Shooting own project vs letting others shoot yours

[GREATwarEAGLE]

....the plot thickens....

(cue dramatic music)

[img]graemlins/sheep.gif[/img] <---- I wonder if anyone's ever used this before?

[emjen]

its just a short script, for a small production company. Nothing big. [img]graemlins/storm.gif[/img] Didn't send a copy to myself. I'm not really afraid of that. It's a short movie - they can't really make any money with it so I'm not really afraid of them stealing it. If they will, their life as a production company will probably be over.

Or they will rule the world with my superb short. [img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img]

[Alex]

I got the incorrect impression that this was a feature film and you needed 1/2 a million to 800 thousand to shoot.

If you only need 500-800 Euro dollars, do it yourself. However I can't see sending any type of correspondence out and not making a copy.

It's very educational to look back a year later and see how you were thinking. Plus, at some point, you won't remember what you put in the letter and they will.

[emjen]

true.

800 euro's is just a guess. If everything is for free, then it'll be 800 euros. It sounds strange, but that's how it goes with movie making yourself.

I just need someone to do special FX, and someone who can do make up. I need about 30 people in total, and a few locations in bars. But I'm going around soon enough to see what I can get.

[andyblaa]

I think you should just forget about it. If they film it and you don't make any money out of it at least you have a writers credit on something. I'm sure you can knock out a hundred of these scripts without much thought. If it's something that you have always wanted to make then there is no harm in waiting til you have the money to make it yourself and making it then.

I'm starting to think the same myself. I'm definately more inclined now, after starting to spend more time writing and ending up with about ten completed shorts, to give away my scripts to get made because I know they are stories, however good, that for one reason or another I won't ever make. Someone should benefit from them.

[Alex]

A writers approach can vary from script to script.

Probably an all time trip out is give a script to someone who will make the film, then have no contact with them until the premiere screening. Definitely could be a mind blow.

It might be a good idea to offer a "free script incentive" if the filmmaker agrees to finish the film and have a screening within an agreed upon length of time, say one year. In other words, they make the script into a film and screen it, it's free, if they fail, then they pay you for your wasting your time and tying up your script in limbo land.

Sometimes the most important thing for beginning writers is not just giving your script away, but that your script actually gets completed and screened.

[GREATwarEAGLE]

Sounds like you're talking about optioning a script.