So you mention God, have a church scene, include some biblical passages and one of your charterers is a Pastor. Does such make your script a faith based film? Looking into such, the genre is incredibly broad per its description.
You write a script trying to break social norms but does it mean this is a social justice genre of a script? Really, does such a category even exist and if it does, what are the guidelines depicting such?
I ask because I have a script I am completing and truthfully, I have no clue what category it would fall under including its probable rating. No violence other than a car accident, no cursing, no nudity-- would that really make it a Rated G film?
What are the pro's and con's revealing this could be described as a faith based film (if it even is one considering I really do not know)?
So what is it?
History is rife with hidden treasures few people know about. Étienne is a history lesson—a movie based in the present, built around the past—which delivers lessons learned from one of America’s most unrecognized heroic founders—Stephen Girard.
This gripping story of an American Immigrant from Haiti—reveals a married American combat veteran, a school teacher, but most important, a descendant of a white slave owner—Stephen Girard.
Inspired by today’s socio-cultural grievances, Étienne takes our past and places our discord into perspective in an attempt to bring Americans together as one. With a nation divided politically, racially, and economically, Étienne helps viewers understand that no matter our differences, we are one. This is a movie for all races, all genders, and all ages.
Étienne is to meant to be developed in the vein of an array of movies and television shows. Think Lean on Me, Coach Carter, and Won’t Back Down meets The First Grader.
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Would you consider great horror films like The Exorcist, The Omen, Signs, or Prince of Darkness faith-based films?
They are, because they are based in a faith, and the testing of that faith. Maybe not the kinds of films the Little Rock Baptist Church would be playing on a "Feel Good Friday Night" for its congregation, but they are faith-based.
I think I'd ask myself "who's my audience?", and what's the main goal/message/themes of my film? Many faith-based films (not the ones I mentioned above) are comedies, tragedies, romances, action films, historical bio-pics, and thrillers, too. It's easy to categorize a film as a "faith-based film", but I think the term is more thematic-based/message-based/target audience-based Your story sounds more like a drama with faith as one of its themes, and that is aimed at a broad audience that seeks a drama about current social conditions, with history and slavery as part of its backstory.
Best fortunes to you in your creative endeavors, Kerry!
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Picking a genre to call your film is simply a marketing tool to help you find an audience for your film - and a buyer for your script. Don't look at it as a limit. You can change what you call it when you target specific companies (as long as it's reasonably within that category). If you're pitching to Pureflix, and there's enough inspirational material in there centered around something vaguely spiritual and it's right for their audience, call it faith based. If you're pitching to a company that handles dramas it's a Drama. If you're pitching a company that's all about social justice movies, it's a Social Justice Drama.
The only reason anybody asks the genre is the same reason you want to know if something's a comedy or action or period when you're picking a movie to watch. The same goes for a reader sitting down to read a script. Maybe their company only does action comedies. Why waste their time?
And almost every story does fall into a genre. "Drama" is like the generic vanilla of genres at the end of the sorting list when your story didn't fall into any of the other categories. Because every story is at heart a drama. A comedy is a drama with laughs. A western is a drama with horses. A faith based is a drama with something spiritual in it. A documentary is a drama based on purported facts and evidence.
Maybe you've got an "Inspirational Drama" on your hands. :)
Excellent points Bill Costantini and I truly appreciate your feedback and could not agree more.
I agree this is a drama and your themes are accurate.
I am more or less trying to wrap my head around the market for this script ie who best to pitch it to, possible script competitions, etc.
As a screenwriter, I understand we want the biggest audience for our work however I also understand what I am doing is solely serving as a very small part of the overall product being creator and writer. Definitely not something I want to direct or even serve as a producer on. Rather, I just want to get it in the best hands to see its development brought into the best light possible.
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David Trotti , well said! "Inspirational Drama"...that's a new one to me. I will ensure to write that down in my little black book of wisdom :)
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Hey Kerry, thank you for your service. here's my 2-cent advice:
Forget selling & marketing and concentrate on writing great samples. They're called spec scripts. Focus on a simple 3-act structure, show the tools of the craft like reversals, foreshadowing, payoffs, add a running theme, add some visual symbolism & metaphors, wrap the story by climax. If you can do that with multiple spec scripts on a specific genre (action, comedy, horror, whatever), you will get professional representation as a writer.
Control what you can control and that's on the page. Everything else - selling & marketing - leave that for someone else to do.
Dan MaxXx , through my past few posts here I believe you may have become my new long mentor in this part of the industry. I love your words of advice and encouragement. Thank you, sir!
Owen Mowatt , thank you for allowing me an opportunity to spit out my morning coffee in laughter with your comment on 50 Virgins :) Brilliant!
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I actually did a webinar on the language of script development that covers genres, drivers, modifier and more. It's completely free and I think might help you pin yours down.
https://www.stage32.com/webinars/The-Writers-Room-Breaking-Down-the-Ling...
Allen Roughton , Thank you so much! I will definitely check it out! Very much appreciate it!
Genres aren't about objects or a specific character, they are about what drives plot, tone, action, etc. Films aren't faith based just because one of the locations is a church. That would make a number of very gory horror movies faith-based. Faith-Based films are about someone losing/finding/using their faith within the plot and FAITH (and by that, I mean the CHRISTIAN faith) being ingrained into the plot and the character arc in a way that it will connect with those of the same faith.