Pacing is critical. Rush through the story, and viewers struggle to understand what is going on. Slow down too much, and they get bored. How do you manage the pacing and rhythm of a story? Can you fix it in post?
Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan: Power, Politics & Progress
In Variety’s Top 100 telecasts for 2021, Yellowstone features as the only cable show on the list. And while all other major scripted shows – NCIS and The Equalizer – are written by a sizeable writers’ room, Yellowstone springs from the MacBook of just 1 guy: Taylor Sheridan. Given that “Yellowstone” is technically in competition with the enduringly popular … Read more
Why Taylor Sheridan Is The Most Relevant American Screenwriter
After seeing Sicario and sourcing the script in 2015, I instantly fell for the voice of this new writer. But Taylor Sheridan was not new. His script Comancheria hit the Blacklist a few years earlier, and would hit cinemas the next year under the title Hell Or High Water. Today, Taylor Sheridan is the most … Read more
Ready To Break Rules? One Word Will Tell.
Nothing appears more appealing to the beginning writer than to break rules. And nothing is more annoying than hearing “Do this; don’t do that!”
Some will say that rules are essential, because without them there is only anarchy. But are there really any hard rules in screenwriting? And if there are, who sets them?
And what is wrong with anarchy?
FORMATTING TIP: Accent, dialect and foreign language in dialogue
A powerful tool in creating distinctive characters is their language, using accent, dialogue and even foreign language. In the real world, everyone speaks in a way that is slightly different from everyone else. In sociolinguistics, this is called an idiolect. (from Greek idiōma ‘private property, peculiar phraseology’, and idios ‘own, private’) A few years ago I … Read more