So where are those thin lines between inspiration,

[Thread Killa]

The 'Idea' kinda got me thinking on this one.

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[Generic Skinhead]

O boy,

I knew i'd heard that line before! Despin and I had decided to work on a script together, and each film our own version long before this Madrid idea came up.

Today was the first time iv'e seen despins work to date.

Personally I would never knowingly use a series of lines from another film...unless maybe the charachters were quoting them for some reason. Pop culture referances are all well and good, but I think lifting lines and jokes is going too far.

The only kind of copyright I have ever broken, is music and thats because I didnt have a full scale orchestra at my disposal. But truth be told I don't LIKE doing it.

However, it be easy to slag off Despin and say he's ripping stuff off etc, but as he said it's an early version and a marker for something.

I have to say i'm not really one for "tribute" although i did use the theme from a badly translated, french cartoon of the 80's, that i watched when I was a kid. And transformers. O well maybe I do tribute.

It's easy to be influenced by something even by accident. I was in the middle of a script and i took a break to watch fight club...when I got back to writing my charachter started taking on the confidence of Tyler Durden! Which contradicted what had gone before!

Its like music today. Nothings ripped off anymore. Everything's sampled. Does it diminsh the value of the song?

Despin said once, that he couldnt understand how people could take others work and claim it as their own. It must be a very empty feeling. And people who do aren't going anywhere.

What a rant.

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Remember kids, Mr. Skin is here to make you think.

[Thousanth]

I love movies where characters reconize where they are and what a frickin' cliche this is. (Any Kevin Smith movie, Scream Trilogy etc.) however I never do this myself.
I have always said if your gonna pay tribute do it subtly. I mean don't go around with somthing as clumsy as nicknaming a character Gomer Pyle. Or having E.T. and Close Encounters aliens blurr by in the backgroud.
Your inspired by a directors style every time you watch a film. There's really not much you can do about it. I'm still trying to find a cheap way to do the Steadicam shots like in the Shining. Your influnced. You see somthing and almost without thinking you recreate it.
I made a movie, went back and screened it and wondered where I'd seen it before, it was a odd rendition of The . (have I mentioned I loved Kubrick)
Theft is almost impossible to commit. I mean besides stealing music ( I can't count how many John Williams songs grace my soundtracks) you really can't "steal" you can copy, you can jump on the cliche bandwagon, but short of putting a clip from a movie in your film, its hard to steal.
Skin, my rant wasn't as long as yours but it was a helluva lot more confusing, maybe cuse I'm strung out on pot, tired and drunk. (Thaty explains all the typos, or maybe I just cant spell.)
Night all

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Thousanth
THOUSANTH ENTERTAINMENT
AND PRODUCTIONS.
"A good director elevates his film above all limitations placed on it...above its genre, script, acting and production. A good director IS the film."

[Jeremy]

There is a fine line between influence and theft. I've done 3 action shorts where guys dive with guns in slow-mo, shells hit the ground, target falls, back to guy still diving...

Just like John Woo (obviously not as good) who I love but I'm not studying his shots and sequences and copying. It's an influence, I try my own things too.

As for Despin's script with lines from someone elses movie, I can see why you would put in someone elses joke, jokes take time to craft and when you write you want to keep a steady flow. But you should've said you'd done this before/after/in the script. I haven't seen the film, read your script and thought 'damn this guys writes funny dialogue'. I gotta ask why you didn't say you'd used jokes from another film.

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http://www.geocities.com/futureinfilm -
[email protected]

[deanl]

I wish I had now mate believe me.

The thing is I never tried to hide them or desguise them. There just directs lifts. I new people would recognise them. There just markers.

You hit the nail on the head. With the flow thing.

When I writing and things are flowing. I dont want to stop and work out a joke. Ill lose the pase. So I put them in and keep writing. Over the next few days something will come to me.

Now whats happening to me is my worse fuckin nightmare. People are reading it and likeing it. But just thinking "this guy is just a ripp off"

And when people are reading my stuff on other boards and saying they like it, its a realy shit feeling because I dont know if they like my script or just the Joke and the odd line. Boy do I feel shallow.

This is the last time Im posting an unfinished script Ill tell you that for nothing.

And for the record. The stuff I've used as the ever so clever Noah said. Is the morose muther fucker and the Infant joke. Thats it. The rest is mine.


Despin Out.

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"Ive got bad feeling about this."