Stepping your game up as a screenwriter: Getting your visual aids

Okay so, much of what I've been spending my time and money on are the visuals to go along with my screenplay.  Popular Hollywood writer, Corey Mandell say, "when writing a screenplay, your goal is to get others to visualize your movie in the same way you do; match what they see in their head with how you're visualizing your movie.

So I figure what better way (besides having a crafty screenplay) but to provide visuals.  So below are a few things I've done to help bring this environment alive for my audience.

1. A visual Screenplay:  

In my opinion this is uncharted territory.  This largely due to the fact that most studios charge horrendous prices for a 24-page layout.   Sure, some people have written graphic novels, or even comic books, but how much of that work properly outlines what could be used in a screenplay.  Comic books tend to lack crafty dialogue, and graphic novels lack the screenplay structure and are too wordy.  On both ends it would require a writer to convert that work into screenplay standards, in which case, you'll have to prove yourself by building a following.

A visual screenplay offers the best of both worlds.  You get to keep the screenplay structure while at the same time providing visual content.  You can still pose a visual screenplay off as a comic in order to generate a following, while also reserving the language and structure.  If you can, find local talent within the students body at the local university.  Usually if they are art majors, or visual communication design, they have to complete a senior project, in which case they could work with you on your project.  This is a good way of recruiting local talent and cut cost on graphic illustrations.


2. Do a motion comic:

This is definitely more on the spendy side, however, this is a cool way of generating an interested when submitting short stories to the film festivals and online sites.  The cooling thing about motion comics is that it's likely you will hire out for this project.  You will likely hire graphic designers, voiceover artist, and musicians to carry the pace of the story, but what's cool is that they all will help in the promotion as well.  The graphic designers want more clients and help market your project in order to entice other writers.  Truth be told for the other components, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement.  Some cool sites to check out are www.vworker.com, www.voices.com.

3. Hire a sculptor:

Again the key is to help them see your story, especially if you are writing an action or sci-fi story.  However, if you can show your marketability by introducing various revenue streams, it all help in peaking their interest.  Mind you that you still have to have a slamming script, but this can help generate interest.  Currently, I'm working with toy manufacturers to help design a prototype for my resin statues. This helps for mass production, in case you were interested in selling the pieces.  With these three components it can really open up your options in terms of how you can promote and where.  You can exhibit your work at the comic conventions.

4. Create promotional material

Partner with a graphic artist create postcards, flyers, banners of your story.  This way if you ever attend an event, you can always leave them with something tangible.

Q&A with Prototype 2 writer Dan Jolley

New Prototype hero James Heller stands off against the Gentex soldier (Courtesy of Gamespot)

Dan Jolley (Right) with Voiceover actor, Peter Cullen (Courtesy of Dan Jolley)

Often, when we think of cool game franchises do we think, "man what great writing for this project."  However when you look at top gaming greats like Metal Gear Solid, Elder Scrolls, or even Assassins Creed, we often see how proper dialogue can shape the overall continuity of the story.  So from one writer to the next, I decided to contact Dan Jolley, writer for the latest video game, Prototype 2, to get his taking on the industry, and what it's like to write for a popular game franchise.

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RW:  It’s good getting a chance to talk with you a bit.  I Just finish Prototype 2 (which is pretty badass for those who haven’t played it) and saw that you were listed as the scriptwriter for this project and was very interested in talking with you a bit about the things you've done to prepare for this.  I see you've been in the biz for well over 20 years (1990 was what I saw).  And I just want to pick your brain a bit.

DJ:  Pleasure to meet you! I'm always up for a bit of friendly brain-picking.  Basically I got into writing video games because of my work in comics. I was at a comics convention, and did a panel on writing comics, and a guy in the audience turned out to work for a VG development company; we talked, I told him I was interested in getting into writing for games, he set up an interview, and bang, I was a video game designer.

Not many people realize what awesome training it is to write comic book scripts. It teaches you to work within rigid parameters; to write in a very particular format; and to collaborate extensively with other creators. Learning to tell stories in the delineated, regimented way you have to in comics turned out to transition very smoothly into writing for video games. I've written in lots of different formats, and if I'm being honest, I love writing prose most of all. But comic scripts are what prepared me for most of the non-comics work I've done.

And I certainly wish you luck on the screenplay front! I've dabbled (so far not very successfully) in film and TV stuff myself. It's brutal. But I'm sure I don't need to tell you that.

Thank you too, for the kind words on Prototype 2. The script credit is a little misleading; some of what you saw adhered to the script I was paid to produce, and some of it got re-written. Kind of like selling a screenplay.

RW:  Yea the rewrite thing is quite common, sorry to hear about it though.  How did you end up finding out?  Did you play the game?

DJ:  No, Activision usually sends me four free copies of whatever I write for them, but the producer on P2 left the company right as the game came out and I haven't gotten my comps yet. So I found out I'd been re-written by watching gameplay clips on YouTube. 

RW:  Yea I was at the Beverly Hills Film Festival last year and I asked a guy the question, "how does it feel to hear your words play out on screen"  he sort of chuckled then said, "they changed a lot of what I wrote"  I asked him, "what it felt like when they did speak the lines he wrote and got it close to what he envisioned it sounding", he then said "priceless."  Is that the way you feel too? 

DJ:  Yeah, definitely. The Transformers games I worked on have almost all of my dialogue, unchanged. I got to attend a voice-over recording session a few months ago, and I was sitting there listening to Peter Cullen (voice of Optimus Prime) read lines I had written, and I just about floated up to the ceiling. 

RW:  I guess my main question is whether you have any resources that anyone could look up to learn the craft of Video Game writing or promoting their work?  I really want to broaden my skill set.

DJ:  I'm afraid I've learned to write for games in much the same way I learned to write for comics: trial and error. It seems to be that every company, often every dev studio, has a different way they do things, and you just have to learn to adapt. I know there are a number of books on the subject of how to write for games, but I've never read any of them.

One example of individual "company culture" was when I started working for 2K, the developers were all using this word, "frob”. As in, “the player walks up to an NPC and frobs him,” and that starts a conversation or triggers an action in the RPG. It's basically just when you approach a character and it says something like "Hit X to talk," and you hit X -- that's "frobbing." 2K picked it up from their Australian studio, apparently.)

RW:  How did you end up getting selected to work on Prototype 2 project? It just seems like such a small circle.

DJ:  How that happened was, after I worked on Fallen Earth for 2.5 years, I left the company and went back to freelancing. My manager (it helps a lot to get a manager or an agent) got me some interviews with the dev studios doing a Transformers game, which I eventually was hired to do. That led to being hired as lead writer for the "Spider-Man 4" game, but when the movie got cancelled by Sony, the game did as well. The studio doing SM4, however, was Radical, and when they decided to do Prototype 2 instead, they invited me back to write it.

RW:  More about it though, the scientific explanations in the skits were well thought out, even the military VO's.

DJ:  Thanks!

RW:  Did they brief you scene by scene in terms of what they wanted to see, or did you work the whole thing like you would a screenplay?

DJ: (Contains Spoilers) For the cutscenes, what they had was a big flow-chart, and each "story node" had descriptions like, "Heller finds Father Guerra dead." Then I talked it all over with them in big story meetings up in Vancouver, and when we were all satisfied, I went off and wrote the meat onto the bones, so to speak. In the end it did all come together like a screenplay, at least as far as the cutscenes went. There were separate documents for the Black Boxes, and the Consumed Memories, and then huge spreadsheets for the military A.I. dialoge and pedestrian A.I. dialogue. That's stuff like, "Got visual on Tango Primary! Engaging!" I wrote about 80% of the military lines, and Danny Manley wrote all the pedestrian lines.

I'm not sure who was involved in re-writing some of my cutscenes, but they should've gotten writing credit too.

Tips on self-promoting your work

The thing about self promotion is that you have to be savvy and make things work for you even when you are not around to speak in support of it.  I do several things to promote my work, some of it uses technology, some is social media, some require me being physically present and others are just plain old business marketing.  Because I have a day job that takes up most of my conscious hours ,  I have to financially and strategically plot on what I will do for the next month or year.  I can only travel 3 or so times a year, so I have to choose which things will maximize my experience.  Below are some things you can try to consider when promoting your projects.

• Tell your story as much as you can.  Usually people are doing, as Bruce Lee says, "concentrating on the finger" but try to find that balance between being humble and hungry. You want as many people talking about you, so that you don't have to, and if people believe in you, they will support you.  I learned this in a very short time.  Use whatever platform you have to tell your story, but speak to the souls of the people first.  Speak to them and not their pockets.   You want to motivate them to feel like they should follow your work.   If they like your product they will buy it, but the key is to make them feel like they matter buy investing in them and giving them gems of truth to walk away with. 

• Tap into your contacts.   I did work as an movie extra in my area.  Doing that, I met a lot of cool contacts, and found out about a site called www.withoutabox.com.  Basically it's a listserv where you can locate all of registered film festivals in the country and submit to the ones of your interests.  Even if you don't submit, it's good way to update your calendar, and map out which ones you should go to.

• Register to attend the comic conventions as a booth holder.  Give people a chance to see your work and talk to you about your journey.  I was working a booth at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (www.c2e2.com) and met a guy who has a list of all the major comic conventions in the US and Canada.  His job is to work the circuits each year.  He hits up about 10 conventions in a month, there are over 300 conventions a year.  What a fantastic way to get expose, if you were to go to just every six months.  ReedPop is an organization which basically plans many of the major Comic Conventions.  Go here to see their list of upcoming conventions: http://www.reedpop.com/en/home/

• Go to the Film Festivals, use Withoutabox to find out which ones are the big ones to attend.  When selecting try consider the reputation of the festival.  Although many of the major cities (LA, New York, Vegas,)... have very popular festivals, that is slowly not becoming the case. Places like Seattle, Arizona, Texas, Portland, Atlanta, are all hot places to promote your work too.  Just go with the intent of enjoying yourself, but have business cards handy.  When given the chance, just talk a bit about your work.  Try to do it in 20 seconds or less.

• Go to the Pitch Festival,  You may not be a screenwriter, but this is an excellent way to partner and gather intel on what's happening in your industry.  Who knows, they may not be looking to buy your script, but to hire you as a staff writer.  Again there are major ones that you'll want to consider.  Hollywood Pitch festival(http://www.fadeinonline.com/events/hollywood_pitchfest/) , Inktip Pitch Summit(http://www.inktippitchsummit.com/), and The Great American Pitchfest (http://pitchfest.com/).  There are others, but these are the main ones.  I found out that they are doing a World of Warcraft movie, so knowing that before it gets out is a good way to get you bid in.

• Speak with computer science students and get up on the latest online sites and software that they use or go to for information.   I found out about a site called www.vworker.com, which allows you to post a project you need done, and independent techies will bid on who can do the projects with you for an affordable price.  It's good because they will send you portfolios for you to see and decide if they want to hire you.  They even have a ranking system, so you can see who's handling some major projects.  Many are freelance and will do anything from redesigning your website, to graphic illustrations, to motion comics in Adobe After Effects or Flash, whatever you need really, and it won't break you like many of the bigger companies.  I found my design team on there, and we created a motion comic together. I wrote, and they illustrated.

• Have other visual components of your work.  You have the comics, but maybe working into having sculpture work done on some of your characters.  I got two contacts that will do it for a decent price.  Sean Buford of (www.SkbOriginals.com), and Sheridan Doose (http://doose-ex.blogspot.com/).  This will be good if you decide to hold a booth at the conventions too.

• Get your material on multiple platforms for people to see. Deviant Art (www.Deviantart.com) is a place with illustrators go to promote their work.  Have your information there for people to follow you.   The Nerdist (http://www.nerdist.com/)is a place where people go to keep updated with latest stuff. 

• Get on the list serve of many of the sites.  This is so they can help you keep events on your radar.  I'm on a site called Inktip (www.inktip.com)  and they send me weekly lists of Production companies script seekers

• Get your own business as a sole proprietorship.  This helps me look more legitimate when I approach groups , and plus I can run my transactions through my business and not my personal info (excellent tax incentive too).

• Also if you are a legitimate business you can hire college interns to do a lot of work for you, as a form of professional development.  

• Get tech'ed up.  Get a Blogger account along with the social networking stuff.  Blog about everything you can.  Emails that you've had with people, things your thinking about, what you areup to next.  The reason is because Blogger is a part of Google, meaning that you. 

• Get and Internet Movie Database (IMDB) account.   You might want to get your name added to that list, that way you can update your account with all the other things you've done.

Anyhow, I hope any of you find this helpful,

Romeal W.

The full article from C2E2