Watching Films for Research

I’ve always been someone who loves to watch films for research. I know there’s plenty of information out there and that I’m sure I could find everything I need to know via the internet and books, which I do use, but for me my research tends to come through films.

I love nothing more than to watch a bunch of films from the same genre when I start a new project. It’s not that my idea needs to be related in any real way, as often it’s not, it’s just the genre itself that I’m interested in.

I’m a big fan of conventions in films, especially horror movies. I like to fit a lot of the conventions into my script if I can find a natural way to do it and like seeing how others have. What I like seeing even more is where these conventions started.

Last time I wrote a slasher script I binge watched all the Friday 13th films and Nightmare on Elm Street, along with about 20 others. There was a line from Friday the 13th Part Four that I loved and somewhat adapted for myself but other than that what I really wanted to take from these movies was the general vibe.

I wanted to capture the attitude of these movies in my own way.

I wrote a Christmas horror script that I’m looking to get out there soon so beforehand I watched every Christmas horror film I could. I was mostly interested in the Christmasy way people died in the films and was slightly disappointed that there weren’t as many inventive deaths as I hoped. But there was beginnings, hints off, maybe the more modern Christmas films had them but there was enough there to inspire me.

That particular set of watching also led me to watch possibly the worse movie I’ve ever seen in my life. Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. What happened there? I need the disaster artist book for that film.

During my exploitation script I watched a ton of Russ Meyer, Jack Hill and Lloyd Kaufman stuff along with a bunch of Grindhouse movies. My script wasn’t really akin to any of these, I just wanted to be in that frame of mind when I was writing.

For me film is my language. I can never get through a conversation without a film quote, I always reference films in my script notes and workings. I haven’t written decapitated in a script note ever, I write decaffeinated every time thanks to Hot Fuzz. If I’m describing a shot to a friend I’ll use examples from as many different films as I can until I hit on one they know.

I’m not sure if it’s a good process or not to watch similar genre movies to your idea before starting a new script but I’ve never read my script back at the end and find it to be a clone of the others I’ve watched. I’m inspired by movies in every other area of my life so it makes sense to me that the same would work for my writing.

For the new script I’m working on I’m watching a bunch of Hitchcock films. This time round I’m watching them for the way he builds tension in the final act rather than the story (although I love these films so will enjoy that part anyway). There’s always something to get from watching films in relationship to your own work and I fully believe that.

Stephen

Stuck on a Scene

I think I’ve got better over the years at knowing when not to hang around on a scene that’s not working for too long in early drafts.

I plan a lot before I start a script. I’m not someone who takes a blank page and goes with it. I know exactly what I’m going to write. But no amount of notes and index cards can read the same as an actual script so there’s always scenes that just don’t work.

I like my scripts to be tight. For everything to work together and towards the same goal so if this happens I know it can throw the whole script off-balance. This used to mean I’d basically get stuck until I find a solution and would occasionally mean abandoning the script until the right idea hit me.

While this approach didn’t overly cost me time because I’d always be writing and working on something else, it has meant giant gaps between drafts and being stuck on weird page numbers.

What I’ve learnt now is that simply you can always come back to it. Just move on to the next scene and get to the end of the script. Writing is rewriting after all and that applies to scene and structure as much as dialogue and action.

There’s always a solution and sometimes it means having to change other scenes or sequences but that’s part of redrafting anyway. Is better to have the whole thing to work with than part of it otherwise you could have a problem with a yet unwritten scene that directly affects this one.

The script I’m currently working on I’ve tried 3 different ideas for a particular scene. A different one in each draft because every time I’ve reached that point I’ve known the scene didn’t work. Took me a while to work out that actually the scene before needed to change a little and the scene after.

I’ve now gone back to my original idea for that scene that never made the first draft. Funny how these things work. The scene needs tightening as it feels like a first draft scene not a third. But it flows with the rest of the script now and that’s the most important thing.

Gone are trying to make each draft perfect. Just doesn’t work like that for me. That’s why they’re drafts. I’ve found it more Important to just always be moving forward. Everything can be fixed and corrected and made better at different times. Doesn’t need to be all at once. As long as it comes together for the finished product what does it matter.

This realisation has stopped me hopping around scripts so much. Like I said, hasn’t made me write more or less. Just means I’m finishing things one at a time rather than having nothing for a while and then a few things at once which I think will definitely help in the future when I have actual deadlines instead of self-imposed ones.

Great thing about writing. Will always be learning and improving.

Stephen

Scripts on the go

It seems I’ve had a few older ideas whirling away in the back of my brain for a while now as solutions for the problems in these scripts are bursting out my head at every opportunity. If I was a cartoon I’d have little epiphany lightbulbs circling me as I walk.

What this has led to is what I sorta, maybe, kinda, possibly promised myself I wouldn’t do and that is work on several scripts at once, again.

The upside of this has always been zero writers block in any form as I just move onto the next thing, but writers block hasn’t ever really been a problem. The other upside is suddenly I’ll have loads of finished work at once again which works better for me this time as I already have completed work I’m sending out so it’s not like I’m waiting around to finish.

The downside is I don’t sleep and I won’t probably have anything finished for a while. That and it will bug me that I have three scripts on the go at once again.

Luckily I don’t think it affects the quality of my work as it’s always been the way I’ve written. It’s more the fact that I was trying to be a one script at a time person like I know I can be with paid work.

Think I just have to many ideas in my head that I want down on the page. Nothing wrong with that especially now I have more time to write, is more that I was hoping to finish another script this year but that feels unlikely with three on the go.

Flip side to that is I’ll have 3 new finished scripts in the first half of next year.

Think I just need to accept that this is how I write spec.

Stephen

 

Fusing Characters

During my notes for the fourth draft of a horror feature i’m writing I realised that one of the major problems of the final act was that some of the characters who had a role at the beginning of the film where lacking anything to really do at the end. They where simply falling off the page with no proper completion of their relevance or arcs.

This wasn’t always the case so maybe not the greatest oversight (albeit one I should have avoided) as there was development for everyone in the first few drafts but in the process of streamlining the script and getting it closer to its final state certain arcs had been cut. What remained where characters that where more functions then relevant by themselves.

In looking at what I needed both from the characters and the stories I began to realises that I could merge certain characters. Not something I’d ever done before. It obviously required a fair bit of tweaking still as they where different people but if anything it made the characters stronger. Combing certain qualities made the characters more complicated and opened up other ideas and scenarios that I hadn’t previously thought of. Suddenly little things in the script that had always bugged me had a solution due to the behaviour of these new merged characters.

I can’t really say it’s a way that I look to work, or would again, but for such a problem script It seems i’ve stumbled upon a solution due to other problems in different areas. Looking forward to the fourth draft everything seems to be falling into place with these changes and fires have been put out.

Never ceases to amaze me how scripts can fall apart and come together by single threads being pulled or woven.

Stephen

 

 

How long before the horror starts

So while reading back the first draft of my latest horror feature I noticed that there isn’t really any horror until 40 pages in. Normally I open with some horror and then build to the horror of the story, or I have little glimpses of it before it’s unleashed, but this story doesn’t really set up for that. It’s more a character drama with violences before the horror kicks in and the genre somewhat twists.

The question i’m asking myself, and by the extension of this blog everyone else is, is this acceptable? Should you have to wait 40 minutes for the horror to start in a horror film? And I don’t mean fully start, I mean for the signs it’s a horror story to begin. Like I said I normally at least tease the horror but that doesn’t really work with this idea. There isn’t a single scene i’d consider a horror scene until page 42.

Personally I think if I was watching a horror film and the story and characters got me I wouldn’t notice that the horror hasn’t kicked in. But i’d fully understand the other way of looking at it and saying this is a horror film, show me the horror.

Would I wait 40 minutes for the first piece of action in an action film?  Or for the first signs of disaster in a disaster film. Monster movies often withhold the monster but normally you at least get a teaser at the beginning.

That said I remember watching Haeundae (Tidal Wave) and loving the fact that the disaster didn’t start until nearly an hour and a half into the movie if memory serves correct. I cared so much about the character by then that it really mattered.

My script is still in a very early stage so it might change, but it’s definitely a different approach to what I normally take and one that wasn’t done on purpose. Simply didn’t occur to me when writing the first draft that it worked that way as I was to busy enjoying the set-up.

I wonder how many films I’ve watched and this has been the case and I simply haven’t noticed. Reckon with good story telling it could be a lot. I love horror and all the conventions that come with it but I always want to care about the characters that I see going through hell in these films and maybe at times a little more set up wouldn’t hurt.

So what do you think? Is 40 minutes to long for a horror film to have no horror. By that point does it feel like From Dusk to Dawn and that you’ve just switched genres? Or should it not matter if the story is working?

 

Stephen

Query Letters

Want to make it clear straight away that this isn’t a how to write query letters blog. I’m not an advisor of such things (or anything really). This is more my experience in trying to write a query letter for the first time in a while. (Too long).

So query letters from what I can tell are something that really is open to interpretation. The first thing I done when setting out to write this one was look online for tips on what to include and what not to include. How to write it, how formal it should be, how long it should be. All the usual. What I learnt was very simple. There’s no right way.

Not only is there no right way, but nearly every single bit of advice seemed to contradict what the last thing I read said. The only thing they all seemed to agree on was not opening it with ‘Hey dude’.

The basic structure from what I can tell is introduce yourself, pitch the idea and then finish with a lot bit of a bio. Three act structures all round. Made sense. This is the approach I took before with a little bit of success and this still seems to be the way. Outside of that format however you can pretty much approach it however you want and am sure you cab bend that format a fair bit anyway. (like all things, guidelines not absolutes).

My first draft felt a little to short. But then I couldn’t work out whether that was a good thing or not. I feel my log line is pretty tight and knowing the 50 version of the log line that have come before it I know how much work has gone into that. I added to the log line with a little more pitching but this didn’t feel as worked out. I finished with a little bit about my previous achievements and what I wanted from the producer.

The second draft I went for a longer approach. I tightened the beginning and the end but the middle is where I really expanded. I added another paragraph onto the pitch with a bit more detail and liked it at first. Once I read it back however it just seemed to be that I had expanded upon my log line using more words which went against my less is better style of script writing. It gave more info but didn’t necessarily add anything that my original log line hadn’t already said. I could have turned it more into a brief synopsis, and maybe that’s what i’ll do in the future, but didn’t feel right for this particular project.

I’m currently up to my third draft and have gone back to the first query letter and worked more on that than the second. Added a new sentence instead of a new paragraph. For me it’s all about getting that right balance between telling about myself and pitching the project. Part of me thinks its more the concept that matters but I’m more interested in people and tend to want to know more about them.  I’m sure I will know when the letter is right or at least when its at a point where I feel comfortable sending it off.

The one bit of advise I did read that I haven’t read before and contradicts what I done last time was to not send them all out at once. That while I should approach as many people that I genuine want to work with as possible, I should limit the amount of query letters sent out in any one go so I can gage the reaction. This way if I don’t get any replies it might be the letter rather than my concept and I can adjust the query letter for the next batch. Thinking about it it makes perfect sense and means I can start sending out earlier while I still research who I want to approach.

Anyway hopefully all will be ready soon and I can start getting myself out there a lot more. I have the work, now just need to really start paying a lot more attention to getting people to read it. That said, I’ll still be writing every day. Have to.

 

Stephen

Latest Draft of Horror Script

I’ve got a script that i’ve been working on for a little while now. One where I love the concept but have struggled at times to tell the story. Have had to many characters or have changed the characters to much. Have had to many locations or to few. Have introduced many many subplots to try and correct things. Basically, it’s been hard. I’ve written two other scripts in the time its taken me to get to a third draft on this one.

But I really do love the concept. I think it’s killer.

But I’ve had problem with tone due to the concept, then theres the fact that the main scene that came from the concept has held the story back, and also the concept makes it difficult to have likeable characters.

But man do I love the concept.

Then theres the third act. Three drafts in and still feels a bit messy. Maybe there’s to many characters in the third act, although i’ve already cut that down, or to many locations, but I’ve dropped some of them as well. The tone changes, but that’s a big part of the concept.

And I really really do like that concept.

Well guess it’s time once again to think about the different ways in which I can make this story work. It feels like it’s getting better and the first two thirds feel like they’re really working for the first time. Although they feel a little long but I have no problems cutting down scenes or deleting them, thats all part of redrafts. But that third act really needs to be a lot more concise because it’s distracting the whole concept.

And i’m not given up on that concept. To stubborn.

One day hopefully you’ll all see this story thats causing me so much pain… Because no way am I giving up on it 😉

Stephen