Writing romantic comedy

Less tongue in cheek guidelines for aspiring romcom writers.

Writing romantic comedy screenplays.

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"Without you I'm only me."

Screenwriter Ken Levine breaks down the modern romantic comedy formula.

Be sure to include five block comedy scenes. Zany sequences that generally involve destruction, humiliation, emasculation, dogs, and toilets. If they were making SOME LIKE IT HOT today Joe E. Brown would be giving Jack Lemmon a bikini wax. THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH would be Ben-Gay in Marilyn Monroe's panties.

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Memory - Part 5

The finale. Hannah learns the truth about her father's death, and is faced with a terrible choice.

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Memory - Part 4

Delayed due to my being away from the relevant pc over the weekend. Episode 4 of Memory.

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Memory- Episode 4 delayed

Episode 4 of Memory will be uploaded on Monday or Tuesday of next week. I apologise for this, but I am away from the computer holding all the necessary files for a few days.

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Memory- on location in the Green Building

Memory- on location in the Green Building
Originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

Part of a photo set from the day we shot in the Green Building. Mary prepares for the final scene.

The rest of the set is here. Tim also has two sets of photos, of filming and of the Green Building location.

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Memory - Part 3

Part 3 of Memory is now online.

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Episode 2 of Memory is now online. Hannah brings her friend George in to do some research, and more secrets are revealed.

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Memory - Part 1

Part one of the five part series is now online. The remaining episodes will be released every Friday for the next four weeks.

This is our first piece of narrative video, please tell us what you think and ask any questions arising. We look forward to hearing from you.

Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead, Memory

Earth shattering kabooms

Detonation Films provide effects footage of gunshots and explosions, ready for chroma keying and other methods of compositing. Some of them are free, some charged for.

via Indy Mogul

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Memory is Not Part Of Manchester International Festival

But we are part of Not Manchester International Festival. Memory will premiere on the 29th of June, to coincide with the Festival's fringe, and there will be a get together to plan future projects.



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The very models of modern indie film makers- Learning from Four Eyed Monsters and We Need Girlfriends

Memory is ready to roll out- episode 1 will premiere on June 29th- and I'm contemplating new projects. What I want to do is a romantic comedy of self contained episodes, something a bit less involved than Memory.

We Need Girlfriends, by Ragtag Productions, is a good model for what I want to do next. Every month there's another seven minute episode featuring the romantic misadventures of geeky, insecure Henry, dumb, arrogant Rod and well meaning, average Tom. Newly single, the three must try to handle the complexities of New York's dating scene. They're hindered by live in exes, bad Myspace profiles and Rod's constant reinventing of the English language. Subplots and story arcs are carried over from episode to episode, and more than one story has generated merchandise.

Myspace supplies a lot of WNG's music and extras as well as a plot device. I imagine their friends list gets plundered regularly for help. They've mastered the art of asking for locations as well, filming in local restaurants and laundrettes. I'm only jealous because they're doing so much of the stuff I want to try.

I don't know what the cash flow is like for we Need Girlfriends, but I imagine it's heading toward being self sustaining as the mass of "Don't scam my squirrel" and Team Henry T-shirts start shifting. No doubt there'll be a DVD collection in the future. The ultimate success, up until recently, would have been spinning a tv series out of the concept. Now, however, that would be a retrograde step. Network television would water down the geeky purity of the show then cancel it because a lot of its natural audience lives elsewhere.

The cash flow for Four Eyed Monsters is more transparent. The front page of the film's site asks us to help Arin and Susan out of their $100,000 credit card debt by signing up to Spout or buying their DVDs.

The full film was put up on YouTube briefly and I managed to catch it. Mixing confession and fiction the result is something satisfyingly different. Reality and artifice blur in the film's ending and the acting/ directing team's video blogs about the experience so that it's hard to tell just how biographical the whole project is. But you simply don't care.

I'm not going to steal any of the stories or catchphrases from these projects. (Which is a shame, because there are some bits in We Need Girlfriends that are similar to stuff I'd thought of doing, and I'll have to fight not to claim Squirrel next time I spot a girl I fancy.) But I do want to foster some of their attitude. The internet has allowed them to find an audience and collaborators, as well as making it easier to distribute the finished product. It takes a lot of faith in yourself and your audience, and it won't always pay off big, but its a lot less risky than hoping to find one person in a studio who'll green light your pet project.

Spinneyhead will be working on an unnamed romantic comedy project soon. I'm plotting individual stories and whole arcs at the moment. If you'd like to be a part of it, no matter what you can contribute, please get in touch.

Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead, Indie Film

Fever Pitch

Got an idea for a film or TV show? Fever Pitch is a competition where you present first a 25 word pitch then a 150 word synopsis. The ten best will have five minutes to convince a panel of professionals and the audience of the genius of their idea at the 2007 Screenwriters' Festival. Closing date is Friday 2nd June.

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Script Frenzy

From the people who brought you NaNoWriMo comes Script Frenzy. The idea- wite a full length screenplay or script in the month of June.

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Voice over

Voice over, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

We spent a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon recording Mary's overdubbing for the film. Whilst it would have been better to have got the sound right on location, by having a muffled microphone or not filming on so windy a day, this worked out quite well. Alan is going to work his magic and we'll have dialogue you can actually hear over the wind noise.

More stuff on compression

Two useful links from Alan-

Wikipedia on video compression.

XVid setup guide.

Technorati tag: Video Compression, Spinneyhead

Mobile TV

Kyte.tv is a new contender in the world of online television. You can upload content and stream it to viewers around the world from your laptop and even some smartphones. How it fares against YouTube et al remains to be seen, but the number of channels available to content producers is a good thing.

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The art of the edit

I found this in the Spinneyhead archives- Making the cut, an article about the art of editing film. It makes a good companion to the last post.

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Thelma Schoonmaker- master editor interviewed

Thelma Schoonmaker has worked on most of Martin Scorsese's films and is often cited as the person who gets his visions cut together just right. The Independent interviewed her about her life and career in film. Sadly there were no words of wisdom on just how the art of editing works.

Technorati tag: Video, Editing, Spinneyhead

Lessons Learnt on Location

Filming has ended on Memory and I'm struggling with the initial edit. Then we'll need to do overdubbing and colour correction and some more sound stuff. But no more location shoots are needed.

It's been a learning experience. I know now a lot of things that should make future projects a bit easier. So long as I write them down and keep referring back to them. So here they are.

Get a Continuity Monkey

I was tempted to have every member of the team be [Job Title] Monkey, but there are probably union rules against that sort of thing. So I'll stick with just having a Continuity Monkey. In our first filming session, thankfully indoors and not on a restricted timetable, Mary needed to change outfits more often than she should because I hadn't sat down and worked out which scenes were where in the story's time line. Next time I need to get together with someone a week or so before the shoot and work out continuity, then have them there on the day to make sure I don't mess with it.

For future shoots I'd quite like a cinematographer as well. Someone who can get the best shots from the camera whilst I direct or try to act. Even my cheap mini-DV camera has dozens of settings any number or combination of which could have improved the quality of our footage and cut the amount of post production colour and levels balancing I'm going to have to do.

"Have you checked the sound?"

This became Tim's title on the first day's shoot. At the end of a take always rewind a way and check the quality of the soundtrack. It's better than getting the tapes home and finding you've mangled the soundtrack because of one of the following-

1. Silent Movie

When using an external microphone with in-line amplification, as we were, just leave it turned on no matter what and change the battery every so often. It's easier than having to remember to switch it on every take.

2. Wind Noise Blows

We have no useable dialogue from the filming session in Salford Quays, hence the need to re-dub the sequences. For future exterior shoots I'm going to look into making one of those furry microphones.

3. Electromagnetic Fields Are Not Your Friends

Our first problem with EM hum was our own fault. Trying too hard to be clever, we plugged the transformer into the camera whilst filming and got a 50 Hertz buzz on some key takes. Luckily, the worst of it can be removed with filters but we shouldn't have let it happen. Second time was beyond our control because of all the electronic equipment and related sockets we ran the mic cable past when filming in an office. Orientation of the microphone can make a difference in these circumstances, so experiment.

Suggestion- get some headphones and plug them into the camera, so you can hear what the microphone is picking up. This should allow you to spot the problems above sooner.

Reflective surfaces can be great, or grating

There's one shot from the first day that I quite like, featuring Mary and multiple reflections. If you can keep yourself and your equipment out of shot, reflections are great. There's another shot of Dave where I didn't realise I was reflected in the television screen directly opposite the camera until the next day.

Turn off your phone

Particularly if you're the director. I'm addicted to telecommunications. It's surprising we didn't lose more takes to phone calls and text messages.

Do some reconnaissance

I managed to check out all three locations before turning up with a camera and crew, taking photographs for reference. This helped me plan shots and saved time on the day. Wander around the location with an idea of what's to be shot there but don't let it limit you. Remember that you're making a visual piece and look out for great shots to work into the story.

Of course, this doesn't always work out. When I first looked at the Green tower I decided that there had to be some footage shot on the balconies. When the day came the wind at the top of the building was strong enough to nearly knock me off my feet, so we went inside and filmed the scene over the breakfast bar. There was no such option in Salford Quays, which I had photographed on a calm Autumn day but had nasty winds funneled off the ship canal when we shot.

Product placement

Most films are about the merchandise these days, so I feel no shame at appearing in the first episode of Memory wearing a Spinneyhead "I'm Your Stalker" T-shirt.

As many takes as you feel comfortable with

Location shoots are deadline driven. You have to get all the shots required by the script in the time allowed you. However, if you get all that footage and some of it simply doesn't work when you get to the editing stage you've wasted a lot of time as well. I shot internal footage from at least two different angles, getting three takes on occasion. This also gives more option at the editing stage in case the perfect take proved hard to get.

Have Fun

Let's face it, the moment this begins to feel like work you'll want to do it less. Enthusiasm is the main driver of no-budget filming, so once you lose that you're in trouble. The good thing is, unless you go on to make big effects-heavy features, the sense of fun is going to stay with you even after you start to make money from your projects.

Technorati tag: Video, Filming, location, Memory, Spinneyhead