props now and I’ll cast actors that can fit into them. Then I counted the number of characters we have in the 70′s stuff and I came up with 15. This is in the first half of the movie before you realize we are on a space station. So add up the characters on the space station and we are well over the ideal number of actors for a small budget film. Oh and retro sets are another no no for small budgets because you have hair styles, clothes and props.
So my debate tonight is how do I deal with this issue. I like the story. It’s not what I originally envisioned but it’s actually kind of an interesting story. Can I convince this guy that we should write the story and then try to sell it? I would be happy to sell it to one of the studios for six figures. I know the reality is that it would be like winning the lottery. The original goal was to write something small budget that was festival worthy and submit it to the Sundance Film Festival. Honestly this is a commercial story that probably wouldn’t play so well at the film festivals. It’s a story that probably also requires a star or two to get it to work.
My personal goal is to get a film in to sundance. That’s on my to do list in my life time. I’m going to look for another writer to start a different story. Something that can be filmed on a small budget for the film festival circuit. Maybe I will continue with this guy and finish the story for Hollywood. The moral of this story is to stay away from concepts like sci-fi, space stations or anything that could end up being big budget if you want a story to film yourself.
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