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

[True Blue Moon]

Brehs, I'm living my dream right now. Finally got something I can call my own that goes from the page to an actual production. Check out the first episode of "Blowed Up" my web series. Second episode drops this weekend and guest stars Lynne Koplitz, a comic who was in Top Five, hosted Change of Heart, has had half hour specials, worked with Joan Rivers and is in Louie's new web show.

 

[notPsychosiz]

You guys mess with Scrivener?
Its a digital organizational tool for writers.

Literature and Latte - Scrivener Writing Software | Mac OS X | Windows

 

[Conz]

Scriptshadow reviewed my script. Gave it a "Wasn't For Me" naturally... I had a feeling he was going to write off the opening scenes and mail it in from there... that being said, i don't even really understand his suggestion. Oh well. still, i guess his suggestions are valuable... i think.

It's really amazing how many different opinions you get on a script. I've probably had 50 people look at this at this point, and I'd say only about 5 were really "negative," and those were mostly from cranky c*nts you just know don't like comedies or my sense of humor.

But breaking it down into critiques from each review - For every person who likes this part, the next review says it doesn't work. For ever "lol" someone gives a joke, the next person says "that joke shouldn't be there, it slows the momentum of the story." For every "I love the way you described this character relationship" the next person says "i didn't feel like they even knew each other." I legit don't know who to please, and when to please them. I don't understand how every little fukkin line can be white or black.

I think from this point forward I'm gonna just go to 1 person for a review and use them as the see all end all, b/c I do re-writes dependent on if a few different people highlight the same thing... then i change it... then i get 3 more people telling me it should be "this way" and that was the fukkin way i had previously!"

 

[steadyrighteous]

Scriptshadow reviewed my script. Gave it a "Wasn't For Me" naturally... I had a feeling he was going to write off the opening scenes and mail it in from there... that being said, i don't even really understand his suggestion. Oh well. still, i guess his suggestions are valuable... i think.

It's really amazing how many different opinions you get on a script. I've probably had 50 people look at this at this point, and I'd say only about 5 were really "negative," and those were mostly from cranky c*nts you just know don't like comedies or my sense of humor.

But breaking it down into critiques from each review - For every person who likes this part, the next review says it doesn't work. For ever "lol" someone gives a joke, the next person says "that joke shouldn't be there, it slows the momentum of the story." For every "I love the way you described this character relationship" the next person says "i didn't feel like they even knew each other." I legit don't know who to please, and when to please them. I don't understand how every little fukkin line can be white or black.

I think from this point forward I'm gonna just go to 1 person for a review and use them as the see all end all, b/c I do re-writes dependent on if a few different people highlight the same thing... then i change it... then i get 3 more people telling me it should be "this way" and that was the fukkin way i had previously!"

It's hard, but you've got to try and find one person whose opinion you trust (preferably a vet or someone who has done it before and knows what they're talking about) and use that person as your true sounding board.

You can get notes from other people, but that 1 person's notes are really the only ones you make major changes for.

At least that's how I do it

 

[True Blue Moon]

Here's episode #2 of my web series. I'm getting a lot of love and am about to get interviewed by a publication owned by The Virginian-Pilot, my paper from back home

Episode #3 comes out Monday. Then I'm flying back to NYC the first week of May to shoot another.

 

[True Blue Moon]

Episode #3 is out

Thanks for the love brehs.

 

[StraxStrax]

Fun day of shooting done

 

[High quality poster]

Fun day of shooting done

My coli filmmaking brehs, hope yall keeping the dream alive. My new music video goes up in a week or two, can't wait to show you brehs!

 

[MenacingMonk]

After 2 1/2 months of being a bum I'm finally starting on my new pilot show. Already 3 pages down. I hope to do more this week if my job doesn't have us do OT.

Quick questions:

-does it matter if I cap every thing that "matters"?

I.E. He grabbed the BOTTLE

I may have asked this before. Can't remember.

-how would you write down a scene where a video is being viewed and I want the video to take over the scene?

I have a scene where I want the people in the room to watch an "office etiquette" video.

 

[chosenaledge13]

Early trailer for a feature I Directed/Shot in NY. Doing a couple more days of pickups before we move into post-production.

 

[Conz]

After 2 1/2 months of being a bum I'm finally starting on my new pilot show. Already 3 pages down. I hope to do more this week if my job doesn't have us do OT.

Quick questions:

-does it matter if I cap every thing that "matters"?

I.E. He grabbed the BOTTLE

I may have asked this before. Can't remember.

-how would you write down a scene where a video is being viewed and I want the video to take over the scene?

I have a scene where I want the people in the room to watch an "office etiquette" video.

i've found through experience that the only people who give me shyt about formatting choices are amateur know-it-alls who read cautionary tales online and talk about the scary "they" in the industry like they've been there. they say "too many words in caps is distracting and slows the read" they're full of shyt. don't do it every line, but if you want a KEY to be remembered for later, fukk it, put it in caps.

I use underlines, italics, caps on sounds and stuff like the key, and I don't give a fukk. until someome i actually know makes money in the field tells me otherwise, I'm gonna keep doing it.

as far as the second part - that's another "who gives a shyt how you write it" thing for me. I actually don't know what the exact by the book formatting tip for that is, but I'd probably just go:

The Employees sit around a TV or whatever.

ON THE SCREEN

a SCIENTIST in a labcoat adresses the camera. We* join that scene as if we are there.

INT. LAB - DAY (OR FLASHBACK OR SOMETHING) if you use flashback, you probably wouldn't even need th "we join" line

*they'd say "never use WE!!!!" but i see "we" all the fukkin time in scripts, and in a case like this, I don't really know how else to do it. And I always counter with "did it make sense? did you get what i was trying to get across there? then stfu."

i had a scene in my recent script where i had characters watch a surveillence video, and i slugged it like this:

blah blah watch the screen intently*

EXT. PARKING LOT - FLASHBACK

and then i just wrote the scene as if it was happening now.

*people tell me "never use adverbs!" ... stfu. "no flashbacks!" ... stfu. 1 or 2 are fine.

 

[Conz]

as you can tell, I'm getting pretty tired of amateurs reading my scripts, and only noting shyt like:

"Why is there a joke in your action line? what's the point?!" it's not a joke, it's just the way I write. I wrote it as a funny visual in the clearest way imaginable. There's no way you can't see what I'm describing.

I had a line where the characters pulled into a packed parking lot, and wrote "From the looks of things, it's 'National Park Like an a$$hole' Day"

and some dude wrote a paragraph about how that is wrong. I mean... stfu buddy. Can I at least try to have my own comedic voice? put the screenwriting book from 1984 down and let it go.

 

[steadyrighteous]

i've found through experience that the only people who give me shyt about formatting choices are amateur know-it-alls who read cautionary tales online and talk about the scary "they" in the industry like they've been there. they say "too many words in caps is distracting and slows the read" they're full of shyt. don't do it every line, but if you want a KEY to be remembered for later, fukk it, put it in caps.

I use underlines, italics, caps on sounds and stuff like the key, and I don't give a fukk. until someome i actually know makes money in the field tells me otherwise, I'm gonna keep doing it.

as far as the second part - that's another "who gives a shyt how you write it" thing for me. I actually don't know what the exact by the book formatting tip for that is, but I'd probably just go:

The Employees sit around a TV or whatever.

ON THE SCREEN

a SCIENTIST in a labcoat adresses the camera. We* join that scene as if we are there.

INT. LAB - DAY (OR FLASHBACK OR SOMETHING) if you use flashback, you probably wouldn't even need th "we join" line

*they'd say "never use WE!!!!" but i see "we" all the fukkin time in scripts, and in a case like this, I don't really know how else to do it. And I always counter with "did it make sense? did you get what i was trying to get across there? then stfu."

i had a scene in my recent script where i had characters watch a surveillence video, and i slugged it like this:

blah blah watch the screen intently*

EXT. PARKING LOT - FLASHBACK

and then i just wrote the scene as if it was happening now.

*people tell me "never use adverbs!" ... stfu. "no flashbacks!" ... stfu. 1 or 2 are fine.

The bolded is so true.

I've picked one person, and that's whose notes truly matter. What he tells me I need to fix I know to be true because he's been in and around the business of making content since the early 90s, and he only got on me about a couple of formatting things (too many parenthetical descriptions like (soberly) or (teasingly) etc.)

For the video thing being watched, I literally on a script put:

VIDEO FOOTAGE - INT. DUDE'S HOUSE etc.

And then at the end:

END OF VIDEO FOOTAGE

If it makes sense and doesn't take the reader out of the story then it's correct. That nit-picky shyt is for the birds. Modern Family scripts don't look like New Girl scripts. New Girl scripts don't look like The Sopranos scripts. There is no one way. The content is more important.

 

[iFightSeagullsForBread]

I live in Chicago which branch of the WGA should I register my screenplay under?

 

[steadyrighteous]

I live in Chicago which branch of the WGA should I register my screenplay under?

I'm not sure it really matters?

Are you planning on spreading your script around? Because if not I wouldn't bother. But if you are planning or expecting it to get passed around, then yeah, maybe West?