Screenwriting : Is writing big budget screenplays wrong? by Victor Titimas

Writing is NEVER wrong. Giving it up an working as a telemarketer is.

It is always advantageous for a screenwriter to keep a practical eye on the budgetary impact of story "design": the number and types of locations & scenes, visual effects & creature design, cast size, post-production demands, even firmly establishing tone and genre so the end result can be properly marketed. By contrast, in non-literary fiction one is largely free of such issues except for the genre thing: agents & editors still need to know where in the bookstore a work might be shelved.

Steve, are you telling me all my Craigslist job ad responses are a waste of time?

Hey Buddy go ask the people who say "don't worry about budget" what is their day job? If THEY are not writing big budget ($150mil++) movies with known Talent and worldwide distribution, they don't know shit. Unproduced Theory Writers. Worry about storytelling & craft. Write simple concepts with complex characters & big worlds. Don't worry about gizmos.

Judging by the quality of a lot of low-budget productions, maybe those involved should reconsider the bright opportunities in telemarketing.

Why does being judicious with your writing mean restraint of the imagination? It doesn't. Clearly. These are not mutually exclusive. You can be both savvy and creative—or perhaps should be, especially in this industry. Lol! Consider the variety of successful and highly creative single location films produced with a low budget. ;)

Limited location stories take lots of creativity to make them interesting. It was easier to use multiple locations but it depends on the story. This is my observation going from multiple locales to a single one. Phone Booth is my role model.

In reality they are probably never going to make your spec. It will act as a writing sample. So if you want to write big budget feast, write one.

Don't edit/limit yourself. GO for it. Writing takes practice and more writing can't hurt YOU. Not writing is worst. Good luck.

I think when you're trying to actively get in on the ground floor, writing a $200,000,000 epic isn't the way to go. No-one is stopping you from writing it of course and if you want to put the story to paper no-one should but I chose to write low-budget character-based contained horror because A: I want to write horror and B: If someone wants to take a risk on me its a much smaller financial risk than an epic would be and it widens the group of people I can pitch to by a country mile.

I think this should give you some idea.

FROM SCRIPT TO SCREEN: Writer/Director Paul Haggis On ‘The Next Three Days

In an interview with Script Mag

SCRIPT Mag: Where else did constraints make you think creatively?

Paul Haggis: Early on, when I was writing the script, I decided I needed to shoot it in a place that has a tax incentive, so I decided to research cities where there were interesting prisons or jails that had a tax incentive. I settled on Pittsburgh. The jail there happened to be the largest jail in the world, a brand-new jail. I saw that and thought, “Wow, this is so different. It’s so modern, it’s so inhuman.”

I went to Pittsburgh and figured out what the breakout was. I wrote it exactly for all the locations. It’s so disheartening when you write something that you see, and it’s just wonderful, and the director comes and says, “We don’t have those locations. You can’t shoot there.” It was one of the many things that went wrong with Quantum of Solace. I wrote it and the director said, “No, we don’t have that. We don’t want a winter scene, we want a desert scene.” Oh. Oooo-kay. It’s so much better if you write it for locations you already know you’ve got. I’m really inspired by the physical environment as a writer and a director.

Bottom line: In the current risk averse landscape, the more expensive the project, the fewer buyers there are. Producers ask me if I've found any genre projects between $2m-$5m all the time. Outside of one prod co. at Sony, which told me they want projects in the $100m-150m range, almost nobody is actively looking for big budget specs. That said, if your concept is mind-blowingly original, go for it.

Why are you writing the screenplay? And how strong of a writer are you? For the first screenplay I wrote I tried to scale it down because of the limitations my friends and I had. After I did I realized I had basically just had a poor man's version of Mallrats. The idea just wasn't scalable enough without being derivative (among other problems, but that was the biggest).

I'm now a much stronger screenwriter, and filmmaker, but just as poor. So I scale my projects in the development stage and then have the restraints within which to write. I learn how to make it make sense that things aren't big when they would be in a blockbuster, otherwise the story suffers. But I personally try to go as big as I can but make room for compromise.

Boundaries can be a writer's best friend or worst enemy. Know which is the case for that particular script. If you're passionate about what you have and it only works if you go all out, then maybe you have to shelf it for a few years until you can build up credibility to sell a large budget script. Ask yourself if the story or the sell is more important.

My thought is this - if you're trying to break in, make a career, then focus on writing well. Write good stories, ones that tell an emotional journey. Don't think about budgets, locations, size of cast - just write the best damn story you can. Then when you get as big as Paul Haggis, you can think about all them other things! :)

I've read a couple of comments from other sources they also advise that I write small scale budget films.

Writing a big budget spec worked out okay for me. An Agent read my spec, liked my writing voice and decided to rep me.

And it had 0 to do with my visual gizmos of destruction, high death toll, blowing up shit.

I have to show folks I know how to write an engaging screenplay on the page.