I have started down the path suggested by an article. Do five scripts to develop your skill sets. Each should be a different genre and starting with horror is probably best. Horror is easiest to start for two reasons. First, Horror movies have the strongest use of formulas. and Second, Most people find the same sorts of things horrific - this is why comedy is so difficult in comparison.
So I started with a horror movie. I didn't really watch horror movies prior to this exercise. I found Bravo's 100 most suspenseful moments in cinema, and started watching the list of movies. The movies included a number of horror classics like, "Friday the 13th" and other films I had never heard of like, "The Devil's Backbone" (which, by the way, is a fantastic horror/drama). After getting a full dose of horror, I went ahead and wrote my first script. I based it on the short story - Hansel and Gretel. What this most showed me was how to be brave as a writer. It is a little unsettling to write such terrible things and put your name on the page. But I got good feedback from fellow neophytes and realized, that someone has to write it for it to happen on screen, and horror makes money just like drama.
Next I wrote a mystery/thriller. This was actually the first script I began, but I struggled with it, because I didn't yet buy into the need to decide the major events of the story before beginning. So the beginning never got to the middle, and I couldn't make decisions. After I wrote the horror movie, I was able to make decisions and put together an outline pretty quickly. It was just learning to trust that the outline would get me there, but wouldn't limit me from exploring ideas along the way. So, while the outline evolved as I wrote, I knew how to get to the end and that made all the difference.
The third script was a melodrama based in Texas. This flowed from me very quickly. And as I progressed through the writing and on-going development of this script, I came to realize the power of research. I needed more research to really get the movie going, and I had to let go of making the script an ensemble piece. I started with a vision of an ensemble piece, but ended up with a single story dominating the pages. I realized that ensemble pieces were more difficult for a reason. They are about theme more than story. And I had a single dominant story to tell, not a theme to share. So I am still re-writing with the idea to revitalize the central story and reduce the confusion of the number of characters.
The fourth script is in it's middle stages of outline. It's been difficult to develop, because the thing that makes the concept powerful doesn't really provide the antagonism. I've come to associate the genre with film noir and am exploring the sci-fi angle as the macguffin.
I have an outlook to the fifth script as well, a romantic comedy... Then what happens, I wonder. I will have fulfilled the five script path and then will I be good enough to make a better showing in competitions. I suspect that will be the next action. And, I will need to continue re-writes of my older pieces to apply learnings to improve the previous work. I suspect there will be a great deal to do to them at that point.
I have gone back, from time to time, to look at my old scripts and see so much that could be improved, but I'm not really ready to do final re-writes. In between I've begun a documentary-esque film short. My hope is that a short will, at some point, be filmed.
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