The right time to begin a Feature?

[mdlis]

CapitalX,

All the posts are very thought worthy, but think carefully what YOU want to do?

If you want this feature to be something that YOU can produce from beginning to end, then YES, WRITE WITH A BUDGET LIMITATION in mind.

If you want to punch out a great script for Hollywood, then do that and write to your fullest imagination (actually, it takes even more imagination to write one WITH budget limitations, because then you have to be more creative in order keep your reader/viewer interested).

But most importantly, KEEP IT SIMPLE and within what you can do. If you keep it simple, you'll have time to be creative going about shooting it. If it's complicated, you'll realize that you'll use up all your brain cells just to figure out the shot, instead of creatively varying the shots. Look at it moreso as a learning experience for upcoming features.

Don't mean to be harsh, but making a first feature is two-sided sword, because depending on how well its done, it will also decide if it's also going to be your last. Take at look at the first films of current great directors/filmmakers like Tarintino, Rodriguez, and even Lucas...none of them started off making Star Wars (although screenwriters can get their "start" writing a great screenplay for a multimillion dollar movie, just as Tarintino wrote Natural Born Killers and True Romance, actually "making" a movie yourself is a lot different).

 

[Mike@AF]

There's a lot of great advice here, but you can see how there are many ways you can go about this. I will add how I write/develop. The feature I'm in preproduction on now I wrote the first time with no budget limitations. I just wrote what I would like to see on screen. Then I went back and rewrote it with the budget limitations in mind. When I came across something I had to eliminate I put in something that still accomplished what I wanted in the end. As I get closer to actual production I find more things that I have to change because even though I want something in there I have to be realistic at this point. I still have my original version of the screenplay and although I've taken out a lot of things I liked, when I go back and look at it I find the screenplay became better over time because I didn't limit myself in the beginning.

Don't compromise your story-telling instincts. Just write what you want in the beginning and iron out those other issues later.

 

[capitalP]

Great advice all the way around from all. I'm a writer first and a director second, so what I've always done and will continue to do until I can afford to produce my own work or have my work produce is play both sides of the fence. I write my shorts with budget limitations because I know I will produce them myself, but my feature length screenplays I write with no budget limitations. Currently I have 2 finish feature length screenplays I've written over the years with the intention of selling them or even better, get them produce.

But now that I want to do a feature on my own, I'm caught between both sides of the fence. Though I do wanna agree without writing for budget limitations, but at the same time I have to be realistic.

A better way to state this is, I can't help it. Knowing the fact that I will be 100% responsible for producing this film, plays tricks on my mind as I'm writing.

But, the good thing is I still have my two finish feature length screenplays which are two of my great achievements, so I guess that justifies me writing this new one with budget limitations. All around this is a tough argument. There's really no right or wrong answer.. but as a writer I should know better, shame on me.

 

[RafaelFC]

well, there never is really a time to direct a feature film, i find better to do it once you feel confident enough to do it, based on your last short film experiences. i've been working on the concept and writing the script for a feature sci-fi (not sci-fi in the sense of spaceships and stuff like that, but more like an exaggeration of reality, all technologies are supposed to be kinda retroish in it's design) that can be made for a really small amount of money, and still it'd look good.
But i'm not gonna shoot it in it's entirety now... my plan while scripting the movie was to have a small cliffhanger after the first fifteen minutes of the movie, so you have a minor story arc during the first act, that have a smaller resolution, but it leads to a whole new level of possibilities in the story (i already have everything thought out, but i'm still making small adjustments).

All this, because in my first feature film i'm not really shooting a feature film, i'm filming the first fifteen pages making a short movie, in which i'll spend a small fraction of the total budget, which i can afford myself. Then i plan to go shopping around for sponsors with that short movie as a clear way to show my vision to investors or sponsors or even production studios.

If everything goes wrong, at least i didnt put the effort to make a feature film that bombed, i get a cool little short film i can show my friends and family, if it does well, i'll have already shot the first scenes, since i'll be shooting in HDV. Of course talking to your actors and explaining them the plan is key, i'd never do it if i risked losing one of the main actors.

This is my little idea to trick the system and get my movie out there as fast and as close to my idea as possible.