This week /swg/ /fmg/ comes early because 2019 is just that kind of wild ride.
How do you keep your dreams alive?
What projects are you working on?
Need help with story structure?
Why is film so infinitely superior to video?
Basic /swg/ literature
>Screenplay by Syd Field
>Story by Robert McKee
and remember that Save the Cat! is a steaming pile of dogshit written by a talentless hack who only got successful because of his industry connections and whose magnum opus is Stop! Or my mom will shoot.
Other urls found in this thread:
youtube.com
drive.google.com
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To people who want to become filmmakers, do you guys take notes when you watch a movie?
I'm not into making movies but I've been trying to write stand-up in the past year, and now every time I watch a comedy act I just want to pick up patterns, decode its structure, and write everything down. I can't even shut that part of my brain off and simply enjoy the comedy if I try.
>To people who want to become filmmakers, do you guys take notes when you watch a movie?
I don't. I find that that sort of thing only leads to mindless imitation. Instead, I like to listen to commentaries or interviews with the directors (or by someone analyzing the film), to understand the concept that lies behind what I'm seeing, that is how they got the idea, not the idea itself. I find it's often difficult or even impossible to "reverse engineer" how the creative process works. Those typical high school tier film anaylisis simply try to grasp whatever they can, no matter if it came from actual intent, intuition, or just coincidence (= over interpretation).
Maybe you should try to understand how the comics get their ideas and their humour, rather than just analyzing the act itself. Understand how they come up with their material, not just what their material is.
My two cents. Then again I'm a literal nobody so I could be dead wrong.
>remember that Save the Cat! is a steaming pile of dogshit written by a talentless hack who only got successful because of his industry connections and whose magnum opus is Stop! Or my mom will shoot.
Based and ilustrious post.
Bumping with some Bob McKee quotes
>“When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They're moved by a desire to touch the audience.”
― Robert McKee, Story
>“All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.”
― Robert McKee, Story
>“We rarely know where we are going; writing is a discovery.”
― Robert McKee
“Whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion...Life on its own, without art to shape it, leaves you in confusion and chaos, but aesthetic emotion harmonizes what you know with what you feel to give you a heightened awareness and a sureness of your place in reality.”
― Robert McKee, Story
So I recently finished a short film that I shot last summer (OP pic related). Now I'm starting to send it out to festivals. Which leads to that beautiful moment of hope before getting turned down by everyone. Wish me luck bros.
Hot damn you got ex president Bush in your movie?
>
“Angry contradiction of the patriarch is not creativity; it's delinquency calling for attention. Difference for the sake of difference is as empty an achievement as slavishly following the commercial imperative.”
― Robert McKee, Story
Im going back to edit a 30 minute comedy pilot I wrote.
Any tips for comedy writing thats realistic? I feel I can do crazy comedy (Always sunny, American Dad as examples) but I want this pilot to be grounded and sardonic.
Consider that realistic comedy is based on the narrative being comedic, instead of just gags and quick jokes (which can be sprinkled about, but not as the central comedic element). Reading a synopsis has to be funny, with all the little gags and such taken away.
Perhaps it's a strange recommendation, but I've previously drawn some inspiration from the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. Read up some synopses on wikipedia, and see how the narrative in itself is funny.
The thing with modern situation comedies or sitcoms is that they often don't rely on actually funny situations but rather on quick jokes and gags.
I just watched this last night so I'm going to recommend it to you, Mike Leigh's "Abigail's Party", right here on youtube:
youtube.com
Very funny while being incredibly realistic. There isn't even really any "jokes" in it at all.
From this (and other things as well) I'd say that the key to "realistic" comedy is all to do with character.
Neon Blades
wuzzat?
Best memescript come out of these Yea Forums threads.
gib link
wait was that the kung fu thingy one? jfc I remember that!
meant to quote
drive.google.com
Have lost the full script but here's Act1. Throw Ville a email if you enjoy it or something.
the short film i shot a year and a half ago which took three years to finance (bad boy costed about 100,000 euros) is doing really well in the festival circuit and i'm currently financing a feature film, which the producers say will probably be shot in the next 2-3 years.
i guess dreams do come true bois.
big if true
how did you find financing for your short?
does your last name coincidentally end in -berg, -stein or -witz?
Absolutely based, good luck user!
Reminder that in all the years that these threads have been made not even one of the so called filmmakers have ever made it.
How does one even go about "financing" a film? if you're a nobody who's never made one before
other than by being part of the (((tribe))), no idea
the idea is to find people or companies that will just throw money at you. In the case of a short film, without any chance of ever making that money back. It honestly baffles me how short films can get financing beyond a couple of thousand euros perhaps. But there's a lot of short films being made with budgets in the tens of thousands. The whole festival circuit has been totally ruined by that, a nobody can in no way compete with those kinds of productions, making it impossible for novel filmmakers without good connections to get anywhere. Makes me think that this is just some part of a larger scheme for (((big studios))) to monopolize filmmaking talent.
so to start off, no i'm not jewish or of jewish ancestry or anything like that.
i wrote the script with a friend and we sent it to a bunch of film festivals that had "script markets," places where producers prod through the pile looking for the best scripts and if enough producers like it the festivals invite you to come down and meet the producers in a series of incredibly awkward 20-30 minute meetings.
we were (and i guess still are) at the time complete nobodies who had never made anything outside of a couple of film school projects. my friend is a little older than i am, but i at the time i was in my early twenties and still in school, i couldnt believe my luck.
(the country i live in -- a large european one, has three triple-A festivals that also have script markets.)
at one of these script markets we had two production companies that really loved the script and they took us to dinner and stuff and me and my friend sat down to think about which one to go into business with. this is europe, not the US, so instead of just having two studios with all the money, most of the money in european cinema comes from the state so while we do have large studios we also have a lot of small-to-medium sized production companies that act as middlemen between creators and the means of putting a film together. we picked one of the companies and we got straight to work on re-writes while we started started applying to different grants and stuff to get money.
a little from a public-access tv network, a little from the actor's union, about half from the state we planned to film in. it took a lot of doing and 3 years is a long time to still be like "oh haha m-my short f-film? it's s-still in the works guys..." but it's been worth it.
tl;dnr: APPLY TO SCRIPT MARKETS (i really cant stress this enough, i say this to all of my former film school colleagues).
also, go to europe and use all their sweet sweet public financing.
:3 thanks user
can you tell me more about those script markets?
oh also, is your short film by chance about any of those social issues like LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ or rapefugees or awful illnesses or something like this? From my festival experience it seems like that's getting any critical acclaim.
*like that's all that's getting any critical acclaim
no, our film wasnt about social issues, but it is true that a lot of films get traction by being topical. some of these films are pretty good, and some are awful baitjobs that pander to the audience.
at the end of the day, you gotta do what you gotta do to get your film done. the only reason to make a produced/professional short film is in order to go one to make a feature. in a q&a at a festival they asked us "why make a short film?" and we looked at each other wanting to answer "to make a feature," but that's not the type of answer that reads well later.
you gotta do what it takes, if that means doing a film about lgbt refugees crossing the bangladeshi border getting out of burma then fuck it.
about the script markets, i mean we apparently had exceptional luck. we only ended up going to one (we dropped out of the second once we said we had found a producer).
at the festival itself we met a bunch of other writers that were trying to get their films done. there was this one girl, it was her third year getting invited here with a script (awful, awful fucking twee thing that script).
apparently, most of the time producers will give you their cards and talk about what's missing in your script. we had one meeting and this producer said it was great but "you need these three things to get it to be perfect."
other producers just love hearing people pitch and have no fucking interest in producing anybody at all -- they just have a project at the festival and need to fill out their time.
the point is, when we went to a bar with all of our festival friends, no one would believe us that two producers had loved the script and wanted to produce it. the girl with the twee script seemed pretty pissed and everybody kept asking me "so what, is your co-writer like 15 years old?" because everyone was 30.
we were the only people to walk away with a scheduled meeting to sign papers with a producer.
interesting, thanks for the insight.
It kind of confirms my suspicions that the short film circuit has been taken over by producers, so now it's not about making a short film and getting recognition, it's about just selling your script and getting that made, then getting recognition. I find it kind of depressing, because it puts much more emphasis on selling yourself before you even do anything other than just writing down your script.
In the long run this is just going to further damage cinema as a whole, since it makes everything even more dependent on selling out rather than actual craftsmanship in filmmaking. At least in the past you could just start making small movies and try and catch a break through that. It makes me lose all ambition of becoming a filmmaker tbqhwy. It also goes to show that many established filmmakers who go on about the trope of "just shoot shitty films and get better lmao" have absolutely no fucking clue of how this works nowadays.
Anyway, not meant as a negative comment on your work, I guess it comes over as such. Congrats anyway.
hey i mean i know a lot of people that made it the other route, they made short films and music videos on their own and got their work on larger projects from there.
the difference is that these people are overwhelmingly cinematographers that went on to be professional cinematographers. i'm a screenwriter, all i can show you is a script. we didnt really sell "ourselves," i was new in the country at the time and barely spoke the language, what got our foot through the door was the script.
my friends, the ones that do more arthouse projects and documentaries told me if i wouldn't have preferred to do something smaller and be have it be "personal," and it took me a while to realize they were calling me a sell-out for getting re-writes from producers and whatever. i told him the truth, at the end of the day we all adapt to the budget -- he makes sacrifices for the budget he doesnt have and i made some to get the budget i wanted.
to me the thing that is hurting cinema the most is the fact that it's about connections above all else. we were applying for the biggest national grant (they finance very few films a year) and they kept telling us about how the script better be perfect because they only finance the greatest fucking masterpieces and i asked "then were are these amazing fucking films since you only finance masterpieces, everything that's out in cinemas financed by you is crap." and the answer is (as everyone knows) the heads of that agency have friends and their friends are the ones that cut in line.
that's what producers are -- that's their whole job: to be connected with to those with the means and those with the money. the better connected they are, the more money they can get, the quicker they can get it the better they are as producers.
Your script got your foot in the door, that's kinda what I mean by selling yourself. I don't doubt it's a good script, but only certain scripts will interest producers, and if someone is a good director but mediocre writer, he doesn't even get a chance, because no matter how good a director you are, a 1000 euro production can't compete with a 10.000 or even 100.000 euro production. Festivals won't even give the 1000 euro production a second look, even if on close inspection it were a piece of directorial genius.
I do absolutely agree on what you say about adapting to the budget. Nothing wrong with adapting to what the market demands. My beef is with the absurdity of this short film market. Hell I'd be the first to whore myself out to some producer if I could get his attention, which I'm seemingly unable to.
And then there's the thing with public grants. I simply don't get what kind of critaria some petty functionary is going to have in deciding what script gets that grant. It's a very unequal way of giving out money. In the past I think films got a subsidy in proportion to their budget, and regardless of their content or quality. Which seems fair to me, since the state is noone to decide what's a good film and what isn't. The state somehow assessing what script has the quality to deserve a grant simply means that scripts are selected according to the states criteria, in my experience that's simply prestige and political content, though it can vary by country. It feels like the state is just grooming filmmakers to make the right kind of propaganda. And that saddens me.
I guess I'm just frustrated because I have a bit of an idealized view of how the film industry should work, by some sort of meritocracy. Then again I tend be always behind the times, which is an awful curse.
Well I'm depressed now, so I'm going to bed. Wish you all the best, user. Nighty night.
oh and just to follow up on my first paragraph, as an example, in the past many directors got their start by making shitty low budget films that showed potential in directing. Nowadays those kinds of films simply don't get the chance because the festival circuit is totally overcome by these big budget shorts. I just think big budget shorts are a total aberration, it's money down the drain. ffs for 100.000 I could make a feature. Back then the short film circuit was a big equalizer, where everyone got a chance, while for features you had to sell yourself to a producer. Now that great equalizer is gone, and instead you have to sell yourself twice. It's just so fucking absurd and ridiculous.
It's all so tiresome...
How difficult is it to get art house type scripts off the ground. I have a couple brewing right now but I'm worried that most won't look at them as their not financially viable. I hope to finish within the year but I was wondering whats the best way to get that type of script some form of visibility. I've gotten some feedback and most people say that there really good thematically
I live in Ontario by the way. I'm planning on going to Tiff this year but I highly doubt anything will happen there. Thousands of people hand out scripts and most of them end up piled up in the bathroom trash can
>and if someone is a good director but mediocre writer, he doesn't even get a chance
that's what we did, my friend is a director: a very good one and a good project manager but not very confident in writing. i was young and inexperienced and foreign so nobody was going to listen to me.
so he hired me as his screenwriter. if you're a shit writer find yourself a good one.
>Festivals won't even give the 1000 euro production a second look, even if on close inspection it were a piece of directorial genius.
this isn't true though, documentary sections routinely get cleaned out by low-budget documentaries. last festival i went to the documentary winner was a microbudget documentary.
>And then there's the thing with public grants. I simply don't get what kind of critaria some petty functionary is going to have in deciding what script gets that grant
it's not ideal, no. but the "petty functionaries" are typically former producers and they continue up the ladder because of their love of cinema (sometimes). for every 1,000 shitty comedies you do end up getting some adventurous arthouse films that would've never gotten made in a profit-driven studio system.
>I guess I'm just frustrated because I have a bit of an idealized view of how the film industry should work, by some sort of meritocracy.
yeah, i agree. but if you want to make movies you're just going to have to work with what's on the table user.
good night
cornering a producer in a hallway and handing them a script has (in my experience) never worked for anybody. even if they do read it (they wont) their brain is already primed like "ugh jeez what did THIS guy hand me?"
I know, it's pretty difficult to get stuff made in Canada due to most movies needing to be pro refugee movie or a documentary about native American children.
I'm not really sure what my next step should be desu
I just wanted to pop in and say that I've been appreciating the filmmaking and arthouse threads lately. It reminds me of old Yea Forums before the flood.
Keep it up.
>Not Jewish
>Australian
>in my 30s
Should I even bother? I feel like I have a few great scripts in me but I can't see how I'd ever be able to get them made into a movie.
When I have a great first draft what am I even supposed to do with it?
Robert McKee, the man who never wrote anything good himself.
/film/ when
Are these script markets open to foreigners? You said yourself you're foreign to the country which financed your script but I get the impression your director is not. Or am I wrong there?
I have an old Canon T2i camera laying around and I've been thinking about shooting some stuff with it for fun. Can I make something somewhat visually appealing with it even with the kit lens and the fact it's not a full sensor camera? Been wondering.
If you're just doing it for fun why even ask? Just get out and start shooting and see how it ends up. I tend to think fixating on gear just leads to procrastination.
my mom loved stop or my mom will shoot so bashing it makes you look stupid
You're right. I just know that I want to shoot a lot of stuff at night or in low light, and my current camera probably isn't ideal for that. I'll play around with it tho.
very insightful!
scrubs and buffy/angel/firefly
they are in theory (and financing is too) but of course everything's gotta be in the country's language.
also for financing it here it works in a point system. you get points for the producer being a national, you get points for the actors being nationals, points for the script being in the national language etc etc.
honestly, i doubt i would've made it without attaching myself to an older local to give the whole thing credibility.
these script markets/film labs are all over europe, i'd imagine there are some in the us and canada?
you know when they make a movie with a really particular visual style and they tell you "omg they used this particular batch of kodak stock that was only made in 1988 because it was perfect for the color pallet"? turns out literally every camera has a style it's perfect for, you just need to find it.
i mean, DVcams look like ass, but they have a very trendy aesthetic look as well, i genuinely think anything goes. a maxim a filmschool teacher told me (the guy was an idiot but this is a kernel of wisdom i quote all the time): "if you simply CANT get rid of an element, ENHANCE it."
this goes for everything. your gear is shit. you cant change it -- enhance it. your actor is wooden and cant be dramatic -- enhance it, rewrite your character and work with the new element.
if you're creative and flexible you can always come up with something decent.
good luck, dude
Best of luck. I need to get off my ass and do instead of talking/thinking about shit. Though that applies to just about every facet of my life.
bump