The Blank Page

This is my first post to document the making of "Little Things". "Little Things" is a short film that I wrote, am producing and directing myself. I hope to complete shooting by the end of September and have it edited ready for viewing by the end of 2010. I'm pretty sure I'm biting off more than I can chew. For those of you that don't know me I did not go to film school and I do not work for the media. I do also have a day job so this is a part time exercise only.

At some point it's going to be in real time, letting everyone know what is happening as it happens, but I've already done a fair bit so for the moment I'm going to play catch up and for the next few posts let you know what I've done so far. The stuff I have learned along the way basic as it is I will pass on, maybe it'll be useful. The most sensible place to start, is the beginning.

"Little Things" started as a dream. How fucking twee does that sound! It is true though, the initial premise for the film is from a dream I had about eighteen months, maybe two years ago. I'd love to say that the story played itself right before my eyes fully formed, but it really bloody didn't. I got a kernel of an idea, that's it, since then it's been donkey work. The script has been through at least 4 rewrites with dozens of revisions.

Okay, piece of advice number one, if you want to write a script it needs to be in a format that any one who knows anything about reading scripts will expect, otherwise it won't get read. Why do you want it read? feedback from people who know their stuff for a start, your mates and family won't give you the brutal honesty that you need. There are people working in organisations such as the Film Agency for Wales and Northwest Vision and Media who will take the time out to read and feedback on scripts if you ask them nicely. BE quick about it though, with the UK Film Council getting abolished, Christ knows how long they'll be around.

Also if you plan on getting it made, you can't do it all yourself, other people will need to be involved, actors for a start. If you want some actors, you have to show them your script, if you want to show them your script... I think you see where I'm going with this. So, formatting. I'm not going to go through what the format should be, there are plenty of books and websites that will tell you that. What I will say though is that if you try and use something like Word to do the formatting for you it is a complete and utter scrotum ache. There are specific tools out there for script writing and the one I use is FREE! Celtx is a pre-production project tool, there are some add on utilities that cost some money but the script formatting tool is free. I highly recommend it

You can download Celtx here: www.celtx.com

Celtx also has a storyboarding tool, but storyboards is something I'll talk about another time.

Later