Tips for Screenplay Beginners

Do not be fooled by how simple a screenplay appears on the printed page. You may spend up to a year or more writing and rewriting a feature-length script.

Be prepared to rework each new screenplay several times. And get feedback from others -- friends, relatives, strangers, actors, script readers -- before attempting to submit it to production companies, literary managers or agents. Most producers or managers or agents who agree to look at a script often will only give a writer one chance to impress them with that screenplay. You are competing with thousands of other writers in a very crowded marketplace.

Be very careful. There are many good script services and many good producers, managers and agents. And, there are some really bad ones with clever schemes to get your money. Check out everyone and every offer before writing any checks or giving up any credit card information. (Indeed, consider using PayPal.com instead of a credit card, for more protection.)

Consider writing short screenplays first. There is a steady market for screenplays in the range of five to 15 or 20 pages. Often, these are sought by first-time moviemakers. You may be paid little or nothing for your script, but getting a script produced and seeing it on a screen (movie, TV, mobile device, etc.) with your name after "Screenplay by..." is the Holy Grail for screenwriters.

Educated perseverance is a strong key to getting a screenplay sold or optioned. Keep learning as you keep trying. And be prepared to spend years on the process of writing and marketing screenplays.

DO NOT give up your day job thinking you are going to get fabulously rich from screenplays. Sometimes, it can take 10 years or longer to make any money at all from screenwriting.

After you finish your first screenplay, start revising it. And get started on your second script, third, fourth, and so on. Producers, agents and managers may not like your first script, but they often will ask: "What else do you have?" If you don't have another screenplay to offer, you may have missed a golden opportunity.

-- Si Dunn

How I Made a Science Fiction Short Movie at My Kitchen Table

One weekend, I really, really wanted to make a no-budget science-fiction short movie set in outer space. But all I had available was a kitchen table, a digital video camera, a webcam, a few still photographs of the moon, some ski clothes, several pieces of outdated electronics gear, some Christmas lights, and the ability to generate cheesy sound effects and weird music.

Obviously, I couldn't go into the "future" with such a motley collection of junk. I would have to create a short movie that is set in the fairly recent past. Some of the electronics gear had been new in the late 1970s. So that became the timeline: a Seventies' sci-fi tale.

I would boldly go where I had no other choice to go.

One other problem: I had no cast and no crew. I would have to do it all myself, including acting. And, naturally, I look nothing at all like someone who would get sent into space. (Except, perhaps, to get rid of me.)

But, I persisted. I piled up all of the junk on the table and stared at it for a long while (wondering if I was insane). Then I started scribbling a little script.

Maybe, I decided, if I arranged the electronics gear a certain way and used the cheap little webcam to capture some video images, I could simulate being in space. Sort of?

So that's what I did. First, I shot some short, closeup clips of the electronics gear, using a cheap little Canon ZR-500 miniDV camera. Then I stacked the gear up on the table.

To simulate a camera in a space capsule, I used a very basic webcam and tried to pretend to be an astronaut while wearing some old ski clothes. I did not, of course, receive any Academy Award nominations for my performance.

The only way I could simulate weightlessness was to use a radio microphone with a fairly stiff, coiled cord. I could shove it into view from just off camera and catch it just as the coiled cord lost tension and the microphone seemed to float toward my hand.

The moon and Earth pictures were public domain. I printed out some moon pictures and used a digital still camera to create closer and closer views of the surface--to simulate a porthole view of falling from orbit.

Next, I recorded a variety of electronic and atmospheric sound effects (such as static), using a simple tape recorder held in front of the speakers of shortwave radios.

Finally, I combined audio and video tracks in Windows Movie Maker and created the cards for titles, credits and story text. The music is something that I made up by recording a few sounds, slowing them down, playing them in reverse and looping them.

The resulting short movie, Will, has brought in a few good comments and emails since I posted it on YouTube about two years ago. Some people have even suggested that I should make some new episodes in which the astronaut has survived the crash and is now stranded on the moon.

But, to be completely honest, my career as a kitchen-table movie astronaut probably is over. I can't afford enough green cheese to build the necessary sets.

--Si Dunn