The Working Writer's Screenplay

Here's a piece of artwork I had done for my proposal for Ghostkeeper 2. I always believed that offering some images in a proposal helps the potential investor actually see something. After all, movies are a visual medium.

The two storyboard frames here are a little overdone, being that the terrific artist added color and a bit of comic book visuals to the storyboard frame. Most storyboards are black & white sketches, far more economical and still illustrating the action.

The top wide-screen frame is a  scene in which two of the principal actors barely escape a gas explosion. The lower frame is the final big action scene with the creature being trapped. And finally the background scene is meant to be a poster of sorts, in which we see the creature in darkness and with snow falling. And red eyes. All horror movies should have red eyes.

And the very use of storyboards is quite eclectic, take for example the following quotes:

"For Duel, the entire movie was storyboarded"
                         - Steven Spielberg


"I sometimes storyboard, not always"
                        - Alfred Hitchcock


"I never make any storyboards"
                        - Bernardo Bertolucci

So there you go. No clear idea as to what one should do. So you end up doing whatever works for you. I had no storyboards on Ghostkeeper 1980 but I will do storyboards on the new movie. But not the whole movie.

I will storyboard the action scenes for the most part because that's the most visual part and it just helps to show the actors and the crew what my little mind is thinking.

But the odd thing is that storyboards are often disregarded when you're  on the set.

Going back to the proposal, most of them don't have visuals, but as I said, I like to put something in that the investor can see, I think it helps. But there's a hundred ways to impress an investor. Maybe a thousand.

So this week I pass out my proposal to several friends as well as two producers who might be able to help me find the nearly $2 million that I need. I'm getting out of town for a few days and going to Yosemite which will be peaceful and quiet mid-week and still early in the season.

And there I'll work out what comes next in terms of Ghostkeeper but also considering a screenplay to write for another Christmas season. And of course some mountain biking as well to "cleanse" the system. Always works for me.

One more thing; the artist who did this work talked about how a lot of movies start out as graphic novels and that it's becoming a common practice to do a graphic novel as a way of getting someone to fund a movie.

And we just might do that if the time frame works out.

Visuals. That's what movies are about.


(Thurs: Yosemite)