Over the next few articles I will explain the most important
aspects of writing a movie:
1) How to brainstorm ideas and create a treatment;
2) How to analyse that treatment to see if it will work as a
script.
3) Then, the second most important part, how to write the script.
4) And finally, how to get together a business plan so that you
can begin the long arduous process of marketing your product.
But first, get your act together!
The screenwriter can write in many different forms. They can write
TV soap operas, sitcoms, drama series, or small independent movies or big
special effects driven blockbusters. The markets for all these have their own
peculiar demands and the writers interact with the end product differently from
each other. In this series of articles I am going to concentrate on the movies,
but even within that area we have a whole range of differences. For a start
every movie is different because every production is pieced together
differently by a whole array of individuals often scattered about the world.
Further, there are many different movie industries and even if one is neither
Mexican, nor Indian nor Chinese one can still write Mexican Wrestling movies,
Bollywood Musicals or Chinese Sword Play movies if you happen to be in a
position to do so!
In 2007 I personally had a thirteen part TV series broadcast in
Singapore, a drama series about the lives and loves of Singapore's Civil
Defence Force. I'm a white Anglo-Saxon male who just happens have lived in Hong
Kong since 1991 and so have become involved in the Asian film and TV world. For
that matter though, I have a movie optioned in Hollywood that hopefully will be
made in 2008! But similarly I am one of the writers on an Indian movie that is
also in pre-production in Mumbai and I shall be there in February 2008
discussing some of the details. All these markets work very differently and
expect different things from the writer. It is the professional's job to
understand these differences, an aspect of the screenwriting career that has
become increasingly important as the market has globalised, and one that in the
future will be even more important.
Another thing the would be screenwriter needs to understand is
that the screenwriter is not a stripped down version of a novelist. Though
writing prose fiction nowadays demands similar methods of engagement with the
publishing industry that one employs for engaging with the film world, the
novelist's art is very much an individualistic thing whereas the screenwriter
is part of a creative collaboration with other highly creative individuals. The
director, the photographer, the actor, the composer, and even the production
designer right down to the make up artist and caterer, all have difficult
skills and aesthetic philosophies that need to be brought to bear upon the
production to ensure a satisfactory experience for the viewer. So it helps if
the screenwriter also has some knowledge of all these other skills, though I
often think that a strong head for business is the most important skill to have
alongside your writing abilities.
So if you want to write movies, get into the habit of thinking
that a movie is what you are writing and not just a script! To get a movie made
requires you to not only have a great idea that can be made, that is capable of
finding a market, but also a series of documents that will communicate the
viability of your concept to all the key personnel who have to be involved in
the process, not least of whom are the investors! So you need to write a pitch,
you need to write a treatment, you need to write a screenplay and somewhere
along the line someone will have to write a business plan and that person might
as well be you, because that way you become a producer.
This should enable you to avoid becoming the cliche'd screwed up
screenwriter who was not even invited to the premier. You might also try add
Director to your ambitions. The Writer/Director/Producer is the way to go, and
if you can't manage all that by yourself, then teaming up with partners who can
pool their ideas and talents covering this range of requirements is highly
recommended. Business partners screw each other up, fight among themselves, end
up in litigation and so on, but that is business. It happens. And some times it
all works and everyone is rich, happy and for the moment content with their
lot. It is guaranteed that you will not be happy at any point if you merely
think you can sit in your room, write a script and pop it into the post with
your fingers crossed. You need to engage as fully as you can with the industry.
In short, get your act together.
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