Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than you have fingers on your left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

How’s Your Pacing: Rushing Or Dragging?

by

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?

Read more

Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan: Power, Politics & Progress

by

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

by
Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan

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.

by
break rules at your peril!

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

by
foreign language in dialogue - a tower of babel?

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