Episodical Acts of a Movie?

Personally I would think you would know if it's meant to be a one dump feature or if it should be an episodic mini series type.

It's either one or the other in my opinion. I mean, even tv episodes have a beginning/middle/end (3 act structure).

So do your segments/episodes each have a beginning, middle and end or does it not?

If each episode doesn't then it's obvious you have a feature on your hands and vice versa.

+1 on TheOpusFuller.. its really the story that decides.

What your calling "episodes" might just be very powerful and pronounced ACTS. Each act should have a completeness in itself .. in other words you may have just written a really well structured script, and are a bit surprised by how delineated each act is...

Not being familiar with your story, I would probably lean more towards episodes. The cons being:
Would you be ok with possibly having this be your sole project for the next few months/years? I don't think that the fact it may be more work should matter because you'll have a lot more time to do it, but do you want to spend that long on the project or have it be open ended?

As for needing each episodes to have a beginning middle and end, I only half agree. Look at Star Wars, while eps 4,5 and 6 each have their own plots and beginning middle and ends, they are largely left open and could be looked at as acts 1, 2 and 3 respectively. There are lots of examples, especially in television, of arcs that go beyond one episode's reach.

Like I said, I'd probably go episodic, but I bet you could make it work either way.

Yeah, the story is getting more detailed.

The first ARC is about this girl and this super-villain who killed her boyfriend who was a superhero.
Each ACT is about her life after and a new super-hero, who at the end of the act is killed by this super-villain (thus the its episodical).
The ARC ends when she confronts this super-villain.
The second ARC would be her as a super-heroin (If I decide to go that far).
Its all supposed to be very dark, and funny (I'd say more farcical than comedy but I haven't passed the draft around yet to my review team).


My though with the separation into episodes is that I can spend more time on each episode and not be rushed to get the whole thing out the door. I can also arrange shoots with actors to be each episodes' lead (aka the poor superhero that gets killed) and avoid needing to get so many people in a short window. The girl, the super-villain, and her boyfriend would be the only three actors which would be constant in the arc (in terms of needing to be in every episode) - I think I could manage that, and if someone drops out... well I'm a creative problem solver in terms of casting and changing scripts on the fly.

I'm not worried about it being my only project because:
1. I have smaller projects (music videos of local bands) which I'm doing on the side.
2. I have other "movie" ideas I want to do which are far less "effects" and more dialogue driven so I can shoot those much faster than a film with all the effects (remember I'm doing my own effects so they do slow things down considerably).

I'm just assuming that shooting multiple smaller productions will be easier/cheaper than trying to stage one big production. And because they are the same arc I can continue to write the story without having to reinvent all new characters, use a lot of the same elements/talent, and as I go I'll get better and better with experience.

I'm wondering if that is a reasonable assumption or if I'm off my rocker.

Graeme said:

Yeah, the story is getting more detailed.

The first ARC is about this girl and this super-villain who killed her boyfriend who was a superhero.
Each ACT is about her life after and a new super-hero, who at the end of the act is killed by this super-villain (thus the its episodical).

Click to expand...

same old story. what is new?
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huh, after the 2nd death, Id think a character would start to develop guilt, perhaps thinking she is the CAUSE of their deaths.. and shes right.. the villain has been in love with her since grade school..

Not quite, the sacrificial superheroes are just filling the void or "b-story" while the arc focuses on her development. I'm doing this so that I can get more local actors/actresses into bigger roles while still avoiding having 10 main characters I have to drag though the whole project.

Is there any way you can place the “Superpower” into an object (with an interesting new hook of some sort that allows it to travel an episodic path of being lost, stolen, thrown away, hidden, sold, pawned, copied, found, bought etc by various actors in small episodes that unwittingly inherit the curse like “power” when they come into possession of the object)

AND have your Super Heroine looking for the object, knowing the longer it is till she finds it, the more people get hurt.

SO, she IS a Super Heroine, but riddled with guilt and rendered incapable and made ordinary by the loss of something. (The object -which thematically is love and self (Lack of) following the death of her boyfriend.

To be HER OWN hero, and to be THE HERO she must pick up the pieces of herself and her life, and find the object (herself), face down the Super Villian (of thematic inner demon) and save the day.

-Thanks-

Yeah I was thinking along the lines of "Runes" which grant various powers. Trick being in the story is figuring out how all these other "superheroes" get their hands on them while still staying out of the general populace... cause we all know if you knew drawing a symbol on a t-shirt could make you fly you'd do it in a heartbeat, everyone would.

I'm thinking (now that you have given me the idea) is that the runes must be made a certain way, with say an enchanted stone or something... and that is what is lost which she must find.

I can see the advantage of doing it in episodes. But remember that once an episode is in the can, it limits your options for each succeeding episode. I can't imagine beginning this without a solid script already in hand, since foreshadowing and character development has to begin from page one. I can guarantee you that the time between shooting each episode will result in anguish over a desire to "improve" the script. I think you're better off shooting the whole thing at once, since people move, get sick, even die and the less chance (and time) you give them to do those things, the better off you'll be. Hell, there'll even likely be a temptation to put it away and start on some other shiny object if you leave much time between shooting the sequences, for a variety of reasons. Life happens, after all.


best of luck!

-Charles