Have script, need director!

Cafe Society
1

I have, over the past few months, dreamed up a vast new script with potential for making into a movie or even a television series. Some of the plot elements are drawn from various current and past shows and movies, but there is also a lot of inventive originality, and a clear and opinionated message I want to convey through the script as a whole.

Now I am clueless about how to present my ideas to someone who can evaluate it and take it forward if it has the potential. I have neither the time, nor the money, nor the ability to even begin to market the ideas, much less transform them into something concrete.

At the same time, however, I do not wish to deprieve the world of what could arguably be the most significant, cerebral, inventive, and coherent movie or TV show ever made. :smiley:

So folks, help me understand my options here. And also help answer:

  1. Is it illegal to draw upon / expand the plot elements, situations, and characters from other sources, as long as you add to them and convey your own ideas?

  2. What is the best way to convey your ideas to someone who matters, while protecting yourself from getting your ideas ripped off? (Yes, my ideas are THAT good :D)

  3. How many millions could I earn if a director picks up my stuff. OK, if not money, a honorable mention would suffice. :wink:

2

Is it Dr Acula?

3

Do you have a script, or an idea for a script?

4

First, write a treatment, which is a four or five page outline of the entire story, and a breakdown of the characters. Then write a script. Then rewrite the script. Then rewrite it again. Then show it to people, hopefully creative people who know what a good script or good story should be like. Then rewrite the script based on their suggestions. Then rewrite it again. This might take you about six months to a year.

Then find money to finance a production. Then find creative people to make your film.

If you think you can come up with some clever idea and sell it to, or hand it to, somebody somehow and they’ll go off and make it for you, that’s not even close to how it works. Not even Tom Hanks or Steven Spielberg does things that way.

There are several people on the SDMB who have the creativity and experience to do a lot of this for you, scriptwriters and art directors and editors and such like, including myself, but they will not do it for free. If you aren’t willing to do the work yourself, you need money as motivation for involving anyone else.

5

Check out Kevin Spacey’s Trigger Street or enter your script in the 11th Annual Zoetrope Screenplay contest.

6

You have a lot of misconceptions about how the business (and people) work. Trust me on this, the above is the least of your worries.

7

If you are literally using characters from other films, you have to get the rights.

If you are using characters inspired by other characters, this is par for the course. Most of the originality in most films involves reshuffling common elements from a lot of other films.

People don’t rip off other people’s scripts because make-able scripts are not worth very much, because there are so many of them.

You may have an awesome script (though the fact that, as you say, it has an “opinionated message” leaves me with doubts) but there are a bazillion awesome scripts that never get made, much less sold, so I’d dial down the expectations. It is great that you’re writing. Leave it at that. If more happens, it is nice. It is not to be expected.

8

This is something I’ve wondered about–do the pros do this too? Or is this just advice for people still learning? If the pros do it, how does it work exactly–do script writers pay people to look over their stuff, or do they have friendly little workshop exchanges all the time, or is this all just taken care of during production when the studio hands the script to a “script doctor”, or what?

9

If there’s one thing there’s a shortage of in Hollywood, it’s amateurs with a great idea for a script. You should move there post haste!

10

My problem is that I want to direct a film and have a ton of gear, but I hate writing scripts! :stuck_out_tongue:

11

Which is it? Movies and TV are different mediums and script written for one will need a major rewrite to adapt it to the other.

12

I’m not sure, it’s probably different for everyone. Certainly lots of people read the script at various stages of development and weigh in, but it’s probably Studio Heads and Industry Bigwigs, who have a stake in the film, who do the most direct clumsy interfering, in the misguided belief that they know what audiences want. See Jon Peters.

Script Doctors come in after a screenwriter has left the project, they’re brought in by the Studio to “fix” a script by altering it in usually small ways (occasionally big ways) by “punching up” the dialogue, or adjusting a character, usually uncredited.

13

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as has been mentioned, there is no shortage of people running around with scripts under their arms.

I worked at a major film studio and was pretty good friends with the head of the scriptreading department.

They had stacks - and I do mean literally from floor to ceiling - of scripts to read. Mind you, these were scripts that had been submitted by professional writers with big time agents.

That studio refused to accept ANY script that did not come through an agent.
Also, the studio let it be known what they were looking for, and what they were not looking for - so even the big name writers were somewhat limited in what they could submit.

Very few (we are talking a handful) of those scripts ever even got out of that room and upstairs for consideration. Of those, even fewer were put forward for potential filming…they have to do a budget, run it by marketing, get approval by several heads of the studio…it is a very slow and painful process.

And once a script is bought and set in motion, there is still only a small chance that the film will actually be completed and screened.

This is not to say it is entirely impossible - people also with the Lottery - but the odds are about the same for winning the lottery as selling a script to a major studio from an unknown writer who doesn’t have an agent.

Your best bet is to find a new filmmaker and get him/her excited about your project and perhaps try to do a low budge version, or perhaps one episode of a series.

I always like to also give the example of the story of the man who was profiled in the LA Times many years ago - the title of the article was something like, “The Richest Screenwriter You Have Never Heard Of!”
Essentially, it was a guy who had sold dozens of big time, big budget, action scripts for major studios and major stars - and he got paid VERY well for every one of those scripts. However, not a single one of those scripts resulted in a completed film. All of those expensive scripts were simply bought and then not produced for any number of reasons and sat on shelves somewhere, gather dust. I remember the guy saying he stopped telling people what he did for a living - it was too embarrassing to be living his lifestyle and not really have a single thing produced to show for it.

14

Useful links, thanks! The very possibility of eyeball time for an amateur script is welcome oopportunity.

15

When you say “script” what exactly are you referring to?

16

Interesting, and disappointing. When professionals have it so rough, amateurs like me probably stand no chance.

One would think there would be an army of scriptreaders whose sole purpose in life is to sift through scripts, critically appreciate each one, and probably even mashup promising ones to make them more palatable to their studio bigwigs. It is amazing that there could be a mountain of scripts that never get read, much less considered for production. Just think of the variety of ideas and possibilities gathering dust!

It is even more amazing that phenomenally crappy ideas could get made into movies, such as Armageddon, The Core and similar stuff. Maybe more is going on than meets the eye - are influence and money game-changers here?

I would venture to say my own little script is waaay more mature that these steaming piles that got made into movies, but apparently getting eyeballs on your script seems to be the first challenge.

17

I have a general plot outline, character sketches, background “universe” information, situational details, and most of the dialogs written down for what would be the first episode of my grand space opera.

And thats what I call a script. If techies think not, I can work my pages into something closer to an industry-standard “script.”

If only I had the time.

18

Techies? Nobody in The Biz would call that a script. Does it look anything like the samples on this page?
edited to add: If you want an agent to even glance at it, you better make the time to do it right.

19

Grand space opera?
Dude, start small. Grand space operas cost obscene amounts of money, and absolutely nobody is going to risk that kind of money on a first-timer.

20

Honestly, the best chance you have of this ever becoming a movie is to turn it into a novel. While it’s still a long shot, first-time novelists do occasionally have break-out hits (look at 50 Shades of Grey, for example). And if you’re the author of a hit novel, people in Hollywood will actually have a reason to take a meeting with you. But right now, as an amateur writer with no connections in the industry, you have zero chance of getting your script in front of anyone who matters.