ArticlesAlex Epstein answered an interesting question i thought about a lot since i started my first script:
Should I try and write something that can be made on a low budget or should I aim high and write in everything I can imagine and would love to see in the show?
Obviously this question afflicts a great percentage of beginning screenwriters and in my opinion it is very important to answer this question individually, so i think that you should consider the following intentions before you can answer it.
Please keep in mind that this article aims for non-professional screenwriter, meaning they didn´t write a script that was shot yet. The simple reason is that most professional writers know for whom they write, which intentions they have with their script and have a rough idea of the chances on the market, meaning they play in another league, but now back to topic.
You write for yourself and don´t intend your script to be shot
If you just write for writings sake you really don´t need to waste any thought on production budget, since your primary aim is not to go into production you can write anything.
You want your script to be shot by a production
In this case Alex Epsteins post gives a good idea where your script could be settled. To sum his article up you have got two different options, either you write a really cheap (in terms of production cost) and ingenious script so that the production just could not resist to shoot it, or you write a really big and splashy script and the production considers it as worth to be shot.
Both of the options have their advantages and disadvantages, you could be successful with both and you could fail with both, in this case it very much depends on your idea and the country you want your screenplay to be produced in (not every genre is popular in every country). Just take the approach that fits the idea and your personality best.
You want to shoot the script by yourself
In many cases beginning screenwriters intend to shoot the movie by themselves (especially for short movies this is the very case). In my opinion it doesn´t make much sense to write a huge piece if you don´t have the money to afford it. Keep in mind that «professional» and «no-budget» are not terms that can be connected in any way (professional productions start from low-budget).
I once read a script for a short movie and the author wanted to shoot it with some friends and with no budget, well ok, there are lots of scripts of that kind out there, so i imagined a cheap story (again meaning cheap in terms of budget). I was kind of stunned when hundrets of soldiers suddenly stormed an atomic power plant and somehow for incomprehensible reasons i started to doubt the realizability of this screenplay.
So if you want to realize your script by yourself keep the budget in mind when you write it, probably you have to leave a great scene out, but without the proper budget you couldn´t make the movie, so better abandon the scene and replace it with another one than not making the movie.
What i did
When i wrote my first screenplay some years ago i always tried to keep an eye on the production budget, and in the end the screenplay could have been shot with a relative low budget. It wasn´t shot yet because of different reasons, on one hand i focused on short movies (which was a great decision since i learned a lot from it), on the other hand it was my first screenplay and therefore i made mistakes that every beginners makes, but nevertheless i plan a complete rewrite of the script and probably shoot it once.
Right now i´m working on another project (i havent posted about yet), but more on that topic another time…
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