Budgeting & Spending Advice That Can Save Your Bacon

Budgeting and scheduling are all-important aspects of prep that shouldn't be overlooked or fudged. The rigor required to complete an accurate, realistic budget will help you approach every other aspect of filmmaking with a more disciplined eye, especially since it involves calculation of time. 

Filmmakers that self-finance their film often tend to just spend whatever they need, which can be fine for a short film being shot on a few weekends or so, but even just having a general budgetary wish list or guide is helpful and should be considered. Foreknowledge of how much you have to spend in total is one thing, but at the very least, break it down so you can start disciplining yourself because that kind of discipline goes hand in hand with time management, and poor time management can kill a long term film project.

I worked on a feature film project that is 16 years in the making at this point (yes, really) and will never be completed. Even though the filmmaker spent over 2 million dollars of other people's money (or so), his poor time management resulted in copious amounts of waste of the man hours that he was paying for, and I am fairly certain he never created an actual budget.

I have always ended up under budget on projects I produced because I don't lose sight of what's being spent where. It's a juggling act because some needs may become greater in certain departments, so you're constantly taking from one department and giving to another department as specific budgetary needs become more exposed and lucky breaks are realized. 

Two very important budgeting tricks

Always add padding to every line item and always try to pay less than the budgeted amount for everything. It's very common for producers to cry poor when they book crew and rent gear. I used to get occasional calls from a line producer who would say to me, right off the bat, "they slashed our budget," which was a lie - every time. But, if she could save a few thousand on crew rates, then she had a larger buffer in case she needed it or she could resolve the project having spent less and look like a hero to the Executive Producers. 

I worked with a Director/DP who would always go over on time on shoot days and his tactic was to offer to pay the crew that day if they excused the OT, OR he could mail them a check if they did not. Most crew would go for the immediate payment because who doesn't love getting paid right away? He was always prepared to dangle immediate payment knowing that he could save a grand or so on a few overtime hours of work. 

I had a friend who budgeted a large project for his new boss at a production company and he was so under budget starting out that a few odd instances of loss and damage put them in the red. That should never happen. You cannot budget exact amounts for each line item - ever. He apparently had zero padding built in and really under estimated what the big city DP would require to do his job. 

Put a square peg in a square hole  

An important part of staying on budget is hiring department heads who understand about not spending more than they have and monitoring all spending as you go along.  

If you're making a low budget film, you should not bring in people who are used to working on big budget projects, even if they're willing to work for cheap as a favor. These people are used to spending money and doing things in certain ways. Some require assistants. Some only rent from certain vendors. Some just don't cut corners or ever shop around. They may be affordable for you but their methodology is another story.

I booked a Key Grip once for a small project out of town in a major city and when I mentioned needing him to function as dolly grip, he suggested we hire his dolly grip. Now, this is completely normal in the real world, but we did not have a budget for another grip, so I had to tell him that. On that same project, I was thinking of booking local crew who worked for a friend who was a top tier DP, and the AD we already booked suggested we not do that because "they don't care about your budget," he told us.

You have to nail down appropriate personnel based on the budget. For a large commercial project I produced, I had a bunch of indie types and I noticed they were being way too thrifty, because that's what they were used to. Even though I told the props person to spend as little as possible BUT she had what she needed, she tended to shop for junk. I should have just given her a number and told her to spend all of it. 

Getting down to it

As for the actual process of budgeting, you start with the "knowns," or the things that are fixed and unchangeable.

Starting with your most crucial known, you have your total budget amount, which is fixed (in most cases). That's everything you have to spend to accomplish whatever you need to accomplish, whether it's just getting the film "in the can," or completing prep, production, and post-production, or all of that plus marketing and promotion, which could include film festival costs and/or some form of promotion on social media platforms for online releases. You need to start out with a complete awareness of exactly what you want to accomplish with that amount. 

Now the process of budgeting can begin and I always start with the largest or the most fixed (least changeable) line items first, in terms of cost. If there are things that just cost what they cost, with no room for negotiation, start with those, and get that stuff out of the way first. These are probably going to be things like insurance, location fees, transportation costs, and picture vehicles. 

Tips and Tricks

Another important thing to keep in mind is "bundling." If the DP has their own camera package, work that into their line item if it's suitable equipment. You should be able to save money as compared to renting from a camera rental house. The advantage for the DP is they use gear they're familiar with and trust and they get the rental amount. The disadvantage for production is, if the camera breaks, then they have to approach a camera rental house cold and will more than likely not get any breaks on rental rates (unless the DP has a working relationship with them). A prior rental of a camera package from a rental house would mean an immediate replacement in a hurry at no cost in the event their camera breaks. 

If the gaffer has a grip/electric package, work that into their line item. If a restaurant you want to use as a practical location can also produce a working meal for your crew, that's an incentive for them to let you work in their space, whether you can pay a full location fee or not. If one of the crew owns a house you can use as a location, then a nominal location fee could be a bonus for them (and they get to be home already at the end of a shoot day(s). 

Always consider these goodwill building, cost saving synergies and try to spread the budget around to personnel who will be on the payroll when possible. It streamlines where the money is going and puts more money in the pockets of the crew, which can be a bargaining chip in the event you're offering low rates.

Another cost saving tactic that some young idealistic producers are averse to is using credits as currency.  Certainly getting a credit on a film is a big deal to noobs, but at a higher level, you can sometimes attract experienced crew with a credit when you're offering peanuts in pay. As long as the actual crew and personnel who are being credited don't object, an "Additional ______" can be worth something to a potential crew member when you can't pay them the going rate. 

I negotiated with a line producer once who needed a stills photographer for an indie, and the pay she was offering was very low. I would not benefit from a Stills Photographer credit at that point in my career so I recommended her giving me an "Additional Cinematography" credit because that had value to me. She was somewhat aghast that I would recommend such a thing because, as she put it, I never actually did that work. Like it matters. 

This approach is very common with producer credits when raising money for a film, which is sometimes why you can see as many as 20 or 30 producers credited for a film, especially "Associate Producer" credits. Some of those "producers" are very often people who put money into the project. And it's common for upper echelon people who do little more than make an introduction or lend their name to a project to have an Executive Producer credit. Them just being attached to a project can get a film its financing, an A-list cast, or distribution, and they may very well not be actually doing anything in the way of producing on the film itself.

Using Honey to Attract The Bees 

When I mentioned starting the budget process with the fixed, unchangeable line items, or the large numbers, that can mean paying for certain big ticket items that can help attract other personnel lower in the budget hierarchy. For example, paying an A-list (or B-list) actor, can help you attract other actors and personnel. Of course, having an A-lister in your cast will help the film be more marketable, but the allure of an A-lister can also help draw in crucial personnel. 

One particularly sketchy variant of this tactic I've seen used before by a certain cult status director was to "allow" people to work on his films for no pay. He would pay the key personnel in order to adequately shoot the film and record audio, but all the 20 year old worker bees were working for free because they were that enamored of the director and his cult films. 

I recall once prepping for a PSA and the out of town producer telling us to "try and sell them on the heart of the project" when we had to book local crew with very little pay to offer them. This isn't uncommon when trying to crew up a low budget effort and gets into the realm of psychological manipulation and salesmanship. 

Years ago, I was hired along with another person to find extras for a broadcast commercial. We went into an indoor soccer complex and were about to start approaching people cold, and of course I asked the woman I was with, who was the point person, what production was going to pay these people, because when you ask someone to do something for you, you usually offer them some form of payment, right? She was strangely confused and called the producer, who was evasive on the phone, but finally told her to just try and sell them on the glamor of being in a TV commercial. Subsequently, I found out that was her regular approach with extras - to just get them for free, as if it were somehow a privilege for them. Of course, this dishonest approach will only work in certain places.  

Buying Instead of Renting 

When heading into a film project, and either working with a completed budget or budgeting, one should always consider all avenues. That is to say, if you need to use a thing, whether a piece of equipment, scenery, a picture vehicle, props, or wardrobe, do the math before making a transaction and spending the money. 

What are the options? Renting, borrowing, and buying. And with buying, there's the option to return to the store or sell the item and recoup part of your budget. It's very common with wardrobe to buy and return, and in fact some large chains have specific departments set up for wardrobe stylists who regularly buy and return clothing. Some may charge a fee, some may allow a certain percentage of a purchase to be returned and some will just accept all returns. Of course with returns, one has to budget for the time it takes someone to return the items. 

Comparing rental of anything with buying and then selling after you're done should be approached with caution. There can be huge advantages in terms of cost with buying and reselling, but you have little to no support in the event the item malfunctions or breaks or is stolen. As mentioned, renting from a company means if there's an issue, you have immediate support (or should). As opposed to buying, which means you need to run out and buy a replacement or attempt a quick rental.

I DP'ed a series of commercials once that I shot on an inexpensive hacked camera. In this case, I used a camera I owned and bought a 2nd one to have as a backup in case I had any issue with the primary camera. In that case, I could just pick up the spare and keep shooting. We could have rented two cameras, but then they wouldn't be hacked, and we'd more than likely would end up paying much more in rental fees.

On a feature I coordinated once, the sound mixer needed a portable mixer. I rented what was available from an hour away, a top of the line mixer that cost us $200/day. It was overkill, and the sound mixer finally just said "get a Mackie mixer from Guitar Center," which we did and it cost us around $400. to buy. He was happy, we weren't wasting money on a piece of gear we didn't need, and production sold him the mixer when the project was finished. 

One more anecdote: I built a bank set once for a stills project I was shooting and needed a nice floor. We bought $1,500. in marble tile from a home store, which probably in the end cost us a few hundred dollars in labor to buy, use, and return. We had that tile for maybe a week and it was easy to return, although we weren't even sure they'd take it all back. 

If something you buy is in new condition when you want to return it and you haven't had for long, buying/returning can be a great option instead of buying/reselling or renting. 

To sum up

No matter what you do, or don't do, at the very least, always add padding to every line item and always try to pay less than the budgeted amount for everything. Never budget an exact amount for anything.

©2021 Chris Santucci

What makes a film look "cheap?"

I had a conversation with a friend a while back about what makes a film look "cheap." I don't think there can be any confusion or debate about what a "cheap" film looks like. Everyone knows a cheap, cheesy, or low budget looking film when they see it. Lay people might not be able to verbalize or identify exactly what makes it cheap looking but nonetheless, as with a bad smell, we just know - it's a bad smell. We can also think of "cheap" as the opposite of "cinematic," which should just be synonymous with beautiful, or what we've all come to understand as what "a real movie" looks like.

To my mind, there are 7 things that stand out in terms of cinematic technique, and what is lacking in a cinematic approach in a cheap looking film:

1) Deep Focus

Deep focus, as with wide angle lens use can be amazing and cinematic - if - production design is also amazing and cinematic. Of course, cinematic lighting also helps.

However, with an uninteresting or aesthetically dull setting, seeing ALL of it from foreground to background in perfect focus tends to scream "cheap," especially in the case of a small sensor camera whereby everything is normally in focus. And also especially when in-camera sharpening is set too high and highlight clipping is visible. Deep focus in that instance is just drawing attention to even more flaws in the footage, especially with regard to a lack of control over production design.

2) Clipped Highlights

Clipped highlights are overexposed highlights. They're pure white if clipped but even just too close to white (overexposed) looks cheap and indicates a lack of control in recording the footage. And I'm not talking about small pure white highlights as when glinting off a piece of glass, I'm talking about areas of a frame that just should not be overexposed.

It looks cheap and it looks amateur.  Keeping your range of tones within what the camera is capable of recording is what professionals do. Once clipping occurs, any detail or color is lost and all you can do at that point is gray it down in post which looks unnatural.

3) Poor Composition

This is a dead giveaway and I think even lay people can identify poor composition. Again, it often betrays a lack of control as in the case of working in a practical location and not having enough room to get a suitable framing, for example in this 2-shot.

Another awkward framing that could have been improved by repositioning the camera to the right and framing a little more to the left, or just framing more to the left, or backing the camera up and framing more to the left or framing the guy out and following the ladies to the car by panning left and revealing the guy in the bench (see below clip).

4) Shaky Hand Held Footage

Sometimes we need shaky footage as in the case of action scenes, but there's good shaky and there's bad shaky. Shaky all the time, is not good. Jerky/shaky is not good. Micro-jitter shaky is really not good. And even good shaky should be reserved for moments when it will have more of an impact by heightening the emotional effect of what's taking place in the scene. This is an example of the micro-jitter shakiness that comes from hand holding a lightweight camera. Because the camera is so light, it registers every tiny movement of the camera operator.

5) Poor Lighting

This gets down to just basic photographic technique. It's less an aesthetic approach than it is just a poor command of lighting. 

Poor lighting is fairly evident in a number of ways. Frontal broad lighting tends to look "sourcey." Placing the key lights behind camera, in this case also placed at eye level height or lower, cast ugly, unnatural looking shadows. Here, there are two fixtures of the same size placed on either side of camera. You can get a lot of scenes shot using this approach for all your setups with dialogue, but it looks cheap.

"Sourcey" lighting is lighting that looks like it's coming from a source, meaning a photographic fixture, not from some naturally occurring source. It looks unnatural and can be unflattering on people's faces. The goal with lighting should be to achieve a natural look, as if the light is just naturally occurring, OR by cheating and using film lighting as motivated by a nearby fixture that may be visible in a shot. 

An underlit scene is what it is. At the very least, it's preferable to see highlights in the eyes of a character even when they're underlit, especially when they have dialogue. Again, this approach indicates a lack of control and screams "low budget."

One thing I see often are available light setups where talent are placed in shade. Getting an adequate exposure of their faces means having an overexposed background. In most cases like this, a proper exposure would mean the actors would be in silhouette. This dynamic generally betrays a lack of control, meaning the cinematographer was not able to, didn't have time, or didn't know how to light the talent.

6) Over Sharpening

Digital cameras have a sharpness setting generally, and over sharpened footage tends to look very "video." Many drones and action cams tend to have noticeably sharpened footage while also having small sensors and wide angle lenses which give them a unique, very often non cinematic look. I see a fair amount of over sharpened footage in low budget indie films. When combined with highlight clipping, over sharpened footage screams "video."

7) Production Design

Nothing screams "cheap," like a cheap looking apartment, a cheap car, or a cheap wardrobe. "Cheap" in this case can mean messy, sloppy, boring, dull, or just uninspiring. Many indie filmmakers tend to use whatever locations and scenery they have easy access to. This, often times means working with less than ideal settings, visually speaking. 

Smart filmmakers often will avoid wide shots in cases where they just don't have a budget for control of production design, or want to avoid seeing equipment or crew that they don't have time to move. This results in a lot of closeups which can become visually tiresome for a viewer. 

All things being equal, production design is production value.

 ©Chris Santucci 2021

Too original?

I watch a LOT of movies so I eventually came to have an understanding of the ins and outs of film storytelling with respect to what flies and what doesn't fly with audiences. Do audiences appreciate and embrace originality?

Up to a point, yes.                                                                                                                              

When people put a movie on or walk into a theater, they do so with certain expectations. These expectations have to do with story, the manner in which the story unfolds, and even expectations of a certain level of technical quality. People generally point their face at a screen with an expectation of what to expect which is based in large part on what they've become accustomed to (as per their preferences of course). We've been watching movies for a hundred years, so we ALL know what a movie is and what it isn't by now. Experimental cinema notwithstanding, commercial films (movies) ARE a certain thing and everyone knows what that thing is.

Audiences have become accustomed to a known spectrum of film story types, a finite number of different film plots, and a finite amount of different types of story structures.

Having an original idea for a film story doesn't mean it's a good idea. It might only mean that it's an original bad idea and was never entertained up to present because it was always deemed a bad idea. You won't win any prizes for making a film based on a dumb original story idea unless you're hoping lightning strikes as in the case of good bad films which are as rare as June rain in Arizona.

Most films involve human beings interacting with one another. People love watching other people do things. That said, a film audience also has expectations of "types" and behavior with respect to a film's characters, which also brings up the subject of casting. Generally speaking, certain "types" are cast to match certain roles/characters.

If you get a new job as a lumberjack for example, you will have certain expectations of who your co-workers are going to be. As you drive to your first day of work in your diesel Super Duty F250, you'll envision big burly men (like you), not women, not children, not senior citizens, and not scholarly looking Asians. As such, it's very much the same with casting movies and the expectations of an audience.

Film genres, and character types exist for a reason. An audience will want to see certain things and will only allow a certain degree of deviation from their reasonable expectations.

Sure a certain amount of artful genre and character type juggling can and should sometimes be employed but in the end it still all falls within a finite range that works for an audience.

As such, I would assert that audiences embrace the familiar far more than the unfamiliar when it comes to films (and of course art, food, music, etc.) You can lose an audience as much by withholding details (having them fill in too many blanks - being too ambiguous) as you can by throwing too much nonsense at them. If you're creating farce, that's fine, but that of course is a genre so it comes with certain rules as do all other film parameters.

I suppose it's a bit disheartening to think there's a ceiling with respect to film story telling, that we can't just use an "anything goes" aesthetic or exploit complete originality in filmmaking, but our tastes have limits as does everything else in life.

©2018 Chris Santucci

What is production value & how?

I had a conversation with a fellow producer a while back about production value. He wondered what it was exactly and how to achieve it. I had already been well past the point of being enamored of gear and technique, and was of the mind that production value was (all things being equal) made possible by production design, wardrobe, and the actual faces of your actors.

In other words, it's the stuff you SEE in the footage. When I say "all things being equal," I mean two productions with roughly the same script quality, tech, personnel, budget, and capability, one putting more into production design, wardrobe, and casting will have a higher level of apparent production value than one which expends more budget on equipment, effects, or crew rates for example.

For example, say you need an "office" for a scene in a film. Oh look, there's an office! It has a desk, a window, and a computer. Perfect, right? You can stop scouting now!

But, obviously all offices are not the same. Here we have a nice view (production value) of more office buildings through giant corner office windows, nice woodwork and furnishings. Of course, if you need a boring, aesthetically crappy office, then that's what you need. My point is, you can settle for a generic "office" or you can spend more time looking for one you can afford that's nicer OR you can pay for a nicer office location.

Say you have to cast a male lead to play a romantic counterpart to your female lead. Considering that actors faces tend to occupy a significant amount of screen real estate, I'd suggest taking into account the aesthetic value of your prospective cast. Movie stars are movie stars for a reason. 

All things being equal (acting ability and experience) consider casting the best looking (or yes, most apropos) talent you can, especially considering you're asking an audience to stare at these people for 90 minutes (or 10 minutes). Human nature being what it is means people just prefer looking at attractive people. There are reasons why some very excellent actors have been relegated to character roles and only otherwise supporting roles in films. It's heart breaking I'm sure but a reality nonetheless that you have to consider. 

If nothing else, having a good looking cast will at least give your audience something nice to look at. Nothing against this guy here on the right, but he'll never be James Franco. He may be your best buddy and willing to work for free, and let you use his garage, but none of that will be of value to your audience. What's that? He's a great actor? OK, fine, but he's still not James Franco. 

Remember, you're making your film for an audience of strangers (ya know, people who don't know you or care about you), not your family and friends. 

Considering wardrobe and how crucial it is to production value: years ago I filmed a friend's band playing a live gig at a club. They showed up wearing just what they normally wear; hockey jerseys, jeans, whatever. When they saw the footage, they decided they looked like a bunch of schmoes and didn't want to use the footage. They made an objectively aesthetic judgement that I couldn't really disagree with, but with a little forethought and maybe some guidance from a stylist, they'd have looked cooler to their audience and had footage to use in promoting themselves. 

My point is, if an audience SEES it in the frame, it's VERY important and really IS what gives a film production value. Remember films are very illusory. You are using the magic of filmmaking to create something 2 dimensionally that isn't real. You are literally creating a world for your film characters to live in and your audience to become immersed in. Consider, heavily, everything an audience will see in the scenes of your film. Even if it means you use 5 year old tech to make the film so you can spend more on these visual elements, do it.

Nobody in your audience will SEE the difference between a $10,000. lens and a $1,000. lens, but they will most definitely SEE and know uninspired mall bought wardrobe right off the shelf, an economy grade residential dwelling, and mundane locations with no depth or character.  

©2017 Chris Santucci

The Truth About Why Most Indie Films Don’t Get Distributed

I've written about this a bit regarding the idea that there's distribution and then there's distribution (where you actually get paid.) It used to be that a real distribution deal was nearly impossible without many of the elements mentioned in this blog post as well as high production value. Now, nearly anyone (as I've mentioned) can get a distribution deal for nearly any kind of film, but most of those result in zero payment, so you have to be selective in embarking upon a feature length film project because the odds are very, very high that you will see no return on your investment in time and money:

http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/truth-indie-films-dont-get-distributed/

Staying in the game - professionally.

If you intend to make a living from working in the production world in part or in whole, you have to understand that there's more to getting hired than performing adequately (if you even do that.) There are a host of other things one should be aware of in order to keep getting hired which especially in the absence of experience or ability - can help get you hired often enough for you prove yourself:

Don't make more work for your employer

People get hired to work. That's the entirety of your reason for existence as an employee or crew member. The biggest part of doing the work means you're not creating more work or problems for your boss. Adding work comes in many forms:

• Not doing it right the first time (necessitating the need for your boss to do the work themselves or requiring redundant activity to get it done.)
• Requiring lengthy explanations or having discussions about minutia (know your job and do it but if you're not sure - ask, and don't get mired in peripheral stuff.)
• Breaking/misplacing stuff (keep your head in the game 100% and be OCD about the small parts.)
• Wasting time (your boss knows exactly how long it should take to perform a task - trust me.) 

Be early - Stay late

As a noob, nothing shows gratitude and interest like showing up early and staying late. If you're still learning the ropes it especially behooves you to show up early and stay late because it means you genuinely want to become a better worker, it shows that you're invested in the entire enterprise, and it shows gratitude for the work. Noobs who think they deserve regular and well-defined work hours can enjoy such rigid work windows in call centers and fast food positions.

Show interest

As mentioned, showing interest is always appreciated and noticed. This can take the form of merely your level of attention. Do you watch and listen, or do you spend more time socializing during moments of pause or breaks in the action? What you do with your time when these intervals occur says a lot about your interest. An experienced professional who is 100% effective and efficient with their time on work days is on another level than someone starting out, so bridging the gap in your lack of experience by at least watching, listening, and being nearby is amazing.

Don't brag about averting disaster

You might think it advantageous to show (after the fact) how you fixed something that went wrong on your watch but you have to be careful associating yourself with a malfunction in the first place. You might feel like a hero and you might very well be, but in the end, it's the completed work that matters, not how you got there.

Be responsive

Everyone everywhere has smart phones in their hands nearly 24/7. There's no excuse (for people living in civilized parts of the world) not to provide timely responses - ever. At the very least, confirm reception of a message even if you cannot elaborate right away. Not responding as quickly as possible gums up the works and slows down the whole machine because of the chain reaction of everyone in the chain waiting for a response.

If you're email is "screwed up," fix it. If your phone is broken, get a new one. If your phone bill isn't paid, pay it and only then try to get work. A fully functional smart phone is an essential tool for getting work. Don't cut corners with a phone or phone service.

Be likable

No, not everyone is going to like you, but if you're likable it at least helps to keep a certain amount of people in your camp. If three people decide if you get hired again and one out of the three likes you, that can mean you get hired. Nobody wants to work with people they don't like, so being likable is essentially a prerequisite for survival in the work place.

Being generally likable as simply as it can be put involves making eye contact, showing a sense of humor, showing interest, being interesting, having some sense of style, speaking clearly and understandably, and offering to go out of your way for your employer.

And when you get "in," try to avoid being too political. Taking sides can bite you in the ass and always be nice to people you work with because you never know who may end up with the work.

Be thankful

Unless you work in a market where nobody else can do your job, you almost always have competition for your job in some form. I feel lucky to work in the industry I work in and as such, I tend to always go above and beyond whenever possible. Anyone who doesn't simply say - "thank you" in response to paying work is in trouble because when someone who's likable and at least as good (or better) at doing the same job comes along and they show the requisite gratitude, that could mean that they get the work instead.

A producer once told me she never got a thank you for the work she gave someone when she called me about doing that work instead. Say thanks. It's easy and it means something. People who give you work may not always (or ever) compliment you, but if they keep hiring you, that's the important thing. And don't make the mistake of ever thinking you're doing an employer a favor (by doing the work.) Unless you're a world renowned brain surgeon, the work you get is a gift.


©2014 Chris Santucci

Screenwriting - The Basics

I'm not a screenwriter, nor am I a "writer." I spend a lot of time writing and I have spent a lot of time editing screenplays and reading screenplays. I have studied one book on screenwriting quite a bit which I credit in helping me form 2 finished feature length screenplays which I've gotten a lot of feedback on from Triggerstreet and American Zoetrope forums.

The Tools of Screenwriting is an amazing book that presents the nuts and bolts of screenwriting and also then compares all those elements to actual movies you've probably seen in an attempt to drive an understanding of it all home.

In my years as a filmmaker I've pored over many drafts of many different screenplays in an attempt to make them better. One thing I would say to anyone writing or who wants to write screenplays is - read "professionally written" screenplays.

There is SO much to be learned from reading actual screenplays that got made into successful movies. Especially with regard to formatting and the manner of writing that is most accepted for screenplays.

As for my meager contribution to the craft of screen writing, please take these items to heart:

What a screenplay is and is not

A screenplay is not a series of events in which characters do stuff.

I've had film stories explained to me in those terms multiple times by wannabe filmmakers, and each time I had to inform them that they in fact had NO story.

A screenplay in simplest terms is a A) Protagonist struggling against opposition in the form of a B) Antagonist in order to C) achieve something and during the course of this struggle, the Protagonist experiences "growth," better known as a "character arc."

That, in a nutshell is what you need to do with your film story. All the gun fights and carnage in the world will not mean much if you don't have these elements firmly established in a written script and depicted in your film story.

Save the drama for your mama

Beginner or untrained or inexperienced screenwriters tend to write stories that involve primarily arguments and similar conflict between characters. This in itself is fine, but when it's essentially all you have in a script, it can get very tiring for an audience.

Many of the feature length films I worked on as DP early in my career featured primarily characters bickering and arguing, with little else of interest. Constant melodrama in a film can work IF the script is crafted by a skilled writer. If you're a neophyte writer, do yourself a favor and steer clear of melodrama.

Start with an outline and an ending

It makes very little sense to just start writing, believing that it's somehow going to all work out by the time you reach page 90. Nobody ever sets out on a journey without a map unless they don't mind a high probability of failure. Without a guide, your script (especially if it's a first script) will more than likely end up a meandering mess or you'll spend far too much time re-writing.

Half the battle is a good outline. Think about that. Having all the major points of the story laid out in order will alleviate a lot of frustration during the crafting of scenes in the screenplay. Do it.

Don't ever start writing without an ending already determined. Again, nobody sets out on a journey without a destination in mind, unless it's only the journey that's important. To you, the screen writer, if you want something to show for your work - have the ending in mind.

Consider the names of characters

Use character names that are easy to remember and that don't sound or look similar. Even if your story is very well told, confusion can creep in (for a reader) when lapses in scene descriptions occur or non-linear story telling technique is employed. Confusion will ruin your screenplay especially if added to those shortcomings - you also have a high number of characters in the story. Pick names thoughtfully, as you would for your own child so that they're not distracting and not adding to the potential confusion a reader might experience.

Don't leave out scene intros

Consider this scene & character intro:

INT. WAREHOUSE - EVENING

COLIN is wild eyed.  He stands with a gun aimed at man tied to a chair.

OK... so as we're reading this, we're trying to form a mental image of the setting where the scene is taking place rather than just concentrating on the story, most likely based on the action(s) of the characters depicted.

The scene intro should set the stage for the scene with just enough words. Adding descriptive words that characterize the space is helpful. What size is the warehouse? What condition is it in? Is it dry? Wet? Clean? Dirty? What else is in it? Cars? Boxes? Nothing? Is moonlight streaming in through the skylights or is it completely dark except for a single nearby light bulb?

You don't want to write a book here, but a lot could be said in one sentence about the setting your characters are in and it helps to frame the scenes so a more complete picture unfolds in a readers mind.

Don't leave out character descriptions

As in the above scene and character intro, COLIN is not described at all. So this leaves the reader to forced into using their intellect to uncover who this person might be. THAT is not what you want a reader to be doing while reading your screenplay.

COLIN is holding a gun, so we know he's probably a male with at least one functional arm and hand, and two legs...

We don't know if this is in fact a male just because COLIN is a males name. We don't know the age of this character, the race, and nothing about them except that this person is "wild eyed."

"Wild eyed" is not nearly enough of a character description. Not even close, and again ONE sentence of carefully worded writing can provide a suitable mental image of this character so the reader doesn't have to waste brain power putting clues together to do it themselves.

Proof read - please

Nothing says "I don't care" to a reader more than poor grammar, spelling, punctuation, and diction. It's very hard to have a 100% correct screenplay, but if you have typos, misspellings, and odd phrases throughout a screenplay, you'll lose the reader and chances are you'll be asking for feedback on your work so don't make it harder for readers to get through your screenplay.

Take the time to proof read because not only will you look like a dumbass if you have more than a few dozen instances of the above shortcomings, but the reader's interest will wain if they sense you rushed through the writing.

The writing happens in the rewriting 

Don't ever think you'll write a script and then take your first draft and produce a film from it unless you don't care about anyone ever liking your film. Rewriting is what separates the men from the boys and it's where the story and dialog are made to really work for an audience.

If you're so enamored of your own writing that you don't feel rewriting is necessary, please stop writing. Screnwriting is not like playing the lottery, it's a process of arduous work that often yields no reward.

If you're unable to improve a script through rewriting and aren't willing to pound away at the writing until it's perfect, please stop writing.

The writing really happens in the rewriting.





©2013 Chris Santucci