Things I have learnt :
- Woody Allen once said that when writing a script, make sure to give all your characters short, simple names because you don't want to be typing Dr. Von Frakkenstein or Valror the Oppressor over and over again (not the examples he used).
With the invention of scriptwriting programs like the excellent (and free) Celtx, this is no longer a problem, they fill in the name as soon as you start typing. Feel free to call your characters Eduardo Estaban Sanchez Sanchez Hernadez the 3rd. Just make sure you don't give another character a name beginning with 'E' because the software will bring up all possible character names beginning with that letter as viable options.
So if you're like me and you've named prominent characters: Maxine, Malaki, Micky, Malaki's Father, Man 1, Man 2 and Maureen, you end up with a speedtype selection of names that goes off the bottom of the screen. Variety is what's needed. Just a little tip there.
- Never write alone. Yes write alone, by all means but as soon as you've finished writing a significant part get someone to check it. Unless you are indeed David Mamet then I suggest that you have someone to give your script to as it progresses so that can pick out the flaws as it goes. Hey maybe even David Mamet has someone he goes to that can point out some awful dialogue or a situation that is just a little bit to...well... as if it was in a movie.
You may find it harder to go back and change a script once it's finished and have to completely redo the thing structurally - if you modify it on the fly you become more adaptable.
Put off writing. Writing isn't just about putting the words down. Read all you can about your chosen subject and immerse yourself in the world of your story before you approach a blank page. This isn't procrastination. There's nothing more daunting than a blank page unless your head is brimming over with ideas, then the page doesn't look so blank after all.
Give yourself limitations. 6 people in a room. That's the old classic set up. Infinite variables are contained within that statement. Cube, Reservoir Dogs, 12 angry men (12 men in two rooms). The limits I've imposed on myself for 'Jerusalem' are ones of Reality (I tend towards the more fantastical by default), Genre (stick to a formula and maneuverer within it), 90 pages (I really want to make a tight movie).
What's in a title?
My script started out as 'Park Hill Has Eyes' for reasons explained in earlier posts. It does exactly what it says on the tin - obviously it had to change. It then became 'Steel City' a name given to Sheffield because of it's industrial background in making cutlery. Although inspired by Sheffield, I didn't want the place in the script to be associated with anywhere in particular so that had to go aswell.
But what to call the script? Is it important to name a script so early? You eventually have to get the title just right, it's one of the most important aspects of the film. It gives the audience an inkling of what's in store, or can be effectively be used to misguide them as with 'Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe' (it's not the tomatoes you should be paying attention to, they are in fact a green herring).
As my script took form certain elements lead me to call the place where it's set 'Albion' as it became a kind of mirror to the rest of England. Briefly that's what it was called, but if I rented a movie called 'Albion' and there where no sword fights I'd be disappointed - so it changed to Jerusalem to invoke that jingoistic hymn (rather than the original poem) by William Blake. That fit the script perfectly and fed more ideas in to the screenplay itself. Great.
If I went to see a film at the cinema called 'Jerusalem' and it didn't have sword fights in it, I'd be very dissapointed.
Jerusalem survived quite a while as the title but had to go, I'm not a big fan of one word titles and I wanted to have a memorable name for my movie like 'Evil Dead' or 'Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia' or 'Last House On The Left'. Something that people would copy.
The Hills have Eyes, Night of the Living dead, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. I like the roll those titles have. I like that '70's vibe.
'Bad Day On Jerusalem Hill' is what the script is called at the moment - it aludes to 'THHE', keeps the important Jerusalem part and completely understates the events within as 'a bad day'. Hell yeah it's a bad day, someone has a high pressure hose jammed in to their lungs.
Also it has a bit of beckoning mystery. Just what constututes a bad day? What is Jerusalem Hill?
For the moment I'm happy with this title, but I'm quite prepared for it to be changed by the time it gets released (I'll always refer to the film as if it will get made, no point reiterating "maybe's" and "perhaps'") in to something a bit more palateable like 'Defiance' (what a bad title) or 'Chav! The Movie'.
Saturday 31 January 2009
Friday 23 January 2009
RAMifications
Damn, missed the delivery guy who was bringing me 4gig of RAM...I could have written 200 times faster with that installed.
Things of note:
KCRW's The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell:
The best podcast there is (now that 1up Yours is dead). Intelligent interviews with a variety of film makers. 20mins of great chat with high profile directors, writers and actors. Make sure you catch Simon Pegg's dissertation on the
Ewok's guerrilla warfare. Download them quick because once they're gone their gone for good.
STRUCTURE:
When you start out writing you never want to play by the rules, but goddammit those rules really work.
the pen is mightier than the spork:
Screenwriter James Moran's blog. Amusing and insightful. He knows what he's talking about having written Dr.Who, Spooks, Severance (which is great) amongst many other things.
Mondo Movies podcast:
Ben and Dan give their almost expert opinions on the latest psycotronic movies and slip in a few golden oldies in there aswell. Great forum too.
Concerning Jerusalem:
I think I've cracked it by Jove. The answer to my writer's block was within the script all along, all the pieces were there I just needed to bring them together and get them chatting. Then run them over with a car.
Things of note:
KCRW's The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell:
The best podcast there is (now that 1up Yours is dead). Intelligent interviews with a variety of film makers. 20mins of great chat with high profile directors, writers and actors. Make sure you catch Simon Pegg's dissertation on the
Ewok's guerrilla warfare. Download them quick because once they're gone their gone for good.
STRUCTURE:
When you start out writing you never want to play by the rules, but goddammit those rules really work.
the pen is mightier than the spork:
Screenwriter James Moran's blog. Amusing and insightful. He knows what he's talking about having written Dr.Who, Spooks, Severance (which is great) amongst many other things.
Mondo Movies podcast:
Ben and Dan give their almost expert opinions on the latest psycotronic movies and slip in a few golden oldies in there aswell. Great forum too.
Concerning Jerusalem:
I think I've cracked it by Jove. The answer to my writer's block was within the script all along, all the pieces were there I just needed to bring them together and get them chatting. Then run them over with a car.
Wednesday 21 January 2009
They RUN!
Obviously the only way to learn to write a script is to read them. Just watching films isn't enough. Going through Scriptcrawler and looking at the early drafts of films is a great way to get a feel for things. It surprised me just how well written a lot of those generic Hollywood scripts are. I'm talking about films like Wild Wild West, Alien Resurrection and the like. Sure the eventual film might be garbage and this is inherited from the script, but the actual depiction of the scene on page is incredibly well done. Very precise. There's a lot to be learned from this kind of script. It still baffles me how you can fit so much in to just ninety minutes/ pages. Charlie's Angel's (the McG version) just whips through so much action it feels like it should be a mini series. On the other hand virtually nothing happens in Deliverance until half way through, then not a lot happens after that - and it's totally gripping. I'm trying hard to reign my script in to that magic page count, but can always see where more can be added to make a better film, it's just that there's no room for it.
As ever there's a temptation to veer towards cliche and stock characters - resist..RESIST!
Joss Wheadon ( a man whose talent I could never conceive of approaching) writes his scripts so visually that it's almost useless to hire a director.
The Script for 2001: A Space Odyssey however is virtually unreadable. The only reason I could picture it was because I was familiar with Clarke's (far superior) novel and Kubrick's polarizing movie.
Why didn't they just start with a storyboard?
Do we even need scripts?
How many variations do I have to come up with for:
The MOB apraoches LAQEESHA and SARAH.
Sarah clasps the younger girl's arm.
They RUN -
In my mind's cinema screen all scenes where a character RUNS look great, but how do you write that?
I've checked many scripts, watched interviews with writers, read screenwriters hints and tips...guess what they all say you should do? Write
They RUN
As ever there's a temptation to veer towards cliche and stock characters - resist..RESIST!
Joss Wheadon ( a man whose talent I could never conceive of approaching) writes his scripts so visually that it's almost useless to hire a director.
The Script for 2001: A Space Odyssey however is virtually unreadable. The only reason I could picture it was because I was familiar with Clarke's (far superior) novel and Kubrick's polarizing movie.
Why didn't they just start with a storyboard?
Do we even need scripts?
How many variations do I have to come up with for:
The MOB apraoches LAQEESHA and SARAH.
Sarah clasps the younger girl's arm.
SARAH
We have to leave now!
We have to leave now!
They RUN -
In my mind's cinema screen all scenes where a character RUNS look great, but how do you write that?
I've checked many scripts, watched interviews with writers, read screenwriters hints and tips...guess what they all say you should do? Write
They RUN
Monday 19 January 2009
inspirado
There's still one scene that just doesn't work and I can't think of anything to either fix it or replace it with.
I tried a variation of the famous Texas Chainsaw 'dinner' scene but with the blood going in instead of out - but it just seemed to obvious. Then I changed it to a Boogie Nights style drug deal scenario...and that was so much worse. Oh so much worse.
At the moment it's reverted back to a stripped down version of TCM again.
It's the only real sticking point in the script and is no coincidence that it kinda has to be a dialogue scene. Talk is hard to come up with...Maybe that's what I've got to do then: make the entire scene silent.... oh hang on...I'm on to something here... see you in a bit when I've finished the scene.
I tried a variation of the famous Texas Chainsaw 'dinner' scene but with the blood going in instead of out - but it just seemed to obvious. Then I changed it to a Boogie Nights style drug deal scenario...and that was so much worse. Oh so much worse.
At the moment it's reverted back to a stripped down version of TCM again.
It's the only real sticking point in the script and is no coincidence that it kinda has to be a dialogue scene. Talk is hard to come up with...Maybe that's what I've got to do then: make the entire scene silent.... oh hang on...I'm on to something here... see you in a bit when I've finished the scene.
Sunday 18 January 2009
My mouse is a scythe
Chop chop chop everything out.
Some of these characters don't half go on.
The key to writing a good script it would seem is to be able to unwrite stuff. Just hack away at useless exposition without loosing the essence but avoiding a swift cliche.
I've also isolated an entirely useless character. I'm not even sure what they were doing in there to start with to be honest.
Unless I can find a reason for MAXINE being in there she's for the chop, or rather she'll be swallowed up by the other characters. Absorbed like a weaker twin in the womb, they'll share her story DNA and become stronger characters. Or better still, a form of narrative Wendingo, the remaining protagonists will cannibalise her best lines and become richer for it.
She has a stay of execution for the moment however, but her chances are looking slim.
Some of these characters don't half go on.
The key to writing a good script it would seem is to be able to unwrite stuff. Just hack away at useless exposition without loosing the essence but avoiding a swift cliche.
I've also isolated an entirely useless character. I'm not even sure what they were doing in there to start with to be honest.
Unless I can find a reason for MAXINE being in there she's for the chop, or rather she'll be swallowed up by the other characters. Absorbed like a weaker twin in the womb, they'll share her story DNA and become stronger characters. Or better still, a form of narrative Wendingo, the remaining protagonists will cannibalise her best lines and become richer for it.
She has a stay of execution for the moment however, but her chances are looking slim.
Saturday 17 January 2009
dire logue
I read through the script in printed form for the first time. It's always good to actually see this thing you've been working on for six months in a format that is recognisably a script.
The structure works, it's pacy, there are some good characters and some great 'WTF?' moments. But one thing's for sure: I can't write dialogue. As a close friend pointed out, a lot of the time the characters are merely pointing out something we already know or are needlessly narrating the action.
A classic mistake.
So now I'm going sift through and remove all the 'Come on!' - 'Let's go!' - and the 'Hey it's that kid.' (yes we know it's that kid, we can see).
The old dictum of 'show don't tell' is an important one. A 'Follow me we need to get out of here!' is no substitute for a good 'Sarah yanks the girls arm, dragging her along behind as they FLEE'
Not that there's a lot of dialogue in this script anyway, which it would seem is a good thing as apparently dialogue heavy scripts and indeed the subsequent films are harder to sell to foreign markets. All that translating and subtitling takes a lot of money that most are unwilling to pay. A small independant genre film can recoup it's costs through foreign sales alone (here's looking at you Hush.)
A bit cynical perhaps? Well if my script 'Bad Day On Jerusalem Hill' was meant to be anything but an entertainment I would say so. But I want this to be a lean mean thriller with no time to hang around and chat and I want to make sure this reaches as many people as possible.
There are moments when the characters do have a fair bit to speak and these don't quite work just yet. I'm reluctant to make them sound 'preachy' but they are discussing the actual issues of the story and to sell that element short makes the characters seem stupid. It's a balancing act between making a point and making a character.
It's an iterative process I guess, and the script can only get better with rewrites.
I could just have someone walk in to the room with a gun to spice things up.
Thanks for the tip Joe Eszterhas.
The structure works, it's pacy, there are some good characters and some great 'WTF?' moments. But one thing's for sure: I can't write dialogue. As a close friend pointed out, a lot of the time the characters are merely pointing out something we already know or are needlessly narrating the action.
A classic mistake.
So now I'm going sift through and remove all the 'Come on!' - 'Let's go!' - and the 'Hey it's that kid.' (yes we know it's that kid, we can see).
The old dictum of 'show don't tell' is an important one. A 'Follow me we need to get out of here!' is no substitute for a good 'Sarah yanks the girls arm, dragging her along behind as they FLEE'
Not that there's a lot of dialogue in this script anyway, which it would seem is a good thing as apparently dialogue heavy scripts and indeed the subsequent films are harder to sell to foreign markets. All that translating and subtitling takes a lot of money that most are unwilling to pay. A small independant genre film can recoup it's costs through foreign sales alone (here's looking at you Hush.)
A bit cynical perhaps? Well if my script 'Bad Day On Jerusalem Hill' was meant to be anything but an entertainment I would say so. But I want this to be a lean mean thriller with no time to hang around and chat and I want to make sure this reaches as many people as possible.
There are moments when the characters do have a fair bit to speak and these don't quite work just yet. I'm reluctant to make them sound 'preachy' but they are discussing the actual issues of the story and to sell that element short makes the characters seem stupid. It's a balancing act between making a point and making a character.
It's an iterative process I guess, and the script can only get better with rewrites.
I could just have someone walk in to the room with a gun to spice things up.
Thanks for the tip Joe Eszterhas.
Friday 16 January 2009
Evenin' All.
Hopefully this will be a blog detailing the journey of a script from computer screen to silver screen (or a least straight to Daily Mail dvd free give-away).
Or indeed absolutely nowhere at all.
The name's Paul Huxley, hence the Depraved New World, I've been writing little bits of script here and there, short stories and intermittently make music videos and visuals and all kinds of audio visual nonsense more of which you can find here:
medlo.net
But let's not stray from the subject in hand.
I've wanted to make movies since a documentary called ' Good taste made Bad Taste' chronicling the production of Peter Jackson's ultra-low budget home made action/horror spectacular 'Bad Taste' was screened along side the film in question, many years ago on BBC 2.
If he can make a movie that good (and it is an amazing feat) on such a small budget, surely anyone can, right?
Well clearly not. It's hard even writing a script. That's the one thing you hear from all sceenwriters, good and bad - writing movies is difficult. A chore even. But it has to be done.
So here we are ten years later and I've just finished the first draft of my feature length script entitled for now: Bad Day On Jerusalem Hill.
I say first draft, it's gone through so many changes it feels like version twenty already and even when I get round to giving it to someone else to read, it will have changed even more - and I'll call that one the first draft too.
So, what's it about?
A group of people, in this case Compulsory Unpaid Workers (community service to you and I), come to clean the graffiti from a much overlooked block of flats called Jerusalem Hill. Initial reaction to these 'intruders' is not that welcoming but tolerant. Things go wrong when one of the residents is killed, almost accidentally, by one of the cleaners. This sparks of a series of reprisals from the dwellers of this superbly rundown estate and our bunch of heroes are hunted down through the angular concrete labyrinth.
That's it in it's most basic form. Yes it's Southern Comfort or even Deliverance but in an urban environment.
So why make something so obvious?
Many reasons and I'll try and explain a few:
1. It's easy.
Well that's what I thought when I started.
I'd been juggling with an ambitious hard sci-fi idea for a few years and found the actual writing of it a task I wasn't up to at that moment in time. It was just too 'out there' and convoluted and gimmicky and rapidly becoming the most expensive film ever concieved.Basically it had a form of time travel in it which is never easy to pull off. Considering that I'd planned it to be set in just one room, things got out of hand.
So I decided to make a traditional genre picture, something modern and straight forward with a formula that was easy to follow.
I'd never seen a 'Hills have eyes' style movie set in an urban environment before and living in Sheffield, England, I had a perfect location right infront of me. An isolated(ish) huge block of flats called Park Hill. So I opted for that survival horror hick sub-genre and 'Park Hill has Eyes' was born.
Obviously this was quite a naive thing to assume. Writing anything is difficult. If you want to make it good, then it's harder still.
2. It's Commercial
No way I'm going to sell my crazy M. Night Shyamalanesque tale of time traveling ghosts (ahem). Just not going to happen.
Some thing like 'Park Hill has Eyes' is an easier pitch and seeing as I'm going to actually want to make a film at some point in my life I felt it wise to go with an idea that people can sell.
Car chase? check
Boobs? check
Violence? check
A funny bit with a dog? check.
Here's your money Mr. Huxley.
3. I actually like those kinds of film.
I'm a big fan of ponderously slow movies scored by a single sustained note where the heroine must overcome her fear of the memory of her father in order to fully commit to her new husband.
I also like a massive horde of people relentlessly hunt down our fleeing hero through the night in order to murder him. So modern version of Southern Comfort in an urban setting? I'm in.
So there we go. The first entry of this blog. With any luck I'll keep it going on a weekly if not daily basis. I'll try and cover all subjects pertaining to script writing and then production (if we get that far) in this blog, and share with you my thoughts on the process and also what I've learned from my incalculably huge number of mistakes. Wouldn't it be great if if in a couple of years time that I could include a link on the DVD of 'Bad Day On Jerusalem Hill' to this blog. Here's hoping.
See you next time.
Long live the new flesh.
Hux.
Hopefully this will be a blog detailing the journey of a script from computer screen to silver screen (or a least straight to Daily Mail dvd free give-away).
Or indeed absolutely nowhere at all.
The name's Paul Huxley, hence the Depraved New World, I've been writing little bits of script here and there, short stories and intermittently make music videos and visuals and all kinds of audio visual nonsense more of which you can find here:
medlo.net
But let's not stray from the subject in hand.
I've wanted to make movies since a documentary called ' Good taste made Bad Taste' chronicling the production of Peter Jackson's ultra-low budget home made action/horror spectacular 'Bad Taste' was screened along side the film in question, many years ago on BBC 2.
If he can make a movie that good (and it is an amazing feat) on such a small budget, surely anyone can, right?
Well clearly not. It's hard even writing a script. That's the one thing you hear from all sceenwriters, good and bad - writing movies is difficult. A chore even. But it has to be done.
So here we are ten years later and I've just finished the first draft of my feature length script entitled for now: Bad Day On Jerusalem Hill.
I say first draft, it's gone through so many changes it feels like version twenty already and even when I get round to giving it to someone else to read, it will have changed even more - and I'll call that one the first draft too.
So, what's it about?
A group of people, in this case Compulsory Unpaid Workers (community service to you and I), come to clean the graffiti from a much overlooked block of flats called Jerusalem Hill. Initial reaction to these 'intruders' is not that welcoming but tolerant. Things go wrong when one of the residents is killed, almost accidentally, by one of the cleaners. This sparks of a series of reprisals from the dwellers of this superbly rundown estate and our bunch of heroes are hunted down through the angular concrete labyrinth.
That's it in it's most basic form. Yes it's Southern Comfort or even Deliverance but in an urban environment.
So why make something so obvious?
Many reasons and I'll try and explain a few:
1. It's easy.
Well that's what I thought when I started.
I'd been juggling with an ambitious hard sci-fi idea for a few years and found the actual writing of it a task I wasn't up to at that moment in time. It was just too 'out there' and convoluted and gimmicky and rapidly becoming the most expensive film ever concieved.Basically it had a form of time travel in it which is never easy to pull off. Considering that I'd planned it to be set in just one room, things got out of hand.
So I decided to make a traditional genre picture, something modern and straight forward with a formula that was easy to follow.
I'd never seen a 'Hills have eyes' style movie set in an urban environment before and living in Sheffield, England, I had a perfect location right infront of me. An isolated(ish) huge block of flats called Park Hill. So I opted for that survival horror hick sub-genre and 'Park Hill has Eyes' was born.
Obviously this was quite a naive thing to assume. Writing anything is difficult. If you want to make it good, then it's harder still.
2. It's Commercial
No way I'm going to sell my crazy M. Night Shyamalanesque tale of time traveling ghosts (ahem). Just not going to happen.
Some thing like 'Park Hill has Eyes' is an easier pitch and seeing as I'm going to actually want to make a film at some point in my life I felt it wise to go with an idea that people can sell.
Car chase? check
Boobs? check
Violence? check
A funny bit with a dog? check.
Here's your money Mr. Huxley.
3. I actually like those kinds of film.
I'm a big fan of ponderously slow movies scored by a single sustained note where the heroine must overcome her fear of the memory of her father in order to fully commit to her new husband.
I also like a massive horde of people relentlessly hunt down our fleeing hero through the night in order to murder him. So modern version of Southern Comfort in an urban setting? I'm in.
So there we go. The first entry of this blog. With any luck I'll keep it going on a weekly if not daily basis. I'll try and cover all subjects pertaining to script writing and then production (if we get that far) in this blog, and share with you my thoughts on the process and also what I've learned from my incalculably huge number of mistakes. Wouldn't it be great if if in a couple of years time that I could include a link on the DVD of 'Bad Day On Jerusalem Hill' to this blog. Here's hoping.
See you next time.
Long live the new flesh.
Hux.
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