"Your screenplay will NEVER sell... do you want to know why?"

[TheConnorNoden]

Originally Posted by dmatthew

Well, don't you think they should teach what is commercial? How to write what Hollywood buys?

Isn't it irresponsible to simply give the tools but no direction?

I don't know. Maybe I'm off base but NOBODY teaches what to write.

Why doesn't anybody teach what to write?

D.

If you need a teacher to tell you what to write then it's a good thing you have your B.A. and M.F.A. to fall back on. You're taking a creative art and thinking about it in a purely economical sense. Obviously that is an aspect but there is so much more to film than money.

Often times the great original films do make money despite not ticking boxes. Eraserhead had a budget of around $20,000 and $7 million at the box office. That's 350 times it's budget. And I'd be hard pressed to find a film as unconventional as Eraserhead.

You know why nobody good teaches you what to write? They're busy writing and enjoying successful careers. I really hope it's not the case but if you're in this just for money then you'll never make it. Wrong business to come in and expect easy money.

It's like what Hilander said. Bad writers are always trying to write what's hot now, it's the good writers who set the trends.

[JeffLowell]

Originally Posted by Anagram

There's an old post by Deus Ex that says the trick to being successful is about combining the two - finding something that is both sellable and also something that you're passionate about.

Would you agree with that Jeff?

Well... sure.

But great ideas don't fall out of trees. If you have a truly wonderful idea that you can write the hell out of, and it's not obviously commercial, sometimes it's worth rolling the dice.

[Anagram]

Originally Posted by JeffLowell

Well... sure.

But great ideas don't fall out of trees. If you have a truly wonderful idea that you can write the hell out of, and it's not obviously commercial, sometimes it's worth rolling the dice.

Well thank God for that because I already wrote the damn thing!

[christopher jon]

Why doesn't anybody teach what to write?

OMFG!

Did you really ask that?

If you don't know what to write you shouldn't be writing. End of story.

I hope nobody has wasted their money on that book.

I'll stick to taking my advice from working professional screenwriters over hacks pitching ebooks on the internet.

[wcmartell]

Originally Posted by dmatthew

They are never taught. Never.

Two things:

1) Teaching is not learning - it is the student's responsibility to learn, whether the teacher teaches or not. You should always be seeking information. You should not expect people to hand you things. You know what I call people who wait to be handed things? Failures in the making. *You* need to be seeking at all times - curious, questioning, weighing info.

2) I always say to write the type of movies you pay to see every week - that way you are writing the kinds of films that *you* love... that enough other people love that they get made.

All roads lead to Rome: If you are a gourmet chef who can whip up a smoked trout suoffle in phyllo crust and apply for a job at McDonalds - you will probably get that job... but can you make a Big Mac? You'd be surprised at how many people who can write an amazing drama screenplay that breaks them in have *zero* skills at writing a thriller or action script or whatever genre gig they end up getting. And people are shocked, shocked! that such a great writer wrote such a sucky genre film - and often blame the genre or some other element. Yet some hack wrote a much better genre film. There's a think called a wheel-house or skill-set - and if you are the chef with the talents to make that trout souffle, you *also* need the talents to make the Big Mac. If you only have *limited* skills - souffle or Big Mac - you're dead in the water. What they want is the chef who can make the delicious Big Mac... or that they can promote to come up with the next McRib because they are a creative masterchef. They can make *great* fast food. And that chef may also get hired at some fancy-ass restaurant, but there are fewer of those and the danged things close all of the time.

But if you are a movie lover who goes to the cinema all the time - you already know what kinds of films get made and are writing the type of films you love.

No one has to teach you...
You *do* have to learn.

- Bill (3 years at a 2 year community college with a "Film Appreciation" class where we watched classic movies and wrote one page book report type things and make a 3.5 minute movie every semester... everything else was what I learned).

[ATB]

Man. I want a Big Mac, now.

[michaelb]

Originally Posted by dmatthew

But nobody is interested in what we want to write. Nobody. They are only interested in what they can make money on.

Not one person in any school I know teaches what to write.

That is why I love the blog post and video. It's so true.

If somebody taught people what to write nobody would sign up for any screenwriting course.

Didn't we all get into writing because we wanted to find a way to say what we wanted to say.

The whole screenwriter teacher thing is a scam. Totally.

Anybody who disagrees is either a teacher threatened by the truth or one of the scammed.

D.

I was taught what was commercial in film school. The difference was most of the people I was in school with were art house pretentious *******s that hated the studio system. Now years later they are all on set grinding away as PA's 10 years after graduation..

And a good commercial idea will inherently be accessible to a wide audience, if you need a checklist, you don't study the right films/trends/marketplace.

If you ever need a reference of commercial films, look here. http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

Best,

Michael

[nojustice]

Originally Posted by michaelb

I was taught what was commercial in film school.

Michael

May I ask, which film school was that? Sorry, but there is a current trend around here to call a unit of media studies "having gone to film school".

[michaelb]

Originally Posted by nojustice

May I ask, which film school was that? Sorry, but there is a current trend around here to call a unit of media studies "having gone to film school".

The Los Angeles Film School on sunset. I was in the producing and screenwriting programs. I also got my B.A in creative writing from Colorado State.

[nojustice]

It's just that most pros say it's a good thing to go to film school, and that it helped them enormously. So what you're saying contradicts that.