FilmmakerIQ.com » Screenwriting

10 Tips for Writing an Unsellable Screenplay

John P. Hess — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:04:08 +0000

In this tongue-in-cheek guide, “Pappy Crappy” outlines some easy steps to ensure that your precious vision will find a comfy home at the bottom of a recycle bin.

Certainly, plenty of bad Hollywood movies are produced from bad scripts. But they are produced, which, by definition, makes them less bad than bad scripts which are not produced.

So to be really bad, your script must be unproduceable. Also, unsellable. Plus – ideally – unreadable.

If you really want to spend months or years of sweat and tears working on your grand cinematic opus, only to have it rejected by every film studio in every town, you must follow these 10 simple rules…

— Easy Movie Making.com | Read the Full Article

Writing the “Mirror Moment”

John P. Hess — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:16:52 +0000

James Strzelinski explores what he calls the “Mirror Moment” – the turning point of a character arc which has the lead metaphorically (or literally) looking in the mirror and reevaluating everything.

Via FeatureFilm1000

The Bull of Writer’s Block

John P. Hess — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:16:25 +0000

Patrick Kirkland pens this take down about writer’s block, the false sense of inability that is only inside your head. Finish reading the article, and go write already.

Some writers don’t believe in it, and I’ve heard many interviews where writers will scoff at even the thought they would get infected with such a thing. In my personal opinion, I’m not sure how you can’t believe in it. I want to say that Writer’s Block is a bunch of crap, but I’m not sure I can. There are more mornings than I care to think of that leave me wide-eyed in front of my computer screen, praying for a thought. Any thought, just to make the pain go away. If I had darts and any aim, I’d throw them at my reflection in the mirror. If I had a hoop over my trashcan and more courage, I’d dunk my tired old screenplays into the can. And if I was lazy with little to no self-respect, I’d turn on the TV and admit defeat. But alas, getting up from my desk would be betrayal. So I stay, staring at the screen, pen in my hand… “Onward,” I say to myself. And so it rages on…

Give me a break.

— The Script Lab| Read The Full Article

Charlie Kaufman: Screenwriter’s Lecture

John P. Hess — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:05:00 +0000

Charlie Kaufman, the writer behind “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation”, gives his first ever lecture on screenwriting for the BAFTA Guru Series

Click on the Screenshot below for the link

Steven Zaillian – Screenwriter behind “Girl with the Dragon Tatoo”

John P. Hess — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:00:41 +0000

Hollywood Steven Zaillian is no stranger to the A-List Director. Having penned scripts for Steven Spielberg (‘Schindler’s List’), Martin Scorsese (‘Gangs of New York’) and Brian De Palma (‘Mission: Impossible’), Steven Zaillian talks about what it’s like writing for David Fincher on “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and how Screenwriting is a “Lonely Business”.

After you’d read ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, did you begin a period of outside research or interviews?

‘No, there was none of that. It was just a matter of getting a sense of “do I think that I know what to do with this?”. I didn’t go and see the Swedish version of the movie so I couldn’t use that as a template. I spent months agonising over how to do it and making notes and making outlines and making lists, going for walks and hating everybody and everything. It’s a lonely business. The guys at the coffee shop down the street all know me. They see me coming.’

— Timeout.com | Read The Full Article

Introducing Characters in a Screenplay

Dennis — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:12:11 +0000

Robert McKee answers this question from writer Steve Ericsson: “Introducing many characters within a story, even if you have just one or two main characters, is quite a challenge when writing a screenplay. How would you go about introducing several important characters during the first act/first half of the story in an effective and compelling way?”

Writing New York

Dennis — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:57:37 +0000

During the 49th New York Film Festival, the Writers Guild of America East presented a free two-part forum in the Film Center Amphitheater called “Writing New York.”

Part one, “Gotham, The Quintessential Urban Landscape”
Panelists included David Koepp (Premium Rush, Ghost Town, Panic Room, Spider-Man, Carlito’s Way); Brian Koppelman (The Girlfriend Experience, Solitary Man, Rounders); David Levien (The Girlfriend Experience, Rounders); Stephen Schiff (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps).

Part two, “Supporting Character, NYC”
Panelists included Shari Springer Berman (The Extra Man, The Nanny Diaries); John Hamburg (Along Came Polly, Zoolander); Mark Heyman (Black Swan); Kevin Wade (Maid in Manhattan, Working Girl). Moderated by Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly).

Pay the F*cking Writer

Dennis — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:15:44 +0000

I was going to include this memorable Harlan Ellison rant in our article about No Pay Craigslist Jobs, but I thought it needed its own post. It is from the feature documentary on Ellison, “Dreams With Sharp Teeth.”

Harlan Ellison’s published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. He was editor and anthologist for two ground-breaking science fiction anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions. Ellison has won numerous awards – more awards for imaginative literature than any other living author – including multiple Hugos, Nebulas and Edgars.

Writing the Rom-Com: Less is More

John P. Hess — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:20:11 +0000

The author of “Writing the Romantic Comedy”, Billy Mernit reflects on writing Romantic Comedy and how brevity still is the soul of wit.

That’s all I’m going to say.

Short.

Sweet.

An ongoing issue with the romantic comedy spec scripts I read is that they talk too much.

By “they” I mean the characters (i.e. the writers), which is surprising. Given that we’re living in the reign of Twitter, seeing as how we all have less time to take in information, why is that screenwriters still seem to think that romantic comedy = two people sitting or standing around talking, for page after page?

— Living the Rom-Com | Read The Full Article

The Power and Glory of Storytelling

Dennis — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:15:50 +0000

In this final episode of Stephen Fry’s BBC documentary about language, Planet Word, he celebrates the power and glory of storytelling. It has been with us as long as language itself and as a species, we love to tell our stories. This desire to both entertain and explain has resulted in the flowering of language to describe every aspect of the human condition.