Sup peeps. Life stopped hitting you in the balls? Makes a difference doesn't?
Enough cracking wise, just thought I'd give an update with the few things I've been getting up to.
If you clocked on to a tweet or bookface post I mentioned I'd been accepted on the Creative England Make the Leap scheme. It's basically a networking type environment once a month with guest speakers from companies, the BFI, screenwriters etc coming in to talk to put you on a path to make a feature.
The first of these talks took place Wednesday. I didn't know what to expect and overall it was a bit of an eye opener.
First up was Jamie Wolpert from the BFI. He is the Film Fund Development Executive for the British Film Institute. He's worked on a number of films from Harry Potter to the Selfish Giant from a development stage. Basically he's in charge of where the development funding goes and helps shape projects before they go further into production.
He talked about what the BFI looks for and funny enough for all the preconceptions labelled towards them, he happily pointed out that wasn't the case. The bottom line was that they aren't looking for what's selling, how much money people can make (they're publicly owned so cant make films solely for profit), or what book is popular etc. They want to help find new talent and push established talent further. Well that's what he says.
I happen to believe him. Mainly because the BFI don't seem to be agenda driven. Of course the more established or proven track record are going to be looked at more favourably. But when the argument of "the UK only funds kitchen sink etc" its not entirely the case. The BFI aren't allowed to fully finance production of films for a start, they can only co-finance something. So it's up to other sources to pool in to finance a film. So the genre of the film can be anything which is what I found out when I happened to accost Jamie in the bar.
What did I ask him? Well, just about the variety of films that are Lottery/BFI funded. I mentioned that in one week I saw two co-BFI and Irish Film Board films - Calvary and Last Days on Mars. Two completely different films; one a sci-fi genre film, the other a quirky dark comedy. So how did that come about? He said he's got about 3 sci-fi films in development and a number of genre films as they're good scripts, with good filmmakers. But they can only go so far. If funding isn't pulled from other places, it stays in development hell.
The 2nd talk was by Diarmid Scrimshaw of Inflammable Films, producer of BAFTA winning films TYRANNOSAUR and SWIMMER. This was more open and brutally honest.
He broke things down exceptionally well. The more interest aspect I found was the idea that producers track Sale Agents to understand the market. If you don't know what the public like to see, what makes them see it, and who makes what in what territory, then you can't budget a film. Any investor will not invest if they don't have the numbers. They won't give you a million if your comedy about sex offenders will only sell in 1 country (Thailand...joke) and make 2K.
But a good point that stuck in my mind was what brings a UK audience to a film? Well, here they are. Genre, Star, Buzz, Source Material. Genre is a massive aspect. It sells the film straight away. Everything else is additional but if the audience can't pigeon hole it, they ain't watching it.
All in all, a top night. Can't wait for the others.
Which leads to The Black List.
Does anyone know what it is? No? The Black List was set up to a promote a list of the scripts producers highly rate but haven't been made. The big one recently has been Transcendence which topped the list a few years ago and eventually got produced.
Anyway, there's been an offshoot to this. The Black List still collates the top unproduced scripts but now offers a subscription service. It can host your script for a fee which can them be read by members, agents, and script readers. They offer a paid evaluation service where a professional script reader will read the script and provide an evaluation. They rate the script and the higher the rating, the more views and buzz it gets.
I took a punt didn't I? Below is the evaluation I received -
Strengths:
For starters, and there's no way to type this without it being a massive understatement, the action is great. Like a highlight reel of all the best parts of the MATRIX Trilogy, the various fistfights, shootouts and building-leveling brawls are punctuated with juicy gore and doled out at a rapid rate. The premise is thicker on style than substance, but that's to be expected for this type of sci-fi actioner. The best elements of the premise are activated early on, when Wesco and Fix have a bit of an LA CONFIDENTIAL Guy Pearce-Russell Crowe vibe: two fundamentally opposed cops forced to work together to solve the biggest case of their lives. The scene where they both watch their comrades get mown down and join together is sure to be a moment of catharsis for the audience. The broad ensemble finds room for lots of colorful characters, with the rivalry between Eve and Serchen's factions of supersoldiers being the rare B plot that could probably make a solid film on its own if it was expanded. The cyberpunk/near-future setting works well for the story; it's not so futuristic that everyone has tech-heavy "get out of jail free" cards, but it's just far away enough that the fascist-leaning government feels like a fun creation rather than tepid social commentary.
Weaknesses:
This story sticks very closely to the special one/hero's journey plot that just about every big-budget film goes for. Films being thought up by teams of execs and staffed writers can afford to be derivative, but for a spec originality is really king. That's just what's missing here; the reveal that James is special and the key to the entire plot can be telegraphed from the first page of the script and it's disappointing to see Don pushed into the fringes of the plot to accommodate James' solo journey. The script's plotting overall is more convoluted than anything; it's hard to tell why Murphy waits until he does to explain things to James, for instance. Or why James can simply "abort" the entire standing government of the city (a gimmick used to equally poor effect in ELYSIUM). Also disappointing is the badass female warrior essentially being a doomed lovesick "school girl" meant to inspire the hero by the script's end; it's as though the author is dedicated to retrofitting the most cliched plot elements onto a story that starts out as fairly unique. Pacing is fairly lax for a script that is so action-heavy; keeping track of the plot elements is more exhausting than intriguing - the way the mystery builds is perhaps a little too deliberate given that the climax is an action extravaganza.
Prospects:
This is an incredibly expensive script, but it's in the right genre: sci-fi action tales are more or less the only stories that can feasibly sustain this huge of a budget and still have a chance at profitability. This script would need to connect with the same massive crowds that made films like INCEPTION or MINORITY REPORT print money, and providing that the violence be toned down to a hard PG-13 it's totally possible to connect with all of them. Going R-rated might constrict the audience a bit, but not unduly so. In terms of satisfying the audience, it's a tough call: there's not a lot in this script that doesn't feel at least a bit derivative, but it brings the spectacle in a big way. It may be a bit of a split vote amongst action fans, but crossover appeal will be limited by the run-of-the-mill plotting.
Well, well, well. I was pleasantly surprised by this. First of all, the script in question is just a big sci-fi action film that will never get made. So with that comes a bit of trepidation. Those types of scripts for an amateur can be utterly shocking - too big and ambitious for a new writer. So to me, this feedback is beyond anything I could've expected.
For an action script, it seems like I nailed the action. Writing action isn't fuckin' easy. Its either too much description to lose a reader or too little not to give any impact. But from this it seems like it delivered on that.
Another big aspect was commentating on the films that heavily influenced it. Sometimes I get the feeling from screenwriting blogs and articles is that influences can ruin a script due if they are too open about it. In this case it seems more that the story follows a conventional route rather than it being a case of a selection of favourite movie scenes put together.
When I read this I decided to reach out in the twatter-verse and ask a writer I've been following called Emily Blake. Check out her blog - http://bambookillers.blogspot.co.uk/.
The idea was to get another opinion that can confirm what I want to do next based on the evaluation. I can easily have made my own decision but I needed someone else to clarify the next step. Her response was that cliche is death and to rewrite. Which is what I took from the evaluation but as I do tend to second guess myself I needed to make sure so I could kick on.
We'll see what I do with it. But I'd say it is well worth using. It's far cheaper and more beneficial if you want to be taken seriously. It gets the script out there and you never know....well, yeah I do but I've got nothing else to look forward to.
See ya on he flip side...Danny.
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