looking for a possible script writing partner, (no time wasters)

jaymes420

im a huge movie buff, who has recently done a course in fiction, non fiction and script writing. the latter being what im most interested in, ive always been interested in writing a movie script, preferably a horror movie. i don't have a lot of experience, but i do have a lot of passion for the creative process of writing a movie and ive always been a creative person, and im trying to find somebody else who's passionate about horror movies and the writing process, and like myself, has aspirations to write a movie.

i know a good deal about story structure, character development and plot outline's, but i feel a little lost and uncertain when it comes to dialog. im also a bit of a procrastinator so id work better with somebody else. im not looking to start writing right this second, but id love to meet people with the same interests to see if anything does come of it. anyway if theirs anybody who's serious about talking to me about this, id love to hear from you!, you can get back to me here, or email me at email redacted , thanks

pickarooney

Hi Jaymes, I've had to remove your email address as per site policy (mostly to avoid you being inundated with mail from spambots). Best to give you email address by PM to anyone who requests it on-thread.

jaymes420

no problem!, my apologies, i didnt know there was rules against posting email addresses! but it makes sense! thanks for letting me know!

Gorn

Hi jaymes, I googled "script-writing partner" and your thread hit the top ten! I've logged onto the site but can't PM until I've made 25 posts. But feel free to message me. I'm in much the same position - been to classes, want to do script-writing, enjoyed the concepts and structures but have trouble converting it into dialogue and scenes - and yes I mostly blame my procrastination!

I'm sure it'd be easier working with someone else - if only to maintain motivation and work levels.

No worries.

indough

can i just ask what kind of movie you would be aiming to write? i mean obviously the aim would be originality, but what would you consider as your influences or the kind of tone of film you would find similar to your own ideas?

Gorn

If you're asking me, then I guess it's not so much the details of what sort of film that excite me. I'd be as enthusiastic for a film like The Fast and The Furious (takes the conventional structures/characters of an action movie and hits them pitch perfect) as I would for Memento (takes the conventional structures of a crime thriller and tests them to the very limits).

The non-starter comparisons would be Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift (burble burble) and Hard Eight (lazy and inconsistent).

I love anything, as long as it's tight to the structures (I mean it knows where they are, whether it follows them rigidly, or messes them about completely) and the writing isn't gibberish.

It's the can't be bothered random crap I hate. I've tried watching Transformers 2 about 10 times now, because I feel I should... but seriously. "Oh we need a funny bit, so the robot trashes the house for no reason. Oh, we need a sexy bit, so some girl gets in the car for no reason. Oh we need a fight, some sinister robot attacks a good robot for no reason. Oh, we need an explosion, so let's have a plane drop a bomb for no reason. I have to stop, I'm about to break something!

So Under Seige yes, Under Seige 2 no. Independence Day yes. Pearl Harbour not really. Dark Knight yes (oh god yes), Daredevil nooooooooooo. Anyone for Shane Meadows? So Dead Man's Shoes I love, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands not so much.

For me, I gues my favourite recent example would be Let the Right One In - which took all the conventions of a vampire movie and literally ticked them off one by one, but in a wilfully alternative way. So the traditional (and required, if we're being honest) sex scene becomes a 12 year old boy stealing his first glimpse of a naked girl. The end-of-film battle has the vampire saving the boy from the mob of torch-burners. Uber.

It's less the type of film, than how they do it.

Is that an ok answer? Reading back it seems like there's too many big-budget films referenced. But I guess that's the bottom line - If I was going to write a script, I'd be aiming for one that was going to sell. After the first one sells, THEN get arty!

golden lane

jaymes420 wrote: »

im a huge movie buff, who has recently done a course in fiction, non fiction and script writing. the latter being what im most interested in, ive always been interested in writing a movie script, preferably a horror movie. i don't have a lot of experience, but i do have a lot of passion for the creative process of writing a movie and ive always been a creative person, and im trying to find somebody else who's passionate about horror movies and the writing process, and like myself, has aspirations to write a movie.

i know a good deal about story structure, character development and plot outline's, but i feel a little lost and uncertain when it comes to dialog. im also a bit of a procrastinator so id work better with somebody else. im not looking to start writing right this second, but id love to meet people with the same interests to see if anything does come of it. anyway if theirs anybody who's serious about talking to me about this, id love to hear from you!, you can get back to me here, or email me at email redacted , thanks

just to wish you the best of luck.....don't give up easily.........

indough

i was actually asking the OP but it's always good to get other peoples ideas too. i am also interested in multiple genres and especially like the thought of mixing them up a bit. however, i would be of the opinion that you start off with the artier stuff then proceed to sell out :P i mean its pretty much a given you are going to have to make your first movie yourself, and with a small budget being a bit arty with it is about the only thing you will have going for you, as well as a good story of course. i'm pretty sure that the chances of selling a big or even medium budget script as an unknown entity (ie with no contacts in the business) are infinitesimal, unfortunately

ps i liked tokyo drift much better than the original fast and the furious (they are guilty pleasures). it knows that it's stupid and rolls with it. the first one is a blatant rip off of point break though! enjoyable enough stuff all the same

Gorn

So true about Point Break. But Vin Deisel uses at least 4 more facial expressions than Keaneu!

Lol about selling out - in my first creative writing class we had to say who we most wanted to emulate. People were saying all sorts of things, Dostoyevsky (sp?), Iain Banks, one girl said Daphne du Maurier and made me half-fall in love with her (I didn't say so).

I said J.K. Rowling. People literally sneered. I've only read the first Harry Potter, it was god-awful... but my point was that if she wants to, she can now spend the rest of her life writing a single, perfect haiku.

Sell out first, then you can afford to get arty. Or, what my real dream would be, do a 'good' blockbuster.

jaymes420

hey guys,

thanks for the replies, and actually i agree with everything that's been said, my own personal influences have been writers like Harmony Koreine, who's written movies such as Kids, Bully, and Ken Park, with directer Larry Clark. Movies which went over the heads of a lot of mainstream viewers, but has attracted fans like myself who love the raw reality based real life situations that make others cringe.

my opinions are right on Par when it comes to movies like Transformers, that movie annoyed me for the same reasons, too much pointlessness, the romance factor didnt belong, and did nothing to push the story forward in any way. merely added to fill paper and scenes. ive been drawn a lot more to independent movies that stray from the normal watered down 3 act structure. and are very predictable. of course these kind of movies sell quicker and better merely because average viewers enjoy being spoon fed every detail and dont like to have to work things out for themselves. but they just lose credibility with me because i enjoy having to work things out for myself. i feel a lot of films lack that unpredictability that pulls me into a movie.

let the right one in is a good example of an original spin on a story thats been told a million times.

like i said in my original Post, id enjoy writing a horror movie, mostly cause im a big horror fan, but also if the story is good, and has the right atmosphere then it can be successful even on a low budget. movies like blair witch and paranormal activity were made on a shoe string budget, and just depended on the story to make them good,

low budget horror movies work because the lack of effects can add to the realism of the story which makes a weakness become a strength. Irish horror movies have never been very successful, but itsa sometimes due to the fact their not playing off the horror subjects that exist in ireland, like the movie shrooms, yeah it was based in Ireland, but was writen and made by British who just looked at what had not been done before and went with that.

i think horror can be done well in this country if people stick to what is relevant to this country, for example, everybody has one time or another heard stories about crazy farmers, who live alone and work alone. a reason i think the field was such a huge hit was because everybody has heard of this type of character and can in some way relate. i feel even a horror story about an insane farmer with a shotgun can work well if its told right. theirs a French Horror movie called the Ordeal, that uses the crazy farmer thing very well,

jaymes420

the interesting thing a lot of people dont know about J.K Rowling was that she spent 3 years trying to even find a publisher for Harry Potter, and when she finally did, the book exploded and has now made her a household name, that inspires me

Gorn

...talking of a low budget horror there was a big block of flats near me being renovated (the flats I'm thinking of are sort of a long ribbon, not a single high-rise tower)... and it gave me the idea...

a group of estate kids breaking into the block one Friday night for a cider fest. They're in a flat on the top floor and one of them goes out onto the balcony, looks across and sees the flash of someone on a balcony across the way. The someone was staring at them. And disappears.

They step back into the flat in surprise, and tell the others what they saw. One lad gets angry, saying they're taking the mickey and it emerges that he used to live in exactly the flat where the apparition was until their best friend 'fell' off the balcony and died.

Then someone has to leave to get more drink. And they don't come back. Then a crumpled body appears on the ground far below. The group start trying to get to the ground floor, but one by one they get pushed off or into things by a mysterious force - down stairwells, onto conveniently placed metal spikes, through a plate glass window etc.... it's called Pusher btw.

The question is why the apparition's angry, why the 'hero' feels so conflicted (guilt, but also defiance) and how they can resolve the situation.

!Spoiler lol! The original victim started the fight which ended in their death. The haunting ends on the roof: The lad near the edge, physically and emotionally. The weirdo girl no-one liked (the only other one to survive this far) is listening as he pours his heart out - what could he have done, they were best mates, but the other lad was pissed and angry (heroin withdrawal?) and mental, our man's hated himself ever since, he just wants to die, he misses his mate so badly, he's going to jump - the apparition appears and rushes towards him... only to push him AWAY from the edge, before disappearing for good.

Sort of Blair Witch meets Tina Goes Shopping.

Sorry for long posting, it's a quiet night.

:P

edit - I'm from rural Lincolnshire, I get the crazy inbred farmer thing very well. There's a lot of potential there - Deliverance stylee.

jaymes420

haha nice!, 10 points for creativity lol, i like the feel of that, ominous derelict flats, they by themselves create a horrible uneasy atmosphere. but if i was writing a story like that, instead of making it a group of lads out drinking, id probably make them a group of nerds who "heard stories" about ghostly happenings and go there to "investigate", and that would be the initial set up, but instead of there actually being a ghost, id choose a real life crazy person, or a few skummy lads and make them the protagonists, mostly cause i think everybody is a bit uneasy of those real dirty skumbags that look like they'd have no problem locking somebody in an abandoned flat or terrorizing them. it also leaves ideas open for a sad ending, for example, the guys might be investigating the place only days before its due to be demolished, thus at the end, their bodies disappear and nobody is really any the wiser as to what has happened to them., a lot of people dont like the kinds of guys that are off out drinking like that, so people might not be able to build that sense that they care about them or what happens to them, but if you replace them with nice guys, just out exploring and come under danger by the kinds of people everybody hates...that helps to create a tension cause its "us" against them, meaning its nice normal people, against skumbags and junkies that everybody looks down on and fears the same kind of situation,

i had a similar idea about a guy who becomes homeless for one reason or another and seeks refuge in an abandoned house which is already occupied by junkies who end up holding him there or otherwise making his life a living hell, i think real life can be as scary as the paranormal, more so if the characters play up to the kinds of fears normal people have about them.

Gorn

I agree with the 'real' life having greater potential for genuine horror because the feeling is it could actually happen to me. I don't believe in ghosts, but I do believe in psychos!

Could you do an improvised short of the homeless thing? Use mobile phones to film (like one of the bastards was going to put it on youtube) and your friends as the actors - a cast of what, 5,6? It wouldn't cost much and if you're getting them to improvise... they write the dialogue for you. Bonus.

argosy2006

Leave to get more drink, has to be a Irish based movie,
Not a mormon based one anyway,
!:pac:

jaymes420

You hit the nail on the head there!, shooting it with a mobile phone as if one of them was going to upload it is a very good yet very creepy idea, it also holds a lot of Basis in reality as youtube is full of mobile phone videos of poor bastards getting beaten up and harassed. it also has marketing potential, actually uploading it to youtube could start a bit of a hype! lol,

and shooting movies with mobile phones isnt as crazy as it sounds either, this might be a bad example but actor Macaulay Culkin has a movie out this year which is shot entirely using an iPhone!, at first i thought this might not work with the homeless idea, as i thought it wouldn't work for the set up as much as it would work during the initial violent scenes, but if right from the start the guys were filming this homeless guy sitting around, or following him before they attack him, then it could work for pretty much all of it, it would cause for some changes in the story, but i think it could definitely work!

Gorn

seriously, all i ask is a likkle co-executive producer credit!

jaymes420

haha you got it!