Book: Writing a Great Movie
Posted on September 7th, 2010 by
Get Rid of Writer's Procrastination and Put Your Words to Work For You Now with: Writer's success. This is 100% No Risk to You
Image taken on 2007-07-20 10:34:59 by aplumb.
Get Rid of Writer's Procrastination and Put Your Words to Work For You Now with: Writer's success. This is 100% No Risk to You
Image taken on 2007-07-20 10:34:59 by aplumb.
LOL, does it include a section on knowing the right people in Hollywood?
You can’t help but look at some big money movies and ask: "Does this even have a plot?"
So did you finish it and did you like it?
Will it help you Write a Great Movie?
Thanks for sharing with the Bookworms with Cameras group pool thing.
I have yet to come across an industry in which it doesn’t help to know the right people.
Whether it helps me write a Great Movie remains to be seen, but it’s certainly shedding light on how to better develop a few ideas of mine. I only picked up the book last weekend and it’s as much a "technical reference" book as it is one to be read cover-to-cover.
Every few pages I get distracted by more ideas (prompted by the book) that I have to scribble down before I forget. It’s gonna take me a while to get through this one.
So whats your movie going to be about?
Do tell…
Actually, it’s two completely different movie ideas.
One is inspired by my love of music and memories of a couple of summer (classical) music camps I attended in ’91. Kid who’s a big talent in a small music community heads off to a summer music camp, gets knocked down a peg, but ultimately finds his niche and rises to the challenge. In a very broad sense, it’s kind of like Save the Last Dance; a story about the creative process and love of arts, not a quest for fame and fortune. Pretty standard fare, but a chance for me to explore character development, interactions and the like.
The other is hard-core sci-fi, based on a Dyson Sphere idea I had after taking a Laser Optics engineering physics course, about ten years back in university. It’s a disaster/apocalyptic film similar in concept to Armageddon, The Core, The Day After Tomorrow, and/or the soon-to-be-released (today I think) Sunshine… Still fleshing this one out.
I’ll have to look up the book.
I’m thinking who I know in the movie industry that has pull and I’m coming up with a blank.. I’ll think some more.
I’m actually looking for a movie to see in the cinema this weekend.
I liked 28 Days Later (it was so bad that it was good). Everybody else that I know that saw it (or tried to see it) hated it. I think I’ll have a hard time finding anybody to go see Sunshine with, so I’ll probably wait until it comes out on DVD.
Have you thought of combining the two ideas into one movie (just trying to think out of the box)?
Heh! No worries, both ideas are still quite embryonic and engineering is still very much paying the bills.
These days we’ve been satisfying our movie-viewing needs by way of a http://www.zip.ca/ subscription. It’s the Canadian equivalent of NetFlix. We hadn’t actually been to see a movie in the theatre for three years until we took the three-year-old to see "Ratatouille" a week or two back.
Funny you should mention "28 Days Later". That’s one of the few movies I do own on DVD, besides the usual LOTR, original Star Wars Trilogy and The Matrix box sets. Because we’re on the all-you-can-watch, three-at-a-time zip.ca plan, I don’t have to be too picky about how much cheese I get in my viewing diet either.
I think I briefly considered combining the two ideas – the sci-fi idea was first and the music one developed as I mulled over what character development is all about. When I visualize each idea, they come from completely different places within me…
So yeah, that’ll probably be script attempt/rewrite number three.
…of course, when you’re subconscious decides to mull things over, the fusion of ideas becomes inevitable. It just might work…
Glad you are seeing the light, LOL.
Yes, I am somewhat familiar with zip. Their search engine isn’t as good as netflix. Sad. I like Coupland (his books) and was looking to get one of his movies, but they don’t have them in the US.
Yep, wasn’t able to get anybody to see Sunshine, so didn’t go. Almost saw the Stephen King movie whatsitcalled 1408, I think.
I was thinking that maybe you should read, or at least page thru Rant, because of the way it is written. Palahniuk had a hit with a little movie called Fight Club that you may have seen. The one about designer soap. Rant is his newest book.
Yep, first rule of Fi… *thump*
Added Rant to the list. Thanks!