Authors are always telling me, "I have a book that would make a great movie." They aren't the only ones. People come up to me all the time and say, "I have a great story (or idea) for a movie." The million dollar question behind the question is "How do I get into the movie business?"

Movies-TV-the entertainment business-is fascinating, glamorous and oh did I forget? Nearly impossible to breakthrough. I have friends who have tried for years. Even big-name producers can have movies stuck in development for more than a decade.  Consider this-only 1.1% of all screenwriters ever get a movie made.

When I first became a screenwriter through luck, associations, and primarily through the grace of God, other screenwriters would ask me, "Did you ever get anything made?" When I told Skip Press, a screenwriter and screenplay guru, that I had my first screenplay made into a movie without ever taking a single class and not knowing of the existence of screenplay writing programs like Final Draft-he was flabbergasted. He said what happened to me was like going up to bat for the first time in the major leagues and hitting a home run.

I've been a movie/television fan ever since childhood. I'm so old I remember my family's first black and white TV with rabbit ears. When it was turned on this weird circular image appeared and sometimes the screen would fritz out with what my dad called snow. He would then have to fiddle with the TV or sometimes smack it on the side until the picture came back. No matter, I loved it. I couldn't afford to go to a lot of movies so I was glued to the set watching old movies with stars like Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner. I also loved to read and dreamed of becoming a famous author. I never thought of the movie business because that seemed out of reach.

All those years of watching films educated me. Without realizing it, I began to understand story, dialogue, action, the all-important beginning and the end. As I wrote endless Harlequin-type romances as an adolescent and through my teens I visualized each story as if it were a movie. Of course I was too embarrassed to show it to anyone. I lacked self-confidence and didn't think my writing was good enough. I should have at least tried but I didn't. While on my honeymoon years later, our house burned down along with everything I wrote since I was six years old. This was in the time of the dinosaurs-computers didn't exist. I lost at least half a dozen novels I had started along with three completed novels, poems, short stories, and the like.

I didn't write for years after that. However, during the course of the next few decades I began collecting stories. The passion for writing never left me-life just got in the way.

What am I trying to tell you? Everything in life is fodder to a writer. Every film you watch is a learning experience to a screenwriter. If you want to be a screenwriter-watch movies and pay attention to life.

One of my friends, a very successful second unit director, first became interested in the business because he worked in a movie theatre. Night after night he ran the reels. You can imagine how boring it must have been to see the same movie over and over for weeks. Instead, he studied every movie and developed a passion for film that eventually created a wonderful career for him. Watching the same movies repeatedly became his university class.

Please don't think I'm telling you not to go to film school, take classes, or read some really excellent books on the subject matter. What I'm trying to stress is you need more than that.

 There are things your professor or screenwriting teacher can't teach you unless they've been involved in a movie.  After the fact I took three classes. I learned a lot about technique. But the teachers sometimes missed the reality of the process of making a film.

Everyone agrees the story is king. Any director or producer will tell you that. It's great if your screenplay is technically flawless but if the story isn't there you won't get it made. In fact, conventional wisdom says most production company readers never get past the first ten pages if they don't like it. Try three. So what is the lesson behind this? Grab them in the very beginning or lose them forever.

Of course you have to get past the treatment (synopsis) stage. Keep reminding yourself-Story is King. Everyone is looking for the next big thing-something that has never been done before. But the reality is everything has been done. Think outside the box. It's true common themes run throughout every movie. Your job is to tell it in a way it's never been told before. If you can shock and awe in the first few pages of your screenplay you will get attention.

Teachers and the trade talk about creating high concept screenplays because they are very salable. What is a high concept screenplay? Something that appeals to a large target audience and is easy to understand.  The point is-you can have a great screenplay but if you don't have a big enough audience and the plot line is too convoluted it probably won't get made.

Many small and even larger production companies are doing "sizzle reels" as a way to sell their product to studios, networks, bigger production companies and investors. Sizzle reels are similar to trailers. They are 5-15 minute productions that tell the viewer what the movie is about or shows some of the more compelling scenes in the proposed project. Until now, if you didn't have great cameras, sound equipment, and you lacked the contacts to show your great idea, you were basically out of the game. Kudo TV, a new Internet to television network puts you in the game.

Kudo TV was developed by Michelle Washam, CEO of English Mountain Press, Linda Evans Shepherd, a best-selling author, and myself, with the help of cutting edge software that enables us to take "home movies" and stream it to TV in HD quality, TV formatted video that will be seen by production companies, studios, and networks throughout the world-not just in the United States. We will have opt-in voting forums which will enable the professionals to see if your "great idea" is marketable. It is an amazing concept which will make the two essential components of my remarkable story achievable to every person-luck and associations. Kudo TV takes care of providing the platform (luck) for viewership by people who matter (associations). It is up to you to provide a story fascinating enough to garner interest. The grace of God part is left totally up to you to work.

The story of the grace of God that helped me to hit one out of the ballpark on my first try is in my new book, "The Answer to Miracles." You can pick up my novel, "September Dawn," and the DVD by the same name. Keep in mind I wrote the book after the movie. I had done so much research I didn't want to just throw it out.

So you wanna be a screenwriter? Now you know how to start.  

   Carole Whang Schutter was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She graduated from the University of Hawaii with a degree in Psychology. She is an executive with several Internet companies, writes screenplays, inspirational books, and novels in the mountains of Colorado-a long way from the sugar plantations that her grandparents slaved in.

Visit her website www.theanswertomiracles.com

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Please use the "comment" link to leave Carole a comment or question.

        

Welcome to the ALL NEW WebTV4Women website and CHANNELS Blog!  We're super excited about the upcoming events and launches on the calendar for WebTV4Women and our sister site, WebTV4You.  We've come a long way since our launch in 2008 and we're still going!  We've redesigned our website and we've added new broadcasters and programming.

Additionally, we'll be launching the KudoTV web to television platofrm in mid-March and some of our videos will be available to a television audiance using our state-of-the-art software.  WebTV4Women is a front-runner in Internet Television technology and we're looking forward to sharing our new programming with you!

We'll be updating the CHANNELS blog regularly with news, events, guest wriiters, and more! Be sure to subscribe to the CHANNELS blog and we'll notify you when we've added something new.

This past weekend, at the 2010 Women in Christian Media Conference in Nashville, TN, WebTV4Women shared the Stepping Into Internet Television presentation via video. Here is the video we shared with the ladies:





Stay tuned for guest blogger Carole Whang Schutter  - Carole will share advice for those of you who have a great idea for a movie!

        

A Blog post that is! 

Gosh, launching an eTV community is a LOT of work! But OH so rewarding!  I can hardly believe we're FINALLY launched! 

Waaaaaay back in September of last year, I had this crazy idea that we would launch WebTV4Women in October. The Lord had other plans.  Our official launch was in February of this year at the Women in Christian Media conference. It was there that all of our channel hosts came together for the very first time and what a meeting it was!

I was blessed to be able to travel from east Tennessee, where I live, with Dr. Gail Hayes who lives in NC.  She was also my roomate at the conference. She met me in town and we headed west to Nashville.  About 50 miles west of my town, we hit Knoxville rush hour traffic which set us behind schedule. We ended up arriving late but the reception we received when we did finally arrive was nothing short of AMAZING!

I walked into the restaurant and ALL MY GIRLS WERE THERE!! There was hugging and more hugging and lots of "OH MY GOSH I CAN'T BELIEVE YOUR REALLY HERE!!" and sweet reuniuons with friends from past, it was just INCREDIBLE!

Building a web community with a dozen personalities can be challenging at times. Especially when all of the work is being done via telephone and email. There have been moments when I have questioned why I decided to do this project; but it only took meeting the incredible women who came together at the start of this vision to realize that every single moment of hard work and even the moments of frustration were worth it.

The first person I got to hug was Mama T (Thelma Wells) - She warned me that she couldn't wait to wrap her arms around me and she gave me a hug like none I've ever received. Then my very special friend Jennifer Kennedy Dean came over and that bond we've shared via phone for the last year+ was evident. Next was my sweet sister Sarah Goebel, we've been working on numerous projects over the past 2-years and Sarah was the first person I talked too about WTV4W. She was the first to accept the invitation to join us.

It didn't stop there! Linda Goldfarb gave me a HUGE bear hug, then came Linda Evans Shepherd, Karol Ladd was next and I can't remember who came after that! There were so many hugs I lost track. I turned around to set my bags down (I Hadn't even done that yet!) and who do you think walked up? JOANNA FAILLACE!! 

I met Joanna at last years NRB convention and we hit it off immediately. We lost touch over the year; but I kept Joanna's card on my computer the ENTIRE year and all of a sudden there she was! It was as if we had kept in constant contact and we just picked up where we left off. Before the end of the weekend, Joanna would accept our invitation to lead the Food & Cooking Channel and in an instant, she became part of the WTV4W Channel Host family.

Although I didn't get to participate in the NRB portion of the conference, Bobbye and TL did and they met some wonderful people during the weekend.  They represented us well.

Next year, we're hoping to raise enough funds to bring our team to NRB as well as WCM. That it is my wish for us.  In the mean time, we're welcoming some GREAT new broadcasters to the WTV4W line up.  Joyce Olgesby and Michelle Spadafora, Maxine Marsoline and Suellen Roberts, Founder of Women in Christian Media will be joining us soon!

I promise to get back here more often. Here is an picture of our ladies after the WCM Banquet.