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Looks like there was a pretty good turn out for the SEP OWC. 32 accepted entries. Nice! Eventually I'll get around to applying my typical excruciating dissection to them, spreadsheet and everything.
First, I'd like for it to be horror. It'll be October, folks. Channel the (negative) energy of the season. Use the power, rather than fight it.
Second, last year there were - 20 "Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Possessions & Spirits" stories submitted, - 7 "Monsters and Physical Non-Human Things", - 8 "Madmen and Psychotics", and - 10 "Upset People" stories.
A - Do we want to go with the gut instinct majority? B - Exploit less traveled avenues?
The conundrum is is that the ridiculous audience wants something familiar - and - unique at the same [expletive] time. Goooooooood. Lorrrrrrrrd. So, what do you wanna do? How do you wanna crack that nut?
With that in mind plus in consideration of the second point above, I'd suggest proposing a monster/creature feature (which I believe Babz has clients looking for, anyway [think of a short that could become a feature, in other words]).
A 1 person monologue script would be a complete nightmare to slog through. No one would want to do it and hopefully, only few would even write. I know I sure wouldn't (hey, there's an idea, if you want me not to participate in this coming Halloween OWC, go for the 1 person monologue idea! ).
Limiting it to non human characters is also very lame...and far from cheap to produce.
Ray, are you aware that Creature now holds the record for lowest ever Box Office on a feature film that opened wide, at a minimum of 1,500 locations? Yes, it was, and yes, it looks horrendous. I couldn't even get myself to go see it.
Ray, are you aware that Creature now holds the record for lowest ever Box Office on a feature film that opened wide, at a minimum of 1,500 locations? Yes, it was, and yes, it looks horrendous. I couldn't even get myself to go see it.
Yessir. Painfully aware.
It was such a high profile disaster I think it has managed to do a great deal of damage to the entire "independent film' industry.
Finishing a feature screenplay is great and all. Getting someone to produce and direct it is delightful. However, no can start popping the champagne just yet.
Unless you want it to go direct to video or video on demand (and you'll be lucky even to get that), the producer/studio needs a distributor. And as you can see from my indie films distribution spreadsheet even having B or C stars + festival acclaim + distributor doesn't guarantee the producer/studio jack sh!t nothing. https://docs.google.com/spread.....E&hl=en_US#gid=0
Theater owners & purchasers can be every bit as much of a cock-blocker as distributors can be to filmmakers as director/producer/studios can be to screenwriters banging out (un)holy writ on their drives.
Now if I can only come up with a good idea and make a good screenplay out of it I'll have it made! Thats a tough task for me, but I'll give it my best lol.
I do think I'm learning a lot here, but of course I have a lot more to learn. Im not kissing up but I honestly think this is the ULTIMATE site for beginner and pro writers. I'm glad its here.
Now for October I'm thinking sidequel to my September entry! ;]
Ray, I decided against pursuing my spreadsheet, as I've lost faith, so to speak and decided that I was tired of trying to "prove" various points to SS'ers. I can E-Mail it you if you'd like to give it a look and want to work on it, etc.
IMO, if you can make a decent to good movie for under or around $10 Million, get it released wide/semi-wide, you'll recoup your costs and then some (when it's all said and done). The big problem is that the majority of movies are not decent or good, but they're still making money...that's why they're being made.
Creature is a bad example for being a warning for indie movies, IMO. I did not see it, but based on what I've read, I clearly see why it was destined to fail right from the start.
1) It's a throwback monster movie with a guy in a cheap looking rubber suit.
2) Ridiculous backstory/premise
3) No star power (except for Sig Haig).
4) Few/lame onscreen kills and gore.
5) Ridiculous characters doing and saying ridiculous things.
6) Horrible word of mouth.
If you want to make a throwback monster movie, you at least need to have it be gory and show your kills. You need a premise/setup/plot/story that makes some semblance of sense. You need it to be scary or intense. You need a memorable monster.
This had none of the above. If I won't even go see it, who the Hell is? I think they had an average of 8 paying customers per showing over its first weekend.
A 1 person monologue script would be a complete nightmare to slog through. No one would want to do it and hopefully, only few would even write. I know I sure wouldn't (hey, there's an idea, if you want me not to participate in this coming Halloween OWC, go for the 1 person monologue idea! ).
Ray, I decided against pursuing my spreadsheet, as I've lost faith, so to speak and decided that I was tired of trying to "prove" various points to SS'ers. I can E-Mail it you if you'd like to give it a look and want to work on it, etc.
Yessir, I'd love to. If you composed it on goog docs then you can PM me a share link. If you've composed it on an Excel-like spreadsheet then yeah, email it to me at rewriteitagain@gmail.com.
Very much appreciated!
Regarding "Creature", yeah, it's not so much that the movie sucked, it's that the producer was able to call in so many favors and markers to get this POS into so many theaters (1,500 is a HUGE! distribution for an indie film where the average is 170 theaters). This makes it very difficult for other distributors to coax revenue guarding theater owners to go with non-major/minor studio product. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad for the indie biz.
If you're gonna fail - please keep it discrete. IDK WTH so many theater owners were thinking. Sometimes I wonder if they were doing this just to screw Sid Sheinberg on purpose. I wonder if he's p!ssed off quite a few folks in the past.
You throw your vote in there, Simon. I'm sure it carries alot of weight.
I think you should just go for a single character monologue October OWC entry anyways. I'm sure peeps are lining up already to read it. I for one, just can't wait.
You throw your vote in there, Simon. I'm sure it carries alot of weight.
I think you should just go for a single character monologue October OWC entry anyways. I'm sure peeps are lining up already to read it. I for one, just can't wait.