John August

Search Results for: characters

Choosing character names

QandA, Story and Plot

How do you develop and decide on names for characters?

–Lauren

First, decide if you’re usually going to refer to this character by their
first name, last name or some other nickname. In GO, Ronna and Claire are always
referred to by their first names, whereas Gaines and Singh are last names,
while Tiny and Junior are nicknames.

Once you’ve decided which part of the name is most important, pick one that
sounds appropriate to the character. How you choose that name is up to you.
Some people use baby names books or the telephone directory. For some reason,
I name a lot of characters after streets in my neighborhood. If you’re really
stuck, Final Draft has a names database that can be helpful in a pinch.
However you find the name, it should start with a different letter than any
other name in the script, just to avoid reader confusion.

Now pick a first or last name to go with it. Often, I’ll just pick a letter
at random and start sounding out names until I find one that seems to work.
As a final check, I always rack my brain to see if I remember anybody else
with that name. It’s creepy how often I’ll end up with somebody I already know.

Stealing sequels

QandA, Rights and Copyright

Say a movie came out nearly 10 years ago and it did poorly,
and I wanted to make a re-creation of it as a sequel to the first one. I want
a different movie
company to make it instead of the other that made the first one, and I have
it patented. Does that mean I’m stealing their idea? Will I get sued?

–ShaeTwon

Yes, you’re stealing their idea. They made the first one, and if you try to make a sequel without securing their permission, they can and will sue you.
A lot. Let’s review why.

For starters, movies are never patented. Patents protect inventions, like
light bulbs and One-Click ordering on Amazon. Anything related to movies –
from screenplays, to the score, to the final film – is covered by copyright.
That’s what we’re really talking about.

Let’s say you wrote your fantasy sequel. You would automatically own the copyright
on the words you wrote, but not on the underlying property – the characters,
settings and plot of the first film. Even if that first movie wasn’t successful,
the original studio still holds the copyright on those elements. No other studio
on Earth will give you the money to make your movie until their legal department
feels secure that you’ve obtained these rights from the original studio.

This is not idle legal speculation, incidentally. Sequels are made all the
time in which Studio A is buying the remake rights from Studio B. The Terminator
franchise has been through three different studios, as have the Hannibal Lecter
movies.

Several years ago, I read a very good spec screenplay called ALIENS VS. PREDATOR.
20th Century Fox, which owns both franchises, decided not to buy it because
they were developing their own script. The writer had nowhere else to sell
it and was stuck with an interesting but somewhat useless writing sample.

So what should you, Shae Twon, do with your idea? If you feel like writing
the screenplay, great, but be prepared to approach the original studio first.
If they don’t want to make it, and no one else is willing to buy the rights
from them, you’re screwed.

Script, story, screenplay

QandA

questionmarkWhat is the difference between a script, story and screenplay? How “developed” (stage wise) are they in comparison to each other?

–Hemant

answer icon“Scripts” and “screenplays” are interchangeable when it comes to feature films, but television scripts are always called scripts. (Except when they’re called teleplays, which is only in certain on-screen credits.)

“Story” is more or less what it sounds like: the plot, the characters, the settings and tone. It differs from a script or screenplay only in that the dialog often isn’t written out, and the overall action may be somewhat compressed. A writer might be credited with the “story” for a movie, but not the “screenplay,” if he wrote a treatment but not the final script. Usually, if one writer handles both “story” and “screenplay,” he/she receives a more general “written by” credit.

What should a 14-year old do?

Education, QandA

I am 14 years-old and am very interested in screenwriting.
I have read numerous books on the subject. I have four questions:

  1. At 14 years-old, what else should I be doing besides reading
    screenwriting books?

  2. What screenwriting software do you use and why?
  3. In your years of experience, do you find that your creative
    vision makes it to the big screen, without being altered too much?

  4. How old were you when you wrote your first script? How old
    were you when your first script got purchased?

Thank you in advance for answering my questions.

–Adam

Usually I answer one or two questions per reader, but I remember when I was
fourteen I had a lot of questions, so I’ll make an exception.

First, at 14 years old you should be watching everything and everybody. I
don’t mean movies. Watch people, try to figure them out, try to listen to the
cadence and content of their speech. People are simply characters without a
plot. They’re your best place to start. And no one thinks a 14-year old is
paying attention, so they’re likely to let you watch and listen.

And of course you should write. But I wouldn’t get too hung up on writing
a whole screenplay just yet. Write snippets. Write stories. Just write whatever
you feel like.

Second, I use Final Draft for the Macintosh. I love it, but there are other
good programs. And remember, a tool is only as good as the person using it.

Third, a screenwriter’s creative vision often does suffer on the way to the
screen. A screenplay is a blueprint, and the actual movie that gets constructed
may not live up to your highest hopes. I was thrilled with GO, but then I also
produced, so I had a pretty big hand in how it would be done. Other projects
haven’t always met my expectations, and it’s usually because choices were made
that I wouldn’t have made. That’s the reality when you’re not the final voice
on a movie.

Fourth, I was 22 when I wrote my first script. I wrote it in film school,
and it was overwritten like most first scripts are. It’s never been produced,
and honestly it never should be. But it got me started. The first script I
was paid to write was HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS, which is just now making it to
the gate. The first original script I sold was GO.

When I look back to stuff I wrote when I was 14, I’m usually impressed by
the vocabulary and horrified by the subject matter. I wrote about the stupidest
things, most of them related to Dungeons & Dragons. But it’s important
that I wrote those early things, because it gave me the confidence to make
a living at it now.