# Help me write my generic indie film for Sundance! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 24, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273 "2010-01-24T21:01:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/21 "2010-01-31T23:55:58Z")
Just write a typical commercial teen comedy and then remove all the jokes from the script. Congratulations, you now have an indie teen drama. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/22 "2010-02-01T00:02:29Z")
My idea was going to be about a Iraqi War vet with PTSD and a homeless runaway with a drug problem who fall in love and rob convenience stores. And to give it that indie cred, I was going to shoot it in black&white and have them be two men. But then I saw this: > [@](#): > > Movies like these are where actresses decide it’s OK to go topless because it’s all edgy and stuff. Don’t pass up the opportunity. And I’ve decided to cast Zooey Deschanel and Maggie Gyllenhaal as the leads. I haven’t even made my movie yet and I’ve already sold out. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/23 "2010-02-01T00:07:37Z")
What no Animal Collective? No Mountain Goats? No Neko Case? I don’t know why you’re bothering with an indie soundtrack at all if you’re not going to pick the artists Pitchfork wants you to like. cmyk’s point is key. You need to tease the audience with hints of resolutions to come, and simply turn off the camera before reaching any of them. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/24 "2010-02-01T00:29:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > My idea was going to be about a Iraqi War vet with PTSD and a homeless runaway with a drug problem who fall in love and rob convenience stores. And to give it that indie cred, I was going to shoot it in black&white and have them be two men. > > But then I saw this:And I’ve decided to cast Zooey Deschanel and Maggie Gyllenhaal as the leads. One ticket please. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/25 "2010-02-01T00:35:40Z")
Won’t someone think of the subtitles? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/26 "2010-02-01T04:37:39Z")
Name it 'Hipsters Must Die" and you’ll get a nomination right out of the gate. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/27 "2010-02-01T05:14:19Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > And I’ll need a hot up-and-coming actress to play the love interest. Kristen Stewart is the obvious choice. An indie girl with big box-office success in the Twilight movies. > [@msmith537](#): > > And I need someone with the awkward ernestness of Michael Cera, but who hasn’t become as big as Michael Cera. His name is [Jesse Eisenberg](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0251986/). Many people have already compared him to Michael Cera. And he starred in the indie “Adventureland” with Kristen Stewart! ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/28 "2010-02-01T08:06:04Z")
**Pass** When Anne gets pregnant from a one-night stand with a rock-star celebrity (someone edgy and current) who was on her “Celebrity Pass list”, and decides to keep the baby, Jerry her live-in boyfriend must decide whether he wants to stay and help raise the child. Is that too much ‘story’ for a hipster movie? Probably huh? OK, let’s take out the one night stand and the pregnancy. Yeah that’ll work. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/29 "2010-02-01T10:52:05Z")
Could you maybe take some tips from Roger’s [Oscar Gold](http://www.hulu.com/watch/7707/american-dad-oscar-gold-trailer)? ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/30 "2010-02-01T14:01:42Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I have the soundtrack already picked out with stuff by Fleet Foxes, Imogen Heap, Nick Drake, Regina Spektor, Wilco, The Shins and maybe some deeper Coldplay or Radiohead tracks. I’m not hip enough to tell you who the current indiest bands are, but I am smart enough to tell you that you’d do better to add a little more quirk. Keep the indie kids (but not too indie, of course, since 40-50 year olds will be the ones writing the checks, so if you don’t have at least one person telling you your bands are too mainstream, you need to dial it back). But also add something out-of-left-field like a bunch of 1950s-Hawiian music (carefully straddling the line between ‘authentic exotic culture’ and ‘kitschy 50’s imitations of exotic culture’.) Another possibility is French music from before WWII (great, cause you can mix sad songs and more upbeat accordion music-hall. Preferably in a way that doesn’t quite match up to the emotional content of the scene, highlighting the ironicalatity of it all). I also suggest having one of the characters listening, in an ironic way of course, to some 80’s hair-metal music. For casting, the coup is having Megan Fox in a small scene where her bland-plastic-mainstreamness is made fun of (maybe after having one character use her all movie long as a symbol of whitebread America, then they actually meet her somehow) . She gets indie cred, you get the box office boost, and you get to keep your indie cred. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/31 "2010-02-02T07:22:38Z")
Bed-head hair. Clothes look like they came out of the laundry hamper. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/32 "2011-10-14T08:27:19Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > For casting, the coup is having Megan Fox in a small scene where her bland-plastic-mainstreamness is made fun of (maybe after having one character use her all movie long as a symbol of whitebread America, then they actually meet her somehow) . Actually she is going to be a burn victim in a fat suit. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273/33 "2011-10-14T12:59:03Z")
smith, are you high? Why do you keep bumping old threads? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-write-my-generic-indie-film-for-sundance/526273.md?page=1)