Bleed Sundance Gold

[part 3]

The logline and title are pretty important, and I don’t think a lot of new filmmakers spend enough time thinking about them. 

Title

The title can be whatever you want it to be really, but you have to remember to make it something that is searchable, that catches everyone’s attention, and that conveys the basic theme, genre, or plot line.

For this movie, I’m going to need a lot of time to think of a title, so I’ll just shoot out some titles that sound kind of interesting.

Found

667

Abandoned Washington: The Devil’s Town

None of the titles I came up with are quite right, but I think I’m starting to get a feeling for what it should be. I’ll probably think of a really good title within the next couple of days.

Logline

If you’ve never written a logline before, it’s pretty simple. Think of all the movie descriptions on Netflix or Redbox. They tell the basic premise of the story in 1-2 sentences. It’s sometimes okay to write the logline in more than two sentences, but or the most part, you should try or one sentence.

A few things to consider when forming your logline:

Who’s the main character? What’s the main conflict? What’s the goal? What’s the setting (if it’s important)?

V, a confident film student, travels to an abandoned town in Washington for her online docu-series, but the town isn’t as empty as she thought it would be.

That’s an okay logline, but it could use some work.

V, a confident film student, travels to an abandoned town in Washington for her online docu-series, but things get serious when she discovers a dark, hidden society inside.

I think that’s a winner for now.

And the next step is to write the first draft. From there I’ll work out any plot holes, boring plot points, and add anything to make the story more entertaining.

Don’t worry if your logline and story breakdown aren’t perfect, though, because your story will likely change a lot from that first stage. Just remember to stay motivated and don’t be too hard on yourself!

___

If I’m ever going to be a film maker I need to get some friends with like minded interests. Unfortunately the people who do and live near me suck. So hopefully I’ll just bump into gaffers and screenwriters in my travels and they will love me and be like “OOOH MS. WHEATON” AND I’ll be all “Let us make movies”

Okay

Some things that arrived:

The Supernatural finale happened, marking the 12th consecutive year of the world being about to end.

The SNL finale happened, marking the 41st consecutive year of people describing entire sketches and then saying “you just have to watch it.”

A Beauty & The Beast trailer came out. No spoilers but it looks like there are some chandeliers involved.

Steven Universe leaked some episodes but we didn’t watch them.

If anyone asks, we didn’t watch them.

But they were great.

But we didn’t watch them.

Some notable figures:

Bella Hadid is being pretty.

PewDiePie is being petty.

Hodor: Hodor.

Also:

Horoscopes: Mercury’s out of retrograde

Summer: The corner store’s out of Gatorade

Glitter: Have you heard about this stuff?

Some blogs:

Why I Deleted Your Game’s PR Email (@whyideletedyourgamespremail​) is the game version of

Why I Deleted Your Band’s Promo Email (@whyideletedyourpromoemail​). PR people say the darndest things.

Also Fifth Harmony (@theofficialfifthharmony​) has a Tumblr. All five of them! One tumblr! What a deal.

Titanic (1997) Dir. James Cameron:

SAID IS NOT DEAD. SAID IS NOT DEAD. SAID IS NOT FUCKING DEAD.

THESE WORDS ARE ALL VERY LOVELY AND USEFUL BUT ONLY IN SMALL DOSES!!!!

LIKE HOW MANY TIMES IN A STORY CAN YOU SAY THEY “STATED” OR “REMARKED” SOMETHING BEFORE THE STORY BECOMES BORING AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE?!?!?! GOOD GODS Y’ALL!

SAID IS A LOVELY ADORABLE LITTLE WORD THAT DOESN’T TAKE UP MUCH SPACE. IT CAN BE USED OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND IT WON’T TURN YOUR STORY INTO AN AWFUL PEICE OF PURPLE PROSE (BUT FUCK IF PURPLE PROSE IS WHAT YOU’RE AIMING FOR HAVE AT IT MY FRIEND) THAT MAKES LITERALLY ZERO SENSE TO THE READERS.

EXAMPLE: ‘“Oh Lizzy,” Clare said tiredly. “We don’t always get what we want.”’

I BET YOU BARELY NOTICED THE WORD SAID. YOU PROBABLY FOCUSED ON THE WORD TIREDLY BECAUSE THAT WAS HOW SHE SAID IT.

AS OPPOSED TO: ‘“Oh Lizzy,” Clare stated tiredly. “We don’t always get what we want.”’

DO YOU SEE HOW STILTED THAT IS???? IT’S AWKWARD AND DOESN’T FLOW RIGHT. NOW IMAGINE IF THE CONVERSATION WENT LIKE THIS:

‘“Oh Lizzy,” Clare stated tiredly. “We don’t always get what we want.”

“It’s just… It’s just so hard to let go.” Lizzy sobbed.’

DO YOU GET WHAT I’M SAYING? PUTTING THE WORD ‘SAID’ IN CLARE’S LINE ALLOWS YOU TO PUT MORE EMPHASIS ON LIZZY’S DISAPPOINTMENT AND EMOTIONAL TURMOIL. IMAGINE IF THE ENTIRE STORY INVOLVING LIZZY AND CLARE USED EVERY WORD BUT SAID. IT’D GET HARD TO READ, WOULDN’T IT???

IN CONCLUSION, TL;DR, ECT. ECT.: THE WORD SAID IS A GOOD WORD THAT LETS THE WRITING FLOW AND ALLOWS YOU TO PUT MORE EMPHASIS ON ANOTHER CHARACTER’S LINES WITHOUT CLUTTERING UP THE STORY. SAID IS NOT DEAD. PLEASE USE THE WORD SAID, DARLINGS. SAID LIKES TO BE USED, AND IT ISN’T PICKY ON HOW YOU USE IT.

YES THESE WORDS IN THE PICTURE ABOVE NEED TO BE PUT TO USE, BUT ONLY SPARINGLY. OTHERWISE YOU END UP WITH A STUTTERED MESS OF A MANUSCRIPT AND IF YOU WANT TO WRITE SUCCESSFUL STORIES YOU’RE GOING TO NEED TO UTILIZE A WORD THAT’S SHORT AND SWEET AND TO THE POINT. AKA THE WORD SAID.

1) Recontextualization - the production of vignettes, short stories, and novels that seek to fill in the gaps in broadcast narratives and suggest additional explanations for particular actions.

2) Expanding the series timeline - the production of vignettes, short stories, novels that provide background history of characters, etc., not explored in broadcast narratives or suggestions for future developments beyond the period covered by the broadcast narrative.

3) Refocalization - this occurs when fan writers move the focus of attention from the main protagonists to secondary figures. For example, female or black characters are taken from the margins of a text and given centre stage.

4) Moral realignment - a version of refocalization in which the moral order of the broadcast narrative is inverted (the villains become the good guys). In some versions the moral order remains the same but the story is now told from the point of view of the villains.

5) Genre shifting - characters from broadcast science fiction narratives, say, are relocated in the realms of romance or the Western, for example.

6) Cross-Overs - characters from one television programme are introduced into another. For example, characters from Doctor Who may appear in the same narrative as characters from Star Wars.

7) Character dislocation - characters are relocated in new narrative situations, with new names and new identities. 

8) Personalization - the inserted of the writer into a version of their favourite television programme. For example, I could write a short story in which I am recruited by the Doctor to travel with him in the TARDIS on a mission to explore what has become of the Manchester United in the twenty-fourth century. (However, as Jenkins points out, many in the fan culture discourage this subgenre of fan writing.)

9) Emotional intensification - the production of what are called “hurt-comfort” stories in which favourite characters, for example, experience emotional crisis.

10) Eroticization - stories that explore the erotic side of a character’s life. Perhaps the best known of this subgenre of fan writing is “slash” fiction, so called because it depicts same-sex relationships (as in Kirk/Spock,etc.)

Current runtime of the rough cut of the entire video (Including titles):

These are the unglamorous days of the filmmaking process, and it probably doesn’t get any more unglamorous than deliverables. But it’s importance can never be understated.

So what are deliverables? Basically it what has to be delivered to a distributor for them to release the film. Back in the day it used to be a 35mm Dolby print, a DTS disc, and down the line the film had to be transferred to a master for video. But distribution has changed, and the online / streaming experience has made deliverables a veritable mess.

My distribution contract for Lilith reads more like a technical manual, as I’ve got different parameters for delivery on Netflix, iTunes, VOD, DVD / Blu-Ray and theatrical prints. Each avenue has a different quality standard and formatting, and there are additional considerations such as file size, subtitles and closed captioning. And given the size of Lilith - the final output is 140GB for the film in its entirety - I have to make sure the MPEG compression meets the needs of the deliverable without losing too much quality. It’s inevitable that I will lose visual and audio quality in compression, I just have to find the best way to minimize it and balance the vital elements versus what I can sacrifice. It’s quite maddening.

There’s also a vital component to deliverables which is often overlooked, especially in terms of budgeting, and this is Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance. Basically it boils down to this - if you make a film that goes out into the public, there’s a good chance that somewhere down the line you’re gonna get sued by someone. Someone out there will say that your film is a story of their life or that they wrote a very similar script and you stole their idea. Or that there’s a tube of toothpaste in the waay background that has a corporate logo and you never cleared the rights for it. Or that your movie turned their kid into a sociopath. Stuff like that. An E&O policy will help protect you against this. But be mindful of your budget - an E&O policy on a feature can range anywhere from $5k all the way up to $20k, depending on the size and scope of your project.

Insurance = EVIL.

It’s a rookie mistake that most producers make, which is to omit a deliverables account in the overall budget. The assumption is that the distributor will undertake these expenses, and in some cases that does happen, but also know this: every dollar that the distributor spends will eventually come out of your pocket in the form of recoup of P&A. Their spend is upfront, but when it comes time to collect on revenues, they will pay themselves back until their P&A expenses are recouped. And that comes out of your piece of the pie as well. So be wary of the expenses that a distributor is proposing, and make sure that you’re getting the very maximum out of every dollar spent. Whatever you can do on your own - without sacrificing the very best quality - you should try to do. It’ll save you in the long run.

Of course, I speak as an independent filmmaker. The dynamics are very different with studio films because they distribute their own product, and it’s just money moving from one pocket to the other (which conveniently gets written down as a loss when it comes to taxes). But in the indie filmmaking world I cannot emphasize enough the importance of minding every single penny, of checking and triple-checking, of reducing your costs as much as you feasibly can without compromising the quality of your work. Indie films work on exponential margins, where each dollar spent must do the work of five studio dollars. It’s the only real way you’ll make a profit as an indie filmmaker. Be smart, be proactive, and always cover your ass.

Gah, what an unglamorous post. Told you. But it’s absolutely required, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it! Now back to more fun things, like getting to do a commentary track with Miss Julia Voth. There’s some glamor for us!