What do you assign to Orthanc?

[Nerwen]

So awhile ago, in the Mordor thread, I talked about a film I'd been involved with, in which it became increasingly apparent that the screenwriter/producer, for all she'd won some minor award and had (alleged) contacts in Hollywood, had no idea what she was doing.

Well, she rather suddenly had a crisis of faith and pulled the plug on the whole thing. While this has probably left some people, more closely involved than I was, in the lurch, I'd say it's a good thing.

However, I was just looking at various proposed independent productions, and honestly, it's quite depressing, the number of aspiring filmmakers who don't seem even to know what a story is, or at least how to describe one. I mean, if you're touting for funding, and for people to come on board with the production, and all you can say about your plot is: "X happens. Then Y happens", where X and Y are, seemingly, completely unconnected events... I don't think you're going to get very far.

The upside of this, though, is that if one happens to have some good ideas, there's not much competition.