Every SPECULATIVE STORYTELLER has a thousand and one stories to tell. This creates a state of flux, a coerced procrastination as all the ideas are considered ones babies, that you want to write. But there is great deliberation which one to write. This induces creative brain freeze (procrastination) because every character that you imagine is storming at you a thousand miles per hour shouting TELL MY STORY!. But unlike SHEHRAZADE in Arabian Nights, logistically only two feature screenplays of merit can realistically be written per year. They key is to secure a sale, a profit, not just write without a financial objective in mind. Most professional scriptwriter- directors write only one. Nia Verdolas (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) typically writes a feature film to presentable first draft in 3 months. She spends the next 9 months securing it into Production. Quentin Tarantino, two time Best Original Screenplay Oscar award winner (Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained), spent a year to write the First presentable Draft of his leaked feature screenplay THE HATEFUL EIGHT. To secure a Sale of a speculative feature screenplay can take typically (with agency representation) from 3 months to 1 year. The same period applies for the greenlight into Production. When determining which of the 1001 ideas to pursue, it is useful to reflect on the Economies of Scale as a Storyteller. The Economies of Scale for COMMERCIAL (PROFIT MAKING) STORYTELLING do not favour HIGH RISK ART projects. High Risk Art projects are projects that are unlikely to find a market- buyer or financier (your client) unless you receive a government Film grant as a subsidy. Commercial Storytelling is about creating a profit, not about creating a project for pleasure (hobby) or as a showreel piece (as a student). The KEY to ending a creative brain freeze as a storyteller is to pick which project is most marketable: will resonate to find a financial (profit creating) home. This eliminates the projects that are hobby like in nature, self funded, personal stories that have no potential to secure a paying client. Writing a hobby story in the hope for a sale or greenlight is depending on your ability to find that Djinn trapped in Alladins lamp. You are more likely to find a bottle of Gin and starve then get paid. If a story does does not resonate with a financier or buyer, it is a hobby, not a profit creating enterprise. Choose wisely as every moment spent writing the wrong story is a moment wasted that could be used on the profit creating story. Choose swiftly. 90 days is not a long period to turn out a feature screenplay. WRITE WITH PASSION and WITH YOUR TARGET CLIENT IN MIND. RIDWAN HASSIM CREATING MAGIC.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 02:26:34 +0000