Hey geniuses and geniusettes, I'm a young, quasi-serious film-maker who have just finished a short film due for several film festivals this year. In the absence of having a project on the hold I feel completely listless and hollow. I've been trying to find inspiration but, as you probably know, it doesn't really respond to any active search. Therefore I'm looking for short stories to adapt, and I think there's a huge potential here. Also there's of course and ulterior motive to this, "non-established" writers isn't represented by some greedy publisher who wants to drain all the life out of small projects, which enables me to actually finish a project with my ultra small budget (I have to say that the exception is Harper Collins, who were extremely generous in giving me Bukowski-material to film).
So, I can't pay you, it's non-profit and completely self financed. If we by some unattainably small stroke of luck should make some money, you will of course be paid your share. The main factor is basically to be psyched about having your story filmed by someone you trust, and getting credit on the several film festivals the project will end up on (I use Withoutabox which allows me to plug the film to over 2000 festivals all over the world.)
I've got a bunch of old 16mm film in my fridge, which looks damn good, it's gritty, saturated and extremely fickle, so a story which mirrors this concept would be awsome. To give you an idea how old 16mm film looks, here's a film (not mine, and badly encoded for the internet) http://www.vimeo.com/1209195
I'm basically open for any story, as long as it's not hackneyed or cowardice.
One thing that could interfere with the transition from novella to film is of course the discrepancies in what makes a short story good, and what makes a short film good. Writing is obviously contingent on words, film is contingent on visuals. My concept of film is an extreme approach, I don't like to merge writing with film too much, for me, a film is visual, and should remain so unless something else is called for in the dramatic structure.
I have about 152 minutes of 16mm film so with a 10:1 shooting ratio that should land us a 15 minutes film.
So to sum it up; if you have a story with minimal dialogue, visual language, that you think would be a good candidate for film adaptation, please, please send me your contribution. There's, as I said no official money involved, if we should win some price, that of course takes care of your end aswell. It's purely based on trust, if you don't like my attitude, you leave, if I don't like were the project is going, I leave. No contracts, just artistic freedom and enthusiasm.
Wow, that's a pretty long post for something that should be simple.
For me, the most important thing is that you feel safe in me translating your work into cinema. So here's a few excerpts of my hobby-made films:
http://www.vimeo.com/user419230/videos
Cheers!