Writing Drama

“Writing Drama: A Comprehensive Guide for Playwrights and Scriptwriters” by Yves Lavandier. Translated from the French by Bernard Besserglik. Le Clown & l’Enfant, France. 2005 595 pages. ISBN 2-910606-04-X – Price: 38 Euros. THE AUTHOR Yves Lavandier took a degree in Civil Engineering, then studied film at Columbia University, New York, between 1983 and 1985. … Read more

Reviewed: Personality

“Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are” by Daniel Nettle. Oxford University Press, Oxford 298 pages. ISBN-978-0-19-921142-5 Amazon Price: US $10.17 I recently watched “Public Enemies”, Michael Mann’s portrait of John Dillinger, and came away very dissatisfied. John Dillinger was Public Enemy Number One, and Johnny Depp is a great Hollywood character actor. I … Read more

The Sequence Approach

“Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach” by Paul Joseph Gulino. Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. New York, NY 2004. 230 pages. ISBN-13: 0-8264-1568-7 Amazon Price: US $14.25 Paul Gulino is Associate Professor of Screenwriting at Chapman University in California. He is a produced screenwriter and playwright. ORIGINS The sequence method takes us back to 1897, and the … Read more

Understanding Screenwriting

“Understanding Screenwriting: Learning from Good, Not-Quite-So-Good, and Bad Screenplays” by Tom Stempel. Continuum New York, N.Y. 2008. 230pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-2939-1 Amazon Price: US $17.05 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tom Stempel has been teaching screenwriting at Los Angeles City College since 1972. He is a film historian and a writer, with four other books to his credit. … Read more

The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver

The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver: How to Recognise, Identify, and Define Screenwriting Problems” by Syd Field. Bantam Dell. New York, NY 2006. 363 pages. ISBN-13: 978-440-50491-7 Amazon Price: US $11.56 THE AUTHOR Syd Field is one of the most popular screenwriting gurus in the film industry. He tells us that when he started screenwriting, “there were … Read more