IndieTalk: The Movie (Story Development)

I saw the family as Jewish- likely the parents children when their families emigrated to the US at the end of WWII. German, French, English would all work. The pen could be one of the only items that the great grandfather had successfully brought from abroad.

I agree that character development needs to happen first. Much of it is already in my head, as the characters are somewhat based in reality. I will work on that tonight and post results in the morning.
 
I saw the family as Jewish- likely the parents children when their families emigrated to the US at the end of WWII. German, French, English would all work. The pen could be one of the only items that the great grandfather had successfully brought from abroad.
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Perfect -- Have you read any Primo Levi?

He was articulate on the trauma and guilt of first generation holocaust survival -- comitted suicide himself.

That's got potential -- but be careful, script writing is almost always about immersing ourselves in another world -- and my exprience is, these kind of scripts can become overwhelming in their intensity for the writer
 
Haven't read it, but I will go to the library asap and look him up.

I've written several scripts, although none with this level of conflict. I am relishing the task. Everyone here's going to work on it together, right?
 
I've written several scripts, although none with this level of conflict. I am relishing the task. Everyone here's going to work on it together, right?
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You'll be fine -- just remember it's a process and the first draft doesn't need to be perfect.

If you spilt the process up into indivual task, it goes smoother -- but even by doing that, the development process is still a protracted one.

With my current primary project I'm already on four full "start from scratch" rewrites -- with at least five tighten and fix versions between each over haul -- and my current estimate is, I'm still a major rewrite away from having something ready to show.

The good news is if you get the character development right, every step after that is on a solid foundation.
 
Lilith, when/if we choose to go with "the pen" idea, we won't all be writing the script. When we get to that stage, we'll pick only a few at most to write it 'together', if not just the one that came up with the idea.
 
BTW- the way I saw the grandparents finally dealing with the role they played in their son's death was for the granddaughter to show them his writings, which detail his descent into madness... Yet another way to use the pen in the father's story.


So guys, we're liking this storyline or hating it? Feedback please. :)
 
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Personally I would like the pen to travel to other people besides family members. I think the idea of telling the journey of a pen would be more interesting if it involved several different set peices. I like the idea of the girl losing the pen and some totally unrelated person finding it -- then we go on to tell his/her story until the pen again passes hands.

I am now seeing your story Lilith as a whole. Starts out with the Dad scribbling a suicide note, flash forward a bit to see the daughter nab the pen from under the Policemen's noses, she puts it in the box, flash forward twenty years, thus begins her story of seeking approval from a family that's been torn asunder by a twenty year old tragedy.

If we go with the vignette idea, I see it working like this -- five stories are picked and five writers are teamed up with five diretors -- that way there is a more intimate working relationship than with six writers and one director (or three or four directors). Also, this will give us a variety of styles and voices.

Another thought, who says all the stories have to be drama? One could be comedic, one could be horror/suspense, another could be experimental. We shouldn't pigeonhole ourselves into one genre.

I'm putting up a strong Vote for the pen idea. It's an easy way to connect people, and to have the same object in all the films.
 
Time to chime...

Poke said:
Personally I would like the pen to travel to other people besides family members. I think the idea of telling the journey of a pen would be more interesting if it involved several different set peices. I like the idea of the girl losing the pen and some totally unrelated person finding it -- then we go on to tell his/her story until the pen again passes hands.

I am now seeing your story Lilith as a whole. Starts out with the Dad scribbling a suicide note, flash forward a bit to see the daughter nab the pen from under the Policemen's noses, she puts it in the box, flash forward twenty years, thus begins her story of seeking approval from a family that's been torn asunder by a twenty year old tragedy.

If we go with the vignette idea, I see it working like this -- five stories are picked and five writers are teamed up with five diretors -- that way there is a more intimate working relationship than with six writers and one director (or three or four directors). Also, this will give us a variety of styles and voices.

Another thought, who says all the stories have to be drama? One could be comedic, one could be horror/suspense, another could be experimental. We shouldn't pigeonhole ourselves into one genre.

I'm putting up a strong Vote for the pen idea. It's an easy way to connect people, and to have the same object in all the films.
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Been keeping up with the thread... While I'm not totally convinced about the idea of a pen yet, I do think that no matter what prop you use, it does need to TRAVEL outside a family. Additionally, instead of straight drama all the way through, I think you'll get a lot more mileage if you change it up in every sequence.

Drama
Action
Horror
Comedy
Thriller

Not necessarily in that order but now you really are giving the audience a rollercoaster ride... You lull them into thinking it's a specific type genre and then you YANK the rug out from under them when they least expect it.

Traveling outside the family will expand the stage and since this project could be taken on in several different countries, why not totally exploit that aspect? This element alone will add to the perception of budget and...

And if you spin the genre on its head every 20 plus minutes, you really have the chance to keep us mesmerized all the way through to the end.

Just my 2 cents...

filmy
 
I think filmy's right

I think now that we can use people in different countries, we should use that to our advantage. And i always like to be not put under 1 genre, so changing that every country we go to would be great! Filmy's right, imo :)
 
I didn't read this whole thread, but have you seen the (cancelled) TV series The Gun? Every week was a different story with different characters, but it followed the gun. Sounds like the pen a little. Not saying that's good or bad.
 
I saw the Gun... wasn't a particularly good show, but i think that's because that a show with no consistent characters doesn't make for entertaining TV. I think this pen concept would work if those 5 different shorts were shot and melded into one feature. Perhaps even have a main character/plot be a historian looking into the history of the pen, and cut up the 5 shorts to interrupt each other (revealing info at pace)?
 
Can someone summarize all the ideas for everyone and post them up on CV's website so if we missed alot we can quickly view what is going on right now. I would try and contribute some genious ideas but it is hard when my time has been wasted fighting with fellow filmmakers. Were back on track now so someone please inform me on what were thinking about writing. Thanks, Jack

Also- I still have not got to use my Moviemagic screenwriter and I am dying too so get me writing please.
 
CVF, an idea would be to keep a summary in the first post that you could keep adding to.
 
To the above posts, i have, check the second post in this thread, i have said this in a few previous post, that i have that list there.
 
Granny Theft Auto

I have pitch -- and I'm ashamed to say that I've not developed a high concept logline for it :blush:

Mainly because it's a true story.

Last year a friend of a friend Dave was getting married, and decided that to save money him and his wife to be, Sharon, would drive their caravan over to France in order to stock up on cheap booze.

However, Sharon's 87 year old Granny found out that they were going and because she'd never been abroad, decided that she was going to tag along -- news that didn't improve Dave's mood (imagine Ray Winston on a bad day, you've got him). But, he loves Sharon and to be honest she nagged him into it.

So they pile onto the ferry, only to discover as they approach France, that Granny doesn't have and never has had a passport -- so in a moment of desperation -- they stuff her in the caravan's toilet and tell her to keep quiet.

After a very shaky time at the border -- they make it through and Dave decides that they may as well drive to the Hypermarket and let Gran out there -- which turned out to be a poor choice, because when they opened the door in the Car Park -- GRAN IS STONE DEAD.:yes:

So, now trapped abroad, with a dead woman, with no passport, Dave does the only thing he can think of -- goes into the supermarket to buy the booze! Which doesn't play that well with Sharon who at this point is hysterical.

But he persuaded her that they'll just smuggle the dead body back over the border and everything will be fine.

So they load up the caravan with an obscene amount of alcohol and after having a few cans to settle their nerves, drive back towards the port.

However, on the drive back they got pulled by the French Police for drunk driving -- Dave over reacts to the stiuation and ends up getting busted for attempted assault (what he did was accidently knock the policman's hat off and give him some choice language)

So, them and the caravan are driven to a French Police station -- where the police discover the dead body -- drag Dave outside the police station to confront him with the corpse -- ONLY TO FIND THAT THE CAR AND CARAVAN HAVE BEEN STOLEN!

It's true -- the Police left the keys in the car -- some local bad lad wandered by and thought he'd struck it lucky -- stole the car, caravan full of booze and the Dead Granny!

Now, we've no idea what happened next, as none it was never recovered!

And perhaps unsuprisingly -- Dave and Sharon never made it to the altar -- and because of the scandal, the police dropped the charges against him.

I guess I'm thinking that this would work just as well if the border was the Mexican Border.

I've always seen it as a short, and as I've no real interest in writing or making shorts it's been sitting with me waiitng for the right moment.
 
Oh my God. That is so tragically funny. Twisted beyond words. It's frightening that Dave felt the need to stay on course, no matter what. Reminds me a bit of a "Vacation" film.
 
The classic case of doing the exact opposite to what one should…

How did they get past the British side without a passport?

If I'm not mistaking there has been films/TV movies like this before albeit without the granny part… Booze Cruise or something?
 
I'm not saying this isn't true, but I've heard this (almost) same exact story before from a friend saying it was one of his brother's pals driving the van:

The story was that three college freshman decided to drive to Mexico because of the drinking age being 18 whereas it's 21 in the States, one of them had no passport, so they stuck him under a bench in the back and covered him with some bags. When they got across the border, they discovered that the guy had died from the exhaust fumes. The rest was pretty much spot on (exchange the beer run with a night of heavy drinking at a bar).

At the time I labeled it as an Urban Legend.

Again, not calling clive a liar, just parlaying what I was told.

Poke
 
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