ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

11 years, 7 months ago - Vasco de Sousa

1) a great idea is what gets you motivated to tell a great story. Ghostbusters sounds lame at first, four unemployed guys chase ghosts and get in trouble with city planning, and anyone other than Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis might have messed it up. It became what is was because the people working on it were fired up, from the first treatment onward.

2) Not everyone will like your film. Name one movie that everyone you know likes? Saying they like war dramas don't count (because people don't want to sound unpatriotic), they've got to actually want to watch the film. So, make sure you target it toward producers, agents, etc who have the right taste.

3) WGA registration is worthless, go with library of congress. WGA only lasts five years, believe me, that's nothing.

4) writing is rewriting. A lot of great ideas make terrible movies (Goya's Ghosts, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Down Out and Dangerous, Life Sucks, etc) because they are unfinished. The script will involve work.

5) Be ready for rejection. All the greats are rejected.

Best of luck, and have fun.

11 years, 7 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Oops 'you're' not 'your' - apologies, phone keyboard!

11 years, 7 months ago - Marlom Tander

Most great ideas simply aren't, or are, but don't fit the form. It's when you start writing it that you'll find if it really fits the feature format.

I have a project that I thought was brilliant. And it is, but once I started writing I realised that it worked best at about 4-5 hours, and really not at all at 90-120mins. So it's parked until my networking brings me in touch with someone whose job is to commission TV mini-series:-)

And the other, for your sanity, is to write because you enjoy the form and can visualise it. View it as a bonus anyone actually making it :-)

11 years, 7 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

First thing would be to get it spell checked and make sure the formatting is correct. Next will be rewriting it until it is as good as it can be. Next, register it with WGA and ask people to read it. If it's brilliant, someone may take it up, but more likely it'll require rework and refinement, it's a slow and iterative process.

Something truly original could go one of two ways though, it may win many awards and change the industry or it may get overlooked for not fitting. The latter is the more likely, just so your aware. Something like 10,000 scripts a year get passed over, some of them will be truly original - it's no guarantee of success.