Understanding Where to Start and How To Make It Good!
Every time I see an interview with a filmmaker, the question comes up, “Do you have any advice for beginning filmmakers?” Some don’t have an answer or shoot off one or two things that come to mind, but I believe it’s a serious question deserving more than offhanded responses. Since I have made a movie before, it’s called The Quantum Terror, which made it to VOD and even won Film Threat’s ‘Award This’ for 2023’s Best Indie Horror Movie, I think I might be qualified to give some of that advice. I’ve come up with twelve well-thought-out answers that I think provide a foundation for any aspiring filmmaker’s start.
Rule 1: The Medium Comes First, Not the Story.
Writing used to be a basic skill taught in school, and now it’s treated like some mystical talent. We could talk about three-act structures, how to build tension and release it, what makes a good character, and these are all important things to know how to do, but they all fall apart if you don’t have an appreciation for the medium you’re working in. Go to any comic book convention and you’ll find an aspiring screenwriter talking about how he’s turning his screenplay into a “graphic novel” so he can make it a proven IP and sell it to a studio but when you ask him what his favorite comic book story is, he’ll confess that he doesn’t read them. The result is a bad comic that no one will ever read, especially a studio executive, because the writer didn’t care about the medium he was writing in, he didn’t know how to play to its strengths and weaknesses, and he certainly didn’t feel any passion for the end result that would end up in the hands of the reader.
Imagine how underwhelming The Nightmare Before Christmas would have felt if it had been a stock standard cartoon. Think about how silly Toy Story as a live-action movie with actors playing the toys would have been. How many books that you loved have been turned into bad movies that miss the point of everything that made you excited to see it on the big screen.
My favorite TV show, Samurai Jack, only works because the people making it are super passionate about hand-drawn animation and wanted to push the limits of what it could do, so they wrote stories that let them do just that. The Dark Crystal mini-series worked so well because puppeteers got together and asked themselves how they could make the most spectacular puppet show imaginable. The Silence of the Lambs is so engrossing because it’s an actor’s movie, and everything that happens in that movie is designed to enhance their stellar performances.
You’re going to be spending a lot of time working on your movie, so you’d better make sure it’s a medium you love, because if you don’t, the audience sure as hell isn’t going to love it. Show them why what they’re seeing is special and how clever you can be with the materials you’re working with. Anything else is wasting your and their time.
Rule 2: Good Scripts Come From Living Life and Reading From Those Who Have Lived.
There’s a lot out there about writing a good script, but most of it is bad, and it shows in the kinds of movies we’re getting these days. Best-selling paperback authors will bloviate about their greatest hits while trying to pass their lazy plot contrivances and story-killing stream of consciousness tangents as hallmarks of their success, all the while ignoring that their last really good release was before they had the brand recognition to pull rank on their editor. The latest how-to-write books were written by people who learned by reading those authors’ how-to-write books, and the people reading those books are getting their ideas from what they watched on Netflix the night before, while drinking wine and petting their cat.
I can’t stress enough how far removed in quality this is making modern writing from the stories of even fifty years ago, let alone those of William Shakespeare, William Blake, Oscar Wilde, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, or even Edgar Rice Burroughs, for that matter. Their stories stir the soul because they had no choice but to confront life head-on, far removed from what to them would have been unimaginable comforts and distractions. Reading the works they produced will change you in ways you can’t imagine, and if you peel yourself off the couch and get out into the world, it will change you even more, and your writing will become meaningful. Learn a trade, work with your hands, and talk to people you would normally never think to talk to. As a result, the world around you will become richer for you and those who watch your movies.
You owe it to yourself and society not to produce worthless drivel. That means getting outside of your comfort zone.
You a******s are trash for using AI art.
AI-generated artwork is only possible because of the wholesale theft of millions of artists’ intellectual property. When you use it instead of paying human artists, you are complicit in that crime. Any publication that engages in such practices disdains and disrespects art and artists.
The idea that AI is some form of theft is based on old misnomers perpetuated in its early days and has been debunked. I addressed this in my previous article and will elaborate in my future writings. Stay tuned.