Beginer film maker looking for advice

[Gemela]

Hi everyone. I was on here for a while before, but i went on holiday and then my computer had a virus. So i lost all of my scripts i had writen, although they were really good anyway. Well i was wondering if any of you would be willing to help me out with my sturcture of writing screenplays and help me with interpureting my ideas. Just a bit of info about myself. I am young 16 and am still in high school. Alot of the stuff i write reflects my life or my friends lives. I have only just started to actually write scripts properly. So i was wondering if anyone would like to help me out. Well i know i'm proberly the youngest person on this board but i'd like it if you still listened to me. Well thats all Gemma

[Yammeryammeryammer]

Hey,
You are probably not the youngest person on this board, but you are getting there. I was 17 when I started on here, and felt quite young. But eventually I saw that it wasn't an age thing, see there are those who are sixteen and those who act sixteen. At any rate if you are wanting advice on scripts, a popular way to go about it is to just post whole or part of a reasonably short script, and then let people critique it. I am not big on replying to those, but many people do. If there isn't any reply, try something shorter like a pitch of an idea you have for a script, and see if people can help you find out exactly what you want to say. At any rate, are you more interested in the writing aspect at this point, or are you interested in starting your own productions and such, or both?

[deanl]

Hey there.

My only advice would to forget about writing scripts. Get your camera and start shooting stuff. Make it up as you are going along.

When I was 16 I was filming everything I could. Make up your movies as you go along. Use your friends, use your school, just keep playing with the camera.

You will learn FAR movie about what works and what doesnt than you would sitting in your bedroom trying to write a 90 page screenplay.

Use your ideas but forget about making them into a script (for now anyway) because who are you going to make your movie with? Friends? People at school? They're not going to want to have to learn lines. Get an outline for what your movie is about and just improvise.

Oh yeah... And start "doing" it. As apose to thinking about it.

Despin out.

[ickle_jim]

Writer and director Luc Besson wrote the original story for The Fifth Element when he was only 16 years old... so its not like age should put you off... just like Despin said its better to do loads and make from mistakes than learn theory or whatever... that applies to writing aswell. Just write loads of stuff, and if it doest work stop and move on.

If you wanna make movies aswell as write them then just get a cheap camcorder and use your computer or VCR to make some movies.

Btw... i should take some of this advice myself as im in the same boat, just need to keep at it till i get any good. Im too lazy tho, thats my excuse.

[Gemela]

Hi all. Thanks for all the advice everyone. Yeah at the moment i'm mainly interested in production and not so much writing because i can't really write down what i want to do. I have been just mucking around with a camera for a while but i haven't actually had plots. I just film my friends in there natural enviroments. So i justed filmed em doing what they normally do.

Well that's what i been doing at the moment. Thanks for the advice, also thanks for telling about how age doesn't matter, that makes me feel alot better about all this.

[Jerome Cain]

Hang in there! Improvise is best way to make movie. Just take the camera and shoot and figure from there where you can get tp learn and make next better movie. Just shoot or you lose. Capture it!!! Have fun! Jerome, deaf filmmaker and videomaker