Story. Screenplay. Sale.
When How To Train Your Dragon was released, some people learned to their horror that the film was written following Blake Snyder’s beat sheet. How could such a successful – and critically acclaimed – film be written by the numbers?? Creatives hate screenwriting ‘rules’. So they should. But it is also helpful to understand what rules … Read more
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
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
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
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