Should I write a straight-to-DVD knockoff?
I have a friend who is high up in a production company that specializes in straight-to-DVD low-budget versions of blockbuster movies. As a joke I pitched him a few ideas. Well, he loved them and asked me to write up the scripts.
On the one hand, this could be a great step in the right direction for my career in writing. It would mean getting some real credits to my name. On the other hand, I am afraid I would be labeled as a hack for writing this type of knock-off movie.
So my question is: Which is better? Getting my foot in the door with a bad movie, or hold on to my integrity and look the gift horse in the mouth? Could a bad movie credit hurt your chances in the future?
– Rob
Wilmington, Delaware
James Cameron directed Piranha Part Two: The Spawning. Everyone starts somewhere.
Yes, sure, it would be great if your first paid writing job was a quality movie at a reputable studio, complete with WGA coverage. But don’t turn up your nose to actual paid writing for a company that makes movies. You probably don’t want to make schlock for a living, but you can learn a lot even while making less-than-awesome movies.
Do it. Make it as good as possible for the genre. Then use it as a foothold to reach higher.
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March 27th, 2009 at 6:21 am
Yes, do it! What are you waiting for? I wish I had that chance ;) Why wait? Who says it’s gonna be a bad movie?
I recently watched an interview with Francis Ford Copoola and he said something like “Whatever you get blamed for now, it’ll be remembered as the best thing you ever did years later.”
There are quite a lot low-budget TV or straight-to-DVD films liked by range of fans. Personally, I’ve always liked these kind of movies, because you know films a lot of people don’t and sometimes they have a great cast (e.g. The Dark Backward (1991) or Threshold (2003) two of my personal favorites).
So if this is “your” chance to get your foot into the business… don’t hesitate!!! I envy you already ;)
March 27th, 2009 at 6:30 am
The production quality, the acting, will probably be ropey. Absolutely no reason the writing has to be.
March 27th, 2009 at 6:32 am
That’s precisely the market El Mariachi was written for, and it opened all kinds of doors for Robert Rodriguez.
March 27th, 2009 at 6:40 am
i am currently wondering if this is the correct use of looking the gift horse in the mouth. anyone? I just know it’s an old phrase that refers to if someone were to give you a horse as a gift you shouldn’t look to see how old it is. Which you’ve already done, someone gave you this opportunity and you’re already doubting it.
March 27th, 2009 at 7:42 am
That sounds like it’d be a blast! Similarly, I’d love to write one of those SciFi Channel Original movies… schlock, but fun schlock.
March 27th, 2009 at 7:49 am
But if you know in advance you’re not getting a top-drawer cast should you write differently? Is it better to give a weak actor something mediocre he can comfortably do with that watch him blow your great lines?
March 27th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Yaaaaaaaay! I’m excited/jealous for you too.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Two words: nom de plume.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I’ve written (and co-written) several of these movies to great response by the public and the industry. It’s not often you can “boast” that you co-wrote a movie that made 5x its money back in the first year, greenlit a sequel in its second day of release at AFM and was featured on the SciFi Channel.
Since writing those movies I’ve been hired to write others, have written articles on how to write one of these movies and am producing several. Having several movies “actually produced” is such a rarity in this town that you are elevated to the top 5% (guesstimate) of the feature writers in this town. The movies I’ve written have opened a lot of doors because inevitably it comes down to what’s on the page. A production co. reads your script and yes, it can be really entertaining but they see how they can make it for the money they have… that makes it very entertaining.
But lets look at the practical for a moment: Nothing, NOTHING teaches you more about screenwriting than actually having something produced. You see what works, what doesn’t and how you can make it better. It is better than an MFA any day.
Go. Write. Learn.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Is this guy talking about The Asylum? Transmorphers, I Am Omega, Monster?
I would toooooootally write a script for an Asylum movie. They’re like the new Roger Corman Studios.
Here’s the thing about it: as others have already said, just having your name on a movie that got made means way more than the quality of the movie itself in this town. And the fact is, people don’t expect much from a direct to video/sci-fi channel type flick. So, in my view, you can take risks and experiment more than on a major blockbuster, and learn a ton about your writing that way.
If it sucks, no one’s really going to notice because they kind of expect that stuff to suck. You got paid and you’ve got a credit and you can learn from it on the next project. But if it’s actually good, people will sit up and take notice of you, because they weren’t expecting that. And you still got the pay and the credit. So really, it’s completely win-win.
And John, Piranha 2 is my favorite example of “just get the job” too.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:15 am
“James Cameron directed Piranha Part Two: The Spawning. Everyone starts somewhere.”
LOL. Great advice.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:02 am
http://d2dvd.blogspot.com/2007/07/pulp-screenwriting-link-fu.html
March 27th, 2009 at 10:06 am
:) Your friend just offered to send you to film school.
You go now.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:17 am
If you’re not interested, by all means, let me know. It is my secret, dirty, secret, dark, dirty fantasy to write for that “production company that specializes in straight-to-DVD low-budget versions of blockbuster movies”.
Earl. At. Stranger Things. Dot. TV.
Do the right thing, Anonymous Pitcher of Pitches.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I say do it! And go back and watch (if you haven’t already) Martin Scorsese’s “A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies”. Particularly watch the third section titled “The Director as Smuggler”. Yes, he’s speaking about the directors, but essentially he’s analyzing the films. I always find this section very inspiring.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Pirahna 2 is always the fun one. But it’s not just Cameron. There are so many people who got there start on Roger Corman movies. Just two off the top of my head…
Ron Howard. Even though he had a career as an actor he couldn’t convince anyone to give him a shot at directing. Corman agreed to let him on the condition that he starred in the movie so they could cash in on his name recognition. Win-win situation.
Jonathan Demme. Made “Caged Heat”. Women in prison. He worked with Tak Fujimoto, who still shoots all his non-documentary stuff. And Gary Goetzman, who produced a bunch of his big studio stuff. And he’s still giving Corman cameo’s as late as “Rachel Getting Married.”
Scorsese made a “Bonnie and Clyde” rip-off for him called “Boxcar Bertha”. And that was after making a totally no-budget movie. It was a step up!
The interesting thing is that you can tell these guys all had talent and put a lot of hard work into these movies, even if they were ‘crappy’ drive in movies. What really depresses me is the low budget movies that seem like hack jobs. Like the people involved just figure they’ll churn out this stupid movie, not take it seriously, but then they’ll be produced and be able to make their real movie. That’s the definition of a hack job. Don’t be a hack. Even if you’re making “Turbulence 4″ or “Puppetmaster 8″, make it the best “Puppetmaster 8″ you can.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Oh, yeah, and John Sayles wrote the first Piranha. Wait, I spelled that wrong. I meant to say MacArthur Genius John Mo-Fo-ing Sayles.
I’m sorry. I’ll stop now. Although it looks like I’m destined to spend another two hours IMDB’ing Roger Corman movies when I should be writing…
March 27th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Buddy of mine got his first paid writing gig doing Hitman 2 – straight to DVD…it is what it is, but he’s happy to be at home during the day, writing, getting paid, and not some desk jockey for an exec.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Just saw The Great Buck Howard… Malkovich, Hanks (both of them), Emily Blunt, Ricky Jay — strong cast. Decent movie. Getting some good reviews.
So out of curiosity I checked out the IMDb page for the guy who wrote and directed it. Very interesting to see his career path… let’s just say, those of us who were teenaged boys in the 90s and had at least one pay cable channel know his early material VERY well.
March 27th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Rob, if the company you’re talking about did The Adventures of Young Van Helsing back when that other Van Helsing movie came out, then I had the same opportunity… but things never materialized. One piece of advice they game me, which I’ll always remember (for both its humor & its sickening brilliance) was to make sure that my script featured a cute dog (or horse) that could be put on the DVD cover. Apparently dogs equal dollars when it comes straight-to-video family films.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
I wrote one as well, pretty interesting experience too given the amount of time I had to write it, the needs of the network, the rewrites I did, and the rewrites that were done as the releasing company passed the script to several different producers until it got made.
I was awesome standing on the set and watching the characters I created perform a scene — that didn’t have much in the way of my lines left. It was pretty funny and humbling at the same time.
I recommend doing it, even for the low budget production. You gain all of the experiences you might have at the super-high studio level with a bit less of the stress. And cash, but there you go. Plus, you have great stocking stuffers for Xmas.
My one question though, the one thing I still haven’t figured out, is how to take that first imdb’d credit and move onto getting the next filmprojec. I’ve been focusing on my own webprojects (the future!) and doing some teaching.
Anyone have any suggestions on how to take the first credit and build to the second?
March 27th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
If you do it, you better enjoy it.
March 27th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Rob, write the damn scripts. Which would you rather be? A produced writer with some IMDB credits who can use those credits and that experience to move up in the business? Or a whiny unproduced writer who spends all day whining about there being no opportunities?
March 28th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Jody -
I took that credit and my next spec and got meetings at several production companies that do the same thing – only with larger budgets. I was hired to rewrite several of their scripts. I cashed the checks. They cleared. I was happy.
I also parlayed that experience into writing some pulp prose tales for a publisher which opened my work up to a whole new audience. I would say the audience on my blog is split 50/50 between my pulp prose and ‘pulp movies.’
I was then invited to speak at several events about getting your first script made, the DVD market and so on…that led to a couple more jobs writing some live shows, a couple more meetings, shaking hands with folks, etc… it’s a process.
All the while keeping my day job of creating marketing campaigns for DVD releases as well as other industries.
It’s funny because when I tell the Home Entertainment folk that I’m also a screenwriter they smirk. When they ask which movies and I tell them, they brighten up — they recognize when their competition made a profit, and they’ve seen some of my movies at BB. Having a credit – a successful credit, no matter how small – is something you need to learn from and capitalize on. Every job you do leads somehow, someway to another. I look at it as letting people know what you’re doing, where you want to go with it, and how you’re going to get there.
Nowadays, I’m writing a movie for a fully-financed production company out of NYC and though it’s a tight budget, I am a writer-producer with a cut of the pie, and a thorough say in the look, the process and the branding & marketing. Am I making a million a script? No. But I am building a profitable ‘body of work’ that I own and leverage across the board – books, movies, comics and the internet – all the things I like to write.
I’m also using this internet thingee to stay in touch with all of the buyers around the world who bought the movies I wrote. As I slowly progress to be my own boss in this media arena, staying in touch with them is important. The web makes it easy to go to their sites – see what they’re selling and how they are doing with it. It makes your position stronger when you’re in a meeting and someone’s on the fence on whether they think they can sell it worldwide.
We live in interesting times. There are tools and information available for you to build that body of work too… go out and do it. You’ll be so glad you did.
(It also appears I’ve leveraged my long-windedness and ego. Apologies)
March 28th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Bill, thanks for that. I’m going to shoot you an email to you, at your website, see if I can pick your brain a little more.
Since I asked a “how-do-I?” question, I should in all fairness, share how-I-got my DVD gig. I wrote a film for Regent Entertainment. They own a chain of theaters, a world-wide production and releasing arm, and here! TV, a pay cable channel geared to gay and lesbian audiences. That’s how I made their acquaintance.
I actually peppered them for years with scripts, pitches, treatments and stories. I write genre, and since genre hasn’t been done that much with gay protagonists, that’s what I spent a few years hitting them with. Stories with gay leads, stories -without- gay leads (just to show I could write anything.)
After one of the execs read one of my scripts as part of a script competition they were judging and really loved it, I was finally placed, as far as I could tell, on one of their smaller list of writers to consider for their projects.
All of this took… goodness… five years? It’s kind of hazy. I was only pursuing writing part-time at that point so it might have gone faster. It wasn’t until a year or two after I made that last bit of headway that they finally called me, said they had a list of ideas they wanted turned into a script as part of a production deal they had. If I wanted a gig with an insanely low turn-around,a very specific set of story requirements and little in the way of pay or perks, they could pretty much guarantee the film would get made.
And they were true to their word.
March 28th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
You should definitely do it. get’s your name out there, and we all have to start somewhere. even though the movie may suck, the writing doesn’t have to, and that’s what we look at anyways!! Just do it!
http://www.screenwritersplace.com
March 29th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Funny that this comes up just as I’m doing my last pass before sending out a low-budget Gangster Movie I wrote for free (with the carrot dangling that it’ll be produced). Anyhow, you should absolutely see if you can write for low budget/direct to DVD stuff. There’s nothing to say that art can’t happen under the auspices of something ostensibly hacky.
March 30th, 2009 at 6:12 am
Speaking of John Sayles, in his book THINKING IN PICTURES, he has a few “guidelines” for writing low-budget genre movies (such as, unless you know the actor in the movie is a good actor, make all the words in the dialogue monosyllabic to make them more “actor-proof”).
March 30th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
What’s the name of the company? I have a few I ideas I want to pitch them!
March 31st, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Couldn’t agree more. Your goal is to be a paid writer, and this is it. Embrace the opportunity and make this the best it could possibly be.
My personal story is that I was brought on to rewrite a script with a basic premise that is more or less unfilmable, so I had to find a way to take something nonsensical and unexplainable and make it into an actual film. I did it (though the direction was a complete 180 from the original intent) and couldn’t be more proud.