ON A BUDGET

Everyone's on a budget nowadays, if you're not, then you must be either one of these executives with outrageous bonuses that we heard about last year, or you are completely budget-less because you're broke. In the latter case, you're probably reading this from a computer at your local library. Turn around, see all the people in line, behind you? I'll try to make it snappy so they can get on.

If you've been keeping up with the few blogs that post stats on which spec scripts sold recently, you'll notice that most of them are comedies. We've been informed that spec scripts might be a dying breed, they are risky for production companies, much more risky than securing an Apatow script that is full of "poop" jokes that will damn sure turn a profit, and in the end, is also a comedy, so it's low budget in the production sense.

So it would seem to be in our best interest, as scribes, to focus on comedy if we want to sell our gem, our baby, our first spec script. But, if you look at the entries and wins in screenwriting competitions, the ranks are filled with dramas and thrillers.

It's all quite confusing because placing in a screenwriting competition is one of the best ways to get recognized, but if that script is a sci-fi thriller it's unlikely it will be produced, at least for now, seemingly defeating the purpose.

I'm sticking to somewhat low budget romantic comedy, comedy, and "coming of age" stuff for the time being. If you look at what's been produced in this realm lately it is all very budget conscious: The Ugly Truth, The Goods, All About Steve, The Invention of Lying... it doesn't cost a fortune to produce films set in offices, in cars, on streets... it can be done in a back lot of LA.

What's redundant in my efforts is that writing comedy is probably not going to win me a placement in a well-recognized screenwriting competition. For some reason, it's not as respected, not as "interesting", or "hard to write" as a sci-fi thriller with a mega-budget, one which will never be produced in this day and age.

An alternative might be writing a sci-fi comedy, something like "Spaceballs", but that's been done. Or maybe a thriller laced with funny one-liners, early James Bond was filled with that. I'm not sure, but for the competitions I just might have to change the scene headings from:

INT. HOTEL LOBBY - DAY

to

INT. SPACESHIP LANDING PORT - ?

and then switch out those headers when I send it in as a spec script.

Wish me luck.