Making It Cheaply

Low Budget Movies

The writing partnership with PresiD and ScarletBlue never managed to come together again after Christmas. Which isn’t a problem. The amount of time that they put into their business coupled with their church and family obligations meant that they were usually stressed out. Are usually stressed out. They have a good sense of humor about it. Writing was just one more thing on their plate. Since it was something without an immediate return it was the most obvious thing for them to drop.

Nizzibet and I continue writing. Of course we’re scattered and have half a dozen different projects that we’re working on. My friend, Gianni, was once advised to stick to one project if he ever wanted to get anything done. It’s good advice that I doubt I’ll be following anytime soon. I’d like to. I need a sustained period of solitude on a regular basis to concentrate on one project. Without that I have to grab concentration when I can and apply it to whatever project fits it in the moment.

Sometimes that’s illustration. Sometimes that’s cartooning. Sometimes it’s writing. Nizzibet and I have Saturday’s set aside for Couple Time. We try to use that as writing time as often as possible. We got to know each other originally because we were working on a graphic novel; her as writer, me as artist.

We’ve been doing some weird collaboration this last week. PresiD and ScarletBlue are working with some folks who want to do low budget horror movies and asked us to come up with some film treatments for them. Not hard. I’ve always got ideas. I outlined a couple of plots earlier this week. Nizzibet has spent the afternoons fleshing out one of the plots, deepening characters and working on the rhythm. She does most of that work in longhand on 3×5 cards that will then come back to me for typing and further fleshing out.

If there’s no interest in either idea as a film we can always turn them into novels. I think it’s funny that opportunities for film writing keep wandering our way. I gave up the idea of making movies when I was a kid. I figured out that I could tell the same stories I was imagining as movies as comics instead. I could do if for a fraction of the budget. I wouldn’t have to worry about actors or directors or editors or producers turning it into something I didn’t like.

Have I actually turned any of those movie ideas into comics yet?

Um.

What was I talking about again?