Story. Screenplay. Sale.
The craft of telling a story starts with structure skills.
Today, Seth Godin posted four “Simple Questions For Writers”. Godin usually blogs about marketing, business culture, and what he calls ‘art’ (doing your job as your ‘bliss’). He is a prolific writer himself, with many bestselling books. The ‘questions for writers’ in today’s post relates to any kind of writer, in fact he doesn’t even mention the … Read more
About his creative inspiration, Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett once said “Babies don’t come from babies.” He meant that the greatest music doesn’t come from studying other great music. He is no longer influenced by predecessors or contemporaries. Instead, he reads. And he ‘listens’. “My main job is listening. If you’re improvising and you’re not listening, the next second that … Read more
Whiplash is one of the lowest grossing movies ever to be nominated for Best Picture. Totally unfair, if you ask me. It is a brilliant picture. It beats many winners over recent years. But hey, that’s my taste. Perhaps I relate to the film because I once knew my own Fletcher. By today’s standards, my piano teacher’s military … Read more
Many teachers and writers have tried to capture the screenwriting basics. Unhappy with most of them, I boiled them down to a simplicity I have not seen anywhere else. This is mostly analytical. So there’s no guarantee that you will deliver a successful story. Then again, no system does. No matter what the teachers promise you. What this approach to … Read more
I have worked in the film and television industry for thirty-five years now. And I find there is one really easy way to tell whether someone understands their own story or not. Can they write a logline for it? I am not saying that writing a logline gives you the ability to write great scripts, … Read more