Invisible Chokepoints

Things I Wish They Told Me Before I Got Into Screenwriting/Filmmaking

When I got into screenwriting and filmmaking, I wasn’t arrogant…But, man was I overly confident. In six months I thought I’d have a screenplay that producers would drool over. What a fool, I was. Twelve years later, I’m still nowhere close to having any of my stuff produced! A lot of it is my fault, of course. I’m spending a tremendous amount of time focusing my knowledge on developing AI-assisted screenwriting tools, instead of querying producers and trying to get noticed. But a lot of it is just the nature of the beast. 

Screenwriting and turning your work into films, in and of itself, isn’t all that hard. But it is excruciatingly difficult to produce something that can captivate people’s hearts and minds. And much of this difficulty stems from the unforeseeable pitfalls you’ll encounter. I only wish someone had taken me to the side and explained these traps because it would have saved a ton of heartache and a ridiculous amount of time. 

So, I’d like to dedicate this article to covering the hidden chokepoints I’ve encountered in the hopes that it will help you streamline a path to success rather than waste a lot of time, like what happened to me! 

Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

The way my brother and I started was simple. We hated where we were in life. So to cure our depression, we got back into the one thing we’ve been doing for fun ever since we were kids. I’m talking about filmmaking.

Long story short, the better part of 8 months was spent writing this feature script before we did everything to turn it into a film worthy of being on Netflix. We learned a hell of a lot and made friends with some of the most talented people in our area. Mistakes were made, but the biggest was spending over 3 years trying to get it off the ground! 

In hindsight, we should have recognized that the movie wasn’t going anywhere after the first year so we could quickly move on to the next project. Writing and making films is time-consuming, and much of the value gained as a filmmaker comes from the breadth of stories you create, not just having one or two quality stories. Making that one good film MIGHT land you a career, but your chances are better if you’re producing many films.

This is a good way to hedge your bets for several reasons. First, it’s better for your education. Every film you make will present new challenges. If you’re only dedicating your time to one project, chances are you’ll spend a few months filming and many months or years promoting and doing other things that don’t involve shooting a movie. Marketing and building connections are important to learn, but none of that matters if your films suck. And the best way to improve is to make film after film after film.

Second, if you have it in your head that one film will set you up, then you’re probably going to choose to put a lot of money into it. This is a grave mistake since it’s easy to fool yourself into believing you have something good. And if you’re producing something for a lot of money that goes nowhere, guess what? Now you don’t have enough to shoot your next opportunity unless you’re well off, which means a couple of years or more will go by before you can afford to shoot another one. 

This happened to my brother and I with our second short, which was made for 25k. You would think that with more money, it would have enhanced the movie, but it didn’t. Yes, it made for a good preview, so for marketing purposes, it was great. Beyond that, the price tag didn’t serve us, at all. It actually hurt because now we had to wait 2 years just to save up enough for our third one (NSFW), which this time, we made for 1.2k.

And you know what’s funny? That smaller-budget film got us into the Maryland Film Fest and opened up other opportunities, not the movie that cost 25k. Had we recognized this fault in our logic early on, we could have made 20 or more short films, instead of only three. That would have increased our opportunities given the need to generate momentum because it’s super easy to fall out of relevancy when you’re not producing anything else.   

The third reason why you want to make a lot of movies is because there’s a good chance that you’ll never make it as a professional narrative writer/director for big studios. Sorry, it’s just the nature of the beast. But it is very doable to get a nice job working in film, and one of the best ways to do that is to A. have a strong demo reel with lots of examples and B. show up to a lot of sets and network for job opportunities. Furthermore, even if you do make it as a narrative writer/director, your chances of success are dramatically reduced if you only have one screenplay or movie to show. 

Film is subjective, and it’s also a business, which means producers are going to be very particular about the stories they work with, and every producer will desire something different. So you can be a great writer/director with a great story and still have that story rejected. And if that happens and you only have one story?  Well, I guess you’re done selling until you write/film more. 

Plus, most of the time, studios are looking for writers and directors they can hire to work on existing IP. They’re not going to hire you unless you can demonstrate consistent quality craftsmanship across multiple stories. So don’t stick with one story! Remember that many stories equals many opportunities. It’s like investing. You wanna diversify, not put your entire life’s savings in a single penny stock.

Now the real question is, If you should be making tons of stories/films, how long should you invest your time, money, and energy in one that’s struggling to get off the ground before moving on to the next? At what point do you say, “Eh, this isn’t going anywhere.”? Well, that has to do with recognizing when a story is worth pursuing, which is another valuable lesson I wish I had known before starting this journey.

Your Best Ideas Aren’t Always Your BEST Ideas

My brother and I used to get overwhelmingly excited by new story ideas that would always push us to fully commit to them, only to realize several months or years later that the stories weren’t worth the chase. To this day, I still get excited. But at least, now, I recognize that it’s a “Honeymoon” phase. 

Just because you think, “This is the one.” doesn’t make it so. When it comes to stories, the initial idea might seem enticing enough to dedicate all your time to it. But you have to dig deeply into the story, first, before you can make that conclusion. 

The reason is the same for why you move slowly in a relationship. Your heart wants it to work out so badly that you’ll form blindspots around the issues. That’s a fatal flaw. You must identify the pitfalls of the story early on and determine if these will fundamentally ruin the story 

For instance, you may have a seemingly great idea for a story that looks like a slam dunk. But upon further inspection, you come to realize that the central conflict is so illogical the rest of the story surrounding it no longer makes any sense. If you were to move too fast and dedicate a tremendous amount of time working on it, you might not recognize this logical fallacy until after 100s of written pages and money put into pre-production. Aka, you’ll have wasted A LOT of time, and time is something you can never get back.

But let’s assume you found the right story that doesn’t have any issues, and you write a fully polished script. Should you still charge forward and make it into a film? Well…Not necessarily. To truly ensure that you’re not wasting your time, it’s best to get the screenplay validated before you venture off on any multi-year crusade. 

There are several ways to do this. First, there are screenplay competitions. Now, most are a waste of time. So even if you get first place, there’s a good chance it won’t lead anywhere. The only competitions that truly make a difference are the top ones like Nicholls, SXSW, Austin, Cannes, Sundance, Slamdance, and Tribeca.

I know this sounds elitist, but it’s true. With these competitions, you’re competing with a lot of writers, including some of the best from all over the World. In smaller competitions, you’re competing with a few people. And since writing a good screenplay is exceptionally difficult, chances are those few entries in the smaller competitions will be poor. So sure, maybe you can take the cake and win first place, but that could mean your story is just the most bearable out of the bunch. Cool, but certainly not a valid indication that this story should be made into a movie. 

With the top competitions, if you get first place, it means your story is better than most of the screenplays out there. And even if you don’t get first place, just placing in the top 30% is enough to tell you and others that you probably have a good story worth turning into a film. This doesn’t mean the film will be a smashing success. But it does, at least, mean this story has some legs you can work with.  

Another way to validate your story is to post it online for strangers to evaluate. This is easier said than done since most people don’t want to read screenplays, even other screenwriters. But there are a couple of ways to go about it. 

There’s the easy way where you make a post on a relevant forum asking for readers in exchange for analyzing their scripts. This is a good way to get someone to read your story. However, since you have to review their work, it can be time-consuming. For every eyeball you get, there will be a 120-page screenplay to read as payment. So don’t expect 30 people, but 2 or 3 is certainly doable for your time.

The second way is much harder, but it can give you a much better sense of how good your story is. Set up an enticing website or YouTube channel and convert your screenplay into something more visual and engaging like a fictional podcast series. In theory, you could break your story up into episodes and release them weekly or bi-weekly. Combined with solid marketing techniques, this can be a powerful way to gain many impartial viewers and give you a sense of how “sticky” your content is. 

Granted, this method won’t give you comprehensive evaluations for improvement, but it will provide genuine feedback through views, likes, and comments. And if you're seeing a lot of positive engagement from strangers, you probably have some thunder to sell. So it might be worth dedicating a lot of time and money to. But if you find that no one is engaging with your story, no matter how hard you try, then that’s a strong indication you should scrap it and work on your next story.

Finally, there are the good old-fashioned screenwriting groups. These are great to join for educational purposes but also for getting solid feedback. It’s common in these groups to do script read-throughs, which is a perfect opportunity to get a feel for how good your story is. But be mindful that the critiques will likely be watered down, even if it’s truthful because nobody wants to crush your soul. They gotta see you again, after all!

If you share your work and you get a lot of constructive comments mixed in with little praises here and there for stuff that isn’t all that fundamental such as, “Oh I really enjoyed that it takes place in a warehouse and not in a back alley.” then the group is telling you that it’s a bad story, which needs a lot of work. Do not let yourself be fooled by these small praises. They’re trying to make you feel better as they scrutinize your poorly written screenplay.

But if you share your work, get a ton of positive praise on both the big and small things, little to no constructive feedback, and you have people approaching you after the meeting to collaborate, or they want to pass your script off to their friends…That’s a great sign you’re producing some good content. An even better sign is when you have strangers who are networked with members in that group reaching out to you because they want to do x,y,z. Everyone wants to gravitate towards the most talented people. If you feel like a magnet after sharing your work then there’s a good chance you’re either highly charismatic and a good faker, or you wrote some gold that should be made into a film.

So the bottom line? Identify when your story is hot or not as early as possible, even at the ideation stage. If you don’t you could easily walk down a path of wasted time and money.

Leave the Nest 

You don’t have to leave your hometown…But you need to network and by network, I mean both digitally AND PHYSICALLY IN THE REAL WORLD! Let’s tackle the real world, first. Another huge mistake my brother and I made early on was not taking enough time to network with others. Luckily, my brother went to film school, so we had a small group of filmmakers from his classes to collaborate with.

We just didn’t bother expanding it until years later, after our first film failed. That’s when we finally decided to link up with film groups around the area. This decision made a HUGE difference because it gave us more access to affordable resources, skills, advice, friendships, and opportunities. No doubt, it’s very enticing to focus all of your attention on your projects within your small circle, but this separates you from so many people who can help advance your career either through their projects or by helping you with yours. 

This can also save you a lot of money for content you’ll want to create since gear and expertise are expensive. If you network with others you can more easily engage in reciprocal altruism to gain these things at a cheaper price.

Also since everyone is trying to become successful, if you make friends with people in your local area, there’s a reasonable chance that, at least, one of them will end up working for a studio. That can help you foster stronger connections to bigger people and is much easier to accomplish than cold-calling a top dog in the industry.

So where do you forge this network in the physical World? Most cities have local film/screenwriting groups. Join them! If none exist, make your own and advertise that. Even if you only get a few people showing up at the local library, that’s 1000 times better than doing nothing. If you live in the U.S., contact your State Film Office and ask if they know of any groups. Go to film festivals or events that involve filmmaking and screenwriting. Check out the Universities near you and see if their film/screenwriting programs are hosting any events.

Okay, that’s the physical World. Now what about the digital spaces? Well, pick your poison. Many places online provide a lot of value, such as here or there. Writers and filmmakers from all over the World post valuable content in these spaces, including relevant up-to-date information about the industry. Plus, you can directly message people. Just don’t be annoying about it.

The advantage of networking online is having access to millions of people, so it’s very easy to find the right person to connect with. However, the disadvantage is that because it’s online, it’s much harder to cement strong relationships that can last. But, the principles of reciprocal altruism still hold. So if you find someone you want to network with, just identify what you need from them and what they need from you. Offer value and chances are, you’ll receive it back, especially if there’s a mutual interest. 

The key is to not shoot too far above your level. If you’re just starting, reaching out to Alex Ferrari or John August will likely lead you nowhere. But, reaching out to the person with a few thousand followers is 100 percent doable. 

While this relationship may not get you a million fans, it will provide a solid stepping stone to build off of. You start by targeting people who are more popular than you, but not wildly more popular. Forge relationships with them and now you’re able to better connect with people who are even bigger because, guess what? The person with 3k followers is likely connected to other people who are bigger than them. And suppose you knock it out of the park. In that case, their bigger connections will be MUCH more likely to form relationships with you since you’re friends with their friends, have proven trustworthy, and you’re of a certain quality they can promote without ruining their reputations. 

Connecting online is like climbing levels. You start at the bottom and build trust, which will elevate you to the next level, and so on. This sounds easy, but it’s super hard because it hinges on how talented you are as well as how you present yourself. But it can all be attempted and should.  Otherwise, you’re dramatically reducing your chances of success.

So whether it’s online or offline (ideally both), leave the places where you feel most comfortable to gain better opportunities for yourself. It can be scary meeting strangers, especially ones who are more successful than you, but it’s necessary because the alternative is…Well staying at home and working in a vacuum. 

Be Patient 

Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor will your career, at least when it comes to film and screenwriting. This is not like getting an engineering degree where you apply to a bunch of companies and work your way up a well-defined ladder. You have to discover where that ladder is and learn how to climb it, which is very different for every individual. It’s like walking through a forest on a perfectly curated trail versus walking through a forest without any trail.

Because of this, you’re probably going to get lost and take a very long time to get to your destination. That’s normal, so don’t beat yourself up if you’ve been at it for 5 years and still not working on that million-dollar film. When we view successful people, we tend to think, “Man, that person lucked out” or, “They must be a genius.” While this may apply to many or most of them, that also doesn’t mean it didn’t take an incredible amount of time and energy to get there. That’s because the results are what’s highlighted, not the many hours spent banging their heads against the wall trying to get it right. 

Yes, there are rare exceptions where someone gets it right the first time, but don’t expect that to happen to you. Make peace with this before you dive into the field so you don’t end up disappointing yourself and give up. It’s every bit an endurance game as much as it is a game of mastery and outside-the-box thinking. 

Like I mentioned earlier, when I first got into writing I thought that in six months I’d have a screenplay worth being made into a film. So you can imagine the depths of my despair when I got to year three and realized how much time and energy I had wasted. Had I come into this with the understanding that it would take many, many years to master, perhaps I could have avoided all those mental breakdowns. Seriously, it’s no joke putting everything you have into something, expecting the payoff to be right around the corner, only to find that you have a million more miles to go. 

This is a long game with no certainty for the vast majority, even those who see initial success in the short run. So expect nothing but hope for everything. That’s all you can do if you want to keep plugging away while staying sane!

What You Have to Say is More Important Than the Skills You Build

If there’s one thing postmodernism has taught us, it’s that there is an objective value to art despite beauty being subjective. Some of you reading this might disagree, but ask yourself, “Why do all other forms of art outcompete postmodernist art?” It’s because it lacks meaning in its design other than to say that art can be anything…But doesn’t that message get a little boring after a while? 

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that what you have to say means a hell of a lot, and this is something that a lot of new storytellers never really stop to consider. It’s certainly something I wish I had thought about before getting into all of this. People write and make films for a myriad of reasons. But when it comes to narrative fiction, we do this because we have something meaningful to convey about reality, and we wish to package that into a story that can entertainingly captivate people's attention. That’s the brass tacks.

Yet, time and time again, I see people focus way too much attention on the skills that allow them to utilize the mediums appropriately rather than focus on what they would like to say to the World that others haven’t considered before, or at least, not in a long time. That’s why most filmmakers have no problem creating beautiful shots, but have a ton of issues when it comes to making a great story that millions of people want to see.

One only requires an understanding of the technical equipment and conventional cinematic techniques. Challenging, yes, but these barriers pale in comparison to the kind that you’ll find when trying to make a story that matters to a lot of people. Not only does that require a lot of media consumption (non-fiction and fiction) and interesting personal experiences, but it also requires one to break down their internal barriers so that they can become much more in-tune with their anxieties, fears, and things that can get them to cry, love, laugh, hate, and every other emotion under the sun. 

To create meaningful work, one has to confront themselves and that can be a daunting task since most of us aren’t full of sugar and rainbows. There’s a lot of ugliness that can be revealed, but it’s necessary because it’s the only true way a creator can convey an authentic voice in their work.

None of this is obvious, and there’s a good chance that no one will ever tell you, let alone how to do it. That makes sense because conveying meaningful content through allegory is extremely nebulous. There isn’t a book with black-and-white rules, so it’s difficult to teach or even express as a “thing you should do”. And since we’re all prone to taking the path of least resistance, the vast majority who become professionals will develop a mastery of the medium while ignoring this other crucial component. 

The story component is so important, that you can actually make a great film that garners a lot of attention without any fancy technicals employed. There are many examples of this, such as Tangerine, which was shot using iPhone cameras, or the movie, Clerks, a film made so cheaply, that anyone with a decent day job could afford it.

Just last week I saw Butt Boy, a low-budget movie with no-named actors and minimal setups that was introduced by John Waters and received a standing ovation at a big film festival.

These movies were successful simply because they had great stories that could allow the audience to not care about the lack of explosions and crazy CGI.

But when it comes to making a great film by leaning more on the beautiful aesthetics over the story…Well, there may be a lot of them, but there aren’t a whole lot that are good enough to remember. Movies like Blade Runner 2049 or Drive might be the most striking examples, standing out for their stunning visuals that dwarf their simple stories. But they still have stories attached to them that are meaningful. So at the end of the day, even if you’re more focused on how it looks, you still need a good enough story to convey if you want any chance of success.

No doubt, having a deep understanding of the technicals is extremely important if you plan on taking this career seriously. Also, it’s a much easier way to find gainful employment as you chisel out your stories. But understand that this is only half of the equation and not the most important part, either. You can gain all the technical experience in the World and become Steven Spielberg’s best friend, but none of that will matter as an aspiring screenwriter/director if you don’t have anything to say that can resonate with others. Without that, the best you can do is create something that looks beautiful. But you’ll never create anything that can capture the hearts and minds of people.  

So focus on the technicals, yes, but REALLY focus on telling a meaningful story. If you aim to be a narrative writer/director, then your primary focus should always be on story over technicals.    

Conclusion

You’ll face many problems if you decide to pursue a career as a writer/director, but they won’t all be apparent like the ones in this article. You have to dive deep into the craft and give it your all, but most importantly, you have to take the time to reflect deeply on why you may not be progressing to truly recognize these particular chokepoints. Without that reflection, you’ll only recognize the obvious mistakes. But it’s these less obvious ones that will dramatically waste your time if you don’t address them as early as possible. 

Anywho, that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this piece and as always, best of luck in your creative endeavors!

Story Prism,

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https://www.storyprism.io