Courses, Books & Consults Won’t Cut It.

In addition to working with writers, producers and agencies everywhere, I teach screenwriting courses at film schools in Australia, Europe and online. The school gigs largely consist of lecturing about screenwriting theory, and consulting on the students’ screenplays. I love teaching, I adore my students, and I’m fortunate enough to see some good results, as … Read more

Bad Hombres, Good Homages And Effective Character Intros

In this video, we look at a few film homages, and what may qualify as a good one.

In FRANCES HA, Noah Baumbach paid homage to director Leos Carax, from his film MAUVAIS SANG.

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FORMATTING TIP: Superimposed Text + Over Black

So we’ve started a YouTube channel! Steven Miao created the opening video sting and Mukul Kandara helped with setting it all up. Thanks, guys! The channel had been in the making for a long time, but I just have been too busy with clients, teaching and workshopping awesome projects. What I was planning on doing … Read more

Final Draft 10 Reviewed

How do you go about writing a screenplay? There are a few of us who sit down at the computer, like some modern day Dalton Trumbo at his trusty Remington, type FADE IN: and keep going until the cigarette packet is empty. If you are one of this talented few, script formatting applications like Celtx, … Read more

Kung Fu Hustle [Sixty Seconds of Suspense]

Watching Kung Fu Hustle (2004) reminded me how many amazing movies are out there that we won’t get to see – unless we seek them out. After the release of Batman vs. Superman (2016), articles and videos appeared about Hollywood’s obsession with *moments* at the expense of *scenes*. Ironically, when I write about movie moments, mostly they … Read more