What is Your Story? Part Three

To complete the screenplay scenarios to avoid:

2)  If you have a minimal dialogue, action heavy script--
Most of the things you thought of to put in your script, like cool locations and tight dialogue, mean nothing unless you have unlimited access to those very specific props, places, and characters.  At this level, many times you will not know what your location looks like until you get there.

And without a doubt you'll need to be able to come back six months later to your one of your main locations in order to shoot those two connecting shots you didn't think of and need to include for your edit to make sense.  Can you be sure of that for all locations and characters in your script?

Maybe, maybe you could get away with your action script if you can visit and shoot a picture of every location you need for the entire story within the next three days.  If you can't get access to every place you need just to shoot a photograph, you are setting up downstream problems for yourself. And remember action stories require lots and lots of shots.  Which take time and money--two things you don't have any of to spare.

3) Most importantly, don't sit down and write a screenplay.  Why?  No one is going to read it or care about it if they do, and it's a lot of work.  Don't bother writing scenes you will never shoot.  You don't get paid until your project is sold.  Can you afford six weeks to six months mulling over nouns and verbs?

A screenplay is a communication of visuals and performed words translated into written form which is then translated back into images during pre-production.  All I'm suggesting is skip the translation into words step.  You're still not off the hook for story development, even if you are not writing a formal screenplay.

You should already be thinking in terms of how to visualize your story.  Start making an image catalog of locations you would like to use and could get access to.  What sort of story begins to emerge from those images?

On Holiday, since I was directing and shooting not having a screenplay was not a disadvantage.  The only people I had to communicate with was the actors and they only needed to know who they needed to be in that moment.  We did write out dialogue for all the scenes where characters speak, but none of it was written until the part was cast and we knew what we were dealing with on camera.

So don't start with a script.  If you have one already, if it's that good, you can sell it for good money once you make your $4k movie and get noticed.  Otherwise, to make a $4k movie:

Start with an outline.  Preferably, images.