I've been doing some reading in this forum and such - reading scripts and ideas and most, well I won't say most, half of the scripts people write are either in the crime genre or the high school genre. I even fell victim to this cliche. My first script was a, I hate to say it because I am such a different person than I was three years ago (when I started writing) and I've discovered my voice and now i want to be the most original I can be, but my first script was a Tarantino-esque crime movie. So I got to thinking, what is so damn appealing about the crime genre and high school genre - I guess I'm trying to crack the meaning of cliche. Like why do studentfilms feel the need to have a cigarette in a movie. ect. If you get this respond.

hehe.

a lot of us start off like that, bro. My first movies all involved guns and violence. it all has to do with just growing and learning. No one is expected to make their first film the greatest most original thing ever, you gotta gain experience, learning from others. PLus, when people get inspired by a film they like, they usually transfer that inspirational energy into their own film, and when your a young kid who has never shot anything before, you may very well just copy sh** from the movie you just saw. but as you grow and learn more you realize just what possibilities you have, and then thats when you can really take off and do creative/original things that come from YOU.

i personally don't understand the facination with crime/highschool genres, there's very few rfom those genres that I've seen (made by students) that i like, most of them suck.

i think that kids just make those kind of movies cause thats really whats popular in actual big movies. most teenagers/begining filmmakers arn't concious of good movies, they have only been exposed to the kind thats been allowed to be exposed to them (Thanks hollywood) and those usually involve highschool situations or violence/action/crime. thats whats popular to kids these days, so thats what a lot of kids are gonna make.

Say no mo! Say no mo!

That's why I only have three short films to my credit. I could go out and make a short film right now. It'd be crap, and probably be just like La Dolce Vita or Eternal Sunshine, so I don't. I try to write a story that's original.

Plus like teens haven't experienced anything out of high school, I know I'm in it and wrote a Tarantino-esque screen play, it was actually really good, and I wrote a mafioso-type crime script, the second was better because it was more emotional. But I haven't experienced real life outside of high school so... in the immortal words of ______ ______ "write about what you know" so the only thing I know is crime but after being saturated in that genre via movies, and the teens who write high school genre scripts do it because that's all they know.

i grew up around a lot people making films. my brother used to work really hard at it in highschool but wound up doing graphic arts instead. when i pursued it it taught me not go into those cliche storylines because hes already been through it. i find the films i make involve seeing more to life than whats there, and finding the joy in simple things. i had so many ideas for high school crime dramas, but he would crap all over the scripts, and they were never made. i owe alot to him. he put alot of years on me, early in my carrier