7 reviews
"I intend to make use of some worldbuilding?real estate that I already have."
By this do you mean that you have other works set in the same universe? Because at first I was thinking that you mean that you had land you owned where you could film. (I guess my brain skipped over the "worldbuilding" part.)
Also, yeah, many TV shows are filmed in Vancouver because it costs less. Besides, as the writer(unless you have another role as well) you don't have worry about that stuff much. That's what other people have their jobs for, to make the film the cheapest possible, and good. (can't have fast as well).The only thing you have to worry about is not be new writer pitching a multi million dollar budget film. This, even though it's SciFi, doesn't sound like that in the least bit.
There's the worldbuilding thing like Dkpough1 said, and I intend to make use of some worldbuilding?real estate that I already have.
Though the setting is an alien planet, it would still have to be shot somewhere on Earth, which could very well be in the Australian Outback, since it would be a desert at least in the area of the crash and the town.
And then, even movies that are set in specific places aren't always shot in those places for various reasons. Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in Egypt but was shot in Tunisia, because at the time that was cheaper. The scenes in Peru at the beginning of the movie are Hawaii. Peter Jackson built Times Square, and a few other parts of NYC for King Kong on the backlot of Stonestreet Studios in Wellington, New Zeeland. That was cheaper than going to the US, getting permission, closing down Times Square for weeks (or however long it took to shoot those scenes,) and make them look like 1933 instead of 2005. And then they only built the?ground level of the buildings, everything from the first floor up is CGI.
This story could be done economically, and still be SciFi. Only the shots of space ships moving would have to be CGI. The way I imagine it the story would start with the ship already on the ground, after the crash and the Marine walking away from it. The crash would occur in flashbacks, and through the flight recorder ? I had the notion today that this could be something everybody tries to get since it contains evidence the ship was shot down. ? The ship on the ground and the mining town would probably rather be matte paintings. Sets could be modular and easy to reconfigure, and re-used for other productions.
"Putting on it another planet (Mars or whatever) raises all kinds of exposition issues. ?I still don?t understand what?s the dramatic point of putting the conflict on a remote planet."
It's sci-fi, so he wants it to be on different planet. Depending on what kind of terrain it is, it would be a simple thing to film it without CGI, like if it were a jungle or something. I understand that you think it will probably be something that increases production costs, but he hasn't specified what the planet is like, and I don't see much point in trying to stifle the sci-fi element he is pursuing. What's the point of even having the ships and whatever other tech, then? May as well just be a regular action movie.
Like I said, I understand what you're getting at, but in sci-fi, and in fantasy, world building is most of the fun. Star Wars wouldn't be the same if it were on Earth. The same goes for Firefly.
Personally, I don't think every piece of world building needs to have a dramatic point to the story. It shouldn't distract and such, but I think it is okay to build a world that the plot doesn't depend on, necessarily. Does Star Wars actually need to explore multiple planets and species? No. But it does.
That's just my two cents.
Putting on it another planet (Mars or whatever) raises all kinds of exposition issues. ?I still don't understand what's the dramatic point of putting the conflict on a remote planet.
The primary dramatic problem he has to contend with, the core conflict of the plot, is arbitrating and/or exploiting the feud. ? I don't see anything in that core conflict that couldn't occur on a remote part of the earth, say, an island in the Pacific or in the Australian Outback. ?IOW: ?I don't' (yet) see what locating it on another planet brings to the story. ?(And locating it on earth would ?reduce the production budget, require little or no CGI.)
Just saying.
Thank you both for your comments, and logline help.
I think it was Nir Shelter who raised similar questions in the previous thread, as you do here dpg.
Yes, I haven't worked out all the details myself, but at the moment it's one of the gangs that are responsible for shooting down the ship.
They need to have a reason for shooting the ship down, I know that much, I just haven't managed to figure out exactly what that reason is, yet. The ship was bound for another planet in the system, so the Marine was never supposed to come to that place, but he'll still have new, important, information to bring to his superiors when he leaves at the end. I'm still working on what exactly that information is.
>>After a ship is shot down...
Does the hostile force that shot him down factor into the rest of the story? ?And if so, how in relation to the feuding gangs?
"After a ship is shot down on a remote desert planet, the surviving Marine?s only hope of survival, and getting off the planet, is in a nearby mining town which is being torn apart by two feuding gangs."
You changed the cause of inciting incident, but most of it seems the same. To help, simply fill in this template, I will fill it in with what I understand to be the your intention:
MC ?character adjective: Marine(possibly include a personality trait, or physical hindrance as well)
Inciting incident, what causes him to set the story goal: His ship is shot down
The goal he sets, the conflict that is resolved at the climax: To send a signal to his fleet
And the action he initially sets out to achieve that goal: Get to the closest town which he can do that.
The problem in both of your versions is that you're focusing too much on the obstacle-the two gangs which control the town. So here is my example:
When his ship is shot down, a Marine?must stop two gangs from tearing a town apart so he can use their equipment to send a signal to his fleet and be rescued. (~33 words)
Is his sole goal for himself to be rescued? You may want to consider that he has valuable cargo on his crashed ship, or an injured friend that needs rescue. Or at least that he has a specific reason to be rescued right now, like he is needed in a battle elsewhere.
But anyway, that's the story as I understand it. Good luck.