Posted on March 2, 2012 in General Screenwriting, Story | No Comments
The Script Lab takes a look at Five Iconic Movies (Edward Scissorhands, Cool Hand Luke, The Big Lebowski, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and 500 Days of Summer) and how they cover the five essential elements in the first 10 pages for an attention grabbing script.
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Posted on February 27, 2012 in Screenplay Format, Storyboarding | 1 Comment
The new Celtx ecosystem is designed to let you create and write anywhere. This short walkthrough gives a high-level overview of some of the benefits for creators upon creating a free account at celtx.com.
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Posted on February 24, 2012 in General Screenwriting | No Comments
“Show it, don’t say it” is a good mantra to follow. But sometimes, for economic or timing sake, you have to get the audience up to speed and the only way to do that is to just have a character say it. That’s called exposition and it can be bad filmmaking if its overused. Here are five techniques to deliver exposition while making it not look like exposition.
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Posted on February 17, 2012 in General Screenwriting | No Comments
Found footage films give the viewer the impression that they are watching 1st hand footage of an event happening. This style has been implemented in films like “Blair Witch Project”, “Cloverfield”, and “Paranormal Activity”. But even this style of gonzo storytelling has it’s own emerging set of rules:
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Posted on February 15, 2012 in Story | No Comments
Ideas are the seeds of great project. But sometimes you find yourself unable to pluck them from the create-o-sphere. Adam Campbell uncovers weird places where those little nuggets may lie dormant.
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Posted on January 25, 2012 in General Screenwriting | 2 Comments
In this tongue-in-cheek guide, “Pappy Crappy” outlines some easy steps to ensure that no one ever reads your script.
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Posted on January 19, 2012 in Story, Structure | No Comments
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.
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Posted on January 12, 2012 in General Screenwriting | No Comments
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.
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Posted on January 11, 2012 in Filmmaking 360, General Screenwriting | No Comments
Charlie Kaufman, the writer behind “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation”, gives his first ever lecture on screenwriting for the BAFTA Guru Series
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Posted on January 3, 2012 in General Screenwriting | No Comments
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”.
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Posted on December 20, 2011 in General Screenwriting, Story | No Comments
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?”
Posted on November 25, 2011 in General Screenwriting | No Comments
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.”
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Posted on November 16, 2011 in Selling Your Script | 2 Comments
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.”
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Posted on November 9, 2011 in General Screenwriting, Story | No Comments
The author of “Writing the Romantic Comedy” Billy Mernit reflects on writing Romantic Comedy and how brevity still is the soul of wit.
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Posted on November 1, 2011 in General Screenwriting | No Comments
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.
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