Re[2]: A Radical Idea posted by Martin

2. When ALL the bios are done, we THEN discuss the pros and cons of each story. But: we are no longer pitting them head-to-head anymore, but simply looking at each one individually and deciding if they are worthy of being turned into a screenplay.

I was thinking more that we still take the heats step by step, so present two stories, do a bio, talk about them, and then vote and move on to the next round. Only, when we would normally (“Normally.” As if we did this all the time—yeah, on the last screenplay blog we did it this way….) go on to the next heat, this time we vote.

6. So, an idea that got Shelved can be resurrected by the Yes Voter, and put into the Ranked Winners category if the No Voter acquiesces. I understand that, but I’m not sure if I know where exactly this step occurs. (After the Ranked Winners are determined? Before?)

I say any time. If, for instance, I voted no on Rasputin (fat chance), and you voted yes, then at anytime in the future you could expand on your vision of Rasputin and I could reevaluate whether I would vote differently. If I would, Rasputin is in the running. My first inclination was to put it in the bottom of the list, but if you came up with a stellar idea, we might want to bump it—so we would have a revote over the items in the list and see where it shook out.

I had the idea of voting to “Vault” certain ideas — meaning, removing them from the Spitball! Tourney of Story Ideas, but keeping them for ourselves for later development.

I like that idea, but I’m still not sold on it. That is to say, I think some of these ideas could be very commercial, but I also think if we went through the same process that we did to come up with these ideas based around a topic different than Prison Planet we could come up with another batch of ideas that we liked as much, if not more. And, to boot, they would be more contemporary to wherever we are when we do it. It will come as no surprise to our readers that Shockah and I have scripts we’re working on outside of Spitball! that won’t get talked about much here because they are decidedly not in the public domain. But, since we started this with the idea of putting these out there, I vote that we release all ideas on this blog, and all work on this blog and keep that the rule. So, no hoarding commercial ideas, I say. Anybody can use them. My feeling is that we’ll get back more from releasing them than we would if we hoarded them, but then, my parents used to sing me the magic penny song, so apply salt where needed.

That may also influence voting, then—if we knew we couldn’t keep some ideas, then we may want to push an idea higher because we feel it has commercial potential, and in one sense commercial potential = well written and considered script.

Of course, the outlines aren’t what matters, the writing is. That’s where the rubber meets the road, and we’re going to really succeed or fail.

How do you feel about that Shock-a-dock-a-dockah?

Comments (0) — Category: the screenplay