While there's no solid casting news, I can say that after waiting and waiting for people to read the script, I now have more people putting their hands up for roles than I need (although the most difficult role is still to be cast).
I think this just goes to show the importance of a) being everybody's friend (for me this is just a by-product of my easygoing nature, not a superficial tactic), and b) starting the momentum entirely on your own without waiting for others to help. If they see that you really are going somewhere (even if you're just faking), then it won't be long before those who are up for it are jumping on board.
The making of a no-budget movie, from start to finish.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
I told you so
Thanks to Amanda Sjamsudin, we have a new poster, although, by the same token, this one is a temporary design too. However it is much prettier, and much closer to what the final dealio will be.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
First Cast Member
The first cast member, as well as effects team member, is on board; Morgan Stratford.
He's one of the founding member of Churchill Filming-Industry, which have some pretty cool stuff.
[Edit] He even has his own legit IMDB page!
He's one of the founding member of Churchill Filming-Industry, which have some pretty cool stuff.
[Edit] He even has his own legit IMDB page!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
New graphic
This is a temporary placeholder graphic, just to add something to look at until I get someone with talent and skill to make something acceptable for me...
On Writing Pt3
So, with all this in mind, I write the screenplay, and one key thing is, that while I have to give this to other people to help me make it, I'm writing it for myself, to direct.
I don't want to get into the writing of screenplays for other directors, because I have very little interest in it, and no experience. However, there is a rule I hold that I think will hold true in either situation; The screenplay is not the final film, and should be dictatorial, but it shouldn't be overly skeletal either. What it should contain, more than anything else, is ideas.
A script is obviously going to contain screen directions and dialogue, telling the reader what the actor has to do. And these things need to be thought out to the nth degree. But it's not necessarily what's going to end up on screen.
The movie isn't final until you've made the final edit and put it on screen (you could argue further, and I will at some other point).
So your script is not a final product, and even if you finish a 'final draft" that really means sweet FA as people aren't going to sit down to read a script. They go to see a movie. And the making of that movie begins with writing a script (or notes and treatment before a script) and ends when it's on a screen and being watched.
What I'm warning against is writing only what the end result should be. Telling people (possibly the future version of yourself) how they have to do things.
At the time of writing, the how shouldn't concern anyone too much, as long as what you're asking is possible. The how at this point in time is not as important as what and not nearly as important as why.
What is the plot, this should be obvious. A script should movie over this in a perfunctory fashion, giving it the attention required and no more.
What you need at a script level in abundance is why. We need the reasons for what we're seeing, the ideas behind it. Because when you have these in place, the visuals should come easily, and, it should feel dense, what the audience is watching is not some hollow, meaningless flash of video.
As long as they fit the story you're telling, you can never have too many ideas. Because if you do, you can edit them out later. The more ideas, the more meanings, the more why in a movie helps you to feel like you need to be watching it.
There are so many well made movies that I go to see, and even though there's nothing really wrong with what the maker's did, I just question why I'm watching it. I look at my watch and picking out different things in the movie, playing games with it, breaking down what I'm seeing to what I think was probably written in the script, what the actor might have been thinking and asking for on set, how the director looks like he just slapped together a scene he had no vision for from coverage, etc.
All of which distracted me from a movie that doesn't give me anything to hold on to. I have no reason to watch it.
And this is not to say that everything you do has to be an intellectual exercise. Don't drag fantastic action down and get it bogged in a quagmire of references and exposition. But just make sure there's enough support behind what you're putting up there to hold the visuals up.
Because ultimately the things the audience will latch on to are the ideas you are communicating. You can communicate a lot with exciting visuals, just make sure there's something to communicate, and the more you can, the more attention you'll receive.
And if you do have too much, then you can cut it out. That's what editing is for. Don't just transcribe a 2D visual from your head onto the page and expect to get that on screen. Because even if you succeed, the result will more often than not be lifeless. And when the more likely thing happens, and you don't achieve the exact image in your head, you're left with a movie trying to be something it's not, rather than a movie that just is. Your audience will spot this immediately. And when you don't have production value to cover flaws like that up, people will dismiss it immediately. They won't be your audience any more. They'll just be the ones telling others not to bother.
Actors and crew will be trying to reverse engineer what's on the page anyway so that they can have something to contribute, so why not make it easier on everyone. It'll help them add even more to it that way, as they'll be able to see the direction you're going in and come up with stuff to fit in with that, instead of having to waste time trying to figure it out and get up to your level.
And if you're going to direct as well, then all this thought put in will help you enormously, in having an answer for every question people will ask about the movie.
Once again, I'm not sure how much you will be able to see these tenets in my film, but they are what I've been trying to keep in mind while writing.
I don't want to get into the writing of screenplays for other directors, because I have very little interest in it, and no experience. However, there is a rule I hold that I think will hold true in either situation; The screenplay is not the final film, and should be dictatorial, but it shouldn't be overly skeletal either. What it should contain, more than anything else, is ideas.
A script is obviously going to contain screen directions and dialogue, telling the reader what the actor has to do. And these things need to be thought out to the nth degree. But it's not necessarily what's going to end up on screen.
The movie isn't final until you've made the final edit and put it on screen (you could argue further, and I will at some other point).
So your script is not a final product, and even if you finish a 'final draft" that really means sweet FA as people aren't going to sit down to read a script. They go to see a movie. And the making of that movie begins with writing a script (or notes and treatment before a script) and ends when it's on a screen and being watched.
What I'm warning against is writing only what the end result should be. Telling people (possibly the future version of yourself) how they have to do things.
At the time of writing, the how shouldn't concern anyone too much, as long as what you're asking is possible. The how at this point in time is not as important as what and not nearly as important as why.
What is the plot, this should be obvious. A script should movie over this in a perfunctory fashion, giving it the attention required and no more.
What you need at a script level in abundance is why. We need the reasons for what we're seeing, the ideas behind it. Because when you have these in place, the visuals should come easily, and, it should feel dense, what the audience is watching is not some hollow, meaningless flash of video.
As long as they fit the story you're telling, you can never have too many ideas. Because if you do, you can edit them out later. The more ideas, the more meanings, the more why in a movie helps you to feel like you need to be watching it.
There are so many well made movies that I go to see, and even though there's nothing really wrong with what the maker's did, I just question why I'm watching it. I look at my watch and picking out different things in the movie, playing games with it, breaking down what I'm seeing to what I think was probably written in the script, what the actor might have been thinking and asking for on set, how the director looks like he just slapped together a scene he had no vision for from coverage, etc.
All of which distracted me from a movie that doesn't give me anything to hold on to. I have no reason to watch it.
And this is not to say that everything you do has to be an intellectual exercise. Don't drag fantastic action down and get it bogged in a quagmire of references and exposition. But just make sure there's enough support behind what you're putting up there to hold the visuals up.
Because ultimately the things the audience will latch on to are the ideas you are communicating. You can communicate a lot with exciting visuals, just make sure there's something to communicate, and the more you can, the more attention you'll receive.
And if you do have too much, then you can cut it out. That's what editing is for. Don't just transcribe a 2D visual from your head onto the page and expect to get that on screen. Because even if you succeed, the result will more often than not be lifeless. And when the more likely thing happens, and you don't achieve the exact image in your head, you're left with a movie trying to be something it's not, rather than a movie that just is. Your audience will spot this immediately. And when you don't have production value to cover flaws like that up, people will dismiss it immediately. They won't be your audience any more. They'll just be the ones telling others not to bother.
Actors and crew will be trying to reverse engineer what's on the page anyway so that they can have something to contribute, so why not make it easier on everyone. It'll help them add even more to it that way, as they'll be able to see the direction you're going in and come up with stuff to fit in with that, instead of having to waste time trying to figure it out and get up to your level.
And if you're going to direct as well, then all this thought put in will help you enormously, in having an answer for every question people will ask about the movie.
Once again, I'm not sure how much you will be able to see these tenets in my film, but they are what I've been trying to keep in mind while writing.
On Writing Pt2
As I said in my first post, in the end the page count of my script turned out to be 46 pages. Which while that is short for a feature, turned out to be pretty much the length I had in mind for a certain competition I hope to enter.
The other coincidence, was that I started writing on the 15th of November, and finished the 30th of December, practically taking 45 days to write it all out. But while the average looks like basically a page a day, the reality is way different; also I'll discuss why doing more drafts isn't an issue for me right now.
Just like the treatment, I work chronologically, start at the beginning and end at the end. Stephen King says that really you should just get everything written and out of the way; it might be crap, but you can edit later and at least you have filled your pages.
I myself fall into that trap of writing the first pages, and editing as I go, so that I keep focusing on that first part and not moving forward. In the beginning, I had to really pry myself away from my opening and get the next part done, just so I would get to the end. That's why the first 20 or so pages of my script are the most edited and honed, even though, if you read it, it still seems the loosest. Which brings me to my next point.
The first 20 or so pages are practically all dialogue based. Primarily, this is because I wanted character and performance. My first short film, Special Delivery sucked in a lot of ways, a lot of that to do with the acting, which is the fault of the writer, me, because my dialogue sucked, because I didn't work well with a 10 minute time limit that the competition allowed me. All the dialogue in that was exposition, I had to have the characters tell the story as it was happen, catch everyone up so that we were all finally on the same page when it was over and so the audience really wasn't a part of the movie...
So here I didn't have a 10 page limit to tell an entire story. I had breathing room, so I spent 20 pages on bringing everyone in, letting them be who they were, and really showing how they fit in with each other. One character knows these guys, though one of them isn't there yet, and he doesn't know these other people that are here, but the one he does know is a mutual friend, and really just through letting the scenes run, I could do this without being obtrusive. Just by letting them talk, not talk, fidget and be with each other, the audience would see it without having to be told in an unnatural way. They're in one car, then when the group gets big enough they split into two cars, and they all just talk about stuff because that's what you do when someone's giving you a ride somewhere.
When I write dialogue, I'm basically an actor, improvising a scene, and writing down the dialogue and character actions. The only thing is, I'm playing each character, so I have to get into a different mindset when I'm writing a different character's line.
This takes a lot of concentration, but it's the only way for me to do it without being 1 dimensional. When I'm doing these dialogue based scenes, I'm not thinking as a director, even though that's my intention later on, or even a writer for a director. That stuff I can do when I go back and edit. When I edit my script, I'm then directing the characters in my head like actors, asking for a new take of improvised dialogue, that might need to say this, that, or the other. And with that, I'm acting again.
That said the dialogue, while a lot of it is run on and naturalistic, is still setting up the story in a lot of ways. We're finding out why they're going there just by hearing them talk about what they're doing. We're finding out what they're like, so later their actions make sense. I even signal each death with lines of character related dialogue that just occur in conversation (see Chekhov's Gun theory).
And as much as I want to be naturalistic, my dialogue still has a bit of a stilt, a clumsiness to it, which can be disguised, or made to look good by a good actor, but I am definitely open to improvisation by actual actors, as long as what they say hits the right points that need to be made for the scene.
The intended naturalism is also stylised to an extent. It's streamlined (to a degree of my personal taste). Nothing that the scene doesn't need is there. It's all what is needed to be said. It's why I spent so much time agonising over these 20+ pages in the beginning. Because all this character set up will be needed for the audience, so that they're on board with these people as I kick the blocks out and let the wheels of the plot hit the ground, letting the story take off.
One other point I'd like to make is that I hate it when a story, especially films, has an entire plot that is based on one conceit. I know that technically, that is what fiction is, but I'm talking about if one event didn't happen randomly, then the rest of the movie wouldn't happen. An example, say in a story where a earth tremor shakes a rock loose onto a highway and causes a car accident and then the two people in the accident meet and have an adventure together and learn the meaning of life. If the rock hadn't fallen at the exact moment, there'd be no story. I hate that. I don't want chance, or serendipity, or whatever it is to be required for a plot to work.
If I meet someone in real life who learned some valuable lesson simply by chance, then they're probably the kind of fickle person I don't wanna know. So then I am certainly not going to want to spend time with a fictional character with that trait.
I am much more drawn to a story, where you may even know how it's going to end, but it's on a path that's driven by the characters. They may change by the end, there may be twists and turns in the story, but their characters remain true and the story comes from them, is not just what happens to them.
I'm not sure to what extent my movie could be called "character driven" but I'd like to think the actions they take when faced with the opposing force of the piece, they are true to the characters. When characters are well written enough, it won't matter that they're not audience surrogates (a concept I don't think really works, because even several characters cannot represent an entire audience, many, if not most will feel cheat when these cipher type characters don't do exactly what the audience would), if the audience believes that what the character is doing is true to the character, then they won't feel cheated.
The movie is going to be low budget, and the effects are most likely not going to be all too convincing, so that is why the characters and story are important to me, that they are satisfying. Because in any case, I don't believe that most people need proof to believe in something, what they need is a reason.
It's why people follow different religions, or believe in aliens, or whatever. It's not proof they require, it's a reason. And so even if what is on screen isn't entirely too believable, they'll follow it anyway, as long as I've given them a reason to believe it. And that's having a good story at hand. And that's why I'm so focused on getting the characters down.
The other coincidence, was that I started writing on the 15th of November, and finished the 30th of December, practically taking 45 days to write it all out. But while the average looks like basically a page a day, the reality is way different; also I'll discuss why doing more drafts isn't an issue for me right now.
Just like the treatment, I work chronologically, start at the beginning and end at the end. Stephen King says that really you should just get everything written and out of the way; it might be crap, but you can edit later and at least you have filled your pages.
I myself fall into that trap of writing the first pages, and editing as I go, so that I keep focusing on that first part and not moving forward. In the beginning, I had to really pry myself away from my opening and get the next part done, just so I would get to the end. That's why the first 20 or so pages of my script are the most edited and honed, even though, if you read it, it still seems the loosest. Which brings me to my next point.
The first 20 or so pages are practically all dialogue based. Primarily, this is because I wanted character and performance. My first short film, Special Delivery sucked in a lot of ways, a lot of that to do with the acting, which is the fault of the writer, me, because my dialogue sucked, because I didn't work well with a 10 minute time limit that the competition allowed me. All the dialogue in that was exposition, I had to have the characters tell the story as it was happen, catch everyone up so that we were all finally on the same page when it was over and so the audience really wasn't a part of the movie...
So here I didn't have a 10 page limit to tell an entire story. I had breathing room, so I spent 20 pages on bringing everyone in, letting them be who they were, and really showing how they fit in with each other. One character knows these guys, though one of them isn't there yet, and he doesn't know these other people that are here, but the one he does know is a mutual friend, and really just through letting the scenes run, I could do this without being obtrusive. Just by letting them talk, not talk, fidget and be with each other, the audience would see it without having to be told in an unnatural way. They're in one car, then when the group gets big enough they split into two cars, and they all just talk about stuff because that's what you do when someone's giving you a ride somewhere.
When I write dialogue, I'm basically an actor, improvising a scene, and writing down the dialogue and character actions. The only thing is, I'm playing each character, so I have to get into a different mindset when I'm writing a different character's line.
This takes a lot of concentration, but it's the only way for me to do it without being 1 dimensional. When I'm doing these dialogue based scenes, I'm not thinking as a director, even though that's my intention later on, or even a writer for a director. That stuff I can do when I go back and edit. When I edit my script, I'm then directing the characters in my head like actors, asking for a new take of improvised dialogue, that might need to say this, that, or the other. And with that, I'm acting again.
That said the dialogue, while a lot of it is run on and naturalistic, is still setting up the story in a lot of ways. We're finding out why they're going there just by hearing them talk about what they're doing. We're finding out what they're like, so later their actions make sense. I even signal each death with lines of character related dialogue that just occur in conversation (see Chekhov's Gun theory).
And as much as I want to be naturalistic, my dialogue still has a bit of a stilt, a clumsiness to it, which can be disguised, or made to look good by a good actor, but I am definitely open to improvisation by actual actors, as long as what they say hits the right points that need to be made for the scene.
The intended naturalism is also stylised to an extent. It's streamlined (to a degree of my personal taste). Nothing that the scene doesn't need is there. It's all what is needed to be said. It's why I spent so much time agonising over these 20+ pages in the beginning. Because all this character set up will be needed for the audience, so that they're on board with these people as I kick the blocks out and let the wheels of the plot hit the ground, letting the story take off.
One other point I'd like to make is that I hate it when a story, especially films, has an entire plot that is based on one conceit. I know that technically, that is what fiction is, but I'm talking about if one event didn't happen randomly, then the rest of the movie wouldn't happen. An example, say in a story where a earth tremor shakes a rock loose onto a highway and causes a car accident and then the two people in the accident meet and have an adventure together and learn the meaning of life. If the rock hadn't fallen at the exact moment, there'd be no story. I hate that. I don't want chance, or serendipity, or whatever it is to be required for a plot to work.
If I meet someone in real life who learned some valuable lesson simply by chance, then they're probably the kind of fickle person I don't wanna know. So then I am certainly not going to want to spend time with a fictional character with that trait.
I am much more drawn to a story, where you may even know how it's going to end, but it's on a path that's driven by the characters. They may change by the end, there may be twists and turns in the story, but their characters remain true and the story comes from them, is not just what happens to them.
I'm not sure to what extent my movie could be called "character driven" but I'd like to think the actions they take when faced with the opposing force of the piece, they are true to the characters. When characters are well written enough, it won't matter that they're not audience surrogates (a concept I don't think really works, because even several characters cannot represent an entire audience, many, if not most will feel cheat when these cipher type characters don't do exactly what the audience would), if the audience believes that what the character is doing is true to the character, then they won't feel cheated.
The movie is going to be low budget, and the effects are most likely not going to be all too convincing, so that is why the characters and story are important to me, that they are satisfying. Because in any case, I don't believe that most people need proof to believe in something, what they need is a reason.
It's why people follow different religions, or believe in aliens, or whatever. It's not proof they require, it's a reason. And so even if what is on screen isn't entirely too believable, they'll follow it anyway, as long as I've given them a reason to believe it. And that's having a good story at hand. And that's why I'm so focused on getting the characters down.
On Writing Pt1
As I've already done it, I'll just put in a quick comment on my writing process. First off, the process itself is really inconsequential and of no importance. What is of importance, is that it gets done. It is work, and it takes time to get things out of your head and on to the page.
First up, I imagine what kind of story I want, in terms of tone and length, and how I want the audience to feel watching it. The idea I've had since childhood was a horror with Australian Magpies. And before I wrote anything down, I needed two ideas: the set up for the creatures (the adversaries, if you will, the villains of the piece), and the human characters that we were to follow. Not so much who they were at this point, but what they were doing there. Once I got both those ideas, the explanations for both things; why they're there, and I was happy with them, the film concept went from being something to consider, to a project I wanted to pursue.
From there I got the images in my head, and wrote down random notes, no matter what they are or where they occur, down into a notebook. I didn't have a plot at this point, no story.
In this case, I knew it was a horror and that characters were going to die. All of them, except one, in fact. So as soon as it occurred to me what the characters were going to be (kids in their late teens/early twenties, some students, some not) I immediately listed each character, their names, short bios, at least describing their personalities, and what their relationships/dynamics are. I needed that to be clear.
I couldn't write a character without know what they were like, and what they would do in a situation that confronts them, if I didn't have who they were nailed down. Now, I didn't need all the complete aspects of them, the characters won't truly live until an actor gives the performance, and then the performance is edited into the movie. But I needed enough of them, so that they made sense as people. I knew that they were going to be like me and my friends, while not based on anyone, still distinct individuals, and I'd know the way they talked.
On top of that, despite having flaws and different personalities, I wanted these people to be likable, I wanted the audience to want to spend time with them. I hate the mantra of modern horror movies having unlikable leads you want dead, because what impact that used to have has dried up, and no one spends their free time in real life with people they hate, or at least, if they do, I don't want to know them, and I don't want to make a movie about them. So the whole "prick boyfriend" and other shit like that was out the window.
I even did the same thing for the creatures, even though they're all the same animal, I gave them different personalities, and hopefully slightly differing looks, so that they weren't just lifeless drones, they have their own motivations...
Then basically, because it was a horror movie involving deaths, I wanted to make the deaths surprising, so I basically picked them at random. That way, I knew then that all bets were off, and it would be more surprising, a fresher experience for the audience. Of course in writing the story, I'd weave it in to make it smoother, but at least I wasn't making up anyone just to kill them
Once I had that, I took what notes I had on gags (not jokes, but things that happen like stunts, events, deaths, etc) and other random bits and pieces, and I fashioned a story, in mostly dot point form, though the dot points were pretty detailed. I drew out a map of the main setting, since most of the plot/movie take place in the one area, moving geographically as the story moves forward.
Once I had that (it went for a few pages), I actually wrote it all out into a film treatment (still by hand), giving more detail, adding more ideas and shifting, deleting others. I tried to focus a page for each sequence, adding sketches and tidbits to help me figure out the details I'd need for a script. Who is sitting here or over there, references, ideas on shooting styles, and other random tidbits.
This I did all chronologically. It makes most sense to me this way. If I recall correctly, the initial story points I finished in less than two days, doing other things in between. I still try to give myself breathing space at this point, let ideas come.
Then with the treatment, I took the time to labour over each sequence, spending an entire day or more on what scenes I'd need, what ideas I wanted to incorporate. A lot of little sketches, storyboards and things just in there to help visualise particular points.
My working style too, changed in figuring these out, the beginning was very loose, and open (this will be reflected in the final movie, I believe), but the end became very specific, almost a script without the dialogue or formatting.
Once I had got to the end, I knew exactly what I had. Now it was time to work.
Once
First up, I imagine what kind of story I want, in terms of tone and length, and how I want the audience to feel watching it. The idea I've had since childhood was a horror with Australian Magpies. And before I wrote anything down, I needed two ideas: the set up for the creatures (the adversaries, if you will, the villains of the piece), and the human characters that we were to follow. Not so much who they were at this point, but what they were doing there. Once I got both those ideas, the explanations for both things; why they're there, and I was happy with them, the film concept went from being something to consider, to a project I wanted to pursue.
From there I got the images in my head, and wrote down random notes, no matter what they are or where they occur, down into a notebook. I didn't have a plot at this point, no story.
In this case, I knew it was a horror and that characters were going to die. All of them, except one, in fact. So as soon as it occurred to me what the characters were going to be (kids in their late teens/early twenties, some students, some not) I immediately listed each character, their names, short bios, at least describing their personalities, and what their relationships/dynamics are. I needed that to be clear.
I couldn't write a character without know what they were like, and what they would do in a situation that confronts them, if I didn't have who they were nailed down. Now, I didn't need all the complete aspects of them, the characters won't truly live until an actor gives the performance, and then the performance is edited into the movie. But I needed enough of them, so that they made sense as people. I knew that they were going to be like me and my friends, while not based on anyone, still distinct individuals, and I'd know the way they talked.
On top of that, despite having flaws and different personalities, I wanted these people to be likable, I wanted the audience to want to spend time with them. I hate the mantra of modern horror movies having unlikable leads you want dead, because what impact that used to have has dried up, and no one spends their free time in real life with people they hate, or at least, if they do, I don't want to know them, and I don't want to make a movie about them. So the whole "prick boyfriend" and other shit like that was out the window.
I even did the same thing for the creatures, even though they're all the same animal, I gave them different personalities, and hopefully slightly differing looks, so that they weren't just lifeless drones, they have their own motivations...
Then basically, because it was a horror movie involving deaths, I wanted to make the deaths surprising, so I basically picked them at random. That way, I knew then that all bets were off, and it would be more surprising, a fresher experience for the audience. Of course in writing the story, I'd weave it in to make it smoother, but at least I wasn't making up anyone just to kill them
Once I had that, I took what notes I had on gags (not jokes, but things that happen like stunts, events, deaths, etc) and other random bits and pieces, and I fashioned a story, in mostly dot point form, though the dot points were pretty detailed. I drew out a map of the main setting, since most of the plot/movie take place in the one area, moving geographically as the story moves forward.
Once I had that (it went for a few pages), I actually wrote it all out into a film treatment (still by hand), giving more detail, adding more ideas and shifting, deleting others. I tried to focus a page for each sequence, adding sketches and tidbits to help me figure out the details I'd need for a script. Who is sitting here or over there, references, ideas on shooting styles, and other random tidbits.
This I did all chronologically. It makes most sense to me this way. If I recall correctly, the initial story points I finished in less than two days, doing other things in between. I still try to give myself breathing space at this point, let ideas come.
Then with the treatment, I took the time to labour over each sequence, spending an entire day or more on what scenes I'd need, what ideas I wanted to incorporate. A lot of little sketches, storyboards and things just in there to help visualise particular points.
My working style too, changed in figuring these out, the beginning was very loose, and open (this will be reflected in the final movie, I believe), but the end became very specific, almost a script without the dialogue or formatting.
Once I had got to the end, I knew exactly what I had. Now it was time to work.
Once
End Credits Music
As I can't afford to pay for any rights to music, nor do I know the right channels to approach this from, I have friends that will be scoring the whole film for me, however, the music the movie will end to, I have found:
http://www.triplejunearthed.com/Artists/View.aspx?artistid=39134
Benny and His Hedonistic Pleasures are allowing me to use their song "StraightJacket" to play at the end, which is great. This means the movie will go out with a screaming theramin (used a lot in 50's flying saucer movies) and rockin' guitars.
Thanks guys! And to everyone else, you should check them out.
http://www.triplejunearthed.com/Artists/View.aspx?artistid=39134
Benny and His Hedonistic Pleasures are allowing me to use their song "StraightJacket" to play at the end, which is great. This means the movie will go out with a screaming theramin (used a lot in 50's flying saucer movies) and rockin' guitars.
Thanks guys! And to everyone else, you should check them out.
Script
All told, to write a 46 pages script, I took about 45 days. I edited as I went, so redrafting is not something I plan on doing now, simply more notes and trying to organise everything I need: locations, props, equipment, crew, and cast. People have already put their hands up for crew, but right now I'm really concerned about getting a cast together.
I have 6 major roles, 3 male, 3 female. I'm waiting for the guys I asked to do the male roles, for them to read the script, for the female roles, it's a lot harder because I don't know that many girls that would be up for starring in a silly movie on video just made by this one guy. It just shows that all the ladies I know have common sense, which is what I don't need right now, because common sense dictates that this won't get off the ground.
Locations will be tricky, because I don't places in mind for some of the scenes yet, it'll just be a matter of asking around and hopefully the places I need won't take a lot of travel time for the cast and crew.
As for props, at least I have that covered, everything I don't already have is readily and relatively cheaply available...
Equipment, well, I have some, and some may be provided, I at least have a couple of friends on board for sound design and score, which is important to me, for it to not sound like everything has been run through a handy-cam mic.
So onward and upward with organising, at least I need to write exactly what I need on paper, list it out so that it's readable, and I can check it off when I come by each item...
I have 6 major roles, 3 male, 3 female. I'm waiting for the guys I asked to do the male roles, for them to read the script, for the female roles, it's a lot harder because I don't know that many girls that would be up for starring in a silly movie on video just made by this one guy. It just shows that all the ladies I know have common sense, which is what I don't need right now, because common sense dictates that this won't get off the ground.
Locations will be tricky, because I don't places in mind for some of the scenes yet, it'll just be a matter of asking around and hopefully the places I need won't take a lot of travel time for the cast and crew.
As for props, at least I have that covered, everything I don't already have is readily and relatively cheaply available...
Equipment, well, I have some, and some may be provided, I at least have a couple of friends on board for sound design and score, which is important to me, for it to not sound like everything has been run through a handy-cam mic.
So onward and upward with organising, at least I need to write exactly what I need on paper, list it out so that it's readable, and I can check it off when I come by each item...
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