Writing to shoot

Below is a revision to a post I made a couple of years ago. It was part of a series of posts I had written collectively called, The VertiBlog Film School. VertiBlog was, you see, the name of my old blog. I had subsequently taken all of these posts and turned them into a manuscript that I still one day hope to publish. You know... like in a book.

Click here to check out the original series of posts.

THE SCRIPT

Writing to shoot requires a certain pragmatism toward your script. Don't write in stunts. Don't cast children. No animals. No pyrotechnics. No car chases. Don't have dozens of extras. Don't have 12 principal speaking roles. Don't write long passages of dialogue that amateur actors will mess up take after take. Don't have a dozen key locations that are miles and miles apart from each other. Don't write 'walk and talks', which are a nightmare with continuity and retakes... for long dialogue scenes, keep people stationary. Keep it contemporary, set it today, not in 1970 or 1885.

What to do: Keep it simple: a small cast of characters. Few locations. Try to write a lot of scenes to take place outdoors. Outdoors, you don't have to light -- huge timesaver. However, outdoors you have to battle the sounds of the outdoors, so keep it far from the street, and not next to a construction site.

Also, you should take advantage of locations. You know somewhere cool. That old derelict train trestle back behind your uncle's property, overgrown and rusted, but an incredibly interesting looking structure. Or the cool empty silo that your friend's cousin knows about.

That place by the river.

The movie theater where your buddy works.

Rack your memory, and ask your friends and family if they know any unique, super cool locations. I guarantee you they will. And exploit them. Let them inspire you.

The scene you were going to shoot in your mom's kitchen is going to be a hell of a lot more interesting at the old abandoned amusement park way up near Mount Tom.

I'm worked on a feature, DEAD DUDES, written and directed by my friend, Karl. Karl decided he wanted to make a zombie film. He loves zombies. The budget is probably around $750.

Karl wrote his script with the intent to shoot it. He wrote it with few characters, few locations, and cleverly had the whole film take place in a day (certainly helped with wardrobe and makeup continuity). That was all smart.

He did another smart thing. All of his characters, with only one exception, are between 19-25 years old. Why was that smart? Because he was able to hire students. The other role? He wrote it with his college professor in mind.

Then Karl did yet another smart thing. He decided he wanted to write about something.

The script's plot is about a couple of guys trying to avoid zombies while they're trying to avoid the mob. Simple. And if that was all that the movie was about, it could very easily fail; let's be honest, for $750 you're not gonna have much in the way of zombie action +/or that many cool mob shootouts.

Karl's idea was to use the zombie story to look at the values we hold dear in society today. What's important to us? And if faced with a zombie onslaught, would it still be important? Would we try to protect only ourselves, or would we choose to help others. Are a bunch of mindless zombies only interested in eating your brains that much different from a bunch of people only interested in saving themselves?

These are pretty good ideas. And they will separate his zombie movie from the countless other zombie movies out there that are about, well... zombies.

© 2008 by Marty Langford