I'm a life long horror fan specifically a slasher fan and of course like many of you I watched all the classics from the late 70's all the way through the early 90's. and started to understand that all slasher movies are basically the same with minor changes to the characters, stories and settings and this is the case in all slasher movies and really any genre. Hollywood would rather make a remake or a reboot then gamble on a fresh, new concept that may bomb.
It took me several months to write the script for Halloween III because I was working full time. After I wrote it I knew I could write a screen play so I started toying with ideas I watched John Carpenter's Halloween (for the 500th time) and Scream back to back one night and I started thinking about what I loved about those two masterpieces (my opinion) I started thinking about characters, locations and what scares me about those movies.
What would come out of this brain storming session would become my first original horror script which after sending it to trusted friends a few of whom were involved in the industry they said it was a great story, well written and would make a great genre film the downside was that it would cost a minimum of $100,000 dollars to make PLUS advertising costs. Needless to say that script is sitting in my office on the shelf collecting dust.
So I was sitting in my office feeling bad about my amazing script that would probably never get made and I had this idea to take story elements from that script and start a new script. I wrote Sins of Man in about a week. I knew I wanted to do a sequel about 5 days into the writing of the script so I started writing notes for the sequel and during the outline process of Sins of Man II I decided I wanted to make it a trilogy so after I completed the script for Sins of Man and started writing Sins of Man II I started writing the outline for Sins of Man III and in less then 30 days I had written the Sins of Man trilogy.
I don't know about other indie film makers but when I'm writing a script I almost always start thinking about making a sequel and/or a franchise, is that just something I do? When I started writing the outlines for the Top Secret Web Series I knew I wanted to start working on Season two just in case the series it a hit, I don't want to be without anything to go on for Season two if that makes any sense at all.
I was finishing the last line of my latest short film script and all of the sudden I realized that I was out of ideas. I have several scripts ready to shoot, a folder full of ideas, characters, plots and stories but nothing that I'm going to pursue until I get the first season of the Top Secret Project written.
Writing is both easy and hard at the same time. I will take an idea from say Scream and play with it alittle to make it my own idea. I will work the idea from the end to the beginning of the script, I almost always plan out the final scene before I write the opening. The hard part for me for the most part is the middle of the script and making almost everything come together but leaving room for a sequel.
Note : I have heard about 1,000 times that Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis is a "Scream rip off" and while I did get the costume from California Costume Collections Inc. there is no "Ghost" face on the front of the mask there is nothing but a black robe and a hood. I changed the story greatly from Scream and while I see some similar story line and character points, I don't think it's the same movie.
I changed the story greatly during the dozen rewrites prior to shooting and had a bunch of changes during the production, because of those changes I had to do a complete rewrite of the script for Sins of Man II : Vengeance which as a result meant I had to do a complete rewrite of Sins of Man III : Tribulation.
The story changed greatly from the original and I was mad at first but I think when the trilogy is complete I feel that it will all work out in the end.
As far as new ideas I will finish writing the scripts for The Top Secret Project while The Vengeful One is in production and then after we get that out on DVD I will worry about writing something new. We have our next several projects already written and planned out.
In closing I would like to say that Staying Focused is something that when done right makes everything alot easier. I try to stay focused on a couple projects at a time but with The Vengeful One starting production soon I will shift my focus to that until it's sent to the editor.
STAY HUMBLE, STAY HUNGRY MY FRIENDS :)