Screenwriting | The Athletic Nerd

Would You Post Your Screenplays Online?

November 22nd, 2011 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in Featured Posts | Screenwriting - (2 Comments)

I’m terrified.

SYMPTOMS INCLUDE: ANXIETY, FEAR OF FAILURE, FEAR OF THEFT & MORE

When I describe this blog I say it’s about movies, screenwriting and independent film. The keyword I’d like to focus on in this case is SCREENWRITING. Its my number one passion. I love to write movies plain and simple.

This blog is home to nearly two hundred posts about the craft. Yet no screenplay I’ve ever written has found its way online because of my fears listed above. I ask myself the same questions many writers out there ask themselves:

Will I gain exposure?
Will someone steal my idea?
What if people don’t like it?
What if people do like it?

There are about 10,345 other questions you can ask yourself when you consider uploading your work online. I’ve been struggling with it for a while now. I get similar feelings when I think about entering my work into screenwriting competitions. I’ve only entered one in my life and came 4th. I was petrified from the moment I sent it in until the day I read the final results. When it comes to screenwriting, that’s the most anxiety I’ve ever felt and I’m an anxious person by default.

It’s a strange irony that writing screenplays is cures my anxiety and stress but also can cause it. So I’ve never really considered putting up a screenplay of mine because the stress would drive me nuts. I feel like I’d waste hours refreshing my stats to see if people were reading it. Likewise, I think I would also spend some time searching for thieves. At the same time, if no one steals it, I’m afraid it might be because it sucks.

Why isn’t my work good enough to steal?

I mention this now because I’ve been thinking a lot about sucking it up and seeing what’s in the cards for this passion of mine. Will I ever win a screenplay competition? It’s a fantastic goal to set for yourself but if you don’t send anything in, its pointless isn’t it? Likewise, you will always wonder what people think of your work if you never let anyone read it. (Family and friends don’t count by the way)

XTRA | Is my screenplay ready for competitions?

More and more, I’ve been thinking about writing and how the last 10 years can be defined by the screenplays I’ve written. You can literally track my own evolution through the themes and characters I chose to write about. So maybe it’s time to put myself out there…

Or maybe I’ll just keep putting it off…

Regardless, I’ll never stop writing screenplays.

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Do You Have A Back Burner Project?

November 16th, 2011 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in Filmmaking | Movies | Producing | Screenwriting - (0 Comments)

Do You Have A Back Burner Project?

First and foremost, I love to write movies. Having said that, I’m also a massive fan of blogging, writing short stories and creating accompanying images and logos in Photoshop. On a daily basis, I normally have a number of projects I can work on but lately, I’ve been focused on finishing my short film The Climb.

It’s a project we filmed in May of 2010 and I’ve been experimenting with different editing techniques ever since. However, the time has come to wrap up the short so I can reorganize and prioritize my projects in 2012.

XTRA | We have picture lock!

So for the last month, I’ve been completely wrapped up in post production with a couple afternoons of screenwriting here and there.

In all honesty, The Climb will most likely be finished in a few weeks and I’ve spent a lot more time figuring out what I want to create in 2012. It’s always beneficial to think ahead. Besides two big feature screenwriting projects and a slight 17west.ca redesign my schedule looks like it will be pretty open.

Finally, it looks like Ill be able to put a dent into my…

BACK BURNER PROJECTS

Anyone who enjoys being creative has a couple of these occupying the dusty storage shelves in their minds. These are projects you might get to someday. Unfortunately, many of these projects remain unfinished or worse they never really get off the shelf.

2012 will be the year of the screenplay for me as I don’t have plans to direct another film anytime soon. (Especially with a wedding less than a year away). Its going to be a year of words and two related back burner projects I’ve wanted to tackle for years.

The projects in question are eBooks. Since I began this blog in 2009, I’ve had a number of ideas for extra content to offer and these eBooks represent my first foray into the online self-publishing world.

But when you add up screenwriting, filmmaking, blogging and life in general, taking on an eBook simply didn’t fit into my daily routine. But that’s what a back burner project is! It’s a project you pick away at slowly. Something you work on and think about during quiet moments. I’ve already laid the groundwork and created over 40 pages of content for my first book. I’ve just never really given the project the time it deserves to graduate from back burner status.

Having said that, I’m extremely excited to wrap up a couple things and finally have time to write these projects. They will come in handy when I’m not working on my latest screenplay or blog post.

In my experience, back burner projects rarely get taken off the shelf and dusted off. The only one I can think of other than these eBooks was a children’s book I wrote for my parents years ago. It was something I always wanted to do but regularly put off. There was always something else that needed to be done. Finally, I got it finished and had a friend illustrate it. The memory I have of giving them copies of the book are precious to me now. I think about that memory fondly and I’m thankful that I took the time to write it for them.

Some back burner projects are meant to rise up. I won’t know if these two eBooks will fall into that category but I’ll never know until I finish them right?

Maybe its time you gave your back burner projects another look?

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Why King’s Quest 6 Ruled My Screenwriting Notebook

November 7th, 2011 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in Featured Posts | Screenwriting | Technology - (0 Comments)

OLD SCHOOL VIDEO GAMES INSPIRE SCREENPLAYS TOO

I got my hands on King’s Quest 6 long ago. How long ago? It ran on my lightning fast Compaq Presario 850. I instantly fell in love with the amazing graphics and gameplay. And thus the game dominated my life for months.

My dad runs his own business and our computer was command central in our basement. Obviously, I’m thankful that my dad is a hard working man but it was always disappointing to come home from school and see him working. It meant I couldn’t play King’s Quest!

Screenwriting: Why King's Quest Ruled My Notebook | Screenwriting Blog

Once he was finished his to-do list, I got to work exploring and solving puzzles. Eventually, my imagination surpassed the limits of the game and I began writing my own story entitled. The King’s Deadly Race. I filled up a bunch of loose pages before my mom bought me a notebook to collect them all.

And so, I would make progress in the game and in my own story simultaneously. It was a glorious time. I would open up new secrets in the game and it would inspire me to create my own unique secrets in my writing. Eventually, I beat the game and moved on but for a little while, King’s Quest literally dominated my imagination.

I think screenwriters everywhere have little tales like this. Moments from our past that inspired us and led us down the road we walk today. I look back on King’s Quest 6 fondly not only because the game captured my imagination but because it set my imagination on fire.

To this day, I still have the first 5 chapters of The King’s Deadly Race in the same notebook my mom bought me long ago. I can tell you exactly where it is. I keep it close because it was created when my passion for writing began. While I wrote that book, I discovered how much I love to write and I began searching for a medium that suited me.

I found that outlet the day I discovered the screenplay format and the rest is history.

C:\

cd Quest [enter]

C:\quest>

Quest.exe [enter]

That’s probably not exact but you get the idea. Takes me back.

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Can’t come up with a good screenplay idea? Why not create a bad one?

October 26th, 2011 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in Featured Posts | Screenwriting - (0 Comments)

HELP KICK START YOUR BRAIN BY CREATING SOMETHING
CHEESY, LAME, CLICHED AND/OR TERRIBLE…

I had to wake up this morning at 6 AM to take my dog to get his hair cut. That might sound awful to most but I consider myself a morning person even though I normally work late. Personally, I think waking up before the sun rises is the best time to write screenplays.

So while I was getting ready, I decided to challenge myself to come up with something new. It could have been anything really. A short, a feature, a concept or simply a main character would have sufficed… I had nothing or at least nothing I would consider good. Every idea I came up with was either something I had already seen or something I had no interest in seeing and that’s never a good thing. Sick of coming up with good ideas for a screenplay, I decided to switch gears and come up with a horrible screenplay idea.

THE BAD SCREENPLAY

This technique may sound counter-productive but it’s not. It’s just as difficult to come up with a bad screenplay idea if you set out to do so. The whole point is to be creative and get your mind working. (Especially if it’s 6 AM) Within minutes, I was making myself laugh with my horrid storyline and the cheese ball action hero I created. I called my bad screenplay idea:

THE MENTAL NOTE

The story is set in 1972 inside a mental hospital that houses diabolical super genius Pinter. One day, he somehow manages to medicate the head of the hospital in order to retrieve information on a top secret formula that induces violent behavior in patients. He uses this to create an army and escape. Opposing Pinter is a lonely police officer, Bruce, who has just finished a night shift and is on his way to visit his dying wife. Pinter and his army arrive to ‘diagnose’ more people and Bruce is the only one who can stop him.

The only reason I’d want to see this movie is so Bruce can stand before Pinter and say things like:

I’ll make a mental note of that!

And Pinter would reply:

… Go ahead!

See I told you it wasn’t very good. However, while I was figuring out how my main villain would meet his end, I came up with a new idea for a short film that I liked. And it’s all because of a mental hospital, a secret formula and a cheesy catch phrase.

Click here for more posts on screenwriting.

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The Screenwriting All-Nighter

October 12th, 2011 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in Featured Posts | Screenwriting - (1 Comments)

Recently, I came up with a concept for a horror short but nothing really came of it. There is, after all, a big difference between a concept and a fully developed story. Still, I loved the concept and thought long and hard before I found that one ‘key’ element the idea was missing. Within an instant I had a main character and a setting. I had a story…

This sudden rush of creativity happened at 3 AM.

It’s an interesting dilemma when you come up with something exciting in the middle of the night. Do you risk forgetting your ideas? Do you write yourself a note and return to it in the morning? Or do you seize the moment, get out of bed and write?

In this particular case, my horror concept actually freaked me out to the point where I wasn’t going to sleep regardless… So I got out of bed and fired up Final Draft.

Before I began writing the screenplay, I took a moment to appreciate the atmosphere I created for myself. It was the middle of the night, I kept all the lights off in my office and it was cold. A perfect setting to write a horror script.

Writing in the middle of the night used to be my favorite time to write. I used to set alarms for 4 AM, write and then head back to bed for a nap before school. Over the years, I began to appreciate sleeping more and the middle of the night became a distant memory. It made this new screenplay that much more exciting. I was back in my element and before I knew it, it was 7:45 and I was putting the finishing touches on a 5 page first draft. I was full of energy and there was officially no hope of falling asleep again.

So I gathered some images and created a poster for the project. When that didn’t tire me out, I wrote a few posts for this site. (This post included)

All in all, I was pretty proud of myself for getting out of bed and writing that morning. I may have regretted it when I got to work that evening but it was worth it. Sometimes all it takes is the will to get out of bed, sit down and write. I have a feeling I haven’t seen the last of the screenwriting all-nighters.

When do you like to write?

Click here for more SCREENWRITING posts.

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Would You Post Your Screenplays Online?

SYMPTOMS INCLUDE: ANXIETY, FEAR OF FAILURE, FEAR OF THEFT & MORE