Film Courage: What are the three worst ways to start a story?
Steve Douglas-Craig, Owner/Teacher at The New Screenwriter, Financier,
Screenwriter and Producer: I think one of them is not identifying a main point of view or a main
character and I've have seen it where you linger for 10 to 15 pages of the setup before I even meet
the main character I think that's hard to pull off not saying it's impossible but I think that's one
area where starting a story like without really our introducing our main character can be really
fraught with danger I think writing a action a big two bigger action sequence in the beginning
you leave yourself nowhere to go I know a lot of action movies do start that way and I think also
if I was to identify another bad way to start a story is with too many characters I see that quite
often is that it's very hard for me to discern who the main character is if in the first 10 pages
you've introduced 10 10 to 15 characters it's like I don't know who I'm following whose story is this
becomes muddy so I think that starting a story off with too many characters who have too many
things to say especially minor characters can be confusing and really takes us away from okay who
are we following and who am I going to empathize with and join on this journey I think that's one
way you wouldn't want to start a story I think another way is if it's a horror movie starting it
with some kind of comic sequence not a good idea unless it's a horror comedy so I think getting
the tone wrong or setting up the wrong tone for your movie especially when you're wanting
it to be a sci-fi but in the first 10 pages you don't introduce any elements that would exist in
a sci-fi world that's you wouldn't want to start a movie that way and starting a movie that's too
talky too much dialogue in the beginning of your movie doesn't allow an effective setup
of the tone or the world quite often what do audiences want from a main character and what
do writers often get wrong I don't know all the audiences but I'll speak generally based on what
I know I think for instance my brother doesn't want to go to a movie and think he just doesn't
want to he wants to go and be entertained you he wants to go on a rollicking Fast and Furious type
ride I think it depends on why you why you go to a movie I go to a movie because I'm I want
to be scared that's why I go to movies and so I think audiences are drawn to certain genres
sometimes most of the time and I think that there are certain tropes in those genres that they want
to see and I think sometimes writers I'll give you an example of when I was starting out when I was
in when I was in grad school I wrote two romantic comedies before I realized I'm not very funny and
and I don't know that world and frankly I wouldn't see them so the dean of the school at that time at
graduation came to me and he said okay so your professors all have really good things to say
about you that you you're you talented you just have no idea who you are I'm like what does that
what does that mean I don't really know what that means and he said well think of it this way you go
to a cinemaplex and it has 18 theaters in it right each one of those theaters has the best of every
genre which one do you go and see I said well horror thriller he why why why are you writing
romantic comedies when you wouldn't even go and see them? I don't understand? I was like well
that's when I came up with the idea that was the genre it best fit in he's like but you wouldn't go
and see that genre which means you don't really want to see what you're writing on the screen
you wouldn't go and see it write what you want to see on the screen thus my horror fascination came
out in full force and I started writing that and developing that but I think you have to understand
who you are and what you like to see not just what you like to write or what you think the the
audience is looking for I guarantee you by the time you finish the screenplay they're already
looking for something else and you saw that in the found footage craze right everyone started doing
found footage movies well they selling cu no one wants to see that anymore 5 minutes later it the
industry changes that quick so I think as a writer you do have to write what you love you write
what you would go and see I wouldn't go and see romantic comedies necessarily so why am I writing
them and I think that was the best piece of advice with regards to the question you just asked that I
could have got what are common ways that a movie dies marketing these days it can be marketing I
think there are a lot of factors here one and it's something I'm doing in my new in the new company
that I'm working with is that is there such a thing anymore as a $12 million indie film I don't
think so I mean how do you make that money back with the the state of the theatrical market it's
possible I've heard people say I want make A-list indie dramas with A-list actors I'm like well
first of all that's a paradox because if there's an A-list actor with a Indie drama they want to
do they're not coming to you right they've already got their own and they don't need your money there
are several factors here one is mismanagement of budgets and a misunderstanding of your audience
Jason Blum has become a a superstar in the horror world one because he's passionate about it and two
he developed a model around how to create low budget horror and how to make money from it and
I think that a movie will die if you're talking financially a movie will die when the budget is
too big and outsized because once you have a movie you've then got to lob a whole bunch of
marketing money on top of it and no one sees any money until all that comes back and studios will
will put on sales fees and distribution fees and all these things that they want to recoup before
any investor will will get their money or their equity back so financially it ties back into what
I said about theatrical marketing teams if there's no confidence in something even if you go ahead
and make it and division heads in studios if they want to make a movie they have their own budgets
they can go and make the movie they can green light it without the head of the studio and go
and do it but if the theatrical marketing team or a marketing team don't have any confidence in the
movie they have budgets too so they're not going to spend as much as they would have on something
else gets very convoluted but I think that the the main problem now for me is that the mid-range
budget is almost dead because us domestic market is hard can Brad Pitt still sell a movie in this
in the cinemas in this country canny I'd go to see it yeah can they make their money back on that
or is he a bigger star in certain International territories he probably is right the movie star
system has changed a great deal and whether they can on their own sell a movie in a theater I'm
skeptical that he could put Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie together in a Barbie movie no
problem at all but I think that's that's one of the things where you have to look at is a movie
dead or not financially yes if you don't market it properly or if there's no confidence if the
budget is too high compared to where you're going to release it release platforms are different now
a streamer will pay a certain amount of money for instance there was one movie called One Night In
Miami and we were we were looking at buying that for the studio and we offered a certain
amount and then in the 11th hour Amazon comes in and says we're going to give you this amount and
there's just no way that we could have competed with that so what makes a movie valuable is what
you can sell it for and make it out of and that's not to say that you make all of your money out of
the box office movies have lives after the box office and some movies have very very lucrative
lives on streaming and then pay-per-view so I think it's a being aware of that and where it's
going to sell and what your budget range is and who's attached to your movie the package itself
that will tell whether a movie is going to die or not and you have to be able and that's the art
isn't it I mean you have to be able to tell that upfront before you you bury all this money in it.