{"id":340,"date":"2011-10-17T14:01:14","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T14:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/?p=340"},"modified":"2024-12-09T17:55:46","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T17:55:46","slug":"high-concept-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/high-concept-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"High Concept Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some screenwriters<\/a>, penning an original high concept movie is the holy grail.\u00a0 And that can be a good thing or a bad thing.\u00a0 These days, the majority of Hollywood high concept movies seem to focus on the concept and leave out those little things like character development and basic storytelling.\u00a0 I think the root cause of this boils down to the eternal struggle of many screenwriters which is whether to write for love or write for money.<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re fortunate enough to have a well-paid \u201cday job\u201d and this fulfills us then we probably aren\u2019t worrying about paying the bills and so have the freedom to write movies that we want to see or simply embark on stories that we are interested in exploring, without the terms \u201cmarketable\u201d or \u201cbox office success\u201d influencing us.<\/p>\n

But for the vast majority of writers, we do have to pay the bills and so there inevitably comes a time when somebody, perhaps a friend or agent says to us.. why not write something that is going to sell?<\/em> And they have a point.\u00a0 Sometimes you have to remember that screenwriting is a business as well as an art form and that people, including you, need to make money.\u00a0 The problem is, if we set out to write a script purely to sell it, our heart and soul \u2013 two key prerequisites for any successful writing endeavor \u2013 may not be invested in the project one hundred percent and as such it may ultimately lack passion.<\/p>\n

But you can still be interested in writing a commercial film and develop great characters and an original, engaging story without feeling like you have betrayed your artistic integrity.\u00a0 Perhaps you really want to tell one story that is close to your heart and have shopped the idea around for a while but nobody seems interested.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a bad idea or it won\u2019t sell, but maybe you need to make your mark with another project first and then use the success of this to garner interest in your personal project.\u00a0 It\u2019s also about timing among a multitude of other factors.<\/p>\n

The problem is, some writers never think about writing what they know and don\u2019t want to tell personal stories, they just want to make money and become famous.\u00a0 And most of these writers think that writing a high concept blockbuster is the solution.\u00a0 Well, good luck to you.\u00a0 Go for it!\u00a0 It may work.\u00a0 But I personally think you should strike a balance in your writing between commerciality and originality.\u00a0 And when I say originality I don\u2019t mean an original high concept movie I mean an original voice<\/span>.<\/p>\n

So the next time you think about the concept of your next screenplay, think about where you are in your writing career and what may help you get onto the next rung of the ladder. If a high concept movie<\/a> is the answer then great, write one but approach the genre with respect and don\u2019t just see it as a potential pay check.\u00a0 The idea is to apply all of the tools of the trade to your high concept project so it includes in-depth character development, clever plot choices and original dialogue.<\/p>\n

How\u2019s that for a high concept<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some screenwriters, penning an original high concept movie is the holy grail.\u00a0 And that can be a good thing or a bad thing.\u00a0 These days, the majority of Hollywood high concept movies seem to focus on the concept and leave out those little things like character development and basic storytelling.\u00a0 I think the root […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[159,158,146,160,155,156,149,148,147,95,11,164,163,161,162,157],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dan-bronzites-script-tips","tag-blockbuster","tag-box-office","tag-character-development","tag-commercial-movie","tag-high-concept","tag-high-concept-movie","tag-original-screenplay","tag-original-script","tag-original-story","tag-screenwriters","tag-screenwriting","tag-sell-screenplay","tag-sell-script","tag-selling-a-screenplay","tag-selling-a-script","tag-writing-high-concept"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":668,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}