"fantasy" versus "supernatural ghost story"
Printed From: NYC Midnight : Creative Writing & Screenwriting
Category: GENERAL DISCUSSION
Forum Name: Screenwriting Bar & Lounge
Forum Description: Discuss NYC Midnight Screenwriting Competitions or Screenwriting in general.
URL: https://forums.nycmidnight.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=715
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Topic: "fantasy" versus "supernatural ghost story"
Posted By: moshi
Subject: "fantasy" versus "supernatural ghost story"
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 7:49am
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Is there a difference here? Is one subsumed in the other? |
Replies:
Posted By: ABEAR111
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 7:55am
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When I think "fantasy", I think pixies and faries and minataurs and Alice in Wonderland, yada yada yada.
Supernatural ghost story leans more toward horror in my mind, though it wouldn't necessarily have to be horror. I think a lot of the genres cross over. Which one do you have? ------------- Heat 7: Drama/Obesity http://www.moviepoet.com/files/7_fatted.pdf - http://www.moviepoet.com/files/7_fatted.pdf |
Posted By: aurora68
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 8:06am
Well, a ghost story has to have a ghost! 
Fantasy just has to contain some sort of magical element. It can be intimidating to think about, if you're thinking you have to re-create Middle Earth. It's important to remember that you don't have to do that. Any kind of magical element will do. Sure, fairies and minotaurs will work. But so will wishes that come true (Big, Liar Liar), magical objects (The Indian in the Cupboard), mythical creatures (Splash), and tons of other things. ------------- Check out our script: http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=763&PID=9681#9681 - Au Jus |
moshi wrote:Posted By: moshi
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 8:09am
| Do you think that having a fantastical element, not a ghost, but a soul or spirit....is coming so close to ghost story that it may be disqualified for breaking genre? |
Posted By: aurora68
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 8:20am
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So I'm guessing you have "ghost story" as a genre? I would think a soul or a spirit could qualify. Ultimately you just have to use your best judgment, but since a ghost is typically believed to be the soul of someone who's died, I would guess that would be fine.
Good luck! ------------- Check out our script: http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=763&PID=9681#9681 - Au Jus |
Posted By: moshi
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 8:27am
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No I have fantasy as a genre :).
Normally, I wouldn't have any issue with my piece, but the fact that NYCMidnight chooses to define "Ghost story" as it's own genre worries me. I would assume that Ghost story would be a subgenre of Horror, or Thriller, or Fantasy...but because it's separate, it worries me in terms of automatic disqualification :).
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Posted By: aurora68
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 8:35am
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In that case, I think it's fine. They do have several genres that are really subgenres -- Slasher, Monster Movie and Ghost Story are all subgenres of Horror. Suspense is a Thriller subgenre. Romantic Comedy is a comedy subgenre, and so on.
I think that as long as you have some sort of supernatural and/or fantastic element -- and if you have a spirit, you do -- you should be fine. ------------- Check out our script: http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=763&PID=9681#9681 - Au Jus |
Posted By: GeneD
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 8:57am
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I wouldn't categorize a ghost story as a fantasy, and I can see why they would put it in its own category. In most stories, when people die, they are dead and that's the end of it. Because they have to or there's nothing at stake for anyone. Ghost stories are their own category because they violate the one law-- perhaps the most important law-- that no other story would or should violate. ------------- http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=802 |
Posted By: aurora68
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 9:04am
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I agree, up to a point. I think there are certain stories that are clearly ghost stories -- like The Others, for example. Other stories can have ghosts or spirits (in a non-horror setting) and be considered a fantasy. An example would be Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, which is being filmed by Peter Jackson. The entire story is narrated by a spirit, but in no way would I call it a ghost story. ------------- Check out our script: http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=763&PID=9681#9681 - Au Jus |
Posted By: GeneD
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 9:13am
I suppose, but in The Lovely Bones and in American Beauty (which did the same thing, only one didn't know [Spoiler] Spacey's character was dead until the end) a narrative device was being employed. The audience's relationship with the story is artificial already, and having someone who was a part of the story but is no longer-- for whatever reason-- narrate is a hoary device that turns up all over the place. The narrator isn't really part of the story itself, and thus the story does not hinge upon a ghost, and therefore it is not a ghost story.
If you took the ghost narrator out of The Lovely Bones you'd still have a story. If you took the ghosts out of The Others, you would not. That's the difference. ------------- http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=802 |
Posted By: moshi
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 9:45am
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I wouldn't call The Lovely Bones or American Beauty fantasy stories either. Blurg, I don't think my screenplay fits in the genre of fantasy. It's not a ghost, but it's pretty close to that. |
Posted By: gmercer
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 9:45am
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If I may chime in...a ghost story is actually a subgenre of both horror and mystery and eith or depending upon the story you're telling but if a ghost is experiencing, say the afterlife and all it's magical properties then it could also be considered a fantasy or a documentary depending upon how far right you may lean.
glenn
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Posted By: aurora68
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 9:47am
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Well, I would argue that since the ghost in The Lovely Bones is actually the protagonist, you *wouldn't* have a story.
However, another example that would be a clear fantasy, I think, is that Reese Witherspoon/Mark Ruffalo romantic comedy where she's in a coma and her spirit is haunting his apartment -- sorry, can't remember what it's called. ------------- Check out our script: http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=763&PID=9681#9681 - Au Jus |
Posted By: gmercer
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 9:48am
| I would say you're overthinking it - if you're initial reaction was that your concept was in fact fantasy then always go with the gut feeling, not to mention this contest isn't going to make or break you as a screenwriter, if anything it's a great learning experience and a way of keeping us from working on a feature while we chat our day away on the forum. |
Posted By: GeneD
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 9:49am
I thought the title was "Really Crappy Reese Witherspoon/Mark Ruffalo Romantic Comedy". That's what it looks like when it comes on cable in my house.
The ghost in The Lovely Bones is not the protagonist. The person she was before she was killed is the protagonist. ------------- http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=802 |
Posted By: gmercer
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 9:51am
| Crappy is in the eyes of the beholder - your poop is a psychotics treasure. |
Posted By: Joni B
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 10:02am
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Wow, is THIS an interesting thread....
I think there's room to for crossover into either genre... like I watched THE GHOST & MRS MUIR as fuel to feed the Fantasy fire, among a few others. I think any time you're creating a time/place/world in which things happen that don't/can't happen in "the real world", you're in Fantasy territory. A ghost works. An imaginary character too. An alter ego come to life. etc etc
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Posted By: sck5000
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 10:04am
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I hope the NYC Midnight supreme court justices give you a little latitude on the genre, partly because they understand that there is no rigid definition of many genres, and partly because they know people do not want to be forced to write strictly within the narrow confines of something they may personally hate without at least a little interpretive leeway -- because that's not a fun contest, it's unpaid work.
I suspect they also know that many people in this contest try to use their scripts professionally afterwards in some fashion, so it would be ultimately unfair to assign some people to heats which, if very rigidly defined, would basically mean some people are writing scripts could be very saleable afterwards, while others are writing dead scripts with no viable post-contest marketability whatsoever. For instance, I do not think the NYC Midnight people would assign one heat as "comedy/garden gnomes" and another heat as "sci-fi/underwater" -- without giving the sci-fi/underwater people some flexibility to interpret this in a manner that, in 15 pages, could conceivably still be produced afterwards. Nobody funds $100 million dollar 15 minute films, and so my sense is that they may be flexible in regards to when they can see someone writing within the assigned genre, but also clearly paying attention to other important aspects of film-making/script-marketing like budgeting concerns. Otherwise, in my view anyway, it would simply be unfair of them to make some heats potentially professionally useful post-contest, and others not, because it then allows some entrants to gain more than others from their contest -- a useful/marketable script vs. one that is a cute but impossible-to-sell decoration. Of course, all of that is just my long-winded view. And also is partly a kind of devious, Machiavellian preventative measure that by appealing to the limitless decency and INFINITE WISDOM of the judges, when they receive my "horror/rain" script that contains no horror or rain they will kindly forgive me. Rain is just too darned expensive to produce for me to put it in my script. I haven't written it yet, but I may make someone mention rain in an appropriately horrified way such as, "You wouldn't believe how horrified the producer was, when I told him the script had rain in it. The location manager had a fit. Rain costs $10,000 a day! he yelled at me and had to suddenly take his heart medicines." |
Posted By: gmercer
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 10:10am
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Steve are you sure you're not writing a mockumentary? I mean what's the difference between a horror and a mockumentary anyway?
glenn
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Posted By: moshi
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 10:18am
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Can't they just use a garden sprinkler?:) Hang it from the ceiling, very low budget ;).
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Posted By: moshi
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 10:19am
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More importantly, what's the difference between horror and reality television?
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Posted By: gmercer
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 10:23am
| In horror the protagonist is the one being terrorized in reality television it's the audience. Actually I love reality television. |
Posted By: sck5000
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 10:27am
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The biggest problem with hanging a garden sprinkler from the ceiling to make rain is that on film it looks like someone hung a garden sprinkler from the ceiling, and then your very serious dramatic coup de grace at the end where the dying grandfather holds his dying grandchild up to the rain that is supposed to cure them both -- becomes a comedy.
The grandfather is no longer someone who allowed himself to be seduced by the optimistic allure of this legendary curative healing rain in order to give himself and his grandchild hope, he is instead a man of limited faculties who got bewitched by the unscrupulous wiles of one of those notoriously evil sprinkler salesmen. |
Posted By: gmercer
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 10:30am
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Only if you film the garden sprinkler. You gotta think outside the box.
glenn
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Posted By: moshi
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 10:39am
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I would love to see that movie.
There's nothing I love more than unintentionally hilarious film (Plan 9 from Outer Space anyone?). I also enjoy ridiculous comedy with earnest plotlines (The Lonely Island "sitcoms" are amazing.)
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Posted By: sck5000
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 11:21am
Thinking outside the box is passe. I am part of the exciting new wave who only thinks inside the box. My script is about rain inside a box. You never get to see the rain in its box, because that would be too expensive, but you get to hear it, 'cause that's cheap. Hmm, that might work for everything. Got a tough subject? Put it in a box and... Behold! It becomes a thing of mystery.* * may not work with mystery genre. |
Posted By: gmercer
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 11:42am
| Unless it was a howdunnit. Like how do you get the camera in that small box OR how does atmosphere form in a box so it'll rain OR is the box some form of pornographic inuendo about showers. Steve you've created a conundrum of Paddy Chayevsky-like proportions. |
Posted By: aurora68
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 12:27pm
Well, I didn't say it was a good movie, just that it was a fantasy.
As for The Lovely Bones, I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. At any rate, thank you for a really interesting discussion! ------------- Check out our script: http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=763&PID=9681#9681 - Au Jus |
Posted By: GeneD
Date Posted: 20 Jul 2007 at 12:32pm
 ------------- http://www.nycmidnight.com/forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=802 |