Story. Screenplay. Sale.
The craft of telling a story starts with structure skills.
In Writing Screenplays that Sell, Michael Hauge singles out Chariots Of Fire (1981) as a cinematic outlier. It was an unlikely movie to generate big box office. Why? It is a biographical period piece, lacks high concept, and is set outside the US. Chariots of Fire was hugely successful, though. It ended up making nearly $60 … Read more
Yesterday I told you about where the master learned his craft. Today we’ll learn about scene structure from my favourite Sorkin scene. And you’ll be surprised, as you may have missed it. Sometimes I watch a movie and a week later I have forgotten everything, except for one single scene. Do you have that, too? Invariably, this happens more often … Read more
Easy Rider shows how subtext is not what most teachers and gurus tell you it is. Many mistake subtext with non-verbal communication. It is true that most of our communication is non-verbal, but when you can write this well, it doesn’t mean you master subtext. I believe we need to re-think the oversimplified secrets-and-lies approach to subtext. Robert McKee … Read more
The below is a report of an experiment: the trial run of the legendary Immersion Screenwriting course. The beta version was a little rough and dirty – but free, and effective! A free screenwriting course? Too good to be true. Of course it is. But hear me out. As my boss in London told me, you … Read more
Flavorwire published 20 quotes from filmmakers on writing. So you don’t have to flick through all 20, I put the best ones on a single page for you. (I even added one for free.) Stupid auteur theory (Billy Wilder) “What does the director shoot—the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve … Read more