56 replies to this topic

[SeanValen00V]

Submit it anyway, Win, Lose or Die, like Bond, take risks.

[Xenobia]

Here's a thought....change the names...and the main male character enough that Eon won't have a heart attack...and then submit it. You never know...some folks are not afraid to make movies about the IRA.

-- Xenobia

[Carver]

Sounds like quite a script you have there AgentM, and I have heard before how frustrating it can be. You could be daring, and send it off to MGM, but I remember a CBn member who tried it before, and MGM sent it back saying that if he used Bond characters again in anyway, he will be sued. So you could try it, but just watch out, you know what MGM are like, and if you want to play it safe and not have the danger of having you bank balance dried up, then don't send the script off. Either way, its your decision, but it sounds like one heck of a story you have there:)

[General Koskov]

Sued? Really? How exactly does MGM get writers if they are not allowed to use characters in their screenplays?

If we weren't Bond fans, we'd be organising law suits against MGM!

[Xenobia]

To answer your question General, it's one thing if MGM hires you, and in the course of being hired, you are asked to work on the Bond script. It's something completely different if you do it on your own. In the latter case, MGM gets nervous that you are a Kevin McClory wanna be, and they sue you first.

I think that is right...if anyone knows differently, please correct me.

-- Xenobia

[DanMan]

Hey everyone. I'm currently working on my fan script, NOTHING IS FOREVER, but I have a major problem, I can't think of a really good exotic location that Bond has never been to before. If you could think of one, please post it. Thanks.

[philbowski]

How about Hawaii. I don't think he has ever been there.

[DanMan]

Thanks Phil. Strange why that never occured to me.

[General Koskov]

Winnipeg.

Assuming you use the word 'exotic' loosely.

[Kronsteen]

Hawaii is good, and I'm actually using Honoloulu in my own fan fic. It's a nice place...

Other good places would be:

* Stockholm, Sweden. Very beautiful city with lots of water (a good boat chase maybe) and soon a casino will be built

* Lissabon, Portugal. Exotic, sunny and also pretty elegant.

[Bryce (003)]

Hawaii is lovely. You may want to consider Maui as well.

As to distant exotic places, here's a few on Bryce's list of potential Bond locales.

- Madagascar in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa.

- Buenos Aries - Beautiful city and some of the greatest food and art (sculptures/landmarks etc.)

- Canada - Toronto specifically. Great city and you can go from the bar of a four star hotel and elegant surroundings to farms and rural settings in 30 mins.

Good luck;)

[DanMan]

Thanks, now I can actually start to write the screenplay.

[Kronsteen]

I am currently writing a fan ficiton novel, and I could use some help. There are a bunch of cities I am about to use and I need to know these thing about the cities:

-Big, important roads... or maybe a smaller, but well-known, one?
-Tourist attractions
-The most luxious, best or well-known hotel
-Any casino?


If anyone knows any of these things about one of these cities (maybe you live there?) please help me out!


*Tanger, Rabat or Casablanca (doesn't matter which one)

*Sevilla

*Bern

*Vienna

*Bratislava

*Praha


Thank you very much for your help!

[RITZ]

Monacco? Always a glamourous location

[AgentM]

......avoid those "talking heads" scenes?

In my previous few scripts I've written, I have devoted a considerable amount of time to outlining a detailed backstory, which I happen to find very compelling. Sadly, incorporating all this information into a movie
is so incredibly difficult, it leaves me feeling one of two things. Either I rushed the script and didn't get enough information across, or I was to talkative and produced a few dull scenes.

Sometimes I wish that they would hand out info pamphlets before you walk into a movie.

"Read this and you'll understand why the radical General wanted to overthrow his counterparts whilst attaining a regime change that would allow him to disregard UN sanctions and invade a neighbouring territory, using a superweapon explained by 3rd year university physics on the next page."

Okay, maybe that's a sign that a script is too complicated

So, for the average movie-goer it would be something like:

"Here's why MI6 even cared about Colonel Moon..."

[MrDraco]

Oh i know the feeling my friend, as a writer of my own spy series i find it so hard to bring people up to speed with the past or a returning villain,
some how dialouge always works well instead of going back threw time or something of that nature...

[Xenobia]

When in doubt...Flashback.

-- Xenobia

[Genrewriter]

I usually try and weave exposition into an action scene. Car chases and gun battles are especially good since the characters involved in the scene have to be next to each other.

[Kingdom Come]

No!! don't use flashback! it always smacks of a writer who cannot find another reason to get backstory across. It's also very cheesy!

I write and boy oh boy, the people who read scripts, you would think, have brains, this is usually not the case. If you look at Bond films there are a few scenes, usually in M's office or the like, which are obvious what their intentions are - BUT they are in environments were that type of chat/information would be NORMAL - so it is credible/believable to get across important/essential facts/info. - Outside of this set up you get into areas that some would start thinking that this is were I am told the story, as it were. A good way to find out if anything is coming across as it should is to get as many professionals as possible to read the work - though not Script Editors/Story Editors as they look upon scripts in a different way to an audience/other writers and view things in very cliched and patronzing ways. By the way they are usually nearly always English graduates who WANT to be writers and even worse are women!
Why producers etc put their trust in these half-wits is anyones guess. They end up telling YOU how it should be done. Anyway I think I'm off the beaten track now so I'll end! There's something going on with me now and I can't really concentrate as I should.

But I will say, I always write things for people who know drama/stories by heart and want to be challenged a bit more. The bottom line is if you can set up an environment were 2 characters or 3 or 4 can chat in a natural fashion but at the same time getting across your story points/info then it should work - but only if the chat and environmnts are beliveable that these 2 3 4 characters would say this to each other...

[Kingdom Come]

I wrote a piece and one of the subplots was a priest and a man who was planning his own exit from this life. They were both in a church in pews - it was very quiet and both were resting and undisturbed by others. This environment was perfect cause they were sat down - one was a priest who was obviously a 'listening ear' the other was very laconic and verbally over expressive. This was perfect for in 'lay mans' terms - a huge confession that came across not as a confession but as a heart to heart - chat. I got across a lot of important stuff! And it was very moving, dramatic, unusual, stimualting and distrubing, so I was having my cake and eating it in all the ways I could think of.

[ChandlerBing]

Flashbacks can be good if you liked Citizen Kane. However, they are also one of the most overused devices around, roaming right on into the territory of cliche. Be clever. Make it interesting. And for God's sake, try and come up with something original.

[zencat]

I hate exposition and back-story. If what happened to a character in their past is so critical, then maybe the movie should be about that. I do everything I can to avoid talking head expository scenes. My own rule is to never have a character deliver their own exposition (it stops the movie dead). I try to slip it into an argument somewhere. I'll have another character say something like: "Just because you went to Harvard doesn't mean you know everything about the law! You've only been here three months and all I

[Genrewriter]

Also, it's good to show rather than tell. You can show how good a character is at his or her job by simply giving them a big moment in the beginning. We don't need to be told that James Bond is the ultimate secret agent or that John McClane is a tenacious man who won't quit, we see it.

[Kingdom Come]

That seems to be the golden rule of film screenplays - show rather than tell. Kubrick once said, that what HE has to say is not through words. Sorry, I don't have the correct quote! But it's similar to that!

Although, there are some writers whose talents [or only talents] are in words and not actions. I have to say modestly, that I am one of those, so I have been told often, for better or worse. Depends on who was your inspiration originally - I was inspired by a writer called Raymond Bowers - a Brit t.v. writer. If you can imagine a contempory Oscar Wilde that's exactly how he wrote! Though he is now well retired. His talent was with words/phraseology, so much was his influence on me that I write so like him that frequently, I am him! It being television, it was easier and cheaper to have most things communicated through words. Writers THEN had to perfect the art of dialogue - cause there was nothing else available to em!

But I'm affected by THAT way of writing and always will be. For me personally, not only as a writer, but as a viewer, I love NOTHING better than very rich dialogue more than actions. Say 2 characters together, saying the most profound and beautiful things, really makes me fly!

[Triton]

Well also think of the pre-title sequence of GoldenEye. The whole point of the pre-title sequence is the backstory of the relationship between 007 and 006 and what a nasty guy Omourov is. Then after the title sequence, the words "Nine Years Later" appear on the screen. I think that is prefectly acceptable. It would have been worse if during the briefing with M and Bond heard the name Omourov he would think of the entire pretitle sequence as a flashback. Yuck.

I also agree with zencat that if the flashback scene is really important, then maybe the flashback scene/story should have its own script and the story should be about that. I also agree with others that flashback scenes have been overused and abused.

I would keep the explainer scenes to a minimum. I believe that Tom Mankiewicz calls them the "Morris the Explainer" scenes. In the Bond films, the talking head scenes are kept to a minimum. The scenes where you can get away with it are the M briefing, Q branch gear collection, and what Raymond Benson calls the obligatory villain spills the beans speech. The rest of the scenes should not have talking heads explaining the plot.

For example, remember "The Rock" with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. They didn't need to have an exposition scene explaining how bad VX nerve gas was. They had a scene at the beginning of the picture when part of the gas warhead was dropped at the weapons depot and one of the bomblets burst open. Remember how the soldier's flesh bubbled and then started to melt away? It was far more effective than having some talking head explaining how nerve gas works or how some varieties of poison gas are caustic and cause severe chemical burns. Although my understanding is that VX doesn't really work as advertised in The Rock.

If the plot of your story concerns a super weapon made from some exotic technology, it would be good to have a weapon test scene. For example if your villain had a Tesla technology derived EM weapon, why not annihilate a small town in the middle of nowhere to explain how the weapon works? For example if it was a Soviet weapon constructed in the 1960s that was sold to the villain or re-discovered. Have a scene that occurs in the 1960s where the weapon is test detonated and destroys some cow town in Siberia. I don't see what would be wrong in the pre-title sequence to have the words: Siberia May 20, 1968 and then jump into the test sequence and then fast forward to the present day. Or perhaps the villain needed some demonstration before purchasing it?

Also remember The World is Not Enough with the multi-media presentation that James Bond played to give the audience the backstory of the Electra King kidnapping and the ransom? If the explaining scene is done in an interesting or entertaining way, that's OK too. It would have been boring if Tanner or Robinson had given the whole backstory of the Electra King kidnapping as dialogue during a mission briefing. Also remember the 3-D model of Renard's head and the explanation of the bullet? There's entertaining ways to convey the information so the audience doesn't get bored and start looking at their watches. Also think about what is the bare minimum the audience needs to know to understand what is going on. I think for the most part the explaining scenes are much too complicated because the author has an academic level of interest in the subject. KISS should be your mantra: Keep It Simple for the Stupid. Remember that part of the audience are kids and uneducated adults, so only reveal the bare minimum through dialog and show them the rest as scenes to keep the story moving along.

Didn't Terence Young say to something about keeping the audience entertained during the picture and only allowing them to think about the plot holes on their way home?

[Jimbo007]

For the last three months I have been writing a short story (the title is in my signature below) and I only have six pages written out of a possible 25 (?).

The problem is that I am in a big writers block :eek: (I'm hoping for a winter release). Another problem is I don't want to give any information about the story. But I would like to get some ideas. Any ideas would be helpful such as a very small action sequence or an intriguing extra character. Your help is much appreciated. Thank you!

[Bond111]

Ah, I know what you are going through. I just had a bad case of writer's block very recently while writing my own fan fiction. All you can really do is wait it out.

As for story ideas, it is very hard to give suggestions when you know nothing about the plot. Try to come up with an interesting action scene using the scenery/landmarks/etc, if you haven't done so already. Also, I am always looking for rooms/characters/objects/etc in my life to use in my story. With more info I could probably give you more advice, but I understand that you do not want to give too much away.