Sunday Picture Post 30 / Tip: Build on What You Have
Photo source: unknown web floater
SCREENWRITING TIP OF THE DAY: BUILD ON WHAT YOU HAVE
Often we feel like our jobs, living situations, monetary restrictions, and relationships hold us back from being great. On the contrary, these are the things that make us unique and from which are born our individual creations.
Donald Trump would have never thought to create a building like the one pictured above, but I have to say, it is genius and one of the coolest (and cheapest) structures I have ever seen.
Let your life and your limitations inspire you.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SUNDAY PICTURE POST
For The Sunday Picture Post, we flip upside-down the saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thousands of words are great if you are writing a novel, but if you are writing a screenplay, you need to do the opposite and be as concise as possible.
Each Sunday, I post a picture. For your screenwriting practice in brevity, in the comments section, using the image above, please post one or all of the following:
- A title for this movie
- 1 word describing the theme, mood, or scene
- 1 sentence to describe the scene
- A pitch to sell the entire movie
The more colorful and creative you are, the better! Use any genre.
A good screenwriter is laconic, using a few words to say a lot.
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11 Responses to “Sunday Picture Post 30 / Tip: Build on What You Have”
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The McSavvy’s or: Living and Learning With Suddenly Rich Relatives
Eccentric/comfort
This is an outside scene of where the McSavvy family resides AFTER rebuilding their home.
An out of town college student, Jake, decides to move in with his distant relatives to save money commuting to school. The McSavvy family is made of oddballs and unique characters that all seem to get on the Jake’s nerves, starting with the Jake’s uncle Fitch–who designed the multi-trailer home. If living with them wasn’t enough, Fitch has also enrolled at the same school.
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I came up with this idea building on a couple story ideas I already have. One of which is based on an uncle I thought about staying with because he has an awesome house, but the people living there annoy me too much to tolerate an entire weekend. If they lived in New York where I was going to school at the time, I may have considered putting up with them to save money. But they weren’t. McSavvy is a last name I created for a character while I was at that college in New York (I’m keeping her first name a secret for now). So what I wrote above, I built on things from my life, and other stories/characters I have in mind. I liked this one, it was fun.
t.sterling — Great job tying in the tip with the image and your personal building blocks. I love the McSavvy name. Good story idea.
It’s fulfilling for me to watch people like you do this exercise and improve so much. You have really got the knack of the pitch now.
I keep getting the pitch and concept confused. I know both of them are supposed to be short and to the point, so I usually combine the two. I haven’t done many pitches, but I probably have a 1GB flash drive worth of concept statements… well I would if I wrote them out.
Either way, thank you for the lessons and exercises. Keeps me busy.
Stacked
unique
A comfortable, but also both odd and rigid type lifestyle in a cozy suburban setting.
Neighboors, but more like family, six unique, completely different families live in a very odd housing set which could only allow them to become both closer, and annoyed to the complete max with eachother. Could they ever be close enough to stick out the living situation, or will they become so severely fed up they all just leave?
Welcome Steven Valenzuela!
“Stacked” — precisely! Perfect title for this image and your movie pitch.
Man I love this one. Okay, this is a story about this white trash (yeah I know stereotype) guy who drinks too much and works this construction job. But he has a great sense of humor. He’s been in trouble with the law (nothing serious) Sees all the wonderful high rises in LA and jokes with his buddy that he can do this too. So they start this business. Pretty soon it gets all this attention and money. Of course we have to throw in some of the personalities from the trailer park he lives in because that’s where it all starts.
Non traditional format. But this is a non traditional housing project.
Actually I don’t even know if there are high rises in LA. Could be somewhere else.
Sorry I’ve been so damned busy it’s been hard to jump on this, build on this, right from the beginning on Sunday.
Love my Sunday picture posts!
Ellen Wilson — I can see how busy you are and it makes me so happy that you make time to come visit here and share your fun ideas with us.
I really love this image too. I was going crazy when I saw it. I have no idea where the location is. I just love it. You could make so many amazing movies here. Your pitch is definitely a movie I would go watch. The beauty with Hollywood is that they usually build their own sets anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
Thanks, very much appreciated. I’m 18 and writings what I do! It’s the only thing i’d ever spend my life doing . It’s good to see something like “The Sunday Post”
floating around, i’m deffinitely feelin’ it. Thanks Jaden
I found that LA DOES have high rises. I don’t understand that, being in an earth squawk area. I think it’s best that my movie is in LA. I really can’t see it anywhere else.
Well, I’m suggestible.
Ellen Wilson — Yes, I was working in a high rise during an earthquake and it was very scary, whereas my friends on the ground didn’t feel it at all. Turned out, its epicenter was far away. The high rises in LA are built on rollers, so they roll and sway, as to not snap and break from rigidity, which makes the experience from inside one far more dramatic. I have been in countless earthquakes in northern and southern California — they are very fun, like a roller coaster, as long as you and your loved ones are not the ones to get squashed.