More open forum responses

Here are three questions and responses from the recent open forum:

Mike asked: “On the subject of specs — — if a writer/director writes an original screenplay (not an adaptation, assignment, etc), then sells it with himself attached to direct, is that considered a spec sale?”

If a writer-director writes and original spec script and sells it on the open market, that is still considered a spec sale.

E.C. asked: “Prerequisite: in the script you’ve already established a master scene. Then later you want to indicate surprise using the action or directing, not calling out new shot, what do you think about this:

The crazed axe murder chucks his shiny pick-axe.

Alex sees danger approaching and ducks, but this leaves -

- Lenny exposed!

In one shot has the monster attacks. The next shows one victim’s apparent escape. The a third results from the previous center of attention suddenly gone leaving a new person as the center attention.

The use of the dash, (space) dash again then next scene to indicate sudden CUT. “

What E.C. has written is an acceptable approach. It’s using a new paragraph of scene description to suggest a camera shot. As long as you’re consistent with that approach throughout, that’s fine. The use of dashes — at the end of one ‘shot’ and the beginning of the next ‘shot’ — is an accepted form as well.

If, however, the action cuts between locations in continuous time, you have to use secondary slugs (shots) or depending upon if the locations are different continents, countries, cities, etc, primary sluglines to ‘shift’ the action.

kgmadman asked: “Is there any way to “write down” aspects of a script which may be perceived as costly without losing them entirely?”

Clearly there are certain aspects of certain stories which cry out $$$ from a production-budget standpoint. A few of those costly items:

Shooting on the water (e.g., oceans, lakes, rivers)

Shooting in the air

Shooting on snow

Anything period (although with the cost of CGI having dropped so much over the years, this can be — depending upon the setting — less of a concern nowadays).

Also note that traditionally, working with children and animals in a production has always been perceived to be more of a hassle (i.e., the need for re-shoots) which can elevate the budget.

That said, Alaska had children, a polar bear, shooting on the ocean, shooting on a river, shooting on snow, and numerous helicopter and airplane shots, and still only cost about $20M.

The final discussion in the open forum — how to know when if/when to give up the dream of screenwriting — is a much bigger question. I’ll provide some thoughts on that tomorrow or the next day.

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