How to Make a Short Film – Step 1: Write the Script

In the coming weeks, using stories and lessons learned from making The Life of Eric Richards, I will be sharing some tips and experience about making a short film from beginning to end. This will be mostly targeted at beginner filmmakers, such as (but not limited to) actors who are interested in creating their own door by making their own film(s). Others may find this useful too, and I strongly encourage anyone to share their own experience and knowledge by posting comments, corrections, opinions, and questions.

The first step as you may have guessed is to write a script, so this first post will be dedicated to just that.

What to write?

If you are lucky, you may already have some grand idea. If so, you can skip this section and jump to the next one. But if you are like me and are starting with only vague concepts about your favorite genres, read on.

Starting from a blank slate can be daunting. Paradoxically, it helps boost creativity to add a few constraints when coming up with ideas for a story:

- Keep it short! Especially if it is your first film, you will want to gain experience before writing a full feature-length film! Keep the story simple enough that it can fit in less than 10 pages.

- Location, location, location! One of the most difficult part of making a film is to secure the right locations for your script. So start by making a list of locations that you are confident you can film in (your house, your office, your car…), and ask yourself what story could take place in one or more of those locations. You will need a signed location release for each location and potentially pay for permits so make your life easier by picking simple locations.  The fewer locations you have in your script, the easier your film will be to make. I learned this the hard way by having many different locations in my script for The Life of Eric Richards, which made the production longer and more complex (more details about that in a future post).

- Demo reel material. If you are an actor, be sure to include one or more scenes that would be great in your reel. The hero of your story should be very much like you or of a type you can play really well. Then, be sure to give your hero some trouble to showcase your emotional range. You can even write a list of emotions that you would like to show in your reel and use that to entice your creativity.

- Make it personal: use your own life when coming up with ideas because this will make your story more unique and interesting. Also, if you have some unique skills, have access to some really cool location, or own some unique equipment, be sure to showcase that in your story! For example, in The Life of Eric Richards, I originally wrote a scene that took place in a golf course. Later on, I realized it would be a pain to film this scene, as I do not own golf clubs, do not play golf, and do not have access to a golf course! Instead, after some feedback from someone who reviewed my script, I rewrote the scene to take place on the beach and instead of golfing, my character is kite surfing! It ended up being a lot more interesting and unique and I owned all the equipment and skills.

If you are still stuck with these guidelines, do not despair! I was in the same situation: with all that in mind, I came up with a few ideas. But I was not very enthusiastic about any of them and was procrastinating on writing anything. Until one evening, my girlfriend and I were joking around about a personal flaw of mine: I tend to be overly optimistic and carefree. My girlfriend was arguing that some day this will get me into trouble, but that somehow it has worked out well for me so far because of pure luck. I joined in making fun of myself and we started joking that if there was a movie trailer about this trait of mine, it would start like the typical romantic comedy, with a hero who has everything, money, love, friends, but instead of losing it all, like it is usually the case in such movies, the hero would keep on getting more and more good stuff, to the point of absurdity. We both found the idea hilarious and joked about how annoying yet amusing that hero would be. On the spot, I decided that this is what I should write a short film about. This was such an enthusiastic moment that writing the script took very little efforts.

How can this apply to you and your aspirations to write a script? The lesson I learned is that instead of obsessing about writing a script, I should let the idea of writing a script run in the back of my mind while I live my life to the fullest. When an inspiring moment comes up, I can then use that energy and enthusiasm to fuel the writing and it becomes effortless. Life should fuel the drive for writing and not the other way around.

Writing the script

On the technical side, I recommend using Celtx to write the script: it is a free software, simple to use, yet full of features. It formats the script in a standard way, and works on all platforms (Mac, Linux, PC, even iPhone/iPad).

In order to seamlessly work on the script on my various devices, I stored the files “in the cloud”, using the excellent (and also free) Dropbox, that I also highly recommend.

Look at a few film scripts to understand the various standards (break the script into scenes, provide the location and time for each scene such as INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT,…). Write only the minimum information for the story to be understandable. No need to provide details about what the characters think (leave that to the actors), nor unessential details about the setting (leave that to the production designer and director). Limit what you write to the essential actions, some simple character description, and the dialogs. Read this book if you need more details: The Hollywood Standard

I also strongly recommend reading Save The Cat, by Blake Snyder. It is an easy and entertaining read and contains extremely useful guidelines when writing a script. Once you have read it, I created the following mind map that will help you memorize and assimilate the various ideas in the book: http://www.mindmeister.com/82136791

Get it reviewed!

Once you have written a first draft of the script, get it reviewed by as many people whose opinion you trust and value as you can. Not only will you get valuable feedback and ideas that you should incorporate in your script, but you may find people interested in participating in the making of your film. I had my acting coach, Robert Zimmerman, review my script for The Life of Eric Richards and he liked it so much that he offered to direct the film himself. I had not thought of asking him as I was considering directing the film myself at first. But when he offered, it was obvious he would be a great choice and I have been very grateful for his awesome contribution to the film.

Do not worry about anyone stealing your idea. Most people have a hard time making a film when it is their own idea, so stealing someone else’s idea, throwing away their friendship, risking social disgrace, and trying to make the film better and faster that them would be really stupid and I have never heard of that happening for a short film, even if you think you have the best idea ever! But if you are paranoid, you can always register your script with the Writer’s guild of America: http://www.wgawregistry.org/webrss/

That’s it for this first step. I welcome any comments, questions, opinions that anyone may have as I do not pretend to hold the truth and am still learning about the process myself. Nonetheless, I hope you found this information useful and look forward to hearing about any film project you may start or have already started.