Looking for Writers for Short Films

A

Andrew McCarrick

Carbonite Member
I'm looking for writers to write some short films.

I unfourtantely can't pay anything.

Scripts would either have to based around a boardwalk (Atlantic City/Ocean City/Wildwood/Cape May), beach, or a wooded/forest area. These are the only locations I can get fairly easily.
 
Andrew - go to post on fests here and see those who write for free and give them a pm. Don't give up, you MOVE FORWARD and strive until you find yourself a writer.
 
Funny Jonathan. You might look at adapting a story from the public domain yourself and having a writer clean it up down the road Andrew. A good way to be proactive without it costing you anything but some time at the library.
 
Andrew McCarrick said:
Sorry, but what do you want me to pay with? If I could, I would. I'm broke. $130 in my bank account and that's already going to a webseries.
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Sorry for the implied tone. I was only suggesting that you have a little more patience especially when asking for something free.

Good luck though.
 
Andrew, some advice: start at the bottom of the ladder. You have (if I'm not mistaken) no experience, no track record, and no reel, right? Work for someone else. Help out on their projects. Be a P.A. for free. Learn the business. Make friends and allies, join the community. Climb the ladder, in the right direction -- from the ground up.

The biggest asset you have right now is TIME. You've got five decades of working life in front of you. I've seen you posting for years, and you started out with "hey, we need six Red Ones for this magnum opus we're going to create -- or should we use Sony F35s instead?" As you've found out to your endless frustration, that doesn't work.

That is completely the wrong way to go about it.

I strongly recommend you invest in some patience and in your skill sets. Go to the DVXFest section of the site, find a group who's making a DVXFest nearby, and volunteer. Then do another, and another. Build up your skills. Win a DVXFest. Win two of 'em. Jack Daniel Stanley did that, and my company has invested a lot of money in him and his career, because he's demonstrated that he's got the skills, the tenacity, the work ethic, and the drive to make it happen.

Or look at Brandon Rice's career. Five years ago he was a teenage kid here making silly movies with a camcorder and posting threads about what he had for lunch. But then he started making DVXFest films, and helping on other DVXFest films, and found himself a group of other DVXUsers like Geoff Reisner, put together a team, and over the course of the last five years he was able to put together a very respectable budget (the kind of budget most folks here would kill for) and finished a film that got picked up by LionsGate and is distributed in stores nationwide. And their next project is already guaranteed theatrical distribution before they even start it. And he's not much older than you. But he climbed the ladder the right way.

Your recent posts have exhibited a lot of frustration. Sounds like you've pretty much hit rock bottom. It may suck to be at rock bottom, but if you've got the right attitude, you can see that it can be a good thing. Because once you've hit bottom, there's nowhere to go but up.

Now, if you don't want to start climbing the ladder from the bottom, I suggest you get out of the filming business entirely. It is a brutal business, it's extremely difficult to make any substantial progress in it, and it's only for the very most dedicated. Talent has little to do with it, film is all about unbelievably hard work. There are many, many, many, many other ways to make a living that are much easier than film.

So the next step is up to you, of course. And forgive the presumption in this advice, it's only advice, take it or leave it.
 
Andrew, you might want to find a public access t.v. station nearby. Many allow you to take a class and borrow gear for a day and shoot and use the editing bays. Some have a modest charge, some don't charge anything.
My local in n.e. Indiana is free (pd150,170) and they are currently upgrading to much better gear. Austin has some modest fees associated with classes and gear usage (many famous Austin filmakers used gear or editing bays from the public access when they first started filmaking). You may also find a good writer that fits your needs at the public access. Good luck. Barrys advice is very solid.
 
lambert said:
Andrew, you might want to find a public access t.v. station nearby. Many allow you to take a class and borrow gear for a day and shoot and use the editing bays. Some have a modest charge, some don't charge anything.
My local in n.e. Indiana is free (pd150,170) and they are currently upgrading to much better gear. Austin has some modest fees associated with classes and gear usage (many famous Austin filmakers used gear or editing bays from the public access when they first started filmaking). You may also find a good writer that fits your needs at the public access. Good luck. Barrys advice is very solid.
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The closest PBS station is in Trenton (1.5 hour drive) and I went through 4 years of high school at a Performing Arts school for TV/Film production. In fact I shot two short films there a years ago... they both sucked horribly. I only have a copy of one of them (on VHS).
 
Public access is very different from pbs, but most likely you don't have one in your area. Sorry thats not helpful for your situation. Good luck.
 
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