Dru Holley's Lounge Discussions

E mail Joey to get a staus report on your script.

I don't get the pitch process, what do I have to do a verb pitch or what?

Tony, I'm not sure what you mean by semaphore. Could you elaborate?

It depends where you plan on pitching. If you are talking about through the Happy Writers then you could verbally or submit a written pitch. There are even WEBINARS in the EDUCATION section on pitching and Joey does some great free ones to go over pitching and how you should craft your pitch.

Let's get back to the thread topic please. Thanks. :)

Thanks for mentioning the webinars, David. :) Dru, here is a link to a webinar that may be of interest to you: https://www.stage32.com/webinars/The-Secret-To-Becoming-A-Pitching-Ace. Also, Joey Tuccio from Happy Writers created written pitch templates for pitching either a feature or a TV pilot. Send an email request to assistant@stage32.com and they will send them to you. I hope that helps. :)

It's more stable and powerful.

I am reading all the comments and seriously, each tool have their strength and weakness and there is no "one tool to rule them all" sort of thing anymore unlike 5 or 10 years back. I totally agree with D Marcus and Katharina. Learn both Adobe and Premiere if you can. Adobe can get you the indie and corporate gigs but if you want to step up and go into film, you need to know Avid. And lastly know your market like what Katharina said. Knowing and mastering a tool is of no use if nobody else uses it and you can't collaborate with them. So know your location, what you clients expect and then work backwards. For example I am in Singapore and the people here use mostly Adobe. So I use that too for all the local jobs, but for international gigs, I prefer to market myself as an Avid editor to get the jobs in :)

Hello Robin, thanks for your input. Lots of useful information and plenty to think about.

FCP homie!!!

I came to editing from a design background, moving from Illustrator and Photoshop into motion graphics. Started with FCP and found that Premier and After Effects are a easier to use combination. Adobe has built a mostly seamless, easy to use workflow. If you're starting from scratch and doing standalone work it's less of an upfront investment.

Unfortunately you haven't provided enough information to make an accurate assessment. A logline or synopsis would provide at least some guidance as to what your screenplay is about.

SYNOPSIS: Three strippers work the club scene and live their lives as locals. Lisa, Miley and Jasmine's lives are all connected with the criminal activity of an Hispanic drug lord, Miguel, and his sons. Miley has problems with men, always choosing abusive men that keep her from moving out of the Vegas life for good. Lisa, new girl, is seduced by the dangerous life of drug abuse. Jasmine longs for the good life of designer things and fast cash, but she searches for true love. Fast forward two years later, and their lives run parallel, caught up in a dangerous drug family in their own separate ways. They all come together again and fall apart in a night that leads to destruction, violence and death off the strip in sin city. Some come to Vegas for fun. Some come for a life. But does it all lead to death?

That's up to you, which one fo you prefer?

Between the two, "Surviving Vegas" has more of an emotional engaging quality. Whereas "Off the Strip" sounds a bit "off the cuff" too hammy, too "reality TV-ish" perhaps? But, I completely agree, it's really up to you, Dru. You know the story best and the story intentions. We don't. Perhaps keep trying more titles. Maybe there's something even better? More fitting. Keep going. Push further. ;) A side note, just food for thought; your female characters and their motivations/lives seem to only revolve around men. Perhaps consider that each has her own goals; her own purpose; her own agency outside of men. Searching for true love is nice, but again, it's all about the man. They also seem to be "reacting" to this world; passive; and not "active." Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with it. :)

Really for me its all about connecting...so many people on here #blowupthisfilmthang

Connecting. But also to introduce others to more cinema outside of Hollywood, to introduce others to the value of film studies, because I think that's more valuable than learning from trends. In fact, trends are awful, as everybody gravitates to doing the latest, and that translate to sameness.

Agreed Bryan

YES!

Congratulations, Jonathan!

Thank you all for the support!

WOnderful!

Good Job Jonathan! Well done. Good luck with the project. Pens Up!

That's great news, JE. All my best.

My script is the grittiest with going over the top. Plz do yourself myself and your production company. The opportunity for GOLD.Don't just take my word for it take a quick look.

Congrats! Wonderful news! I hope they will not only like your script, but love it!

Congratulations, J.E.!

Congrats J.E. Well done. Good luck! Pens Up!

Dramedy. Onward and upward.

A feel-good drama, which is not my usual.

Scifi-Horror . . . for kids!

Every Genre - that's right, I went there.

TV hour-long dramady.

Yeah, sorry, that's a pretty lame answer for no female Minions. It's a blatant disservice disguised in some grand-gesture compliment. An ostensible reason for laziness. They purposely ignored an entire gender. They perpetuated the same ol' gender bias crap -- the crap idea that girls lack variety, or range, or "personality," or have any interests outside of girly "smart" or "pretty" things. Girls can be funny, silly, goofy, smart, not too bright, violent, angry, sad, mean, devious, gross, and villainous. The Frenchman dismissively patted all little girls on the head and said, "Sorry, sweetie, you can't be represented in this story because you're too good. Girls are too smart. Now just run along."

Have to agree with you Beth. It's patronising to the core.

Beth - must say that I agree with you. I didn't say it was a good answer - just an answer. I imagine he meant it to be complimentary - but he came off as merely flip and condescending. I'm sure he's laughing all the way to the bank - as Amazon jacks up the prices of the minion toys on its site. Why a bunch of gibberish spouting (but adorable) yellow jumping bean-looking creatures can't have some females amongst them is beyond me - maybe he couldn't figure out how to draw their hair...

And Jim J. - if you haven't already - try watching ORPHAN BLACK - you want a bevy of strong female characters? Newly Emmy-nommed Tatiana Maslany plays 7 of 'em - all by herself (and there's even a male character in the mix as well - also played by TM).

Oddly enough the same idea iirritates me in comic books, "I wanted to put forth a strong female character as none existed before I thought of it." I'm sure we can all think of at least one superheroine? Its a silly world whatcha gonna do?

@ Beth thanks

Sounds like an awesome. It could either go really well, or fail miserably. Sounds like a proposition worth trying.

There are such communities such as Talentville or Triggerstreet where you get free screenplay feed-back, if you, in turn, review someone else's script...I'm just saying this so you could think differently and do something yet unseen...:) Sorry if I upset you by bringing up these similar sites...PS: If you make that website, could you please let me know so I could check it out? Thank you! And best of luck to you!

waited this long... i guess the site is running now... what is the link add?

Thanks Victor. I couldn't find this type of site. If you search coverage in Google all you get is paid consultants. Nearly all state that they are readers for studios or producers (but can't say who). They also can't write otherwise they would, but they can tell writers what to do to make a million dollar sale. I trust my peers over people that tell me they are great.

Andrew, I agree. And I believe this is a means to get the audience to feel empathy for the character. Empathy building, to me is another important element to scripts. I've been developing my own personal theories on how to go about doing this. Speaking of deeply flawed heroes and feeling empathy for them, is Kumiko in Kumiko the Treasure Hunter a hero? To me, she absolutely is. And yes, she is deeply flawed. The title of the film alludes to a quest, but really, she's a hero to all who feel disenchanted, disillusioned and disenfranchised. Building on the auteur theory I mentioned earlier, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter very much qualifies. It was directed, written and produced by the Zellner Brothers. This is a prime example of an artist's undiluted vision, and really where screenwriters and directors should be looking to learn and gain new insights. Large studio driven projects are diluted effects loaded money makers, but not necessarily good films. After all, Fifty Shades of Gray made money. I strongly urge familiarity with the Coen Brothere film Fargo before watching Kumiko the Treasure Hunter. Here's the trailer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sDK9jdtwdTo

Even in tragedy, it's important for the protagonist to have some kind of victory. See Braveheart or Spartacus. They may be captured, betrayed, gutted, etc., but something else happens that makes their sacrifice worth while. Neo saves the human race, but dies in the end of the Matrix Trilogy. Han Solo is Frozen and taken away at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, but his friends get away from Darth Vader and the Empire. Just having the protagonist win or lose isn't always the best way. If they always lose something, they learn and grown more.

Steven, you are too kind! If I am ever in a position to take you up on your dinner offer, I will! Thank you! And as you now know, I'm a student of screenwriting too. Having auteur aspirations, I need to understand and develop my writing skills. However, I stand one hundred percent behind everything I've said, and I strongly believe I can say everything I have with an authoritative voice. Armed with passion, an appreciation for cinema, I absolutely insist that film studies is the key to developing a more powerful voice for the screenplay. Everyone, please, watch more quality cinema. More critically acclaimed cinema. More foreign cinema. More arthouse cinema. You'll see things done differently. And that's where the learning begins all over again.

Unfortunately - I have concluded over they years - as Bryan has said - that the Hollywood film industry (and by association the Hollywood screenplay writing industry) - is all about ticking boxes and increasingly adhering to a formulaic format. The end result is an industry that seems to the outsider to be obsessed with playing it safe and ironically spending huge sums of money on what are deemed to be potential money makers - to the detriment of medium and low budget films, which have the potential to be great movies. Where we have interesting American films being produced by independents, they are severely hampered by being unable to obtain distribution. What I find even more disturbing is that this formulaic approach to creating stories is now spreading all over the world and increasingly being seen to be good practice. 40 years ago you could produce a commercial film, which ends with a bus, packed with swag, hanging over a cliff top - with the final piece of dialogue from Charlie Croaker being - "Hang on a minute lads I've got a great idea" - or words to that effect. Great ending - gorgeously British and you would have a hard time selling it now. Remade by Hollywood and completely buggered up. Or the French director Luc Besson's film - Leon. Edgy, dark, disturbing. Set in America but who on earth in main stream Hollywood would touch it with a barge pole. The hero - Leon, is an emotionally stunted hitman, who trains a 12 year old girl to kill. So we have a movie - where the hero stretches the notion of what is a hero to it's most extreme interpretation - while the policeman turns out to be an even bigger shit.

Andrew, well said. And I want to thank everyone for the invigorating discussion!

"Hollywood" isn't one gigantic entity that feels and acts with one brain. "Hollywood" may seem to act with one voice but that one voice is profit. Whoever explained to you that "Hollywood" frowns upon the way you explain women in your story doesn't know what they are talking about. "Hollywood" only frowns on scripts they think will not attract an audience. That said, the others have given you great advice. "A juicy ass" may not be essential to your story - I agree with Sean, the type of dancing (twerking) might be, the size or type of ass the woman has makes her scenery as Lauri mentions. That usually is not relevant to your story. But if that's the way you write then go for it! I know readers, producers and exec's; if your story is outstanding something as minor as a character description will not hold the script back.

Twerking is super relevant, its what some women do, Its a dance. But saying she has a juicy ass might be a little much, @Sean Curvy knockout sounds a lot better.

@Leona, CJ and DiPietra you're right I do need to explain women better except for the way they look, but how?

Hi Dru There’s a great site called Whatascript - http://www.whatascript.com/index.html Tons of helpful, non nonsense tips. Here’s the section on writing characters. http://www.whatascript.com/fictional-character-04.html Hope it helps.

@Leona you're right there's so to learn to with this, this site is good thank you.

Hi there, Nkosi. Thank you very much for your response to my thread. I am a very thoughtful guy. Although I believe this does bring issues at times, lol. All I do, no matter what I'm doing, is think. I find it very hard to concentrate on things a lot of the time as my mind is constantly ticking over. At the same time I think it can also be a gift. :) But what I'm really hoping is that it aids me along my journey to one day write a screenplay, that will be good enough to be brought to life on the big screen. I also hope to be able to one day bring one of my own screenplays to life myself on the big screen. I have a lot of dreams to work within this industry, and I'm hoping I haven't left it too late in life. I would want nothing more than to be even a small part of something, that would bring pleasure and entertainment to those who see it! :) I think I was born on the wrong side of the pond, lol.

Wrong side of the pond Gavin - wash your mouth out with soap. But seriously guys there is a lot more to film making than Hollywood. Out there is a whole world of cinema and it's a damn sight easier to have a film made in Africa or India than in mainstream Hollywood. World cinema is like Hollywood in the 20's - it's a wild west crewed, with often first class technicians and ambitious young directors and producers - and they want good stories. It's a world where screenwriters do not feel that have to walk about with Blake stuffed up their backsides - and where film making is a damn sight more ambitious than the norm in mainstream Hollywood. Take time to explore world cinema and when you do so - note down the names of the directors and producers who catch your eye. Later when you have developed suitable material send them a pitch. Operate out of your comfort zone. You won't make any money - but - if you are any good - you will see your screenplays kicked around and if you are lucky - be part of a team that brings them to fruition. And when you start to actually make films - that's when you will really learn how to develop your art. Only when the characters that you dreamed up strut their stuff on the big screen - do you really begin to understand the dark art of storytelling.

My apologies, Andrew, lol. I know there is more to the world of film making. It is just something I have always thought. Very little opportunity in Wales while having to work a full time job and do this in my spare time. I really want to do this full time, and eventually start making my own films. I just need to win the Euromillions. Although with my luck, I couldn't win a competition if I were the only person to enter. :)

Gavin - good luck with the lottery. That said - cardinal rule: Never put your own money in the movie. That's what the studios are for. And Andrew - agree with you wholeheartedly on world cinema. Just saw a beautiful British film yesterday ("Testament of Youth") and I've seen a few Irish and French films lately that I've enjoyed far more than the recent Hollywood output ("Terminator Genisys" anyone? Save your dough). And as far as that goes - TV is doing far more fascinating projects on a regular basis of late than anything the movies (domestic) have to offer. Showtime and HBO originals. Game of Thrones. the Walking Dead. Justified. The Americans. House of Cards. Orange is the New Black. Transparent. Mr. Robot. Boardwalk Empire. The list is a long one. THAT's ehere the creativity and ground breaking stuff is happening. The movies? They claim to be looking for originality and fresh voices - but all they crank out are sequels and remakes and reboots and movies based on graphic novels/comic books.

Thank you, Leon! :)

Andrew - have you ever thought of getting up once every hour, sitting on the egg and seeing if something hatches? I wonder - with the generation of kids that is growing up texting 24/7 - whether the future will bring humans with no fingers - just two enormous opposable thumbs.

I feel a sense of loss.

Dan; a great idea! I retired from my day job years ago and took up film production in the (then) emerging DSLR world as a hobby. Now I own my own little-bitty production company – I work when, and with whom I chose; as much or as little as I want. When I want a new piece of equipment, I produce a couple of local commercials for a few bucks. Life is good.

Sometimes, I feel elation, sometimes I feel satisfied, sometimes I feel surprised it got done so fast, but lately, I feel like I've just won a major battle, only to see another army marching over the hill with flags emblazoned "Revision".

Finished another script today. Started this one back in February and because of the dark subject matter, I wasn't feeling it at the time. So, I came back to it three weeks ago, hit the groove and wrote 60 pages. Not sure how I feel about it and too tired to care. So I'll start reading and editing in a week.

Mine is one my profile if you want to take a look.

Hey Dru, this is Beth from the Stage 32 team. I just wanted to let you know I moved your post from Development to Your Stage, as it fits much better there. Let me know if you have any questions, and all the best to you!

No Beth Its not woking as well now

"Your Stage" is the place to shine the light on yourself -- posting loglines or anything else you'd like to solicit or promote. This section is for self-promotion. Whereas other sections are for topic discussion. I believe Shannon also mentioned to you to perhaps take a look at the Happy Writers for other possibilities. :)

Yeah paid, I've paid enough I need a real read