Make-A-Movie Draft Discussion Thread - Writeups due 12/9

[MacReady]

20 minutes ago, The Orca said:

I'm not sure what we are suppose to be doing. I wanted to do a full blown script, but that would take way too long, then I wanted to do kind of a ten scene chapter style script but I think that would take too long as well. 

My plan is to do an extended background synopsis (its needed for my movie for sure) and then kind of an extended synopsis by chapter/act. 

I've somewhat finished the background. I loved how I started, but then I went to bed and when I picked back up I'm not sure it flowed well or was along my original thought process

Honestly, I’d prefer nobody write a script and instead just write a synopsis.  Scripts are boring to read, they don’t offer much in the way of describing character motivation, and unless it’s a shooting script, you really ought not direct the camera in it.  They’re bad for painting a picture of what your movie should be.  Anybody wanting to write a script I would highly suggest writing it out how I’m going to do it first.  If you know what happens, writing the script is about as easy as writing a grocery list.  When you write the script without knowing where you’re going, it really cripples the creative process.  That’s me personally.  Every script I’ve ever finished or even attempted to finish I’ve done how I’m about to do it for this and THEN I wrote the script.  Doing it this way makes writing the script take about a week.  
 

Just pour out your voice and your thoughts how you would typing a heartfelt post on this site and then write the script based on that.  Otherwise, if you’re anything like me, you’re going to be looking at:

INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY

For an hour and not writing anything at all to happen in the living room.  As far as loving what you started and then not liking it so much, my advice is to continue with the story.  If you spend forever thinking about the beginning you’ll never get to the end.  Just keep going, and as you go you’ll think of things that make the beginning you had fit better with what happens after that and you can go back and edit things in the beginning.  
 

I will post what I have written on mine sometime tonight.  
 

 

Edited November 23, 2019 by Outpost31

[Pickle Rick]

26 minutes ago, rackcs said:

Not for me. Maybe when I get a little further into mine I'll send it over to you and see if you wanna beef up that dialogue.

I started reading it the other day but hadn't finished yet. I'll try to get my thoughts to you soon enough.

Like I said when I sent it, no need to neglect other things, just whenever you have time.  It probably won't change much for this game. But I'd love to hear them for completing the script. 

This is all new to me and I can teach myself a lot about writing a script etc., but there are obviously things I can't teach myself.  Plus I've never even read one, so writing one is probably going to reflect that lmao.  

[Pickle Rick]

31 minutes ago, daboyle250 said:

I could give it a look see if you want.

I'll send it your way tonight.  

[MacReady]

16 minutes ago, Pickle Rick said:

I'll send it your way tonight.  

I have time to look, too.  One thing I’d suggest is you look at SPEC SCRIPTS.  Unless you know Steven Spielberg, that is the only script you would ever have any hope in hell of selling.  Just read a few and you’ll get a general idea.  Also, did you just tag your brother asking for help instead of actually speaking to him?

[Pickle Rick]

2 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

I have time to look, too.  One thing I’d suggest is you look at SPEC SCRIPTS.  Unless you know Steven Spielberg, that is the only script you would ever have any hope in hell of selling.  Just read a few and you’ll get a general idea.  Also, did you just tag your brother asking for help instead of actually speaking to him?

Fishing for likes

[rackcs]

33 minutes ago, Pickle Rick said:

Like I said when I sent it, no need to neglect other things, just whenever you have time.  It probably won't change much for this game. But I'd love to hear them for completing the script. 

This is all new to me and I can teach myself a lot about writing a script etc., but there are obviously things I can't teach myself.  Plus I've never even read one, so writing one is probably going to reflect that lmao.  

Just busy with family arriving today for thanksgiving, been busy this week getting ready. 

As for scripts, definitely read some. I'll also recommend a podcast, draft zero. I really find the stuff they talk about pretty helpful.

[MacReady]

This is why I prefer this way.  You can't do a lot of what I do here in a script format.  Can't (shouldn't) direct the camera, can't talk about character thoughts or motivations, etc. 

Listen to this while you read the plot description:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meU2gAU7Xss

On the whole rabies, I don’t know how realistic or unrealistic it is.  I’m not a rabiesologist.  It’s the only plot device I could come up with to get things rolling on short notice, so I’m sticking with it.  

Back when The Thing from Another World was going to get remade, lots of scripts and treatments and ideas were thrown around.  Carpenter was on again off again as director, and what hooked him was going back to the shapeshifting creature from the original source material Who Goes There by John Campbell.  William F. Nolan wrote a treatment for it, and that treatment started with MacReady and the rest of the poor bastards outside playing baseball.  My movie starts the same way with about a dozen of the 15 characters playing baseball outside on a cold, but sunny day.  They look ridiculous playing baseball in heavy winter clothing, but they do it nonetheless.  Bottin (Jared Harris) is catcher.  Robson (Oldman) steps up to bat.  Johns (O’Connell) talks **** and makes fun of Robson with an ageist joke.  Oldman responds with a crack about hitting the ball right at Johns’ face.  Shaw (Menzies) chuckles at first base.  

A lone dog runs calmly through the snow.  The Thing theme starts.  Dun.  Dun dun.  Dun dun.  Dun dun.  Camera zooms out, up and pans in the direction the dog runs to show the distance between the camp and the coming ultimate in alien terror.  

A swing and a miss.  Robson swears.  Johns taunts and jeers.  Campbell (Fogerty, the big bald dude that was also a heavyweight boxer in real life) walks up to replace Robson, who struck out.   Johns cracks a joke along the lines of, “From brains and brittle to brawn and (insert appropriate B-word that fits here).  Campbell, with a scowl, tells Johns, “Keep the alliteration for your diary you fairy **** and pitch the ball.”  Johns obliges.  Campbell swings and CRUSHES the ball.  Bottin jumps up and shouts, but not because of the hit.  The dog brushed up behind him.  “Boyle, could you control your dogs?” he shouts.  

Inside, Flanagan (Ready) looks out a window and sees the ball players trying to wrangle the dog.  He walks through the camp, giving a sense of its layout, until he gets to a room where Boyle (Hardy) reads with those old *** headphones over his ears.  He motions for Boyle to take them off.  He does.  “One of your dogs is outside.”  Boyle furrows his brow and heads out to investigate.  

Stone (Kirby) lunges at and grabs the dog by its tail.  The dog responds by viciously snarling at and biting Stone’s hand.  Stone yells in pain; the dog immediately lets go and turns timid, as if regretting the bite.  Boyle steps outside and squints into the sunlight.  He’s not as pretty as he’s often portrayed, and instead has that rugged masculinity look of a MacReady.  It’s a classic hero shot; he takes up the frame and purveys the scene, clearly suggesting he is the MacReady of this movie.  Carter (Gee) steps out right after Boyle and tries to get a sense of what’s going on as Boyle walks calmly up to the dog.  The dog reacts immediately to Boyle by running up to him and sitting down like a well-trained dog.  Bottin berates, “You need to take better care of your dogs.”  Robson attends to Stone, whose hand bleeds.  Boyle shakes his head, “Not my dog.  Not our dog.”  Carter, “What are you on about?”  Boyle points to the dog’s doghood, “All ours are female.”  Stone asks, “Whose dog is it and what if it has rabies?”  Boyle asks, “Are you dense?”  Carter says, “He’s got a good point.”  Boyle says, “He doesn’t.”  Carter tells him to just put the dog in with the others.  Boyle remarks, “You’re concerned the dog may have rabies and you want to put him in with eight female dogs for the winter?”  Carter tells him, “The ******* shack then, Boyle.  Okay?  Just get it out of here.”  Boyle leads the dog to the shack.  

Inside the camp, some time has clearly passed.  It’s darker through the windows.  Gentle (comparatively) wind blows against the walls from outside.  Pinster (Peck) and Campbell argue over a wall outlet that Campbell works on.  Pinster says, “Just replace the whole outlet.”  “Are you going to go get it?”  Carter and Flanagan walk by.  Camera follows them as they walk towards the radio room.  Flanagan says, “I don’t understand how a dog could get that far.”  Carter says, “There are other camps out here.  I know of at least three.”  Flanagan says, “And not one of them closer than 50 miles.”  Carter says, “I don’t care how or why it’s here, I just care about getting ahold of its owner to make sure it doesn’t have rabies or parasites or any number of things Bottin says are possible.”  Flanagan says, “Bottin’s a biologist.”  “Enough.”  Flanagan shrugs and says he’ll try to get ahold of someone, but he hasn’t heard anything from anybody for a while.  Carter turns and heads back from where he came.  He passes Pinster and Campbell again, who stare at the outlet like it’s calculus.  Carter stops and says, “Both of you have been working on that ******* outlet for a week now.  What’s the malfunction?”  Pinster says, “We need to replace the-“ Carter shakes his head and interrupts, “Not with the outlet, what’s the malfunction with the two of you?  Fix it, then work on the other hundred things wrong in this camp.”  Carter walks away.  

Middle of the night now.  Most of the crew is in the rec room now.  Klemish (Beck) chocks up his cue.  Robson with a steaming mug in front of him and a book.  Bottin and Wells (Eldon) play chess.  Stone waits with a cue in his bandaged hand.  Matt Milne sits by the pool table with a cue. Shaw sits alone with a bottle of whiskey, a tumbler with ice in it and a nice metal top (Inception style) in hand.  He spins it and watches it while he pours himself a drink.  His life is in balance, as the perfectly-spinning top symbolizes.  Johns tosses a dart at a dartboard while Pemberton (Kitchen) waits beside him.  Howard (Moran) reads a book in the darkest, most secluded corner of the room.  Pinster and Campbell play a pinball machine and an arcade respectively (the 1982 version had them I just realized).  Pinster says for everyone to hear, “Why don’t they just test it for rabies?”  Robson says, “You’d have to euthanize the dog.”  “Why?”  “Only way to test for rabies is to remove the subject’s head.”  Bottin says, “Just euthanize it and be done with it then.”  Stone says, “Yeah, and Boyle’d euthanize you.”  Klemish says, “You can’t kill the dog.  That’d be like the seagull in the old ship book.”  Howard mumbles something under his breath.  Klemish shouts, “What’d you say, HOWARD?”  Howard tries to speak up for himself, but speaks as meekly as a mouse, “Stop calling me that like that.”  “It’s your name, isn’t it?”  Howard thinks about saying something, but instead looks back at his book.  After a second he says, “It’s called Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.  And it’s a poem.”  More quietly he says, “And it was a ******* albatross.” 

[Pickle Rick]

I think for this game, I'm gonna do a summary type synopsis and then just include what I have in way of a script for anyone that wants to read it.  

[MacReady]

8 minutes ago, Pickle Rick said:

I think for this game, I'm gonna do a summary type synopsis and then just include what I have in way of a script for anyone that wants to read it.  

Good call.  Your movie gonna have any supernatural elements to it?

[Pickle Rick]

8 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

Good call.  Your movie gonna have any supernatural elements to it?

Not at this time.  

While I was researching some things, I saw American Horror Story and some movie titled Wraiths of Roanoke did the supernatural.  

I'm more a fan of keeping to reality. 

[Pickle Rick]

5 minutes ago, Pickle Rick said:

Not at this time.  

While I was researching some things, I saw American Horror Story and some movie titled Wraiths of Roanoke did the supernatural.  

I'm more a fan of keeping to reality. 

More along the lines of something that could be historically accurate 

@MWil23 and @rackcs can be a good judge of that.  

Although it does depart from real life at one juncture, or does it.........

[MacReady]

Just now, Pickle Rick said:

Not at this time.  

While I was researching some things, I saw American Horror Story and some movie titled Wraiths of Roanoke did the supernatural.  

I'm more a fan of keeping to reality. 

Lame.  Real life is boring.  I watch movies to escape real life. 

[Pickle Rick]

6 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

Lame.  Real life is boring.  I watch movies to escape real life. 

Oh, you will escape and be on the edge of your seat the WHOLE time.

[Pickle Rick]

1 minute ago, Pickle Rick said:

Oh, you will escape and be on the edge of your seat the WHOLE time.

My movie will hopefully grab at people's emotions and scare the **** our of at least 1 person, all while leaving your jaw dropped.  

[TOUCAN]

3 hours ago, Outpost31 said:

@JoshstraDaymus, will there be horror elements, or will it be a straight drama?

More so a drama/biopic take idea.