filmmaker looking for a writer....

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xfoo

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I am looking for anyone who is good at writing, a creative writer, or just likes to write in general to write a script for my FIRST feature... We plan too shoot a movie this summer and have it entered in film festivals in the following year or less. The problem is we still dont have a full script, and the one we started to make we would have to many ideas for, or get confused or something because its hard to write something you are going to film.. soo thats where you guys come in... I think i should first say this is a NO-BUDGET Indie film... meaning that it must cost next to nothing to make sooo no crazy effects or insane props. This also means we cannot pay you unless some how we profit from the movie, then you will recieve a small cut for the work you had done (un likely but you never know). What we can do is give you full credit for it, allow you to make up all the characters names and all that. You can also assist in the casting for the film and allowed at the filming of it. Not to mention you will receive a free copy of the final production. If there is anything else you would like to receive in compensation for your hardwork let me know and if its reasonable it can possibly be arranged... only THREE rules/guidelines for the film...

ONE - MUST BE NO-BUDGET meaning: NO bigg effects such as explosions or crazy gun fights, NO long distant travel to distant places.

TWO - MUST BE FILMABLE IN CONNECTICUT meaning : it must be able to be filmed in the bristol area.... we have alot to offer in this area soo it wont be too difficult (small mountains, woods, rural, amusement park, buisness, industrial, city, parks) all of thos can be set locations and or more... keep it with in the limits of the region.

THREE - NO RIPPING OFF OTHER FILMS - do not ripp off any other indie films, can be a spoof on a major film but no ripping off of other indie films...

thanks for anyone who wishes to contribute... if we receive more than one person wanting to make a script we will read all of them and choose the best one. I would like to have the first draft of the script done before may 28th... and the final draft done by june 3rd (this should be more and enough time, and if i can get this done sooner that would be awesome). IF anyone is at all interested please PM me or respond to this ASAP

- Tom Fucini
 
9 days to write a feature from scratch? And an additional 6 for the final draft? I wish you luck but with those deadlines and pay you will most likely be twiddling your thumbs on June 3rd.
 
ok then... what is a reasonable deadline? i am new to this whole writing thing.. never did well on english papers soo i suck at writing. also i wanted sutin 45-60 mins in length... soo yah
 
45

45

A good writer will write 2-4 pages a day. After this expect time for a second draft and third draft to be completed.

I see no point in rushing a script to be written in a few days, you will only end up with a poor script. There will be no point in spending what little cash you have on such a poor script.

Save what you have until you have the right script and also don't expect someone who is competent enough to write a good script to write you a golden script for free. Most first time film makers direct a script they write themselves. Writing your first film is important because a film maker is telling a story and you will always need to know how to tell a story, even if you are not writing the script at that time.
 
Thats way too soon to get a feauture, lol.

I wrote a 45 minute short in about 4 months, and its only because I inject as much originality as I can into scripts.

Good luck though, give them some time to write something great..by the way, is there a specific genre you're looking for?
 
xfoo said:
ok then... what is a reasonable deadline? i am new to this whole writing thing.. never did well on english papers soo i suck at writing. also i wanted sutin 45-60 mins in length... soo yah
Click to expand...
you may be new to the world of the writer, but you've got the expectations of an executive producer down cold.
winkold.gif
 
Just a suggestion, when trying to hire someone for free, treat them how you want to be treated. Do you really want to be hired for nothing, told to slave away on a script and if the film sells receive a small cut? Writer's are the backbone of a film. No script, no film. If you've got money to burn you can hire a writer and treat them whichever way you want. I'm sure every other writer seeing this is laughing at the post and thinking who are you? You give no background to your skills that tells a person it would be worth investing their time and money (writing aint free, a writer needs to feed himself) into your project.
 
I'm always a little taken aback by the lists that get thrown out by directors looking online for writers: 1) MUST BE A TWIST ENDING. 2) MUST BE ABLE TO BECOME A TV SERIES. 3) MUST BE WRITTEN IN ARAMAIC WITH A QUILL PEN ON AUTHENTIC 16TH CENTURY PARCHMENT. Any writer venturing into a project for free will probably be turned off by a list of orders before the writer has even met or spoken to the producer. It's a huge HUGE job to write a good feature script. Hey, if it weren't such a big job, the director would just write it himself. I'm surethe directors aren't evil or anything, but as a writer I think it sometimes reveals the disdain many have for the profession.
 
xfoo said:
ok then... what is a reasonable deadline? i am new to this whole writing thing.. never did well on english papers soo i suck at writing. also i wanted sutin 45-60 mins in length... soo yah
Click to expand...


Well... you are probably looking at a couple months at least. I have a completed script that took me several months to write. I then sent it out and have received feedback from several writers. It is now sitting, waiting for me to re-write it. In the meantime I am working on several other scripts, including one I am going to make which was written by another writer. We have been sending the script back and forth about 3 months now tweaking the dialogue. I hope to start production in 2-3 months. Some writers write faster than I of course, but I think at the very least you are looking at 1-2 months, and that is just for a script that does not totally suck.

As for a feature length. About the shortest you could get away with and call it a feature is about 80 minutes, and at that length should have some violence, and skin.
 
It is possible to write a script quickly, but in that case it is usually a work the writer is passionate about and just couldn't pull himself away from the keys until it was done. This is probably not the piece of work you're going to get for free. You best bet is to see if someone has a screenplay laying around that fits your needs...i.e. extremely low budget, minimal locations and no pyrotechnics. You may get lucky and find someone who has a screenplay that's looking for a good home.

You'd probably want to post what genre you want to work in, too. And some bona fides would be a good idea, also. Anyone with any pride in their work isn't going to just "give" it over to someone without the wherewithal to "git er done."
 
xfoo said:
I am looking for anyone who is good at writing, a creative writer, or just likes to write in general to write a script for my FIRST feature... We plan too shoot a movie this summer and have it entered in film festivals in the following year or less. The problem is we still dont have a full script, and the one we started to make we would have to many ideas for, or get confused or something because its hard to write something you are going to film.. soo thats where you guys come in... I think i should first say this is a NO-BUDGET Indie film... meaning that it must cost next to nothing to make sooo no crazy effects or insane props. This also means we cannot pay you unless some how we profit from the movie, then you will recieve a small cut for the work you had done (un likely but you never know). What we can do is give you full credit for it, allow you to make up all the characters names and all that. You can also assist in the casting for the film and allowed at the filming of it. Not to mention you will receive a free copy of the final production. If there is anything else you would like to receive in compensation for your hardwork let me know and if its reasonable it can possibly be arranged... only THREE rules/guidelines for the film...

ONE - MUST BE NO-BUDGET meaning: NO bigg effects such as explosions or crazy gun fights, NO long distant travel to distant places.

TWO - MUST BE FILMABLE IN CONNECTICUT meaning : it must be able to be filmed in the bristol area.... we have alot to offer in this area soo it wont be too difficult (small mountains, woods, rural, amusement park, buisness, industrial, city, parks) all of thos can be set locations and or more... keep it with in the limits of the region.

THREE - NO RIPPING OFF OTHER FILMS - do not ripp off any other indie films, can be a spoof on a major film but no ripping off of other indie films...

thanks for anyone who wishes to contribute... if we receive more than one person wanting to make a script we will read all of them and choose the best one. I would like to have the first draft of the script done before may 28th... and the final draft done by june 3rd (this should be more and enough time, and if i can get this done sooner that would be awesome). IF anyone is at all interested please PM me or respond to this ASAP

- Tom Fucini
Click to expand...


Well, after I laughed my way back into my chair I realized how indicitive this post is when it comes to newbie filmmakers. It's so bad I would suggest removing this completely to save face. I'm not as sympathetic as the rest of these guys. I think this is exactly what's hurting freelance writers everywhere.

The sad thing is, there's some smuck, hack writer out there that will bite on this, keeping the fee offers nice and low for the rest of us who rely on our craft to eat. I bet you've posted the same thing on Craig's, right?

I spit on your DVX.

Unbelievable.
 
Actually, I'd love to let this thread thrive. Anyone else looking for free work should see what writer's really think of those silly craigslist ads looking for free scripts to shoot.
 
Isaac_Brody said:
Just a suggestion, when trying to hire someone for free, treat them how you want to be treated. Do you really want to be hired for nothing, told to slave away on a script and if the film sells receive a small cut? .
Click to expand...

Thank you for saying this. My choice of words might have been different and less diplomatic and probably lead to excommunication from dvxuser.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a troll.
 
I'm a director and i say write it yourself If you have the creative imagination and the DISCIPLINE needed to sit and write day after day.

I'm at page 85 at the moment on my script, 4 months into it. target will probably be 112. i have momentum going into the final 25 minutes of the film, so i expect to complete the first draft in 2 to 3 weeks.

then it goes out for notes
2 to 5 solid drafts later
ready to get it directed.

my advice to you is to put together an outline, just bullet points of a plot you imagine, scene by scene sequences.

This is my second film. i thought i would hate writing a screen play, solo. But i'm really enjoying it, especially character developement.
 
If someone is new I say they should just try and do a road movie, I mean just try and think creativly on your feat and if it comes out horriable, then its a learning curve. Trying to get actors and locations and crew and MONEY!!!!! For a film which you don't expect to make any cash is a waste of time for everyone involved (Yourself included). If you do have money to spend on a film then my suggestion would be to save it and work your butt off, or shop for scripts which you feel you'd like to shoot. If you don't have money welcome to the club and put alittle more effort into getting the ball rolling. I know I want to start making bank on work but after all this time I'm still not breaking even (close though), Lets just say if you expect to be a filmmaker this is where you'll be in 5 years (If you work your ass off.) Just my 2 cents.
 
UCLA has their students do one screenplay every ten weeks.
This is considered to be a grueling schedule that will force you to write regularly and keep pace as a professional.
That's fifteen pages a week with 2 weeks of rewrites or for other class projects.
Again, that's considered a hat trick.
 
Personally, I find the writing process to be a fairly quick thing. It's everything it takes to get to the point of the actual writing...plotting, outlining, and making the bullet list of scenes takes a lot of time. But once that's done, the writing is the easy (and fun) part. If something takes a month to do the writing, that's a long time. But if you count all the prep time of working out all the story details, well, it adds up. But then we all work in different ways. Once I have my bullet list of scenes, I don't find ten pages a day to be that difficult. Without my bullet list, it would be unthinkable.
 
Blaine said:
Personally, I find the writing process to be a fairly quick thing. It's everything it takes to get to the point of the actual writing...plotting, outlining, and making the bullet list of scenes takes a lot of time. But once that's done, the writing is the easy (and fun) part. If something takes a month to do the writing, that's a long time. But if you count all the prep time of working out all the story details, well, it adds up. But then we all work in different ways. Once I have my bullet list of scenes, I don't find ten pages a day to be that difficult. Without my bullet list, it would be unthinkable.
Click to expand...

right ... but the "process of writing" = all the prep time and plotting and bullet list and if you don't do that you will have to do it while you are writing, or if you bang out a stream of conciousness draft then aftet you have written that, in which case the stream of conciousness draft just becomes an excercise that is obstensibly still part of the prewriting prep.
 
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