If you don't write it, someone else will...

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  • #46
    Re: If you don't write it, someone else will...

    Originally posted by reddery View Post
    I think anything Tarantino has ever written has sold. George Lucas too. They are plugged into modern culture and write scripts that explore themes that are important to society.
    Have you seen Tarantino's first film? It's called MY BEST FRIEND'S BIRTHDAY and it has no distributor.

    QT makes his own films, and the scripts that he has sold (TRUE ROMANCE, NATURAL BORN KILLERS) were rewrites of Roger Avary originals. Now, I have no idea how many scripts he has written and not sold - how would anyone know that? I do know that he had a manager who was hustling his stuff for years before DOGS, and he fired her the minute that deal came together. What was she trying to sell before that?

    Lucas also makes his own stuff - what script did he ever sell?

    Pro writers do not sell every spec they write. Everyone I know has unsold specs. Just the way it is. You write ten specs to sell a few and maybe get one on screen.

    The DIE HARD stuff seems way over the top to me for this decade. We're in BOURNE world. When I saw the new BATMAN movie, the rooftop car chase was cool... and in my action book published in 1998.

    - Bill
    Free Script Tips:
    http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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    • #47
      Re: If you don't write it, someone else will...

      Backing up a point Bil lmade:


      I took a seminar by Richard Walter, head of UCLA's screenwriting department. He doesn't have on produced credit.


      None of my scripts have to be made. I'd be happy getting paid to do I like, even assignments.

      "The two things that run Hollywood are fear and greed." - Syd Field

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      • #48
        Re: If you don't write it, someone else will...

        My thing is getting *my* stories on screen.

        That means a lot of sperm production just to knock up one egg.

        If I was more assignment oriented, I'd be dealing with sperms that had already made it down the tickle tubes and were trying to break into the egg... problem is, they'd be sperms from some donor and it wouldn't make me nearly as happy if one scored.

        But most of the time those sperms just end up in a tissue in a Mobile Station waste basket on I5.

        - Bill (creeping *myself* out)
        Free Script Tips:
        http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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        • #49
          Re: If you don't write it, someone else will...

          Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
          The DIE HARD stuff seems way over the top to me for this decade. We're in BOURNE world. When I saw the new BATMAN movie, the rooftop car chase was cool... and in my action book published in 1998.

          - Bill
          Too much realism and you can also loose audiences.

          Movies are meant to entertain first and foremost. A good percentage of the audience goes to a movie to escape reality, not be hit over the head with it.

          For example, look at the success of "300". This is pure escapism and over-the-top, "eye porn" based loosely on an historical event. Audiences accept this and embraced the story for what it was.

          Also, I think this movement about so-called "realism" is partly the younger generation(s) trying to stake their claim on the movies of our time, so they can say those films are specifically "theirs". The irony is a lot of what the public considers "realistic" is far, FAR from it and still Hollywood's own version of unreality.

          We talked a little bit about this on the thread about the U.S. Military and how they do and don't help with certain productions based on the core values either portrayed or not portrayed in scripts.
          Positive outcomes. Only.

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          • #50
            Re: If you don't write it, someone else will...

            I just watched Pan's Labyrinth and in the opening V.O. I was horrified to learn that it was the story of a princess from another world who dreams of the human world who then goes there, forgets who she is, dies, and then her parents and kingdom wait for her to be reincarnated so she can return to them. SON OF A B!TCH! That's the basic premise of the novel I've been working on for 7 years! Okay, I kind of stopped working on it to try screenwriting, but I planned on finishing it eventually. Same exact setup, nearly word-for-word, but with a completely different execution.

            I'm still fuming....
            Last edited by velysai; 06-15-2007, 06:47 PM.

            "We're all immigrants now, man."
            - Zia (Patrick Fugit), "Wristcutters: A Love Story"

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            • #51
              Re: If you don't write it, someone else will...

              Maybe I should have gone further and said that my "Disturbia" plot was about a teen who's on a sort of lockdown and, with the help of a friend, looks into a neighbor's strange behavior.

              I know there was a movie called "Rear Window" but it was about a grown man who was incapacitated by a broken leg who notices a guy with strange behavior across a courtyard.

              So I guess the point is, with a few changes, I could probably still write my story because there is nothing new under the sun.

              Maybe I could make it a cat who looks across the way and sees a murderous pit bull ...
              Pixar are you listening?

              "Until the Lion writes his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." -African Proverb

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              • #52
                Re: If you don't write it, someone else will...

                Originally posted by yvonnjanae View Post
                Maybe I could make it a cat who looks across the way and sees a murderous pit bull ...
                Pixar are you listening?
                Actually, I think that is a great idea. A cartoon spoof of a Hitchcock classic, which has been brought to life in the public eye again thanks to Disturbia, could be really funny! Too bad there's no spec market for animation!
                Goonies never say die!

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                • #53
                  Re: If you don't write it, someone else will...

                  Originally posted by Taotropics View Post
                  The average writer can do with a whole lot less hyperactivity and a whole lot more fatalism.

                  cut....

                  peace out

                  tao

                  Thanks!

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                  • #54
                    Re: If you don't write it, someone else will...

                    Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
                    Have you seen Tarantino's first film? It's called MY BEST FRIEND'S BIRTHDAY and it has no distributor.
                    Yeah i saw it and liked it. If you look at that unfinished B/W film and see what he did later. You can definately see his style.

                    The premiss of it is a Elvis, wrangler type, hires a prostitue for his Best Friend's Birthday. Then, some weird sorta dialogue scenes happen, like he does in True Romance or Pulp Fiction, And there is a Kung Fu fight between the Best Friend and the pimp... the movie kinda ends there.

                    Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
                    QT makes his own films, and the scripts that he has sold (TRUE ROMANCE, NATURAL BORN KILLERS) were rewrites of Roger Avary originals.
                    That does explain the difference between his orginal characters and his stuff after Pulp Fiction. The euphemisms he uses in conversations explained more of the side story of characters, or eluded to a foreshadowing of plot points.

                    Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
                    Now, I have no idea how many scripts he has written and not sold - how would anyone know that? I do know that he had a manager who was hustling his stuff for years before DOGS, and he fired her the minute that deal came together. What was she trying to sell before that?
                    For what I've heard(and I can be wrong) is that all his scripts were bought up very quickly. And probably ever spec he had out was sold and out of his hands, that's, for what i understand, is why Natural Born Killers doesn't have is name in the credits, he didn't want it made, just a spec he wrote and was bought up. He wrote Dusk till Dawn, also.

                    Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
                    Lucas also makes his own stuff - what script did he ever sell?
                    Raiders of the Lost Arc. the rest of the Indiana Jones series is written by him too.

                    Well I'm sure he had to sell the idea of American Graffiti to the studios to get it produced. If you've ever read about the test screenings and his dealing with the studios at the time you find the guy more interesting.

                    Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
                    Pro writers do not sell every spec they write. Everyone I know has unsold specs. Just the way it is. You write ten specs to sell a few and maybe get one on screen.
                    I have no real idea, you, i'm sure have much more experience.

                    But, I have to say how bad i would feel if someone bought my script and never produced it; or if someone ruined the marketablity of my script by making a half a$$ film of it.

                    Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
                    The DIE HARD stuff seems way over the top to me for this decade. We're in BOURNE world. When I saw the new BATMAN movie, the rooftop car chase was cool... and in my action book published in 1998.
                    Yeah Batman Begins was alright. Its based on Batman 'Year One' written by Frank Miller. Through out the 80's Miller was associated(in the comic book world) with taking older characters and writing new origins for them.

                    The Japanese Wolverine; the Daredevil that falls in love with the deadly Electra; Batman, from being a detective to martial arts expert.

                    Around the same time, Punisher got his own comic book(85') and European stuff like Watchmen and Sandman became popular.

                    I think the Borne stuff you see now is more like the stuff Shane Black was doing back in the late 80's/early 90's, with the back story of Riggs being some sort of military assassin. Or in 'the Last Boyscout', punching someone in the nose, making the cartilage in the nose spike the brain and killing someone with a single hit.
                    Last edited by reddery; 06-18-2007, 10:40 AM.
                    But this wily god never discloses even to the skillful questioner the whole content of his wisdom.

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