The Coli's Screenwriting/Filmmaking Thread [Share tips, etc]

[GoldenGlove]

So I figure out the email naming/account system of Rocksteady studios (Batman Arkham City/Asylum etc.) since they're based where I am (London) and try something I've been wanting to do for a minute.

I go on LinkedIn, find the name of some important people, draft an email, attach my sample dialogue script and CV/Resume.

Along with the email I use ReadNotify that covertly tracks the email and lets you know when it's been read, by who etc.

3 of the 7 people I send it to have opened it since I sent it (Monday)

1 of them is the Studio Head/Founder who reads it for 9 minutes and 50 seconds

He then forwards it to 4 people, one of whom reads it 3 different times in 24 hours

What does this mean and what I'm 'pposed to do now?

Follow up next week I guess

 

[steadyrighteous]

Follow up next week I guess

I'm awful when it comes to email etiquette. What should I say?

I know you read and forwarded my email to ya boys? Why ain't you hit a nikka back?

I'm trying to be real persistent with them because A. It's a AAA studio B. They're located in my city C. Reading one of their job descriptions, part of the job is supervising voice-over and casting which means sponsored trips to LA/New York and possible networking (for me)

Pipe-dream? Probably. But it's just possible enough to have me wanting it REALLY badly.

 

[GoldenGlove]

I'm awful when it comes to email etiquette. What should I say?

I know you read and forwarded my email to ya boys? Why ain't you hit a nikka back?

I'm trying to be real persistent with them because A. It's a AAA studio B. They're located in my city C. Reading one of their job descriptions, part of the job is supervising voice-over and casting which means sponsored trips to LA/New York and possible networking (for me)

Pipe-dream? Probably. But it's just possible enough to have me wanting it REALLY badly.

It's fine being persistent as long as you keep it professional.

When you send another email, just mention that you're following up on the message that you sent them the previous week. I'd say that it's a good sign that your email was forwarded around and read multiple times in a day. If it didn't catch anyone's attention it would have been tossed in the bushes.

You can look up/google follow up job letters/emails online as well to get an idea on how they're structured as well.

 

[ghostwriterx]

The Wire pilot script
Scribd

 

[steadyrighteous]

The Wire pilot script
Scribd

I read it, not surprisingly it was great.

What's everybody working on right now? I'm working on a New Girl spec right now and I would love some feedback on it when it's closer to done.

 

[Conz]

cant even bring myself to jot notes anymore. i think i might be done. no passion. I don't even have any desire to spend 2 hours watching a movie let alone countless hours writing one. this is my life in a nutshell, i lose interest in just about everything in time. i really enjoyed writing when i was unemployed, it felt like a job, now as a hobby again...

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

subs, I've always wanted to learn this shyt.

 

[LostOne]

Just starting out, bought a couple books and will begin writing after I read em.

 

[TheGodling]

Too caught up in making 80's retro dance music at the moment but I really should start writing again. I've got two completed screenplays, one of which became a quarter finalist in the Bluecat Screenplay Competition (one of the bigger and better online competitions). It's a thriller about a former hitman whose wife and son were accidentally murdered after he turned on his own crew. When his brother gets him involved again in the crew, the past catches up to him and all hell breaks loose. It's called "Don't Make Jack Pick Up His Guns!" which also got it selected for that year's Best Title Contest.

The second never really stood a chance since it was a very dark Oscar Bait satire about a gay Jewish boy (named Oscar Bait, which was also the title) who has to take care of his mentally handicapped brother and cancer-ridden mother in a concentration camp alongside a magical negro whose sole purpose in life is helping white people solve their problems. Apparently not everybody saw the humor in that.

 

[steadyrighteous]

cant even bring myself to jot notes anymore. i think i might be done. no passion. I don't even have any desire to spend 2 hours watching a movie let alone countless hours writing one. this is my life in a nutshell, i lose interest in just about everything in time. i really enjoyed writing when i was unemployed, it felt like a job, now as a hobby again...

So what are you doing for work now?

 

[steadyrighteous]

Too caught up in making 80's retro dance music at the moment but I really should start writing again. I've got two completed screenplays, one of which became a quarter finalist in the Bluecat Screenplay Competition (one of the bigger and better online competitions). It's a thriller about a former hitman whose wife and son were accidentally murdered after he turned on his own crew. When his brother gets him involved again in the crew, the past catches up to him and all hell breaks loose. It's called "Don't Make Jack Pick Up His Guns!" which also got it selected for that year's Best Title Contest.

The second never really stood a chance since it was a very dark Oscar Bait satire about a gay Jewish boy (named Oscar Bait, which was also the title) who has to take care of his mentally handicapped brother and cancer-ridden mother in a concentration camp alongside a magical negro whose sole purpose in life is helping white people solve their problems. Apparently not everybody saw the humor in that.

You were gonna Hollywood? lol Sounds like it would be funny. Was a it a straight up comedy or dark humor?

 

[TheGodling]

You were gonna Hollywood? lol Sounds like it would be funny. Was a it a straight up comedy or dark humor?

It was a mixture, ranging from Mel Brooks type slapstick to dark satirical humor.

And when I say dark, I mean it was really really really fukking dark.

Spoiler

One scene was written as the supposed 'definite' origin story of the Magical Negro. A slave whose entirely family was hung by white men from a single tree, and he alone was spared because they ran out of branches to hang him from. Fleeing to a church, he denounced the African gods that abandoned him, only to be struck by a blast of lightning erupting from the glass window painting of Jesus. Bestowed with magical powers, he becomes a servant of the white man's God to help white people solve their problems, because white man's God has taught him that black people can't help themselves. They can only be saved by white people, but in order to to do so the white people first need to solve their own problems.

There's also a lot of jokes built around the fact that Holocaust movies tend to focus on or emphasize a single victim to show the emotional impact of the Holocaust, ignoring the tens if not hundreds of Jews dying with them (think of the girl with the red dress in Schindler's List). One scene parodies that by having the Nazis present a list of Jews headed for extermination, which has the name of only one important character on it, the other names being stuff like "Kitchen Extra #3" and "Jew leaning against a wall".

That scene continues into a criticism of the emotional exploitation of the Holocaust with a parody of the shower scene of Schindler's List. They're gathered in a building, and they all look up in fear to the shower heads above them. The pipes start rumbling, the fear gets bigger and then... water comes out. They all exclaim in happiness and celebrate and right then... it smash cuts to the same room filled to the top with water, the drowned corpses of everyone inside floating in the water. Two nazi guards look inside through an enforced window and remark they sure stopped cheering fast when they realized there were no drains for the water to leave.

The final draft I sent in was roughly 130 pages of that kind of stuff, trimmed down from an original 180 pages! I actually had to cut stuff like the main character promising Anne Frank that she'd survive the Holocaust, that whoever found the diary she had to leave behind would respect her privacy and that her favorite film director, Alfred Hitchcock, would definitely one day win the Oscar for Best Director.

 

[IronFist]

been thinking if this is the route i want to take

 

[steadyrighteous]

It was a mixture, ranging from Mel Brooks type slapstick to dark satirical humor.

And when I say dark, I mean it was really really really fukking dark.

Spoiler

One scene was written as the supposed 'definite' origin story of the Magical Negro. A slave whose entirely family was hung by white men from a single tree, and he alone was spared because they ran out of branches to hang him from. Fleeing to a church, he denounced the African gods that abandoned him, only to be struck by a blast of lightning erupting from the glass window painting of Jesus. Bestowed with magical powers, he becomes a servant of the white man's God to help white people solve their problems, because white man's God has taught him that black people can't help themselves. They can only be saved by white people, but in order to to do so the white people first need to solve their own problems.

There's also a lot of jokes built around the fact that Holocaust movies tend to focus on or emphasize a single victim to show the emotional impact of the Holocaust, ignoring the tens if not hundreds of Jews dying with them (think of the girl with the red dress in Schindler's List). One scene parodies that by having the Nazis present a list of Jews headed for extermination, which has the name of only one important character on it, the other names being stuff like "Kitchen Extra #3" and "Jew leaning against a wall".

That scene continues into a criticism of the emotional exploitation of the Holocaust with a parody of the shower scene of Schindler's List. They're gathered in a building, and they all look up in fear to the shower heads above them. The pipes start rumbling, the fear gets bigger and then... water comes out. They all exclaim in happiness and celebrate and right then... it smash cuts to the same room filled to the top with water, the drowned corpses of everyone inside floating in the water. Two nazi guards look inside through an enforced window and remark they sure stopped cheering fast when they realized there were no drains for the water to leave.

The final draft I sent in was roughly 130 pages of that kind of stuff, trimmed down from an original 180 pages! I actually had to cut stuff like the main character promising Anne Frank that she'd survive the Holocaust, that whoever found the diary she had to leave behind would respect her privacy and that her favorite film director, Alfred Hitchcock, would definitely one day win the Oscar for Best Director.

Ever thought about approaching the Weinstein Company?

 

[TheGodling]

Ever thought about approaching the Weinstein Company?

Nah, I have considered joining Amazon Studios once I've got more screenplays finished and hope that the inevitable shytstorm that the Oscar Bait screenplay would attract, also attracts people to my more serious work.