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I was working on a thriller -- think I hit 40 or so pages, then I stopped. I had a finished version of (yikes!) another Christmas rom-com that I felt a need to rewrite called A Picture Perfect Christmas. So, that's where I'm at.
No Man's Space - Sci-fi TV Series Eight members of different species wake up on an abandoned spaceship drifting through space. Personalities and cultures will clash as they attempt to survive and pursue their own agendas, but they must learn to cooperate if they are going to get the answers they seek, where are they, who took them, and more importantly, why?
Bevin Boys - Drama/war feature During WW2, a young army cadet dreams of becoming an officer and the glory of war, but when his call up papers instead conscript him to the mines, he struggles to cope with the new role he must play and his place in history.
Pigs in Blankets - Sci-fi/Action feature In an attempt to find her long lost family, a resentful woman is thrust into the arms of an underground resistance hell-bent on ousting the dictator ruling Britannia and his private police army.
The log lines are a bit crap because I just quickly wrote them, but you get the idea.
I have been switching between them all, but I have focused in on the TV series now - Once the pilot is done along with the bible, I'll move onto the features.
I frequently switch between projects. The Christmas script was already finished, but it definitely needed a rewrite and, honestly, would be the easier of the two to market. And sometimes you stay away from something then come back to it with fresh eyes -- you know the rest. I'll pick up the thriller again soon. I like the way that's going, too.
No title on the thriller yet, but if I can give it a quickie logline...
A retired detective comes face-to-face with his daughter's killer, but a surprise medical diagnosis leads him to believe whether he did it at all.
Steve, I know you just threw this logline up here in a hurry:
A retired detective comes face-to-face with his daughter's killer, but a surprise medical diagnosis leads him to believe whether he did it at all
'believe' should be 'question' or 'doubt'? Regardless, sounds intriguing.
Good luck with the second Christmas script. You have a knack with those. Female protag this time around?
I'm trying to think of a Christmas idea myself. The Hallmark marathon is upon us again and let's face it these movies are in high demand.
Goals: To finish my SciFi Zombie short. Start & finish a Short I'm currently writing on in my head on a topic that's really tragic and a bit of a downer but also should be told imho. The trick is in balancing grim subject matter and giving it a ray of hope.
Trying to juggle Christmas presents, work, and moving house after nearly a decade too.
The first issue of the Shaka comic consumes all my time at the moment. Only a few pages left and all the artwork is completed. I also have an amazing artist currently doing the cover.
I started promoting the book in August on all the social media sites and am growing a following at a rate I didn’t think would be possible, so that’s been surprising.
I don’t think I'll really be able to commit to any actual screenwriting until the first issue of the comic goes up next year as I'm struggling to focus on anything else, but it’s been a fun process, stressful at times but for them most part a lot of fun.
I still check in to SS several times a day, so that hasn’t changed
Still need to send the rewrite of my failed OWC entry in as well when I get a chance.
Steve, I know you just threw this logline up here in a hurry:
A retired detective comes face-to-face with his daughter's killer, but a surprise medical diagnosis leads him to believe whether he did it at all
'believe' should be 'question' or 'doubt'? Regardless, sounds intriguing.
Good luck with the second Christmas script. You have a knack with those. Female protag this time around?
I'm trying to think of a Christmas idea myself. The Hallmark marathon is upon us again and let's face it these movies are in high demand.
Goals: To finish my SciFi Zombie short. Start & finish a Short I'm currently writing on in my head on a topic that's really tragic and a bit of a downer but also should be told imho. The trick is in balancing grim subject matter and giving it a ray of hope.
Trying to juggle Christmas presents, work, and moving house after nearly a decade too.
Good luck with your juggling. I know it's a struggle round this time of year.
Would love to read something soon from you. It's been too long! Good luck on your work, and of course hit me up if you need a read.
Good call on the logline. You're 100 percent right.
I struggled so much writing this second Christmas script, you have no idea. I started it last year, stopped, started again. Something felt off about it. Christmas romcom with a female lead? That's so well out of my comfort zone. Christmasville was more me telling Hallmark "hey, this is what you should produce!" That didn't work.
Anyway, I finally finished this new one and sent it out for coverage. Got a pass. Not enough suspense or stakes in the second act. My protagonist was getting away with way too much and not being checked on it. Something like that. So, I'm rewriting it again and so far it's feeling better -- the writing aspect. It just feels better. And yes, a female protagonist this time around. Going all out Hallmark here. Not to mention there's numerous streaming services with so much original content these days, so even though I'm not necessarily writing with my heart, it is still a challenge. Fingers crossed.
Another problem for me is you cannot find a Hallmark script online to save your life. They are just not out there. It would be interesting to see what the quality of the writing looks like on some of these scripts.
I frequently switch between projects. The Christmas script was already finished, but it definitely needed a rewrite and, honestly, would be the easier of the two to market. And sometimes you stay away from something then come back to it with fresh eyes -- you know the rest. I'll pick up the thriller again soon. I like the way that's going, too.
No title on the thriller yet, but if I can give it a quickie logline...
A retired detective comes face-to-face with his daughter's killer, but a surprise medical diagnosis leads him to believe whether he did it at all.
Thank you - Making a conscious effort on my titles recently lol
Your quickie logline is interesting - I would want to read it only to find out what medical diagnosis could lead someone to believe he is innocent. I know it was only a quick logline, but what is it actually about? Is the whole movie this one encounter? what are the stakes? finding the truth? Glad it's going well for you though. When you said you had stopped writing I feared it may have been the dreaded writer's block.
Dug this up on Reddit, Steve. I'm sure you already know the half of it, but this person's in the know apparently.
They have their own set of rules and structure that they give as a guideline to their writers to be followed for all films. A buddy of mine 'had a friend' who wrote one and sent around the one-sheet guidelines. If you're interested I can try to dig it up... but it's exactly what you'd expect the guidelines to be if you've seen a few of their movies.
1 itsjustmoran1y Found it! This is the first time I've ever tried to post anything with formatting, so if it's a mess, I apologize! Also, this is a few years old at this point so I don't know if trends have changed, but hopefully it's helpful to you in some way:
EDIT: Formatting is hard!
HC/HMM Movie Info
• Treatment – we like to start with a fleshed out outline broken down by act so that we can get a good layout of what the script will be.
• Script should be 105-110 pages typically
• 9 Act Structure
o Act 1 is 18-21 pages
o The other acts are shorter but should be generally consistent (8-12 pages usually)
o Midpoint is at the middle of act 4
o Acts 7/8 - needs to be the low point/breaking point before things get better.
o Act 9 is often 7-10 pages
• Total runtime we aim for is 86:30
Other things to note
• We always like a strong female lead (late 20s/early to mid-thirties) and she needs to have a romance. This is always our A story.
• Our audience is W25-54, and we don’t like to stray far from what we do. It’s kind of a ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality.
• We are very family friendly and PG/G in nature. A rule of thumb when watching our movies is you want to be able to watch with your 80-year-old grandmother and your 8-year-old niece.
• HC – typically light romantic comedies with a heart-warming ending.
• For Christmas - we always need snow or the remnants of snow and lots of holiday decoration (in a tasteful way). We also like to see our characters doing lots of wintery/Christmassy things – ice skating, baking cookies, sledding, building snowmen, making snow angels, kissing under the mistletoe, hanging stockings, drinking hot chocolate, picking our or cutting down a Christmas tree, decorating the house/tree with holiday décor etc.
• HMM – More dramatic a little less comedic (but still with a happy ending). We tend to deal with more dramatic storylines (but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little humor). We’re actually moving more toward all mysteries on HMM.
o On HMM we can be a little less of the Christmassy (HMM is a little more about story and not as much the celebration of Christmas).
• Our content is not sexual in nature at all (a kiss or kisses is enough to show the romance in our movies), and we usually save this moment for the end when our lead gets her fairytale ending.
• We don’t do cursing, dirty jokes, innuendos etc.
• We’re generally not fans of montages.
• We’re not over the top, tacky (with our characters or our sets) or overly campy.
• We don’t like karaoke or singing scenes in our movies.
• ** Please stay away from killing off family members (there tends to be a lot of dead father/mother/wife/husband in our movies, and we’re trying to get away from that).
• We love to see pets in our movies (and we have a cat and dog – the Happies – that can potentially be the animal talent).
Read More 5 itsjustmoran1y HMM = Hallmark Movie Mysteries
HC = Hallmark Classics
...
I'm still searching for an actual Hallmark script. Let me know if you find one. You've got that big long contact list. Maybe someone you've been in contact with might give you one if you ask nicely. I know... doubtful.
...
** Note the 'trying to steer clear of (an obvious previous trend) the dead spouse/family member.' I thought that'd be popular.
These two I am closest to finishing the 1st drafts:
CRATERPEOPLE - Years after a war versus robots that were designed to please, in a world where sex and reproduction are like currency, a couple tests virtual reality games where mating occurs inside and outside the game.
$7,000,000 - A generous, funny, and charming young man now has thousands of clones who all act like him, except they have orders from their creators to bring terror to those they ensnare in a romantic relationship.
Also, a couple others I've started work on and would love to finish writing by early 2020:
GENERATION: DOOMSDAY. - Flying around the globe at light-speed creates six versions of the same race-car driver, who must induce a second Ice Age by themselves after their travel companions become manic from the voyage.
RUN AMOK - A hip-hop musician contends in a friendly competition between celebrities, over who will collect eight billion fans first and gain enough supernatural power to bring death to every one of their followers.
Dug this up on Reddit, Steve. I'm sure you already know the half of it, but this person's in the know apparently.
They have their own set of rules and structure that they give as a guideline to their writers to be followed for all films. A buddy of mine 'had a friend' who wrote one and sent around the one-sheet guidelines. If you're interested I can try to dig it up... but it's exactly what you'd expect the guidelines to be if you've seen a few of their movies.
1 itsjustmoran1y Found it! This is the first time I've ever tried to post anything with formatting, so if it's a mess, I apologize! Also, this is a few years old at this point so I don't know if trends have changed, but hopefully it's helpful to you in some way:
EDIT: Formatting is hard!
HC/HMM Movie Info
• Treatment – we like to start with a fleshed out outline broken down by act so that we can get a good layout of what the script will be.
• Script should be 105-110 pages typically
• 9 Act Structure
o Act 1 is 18-21 pages
o The other acts are shorter but should be generally consistent (8-12 pages usually)
o Midpoint is at the middle of act 4
o Acts 7/8 - needs to be the low point/breaking point before things get better.
o Act 9 is often 7-10 pages
• Total runtime we aim for is 86:30
Other things to note
• We always like a strong female lead (late 20s/early to mid-thirties) and she needs to have a romance. This is always our A story.
• Our audience is W25-54, and we don’t like to stray far from what we do. It’s kind of a ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality.
• We are very family friendly and PG/G in nature. A rule of thumb when watching our movies is you want to be able to watch with your 80-year-old grandmother and your 8-year-old niece.
• HC – typically light romantic comedies with a heart-warming ending.
• For Christmas - we always need snow or the remnants of snow and lots of holiday decoration (in a tasteful way). We also like to see our characters doing lots of wintery/Christmassy things – ice skating, baking cookies, sledding, building snowmen, making snow angels, kissing under the mistletoe, hanging stockings, drinking hot chocolate, picking our or cutting down a Christmas tree, decorating the house/tree with holiday décor etc.
• HMM – More dramatic a little less comedic (but still with a happy ending). We tend to deal with more dramatic storylines (but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little humor). We’re actually moving more toward all mysteries on HMM.
o On HMM we can be a little less of the Christmassy (HMM is a little more about story and not as much the celebration of Christmas).
• Our content is not sexual in nature at all (a kiss or kisses is enough to show the romance in our movies), and we usually save this moment for the end when our lead gets her fairytale ending.
• We don’t do cursing, dirty jokes, innuendos etc.
• We’re generally not fans of montages.
• We’re not over the top, tacky (with our characters or our sets) or overly campy.
• We don’t like karaoke or singing scenes in our movies.
• ** Please stay away from killing off family members (there tends to be a lot of dead father/mother/wife/husband in our movies, and we’re trying to get away from that).
• We love to see pets in our movies (and we have a cat and dog – the Happies – that can potentially be the animal talent).
Read More 5 itsjustmoran1y HMM = Hallmark Movie Mysteries
HC = Hallmark Classics
...
I'm still searching for an actual Hallmark script. Let me know if you find one. You've got that big long contact list. Maybe someone you've been in contact with might give you one if you ask nicely. I know... doubtful.
...
** Note the 'trying to steer clear of (an obvious previous trend) the dead spouse/family member.' I thought that'd be popular.
P.S. Thanks, Matty.
Wow, Libby. Thanks! this is awesome stuff. I keep hearing about this 9 act structure and I'm pretty sure it's only in there because of commercials, being it a television movie and all.
But damn. I would love to get my hands on an actual script. They are hard to find. Actually impossible. No one seems to have them, or to want to send them. It would just be helpful to see this 9 act structure the ways it's played out in a script, although your post gives a pretty detailed description.
Just finished third version of a feature based on my short "Meeting The Other Woman."
Wrote it at the request of the folks who produced the short - they are looking for funding for a feature - I really don't think anything will come of it but it was a fun exercise.
Now working on outline for another feature "Shipping Out." A comedy about a billionaire who builds a skilled nursing facility at sea so that terminally ill folks can spend their last days wining, dining, gambling, etc. Lot of sticky logic issues to get through on this one but it's something that might take shape - eventually.
Now working on outline for another feature "Shipping Out." A comedy about a billionaire who builds a skilled nursing facility at sea so that terminally ill folks can spend their last days wining, dining, gambling, etc. Lot of sticky logic issues to get through on this one but it's something that might take shape - eventually.
Love it! Lots of possibilities there. Logic issues, though? How can there possibly be logic issues with a terminally ill nursing barge at sea?
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So, what's everyone working on?
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