Question: Know any director or producer blogs?
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Open forum question from Scaramanga:
A little off-topic but do you have links to blogs of any well-known,
somewhat known, and up-and-coming directors (or w...
Supernatural lampoons your show
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For the past couple of seasons, Supernatural - the only show that makes the
CW worth not obliterating - has been super serious. When they started, the
sho...
What Guild members are getting up to
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JESSE ARMSTRONG co-wrote the episode of The Thick of It going out on BBC2 at
10:15pm on Saturday 7th November.
DAVID BARRY'S children's book The Ice Cream ...
Rewriting Sucks, Man…
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And don’t I know it. I’m currently writing this blog to keep from working on
my kids pirate novel. Loser! I finished the first (genius!) draft six weeks
ag...
New Issue Of Script
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The new issue of Script Magazine is out now! Sherlock Holmes on the cover.
My article is reporting from the Ameriacn Film Market on Worldwide Cool -
making...
Flog a blog?
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Photo: Gaping Void
Blogs and networking sites have taken a strange hue of late. It's
interesting to see certain online tangents and cliques that are being...
Boo
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Returning from the screening last Saturday afternoon (by way of the hardware
store and a food hall-lunch), we noticed some mini-ghouls out and about in
the...
Character
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Sometimes a blog is just useful to put down on paper, as it were, random
thoughts going round in ones own head. And unfortunately for those kind
enough to ...
Writers Workshop of Horror
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Writers Workshop of Horror is a collection of articles and interviews on the
craft of writing horror with some of the biggest names in the horror and
dar...
Heritage media: Can they really be that ignorant?
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Those in charge of heritage media again revealed today how little they understand the internet and that they are unwilling to adapt. At least, that's how it ...
Horror has, among all of the genres in film and written works, one of the longest, most distinguished, and often misunderstood bloodlines in history. It is often overlooked by critics who don't see anything more than blood and guts on the screen, or a collection of cheap scares. But what is missed is the hard-hitting commentary on society and life contained in those works.
About the Author:
Devin Watson has been a fan of horror from the ripe old age of eight. He studies thousands of horror films before diving in to write and produce his own works.
Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Effective Dialogue. Learn how to create dialogue that sizzles, with tips on creating dialogue for specific genres, bringing characters to life with revealing dialogue, identifying and fixing common dialogue problems.
Software: Contains a database of thousands of samples of the best dialogue from movies, TV, novels and plays, and they are all available at the click of a button. Just type in the subject matter of your scene and click "Find." Most of these samples have a detailed analysis to instruct you how the dialogue was constructed, the technique used, and why it works.
Uncovers the essential contributions dialogue makes to a film's development and impact using narrative and drama theory to analyze the functions that dialogue typically serves in a film.
DVD Workshop teaches text and subtext, conveying emotion of the character and the situation they're in, research, rewriting dialogue, character profiling and specificity of vision.
Truby's Television Drama Seminar - One-hour TV Drama is the other major form on TV besides sitcoms, and is a very lucrative and creative one for writers. Year in, year out, some of the best dramatic writing is found on television.
The Budget Book for Film and Television - Based on the top budgeting software packages, Movie Magic and EP Budgeting, this book takes the reader through each line item in the budgeting software and describes the background for that item, how it fits into the overall production, and any issues or pitfalls that may arise from it.
Created by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Game Writing Special Interest Group, Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing, focuses on various aspects of working as a professional game writer.
Includes:
How to break into game writing
Writing manuals
Narrative design
Writing in a team
Working as a freelancer
Working with new intellectual property
Exercises and writing samples
About the Author:
Wendy Despain is a multimedia writer who has worked primarily for television shows, although she is now mostly writing for video games. She is a key member of the IGDA Game Writing Special Interest Group and a contributing editor to the book Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames.
The other contributors to the book are Sande Chen, Richard Dansky, Beth A. Dillon, John Feil, Alice Henderson, Erin Hoffman, Chris Klug, Jay Posey, Rhianna Pratchett, Haris Orkin, Evan Skolnick, Maurice Suckling, Anne Toole, and Andrew S. Walsh.
A fun, quick, concise approach to creating creating a plot from scratch, or fixing a broken plot. You can create a novel, short story, or screenplay plot from beginning to end, even if you don't know what you want to write about yet.
In Holly Lisle's Create A Plot Clinic, you'll learn:
* How to choose and use your structure * How to create story ideas from twenty fun, easy tools * How to organize your plot before you write * How to adapt it while you write * How to fix problem plotting as you write and even when you're revising it * How to deal with late, great ideas and your stubborn Muse * And much more
Complete course includes descriptions, demonstrations, exercises, illustrations.
About the Author:
Holly Lisle is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, paranormal romance and romantic suspense novels. She is also known for her work in educating writers, including her writing clinic series and the Forward Motion Writers' Community web site.
One of the best research resources online are websites that contain articles and info related to the career or field of work of your characters. Many writers begin their character development with an occupation as the jobs your characters have chosen or fallen into can say a lot about who they are and where they're coming from in life. Studs Terkel's famous books containing oral histories of common Americans have long been popular with actors and writers doing character research covering careers from the fireman to the business executive, the narratives move constantly between mundane details, emotional truths and existential questioning.
Researching a career can be as easy as searching Google for articles and websites or as detailed as seeking out consultants who can give you the kind of personal insight you'll never find anywhere else and can speak to truth and realism in the details of such careers as policework, medical profession, military, etc.
Here are a few random examples of "career websites" we found online:
Barry Pearson has been in the business of writing and producing feature films, television series, and MOW's for over 20 years. He's written over 40 hours of television drama for major networks in North America, and produced three feature films and over 50 hours of television prime time drama.Visit his website at CreateYourScreenplay.com
"16 Ways You Can Create a Better Hero and a Better Screenplay" By Barry Pearson
Shakespeare created many of the most memorable heroes in the English language. We acknowledge him as an artistic genius. But the Bard was also the most financially successful writer of his time. Even in modern times, tidy fortunes are made from retreading his work.
One of the keys to his extraordinary success is to be found in this trenchant and insightful quote from Dr. Samuel Johnson, who published a definitive edition of the plays in 1765:
The stage but echoes back the public voice. The drama’s laws, the drama’s patrons give, For we that live to please must please to live.
That one is worth pinning on your wall. It's as true for you as it was 400 years ago when Shakespeare was penning his audience-pleasing masterpieces.
Writing stories that will satisfy the desires of your audience can lead directly to your success.
Moviegoers, like the Globe theatergoers in 1600, have definite and strong desires about what they want in a hero.
And they vote with their feet and their wallets.
You will write better heroes and better screenplays if you use the audience's desires as your writing "laws."
What are those desires? And how can you tap into them? I'm going to suggest sixteen types of audience desires, both positive and negative, that may be helpful. I'll try to illustrate with examples what audiences want (or do not want) and what you can do about it:
1. The audience wants the hero to be forced to struggle, change, and become a better, happier, and more successful person.
Professional screenwriters recognize this want and take ingenious steps to exploit it.
Have you ever noticed that heroes at the beginning of a movie are stuck in a rut? They're usually in a state of paralysis (literal or figurative). They're often imprisoned in some way. In Gladiator, for example, Maximus (Russell Crowe) starts trapped in a miasma of political intrigue, and progresses to a literal state of imprisonment and despair.
By portraying this admirable hero so far from "happy and successful," the writers intensified the audience's desire to see him struggle toward justice and freedom. Try to imagine how your Hero, at the beginning of your movie, could be in a state of paralysis, unable to act.
Perhaps she might be like Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) in The Net. Angela, in retreat from a hurtful love affair shrinks from human contact. She has woven a protective cocoon around herself and forged the bars of her own prison.
Then again, your Hero might be "imprisoned" like William Broyles Jr.'s hero Chuck Nolan (Tom Hanks) in Cast Away. Chuck is so obsessed by the deadline culture of his job that he has become a barely human automaton.
The audience wants the Hero to exhibit a sense of humor.
This is a simple but important desire to satisfy. You don't need a gag writer. Audiences respond positively to self-deprecating or ironic humor. When Angela Bennett is accused of not being a risk-taker, she counters that she does take risks: she doesn't always floss, and she tears the labels off her mattresses. Try to make your Hero exhibit a sense of humor as soon as possible.
The audience wants the Hero to have bigger-than-life dreams and desires.
Maximus dreams of winning his freedom as a gladiator, and of bringing down the regime of the murderous usurper, Commodus, and freeing Rome.
What dreams and desires (perhaps secret) can your Hero develop to satisfy this audience desire?
Moviegoers want the Hero to believe in (and act according to) the basic set of values that they believe in.
In Titanic Jack Dawson (Leonard DiCaprio) believes that a poor sincere artist should be true to his inner calling. He believes in the value of life.
He believes that true love should triumph over class barriers and financial considerations. He believes in heroism to save a human life. These are all values that North American moviegoers believe in.
Dirty Harry believes that a cop should not follow regulations if it's a case of protecting the honest citizenry from the scum that infest the streets. What are your Hero's values?
Are those values shared by the majority of the audience? Take your best shot.
The audience wants the Hero to struggle to overcome increasingly more difficult obstacles.
In Analyze This, written by Kenneth Lonergan (and others), Dr. Sobel (Billy Crystal) tries to get out of treating a depressed mob boss (Robert De Niro). At first, there are meetings in offices, and chases around a hotel, but the obstacles escalate, until Sobel finds himself pinned down by a hail of lead in a waterfront shoot-out. Is your Hero's struggle escalating to the utmost level consistent with the premise? The audience wants the Hero to take on an opponent who is more powerful and successful than the hero.
Erin Brockovich takes on the chemical company, Jeffrey Wigand takes on the tobacco cartel (The Insider), Angela Bennett takes on the wealthy megalomaniac computer baron, Chuck Noland takes on the ocean, and Luke Skywalker takes on the galactic forces of evil.
Some movies--romantic comedies mostly--don't have an antagonist or opponent in the typical sense. The opponent is the person whose love the hero needs to win. As Good As It Gets, When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, Bridges of Madison County --in movies like these, the gulf between the hero and the loved one seems to be more powerful than the hero.
What about the opponent for your Hero? Is he or she as daunting as you can imagine? Moviegoers want the hero to play for high stakes, some outcome, or ideal, or benefit that they believe is supremely important.
What's at stake in your Hero's struggle? Will your audience believe in its importance? Is it life or death? Is it the integrity of the community? Is it winning the only woman (or man) for the hero, as in a love story?
Moviegoers want the hero to be forced to undertake frightening and difficult tasks which they would not willingly undertake themselves.
This is the "Don't go down in the basement!" syndrome. Nobody in their right mind would go down in the basement after a serial killer the way Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) does in Silence of the Lambs. But it's exactly what the audience wants her to do--because she's the hero.
The audience wants to believe that the hero can win. They don’t want to be sure that the hero will win.
John Book (Harrison Ford), the hero of Witness faces three lethal armed killers who invade the Lapp farm. Book, although a trained police officer, has no weapons. The audience is on tenterhooks through the whole final sequence. They believe he can overcome the villains, but they have no idea how he will do it.
The audience wants the hero to face his or her worst fears.
In the final sequence of The Terminator, James Cameron's breakthrough movie, the hero, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) faces the robotic relentless killing machine all alone. Her worst nightmare has become a reality. What is your Hero's deepest fear? Use it.
The audience wants the Hero to escape death (literal or figurative) by means of strength of character, persistence, cleverness and courage, not raw strength. The quintessential example of a writer manipulating this audience desire occurs in William Goldman's Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. The heroes find themselves trapped at the edge of a cliff, with the posse closing in. Instead of surrendering, they jump off the cliff into the river below.
How many of these types of moments can you set up for your hero?
The audience wants the Hero to win the prize at the end of the movie.
At the end of Working Girl, Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) wins her dream job and finds herself in the corner office. What's the prize for your Hero? The audience does not want the Hero to be lucky, unless the luck is caused by the hero’s cunning or provident preparation.
In the final battle in Star Wars, it could be argued that Luke Skywalker "gets lucky" when he destroys the death star.
In fact audiences readily accepted his good luck, because they had shared his hours of preparation with Obi Wan Kenobi.
The audience does not want the Hero to be able to quit, to abandon the task he or she has undertaken.
You need to create good reasons why your Hero cannot quit. In Robert Towne's superb detective story Chinatown, Jake (Jack Nicholson) cannot quit because he has a score to settle with the villain, and because he's fallen in love with Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), whose husband was murdered.
The audience does not want to have its expectations fulfilled.
It wants to be surprised.
So don't let your Hero do what the audience expects her to do. Write against the expectations of the audience, or have the expectation fulfilled but in a totally unexpected way.
The audience doesn’t want the Hero to be motivated by base selfish desires. Audiences dislike base selfish desires like greed. They like admirable selfish desires like striving for achievement (to become a great opera star, or head of the company, or discoverer of Insulin).
They dislike base selfish desires like pure revenge. They like admirable selfish desires like wanting to redress an injustice one has suffered.
They love admirable unselfish desires like wanting to redress an injustice others have suffered, so as to make the world a better place to live.
Caution: This does not mean that you never create heroes with base selfish motives. You can often create great tension and catharsis in an audience through heroes with base selfish motives. Three good examples from different eras: Macbeth, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Goodfellas and My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Try to imagine all the ways in which you can satisfy the audience's desires and avoid (or manipulate) the audience's dislikes at every moment of your movie.
Try to put in as many audience-satisfying moments as possible. Put them in on top of each other if you can.
As you write, plan how you can satisfy your audience in some way on every page. Of course all those other elements--plot, theme, dialog, cast of characters, and structure--are important, but the most important task for you is to give the audience what they came to the theater for--satisfaction.
Great dialogue does not come from having a good ear for dialogue. It does not come from having some innate gift or talent for writing dialogue. It comes from this: knowing your characters so well that you know what they will say and how they will say it when faced with specific people, situations or events.
From theatre scripts to film scripts to novels and short stories, dialogue plays an important role in developing both story and character. Just as some people have an easy time creating characters or structuring plot, others have a natural "ear" for dialogue. On the other hand, just as character creation and plot design are tough for some writers, some writers will probably always have to extend that bit of extra effort to write dialogue that "sounds right." That isn't to say that a person can't get a better handle on writing dialogue. There are definitely some things any writer can do to write dialogue fairly well.
Writer Patricia Highsmith talks about the development of her favorite character, Tom Ripley (The Talented Mr Ripley). Interview by Melvyn Bragg in 1982, interwoven with a dramatization of "Ripley Under Ground".
Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 - February 4, 1995) was best known for her psychological thrillers, which have led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Strangers on a Train has been adapted for the screen three times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. In addition to her acclaimed series about murderer Tom Ripley, she wrote many short stories, often macabre, satirical or tinged with black humor.
In 1942, Highsmith graduated from Barnard College, where she studied English composition, playwriting and the short story. Living in New York City and Mexico between 1942 and 1948, she wrote for comic book publishers, turning out two stories a day for $55-a-week paychecks. With Nedor/Standard/Pines (1942-43), she wrote Sgt. Bill King stories and contributed to Black Terror. For Real Fact, Real Heroes and True Comics, she wrote comic book profiles of Einstein, Galileo, Barney Ross, Edward Rickenbacker, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Isaac Newton, David Livingstone and others. In 1943-45 she wrote for Fawcett Publications, scripting for such Fawcett Comics characters as the Golden Arrow, Spy Smasher, Captain Midnight, Crisco and Jasper. She wrote for Western Comics in 1945-47. When she later wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), one of the title character's first scam victims is comic book artist Frederick Reddington, a parting gesture directed at the earlier career she had abandoned: "Tom had a hunch about Reddington. He was a comic-book artist. He probably didn't know whether he was coming or going."
The protagonists in many of Highsmith's novels are either morally compromised by circumstance or actively flouting the law. Many of her antiheroes, often emotionally unstable young men, commit murder in fits of passion, or simply to extricate themselves from a bad situation. They are just as likely to escape justice as to receive it. The works of Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky played a significant part in her own novels.
Her recurring character Tom Ripley — an amoral, sexually ambiguous con artist and erstwhile murderer — was featured in a total of five novels, popularly known as the Ripliad, written between 1955 and 1991. He was introduced in The Talented Mr. Ripley. After a January 9, 1956 TV adaptation on Studio One, it was filmed by René Clément as Plein Soleil (1960, aka Purple Noon and Blazing Sun) with Alain Delon, whom Highsmith praised as the ideal Ripley. The novel was adapted under its original title as the 1999 film directed by Anthony Minghella, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Cate Blanchett.
A later Ripley novel, Ripley's Game, was filmed by Wim Wenders as The American Friend (1977). Under its original title, it was filmed again in 2002, directed by Liliana Cavani with John Malkovich in the title role. Ripley Under Ground (2005), starring Barry Pepper as Ripley, was shown at the 2005 AFI Film Festival but has not had a general release.
In addition to her many novels, Highsmith also wrote a writing guide called Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. Amid discussions about growing ideas, story development, plotting, first and second drafts, and revisions are anecdotes from Highsmith's own career, she admits to editing with crayons (doing so "gives one the proper cavalier attitude"), napping on the job (it helps solve problems), and having written one "really dull" book.
Using the Google advanced search function you can select the most recent listings with any search term. Use the exact term such as "screenplays wanted" or "screenwriters wanted" etc. Select the dates you want to search within such as one month, one week, etc. You can see an example of the results you'll get here
The Screenwriter's Legal Guide is chock-full of example documents that you may encounter in your screenwriting career. In "Protecting Your Money" there is a sample escrow agreement. In "Commissioned Screenplays" you get a certificate of authorship agreement. In "Agreements: Other Provisions to Watch Out For" are typical representations and warranties provision as well as article 28 of the WGA. Whenever the author discusses a type of agreement, sample of that agreement is provided.
This authoritative guide will help both fledgling and established writers to negotiate the best deal, protect their work, and get fair compensation for it. One of the most powerful entertainment lawyers in Hollywood provides easy-to-understand, expert advice on all the legal issues involved in the business of screenwriting. He gives an enlightening explanation of the screenwriter's position in the industry and then provides a thorough discussion of contracts, options, and working with agents and lawyers. This book shows screenwriters what to give up as a lost cause and what to hold out for.
Few writers underestimate the importance of character development in screenwriting. Compelling characters is the hook that brings in big name talent more than anything else. Actors rarely imagine how cool they'll look surrounded by massive high budget CGI effects. They look at the role first above anything else. Character is the key component that drives plot because action is motivated by the inner drives of the characters. If you're moving your characters around for the sake of a plot point and not creating plot from what your characters are trying to achieve, you'll end up with single dimensional chess play not a real full dimensional story that people will care enough about to watch all the way through.
Effective characterisation is not only a matter of creating characters, but also of writing characters so that each functions successfully within the particular script. Developing Characters for Script Writing deals with the creation and writing of characters for the script media of stage, radio and screen. Presenting numerous examples and giving plenty of practical advice, chapters deal with the roots of a character, the complex character, the relationship between character and plot, and audience identification with character.
About the Author:
With over forty scripts performed on stage, radio and screen, Rib Davis has a great deal of experience in script writing. An award-winning playwright, he worked as script reader for both the BBC and the Arts Council. He has tutored on many creative writing courses and is the author of the popular Writing Dialogue for Scripts.
Scribomatic is the search engine for screenwriters, bringing you results from the wealth of information stored away on over 300 screenwriting blogs and web sites.
With this site you can easily find:
* hints and tips from the pro's, * help on how to improve your screenplays and pitching techniques, * online movie scripts to study, * in depth screenplay analysis.
With the Scribomatic Widget - you can have the latest feeds from the Scribosphere nestled in your very own web page or blog!
* Customisable - change the width, height and colour... * Handy Scribomatic search box - produces more accurate results than searching Google directly, * View the latest posts from over 200 screenwriting blogs, * No sign up - the chances are your screenwriting blog is already listed,
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