Story. Screenplay. Sale.
You will often spend a year or more writing and rewriting your scripts. You’ve edited your own work and have given it several polishes. You then submit it either to a writing consultant or if you’re lucky, to a studio reader for notes. by Steve Kaire When you get the notes back, you are devastated. … Read more
Having read thousands of scripts and watched hundreds of films and television dramas I’ve found that classic stories appear over and over again. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. by Hayley McKenzie We’re always hearing that audiences and producers want films and screenplays that are ‘the same but different’. So how do you deliver … Read more
‘It’s also important that writers read a lot of scripts. Because it’s only through reading a lot of scripts that you get a sense of the pacing that a professional script has…’ A rich, full-length interview with acclaimed screenwriting teacher John Truby on the state of Hollywood, the market forces of filmmaking, and the keys … Read more
I am frequently asked how to format text messages and email messages while maintaining the script’s “readability.” There are several methods depending on your dramatic purpose. All of the examples below are correctly formatted. by David Trottier In the first example, Sharon receives a text message from someone that she (Sharon) wants to show to … Read more
Are you plagued with a deluge of ideas, clustered around a series of themes? How do you whittle down a thousand magical ideas into a lean, powerful screenplay without killing the spirit of the idea? Charismatic screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk, J Edgar, Pedro) talks passionately about his methodology for visualizing a screenplay from top … Read more