Billy Wilder’s classic film Sunset Boulevard is a perfect example of the Story Maps method of screenwriting.
One of the main dramatic elements in the Story Map is the Central Dramatic Question — this forms the spine of the story that keeps the audience waiting for the answer to the meta-mystery of the narrative.
Sunset Boulevard opens with one of the most striking images in film history.
Which screenwriting software do you use to format your screenplay? There’s more options than ever out there. This article in Variety (squint!) talks about the two majors, Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter, as well as the young upstarts like Scripped.com and ScriptWrite, which exist on “the cloud” (the hot phrase right now). Read more
Continued from Page One: Screenwriting Resolutions: Craft Goals
If you aspire to get paid for your writing, you will need to balance your craft development with marketing efforts. We writers are often most comfortable alone in front of our laptops, so it’s tough to put ourselves and our work out there. But you have to do it. There’s no way around it. Read more
It’s that time of year again and we’re all making our New Year’s Resolutions.
Or are you avoiding them, like me? (In my defense, I’m just now finishing up a writing assignment and I wanted to maintain my focus on that, so suck on that, haters.)
Ahem. So…let’s give each other a kick in the pants, shall we? Here’s some advice, take it or leave it… Read more
I’ve been following this film for years, ever since I covered the source book on the job for Miramax Films and they optioned it. I’ve been in touch with Writer/Producer Leslie Dixon as the project went from turnaround into production, as you can read here , so it’s safe to say I’ve been waiting for years to see this footage. Read more
It was a bygone era known as the late 90s. I stepped out of the elevator on the 7th floor of the Tribeca Film Center into the lobby of Miramax Films and saw the above poster, beautifully framed, for an upcoming movie named Shakespeare in Love. Read more
Beware paper cuts. And fun!
Anyone else use the old-fashioned, classic index cards to compile your scene list?
Sure, your screenwriting software has a super-cool 3D index card “mode” and you can drag-and-drop those shiny digital cards all you want and the edges will never fray and the ink will never smudge because there’s no edges and no ink.
But it’s just not the same. Read more
Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just offering a link to a public website.
I’m not advocating the downloading, uploading or sharing of screenplay files!
As most of you know, the major studios run campaigns to promote their films for Oscar consideration, i.e., they want the members of the Academy to vote for their movie so it will get that coveted nomination or win that pays off in more bucks and higher prestige. Read more
I don’t know what wingnut set up a Mediafire library with all of the Black List scripts on it, considering Fox’s $15 million lawsuit against the other Mediafire script library, but somebody did, and can you guess what happened? Read more
(continued from Page One)
Note: The numbers above the script titles represent the number of votes, thus the higher the number, the higher the placement on the list. Source: Deadline Hollywood Read more
It’s that time again. The infamous Hollywood “Black List” of unproduced screenplays has been released. The official site is here.
I just wrote about The Beaver script, which was the winner of the 2008 Black List and will soon be released as a movie directed by Jodie Foster and starring Mel Gibson. Several other titles from previous Black Lists have been produced, such as Juno and The Social Network. Those films weren’t produced because of the Black List, but for some of the writers and projects that make the list, it can boost their visibility in the industry.
The Beaver screenplay by Kyle Killen was the top-rated script on the annual Black List of Hollywood screenplays in 2008. The Black List compiles the best screenplays of the year in the major studio market, as voted on by a select group of industry professionals. Click on the image below for the 2008 list (note: the #’s represent votes, not ranking. The Beaver received the most votes, 67, thus it is the top-ranked script.) Read more
This is an interesting story (and comments board) from Deadline Hollywood’s Nellie Andreeva:
Writer turnover on series between seasons is commonplace but wholesale overhauls are unusual. What’s more, I hear Darabont is looking to forgo having a writing staff for the second season of Walking Dead altogether and assign scripts to freelancers.
The Man is cracking down and blood is running all over the Internets, people. This past week has been nuts in regards to digital entertainment, net neutrality, piracy and screenplay sharing.
It all began for me when I received an email from Netflix on 11/22/10 that they were raising their rates. My One DVD at a time plus streaming “unlimited” plan was going up from $8.99 to $9.99. More significantly, they were also offering a new plan for $7.99 that offers only the Instant Viewing option that streams movies and TV shows directly to your computer or television.
“The fact is that Netflix members are already watching more TV episodes and movies streamed instantly over the Internet than on DVDs, and we expect that trend to continue.” Source: Netflix Blog
So the DVD is dying. Is that it?
Not even close. Read more
We watched The Wizard of Oz over the weekend in one of its many post-Thanksgiving television airings and I couldn’t help but think “One classic holiday movie down, several more to go!”
My list of favs includes A Christmas Story, Die Hard, Christmas Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and the granddaddy of them all…It’s a Wonderful Life, the classic film directed by Frank Capra with a screenplay by six credited writers.
This reminded me of an old article of mine that was published in Script magazine way back in November 2002, so I decided to update it with some new analysis and Story Maps links… Read more
As I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I I became upset by two increasingly clear aspects…
This is an absurd, yet hilarious spoof of the Amazon Studios Intro Video (original below)…(NSFW due to language)
And here’s the original… Read more
Rocky, written by Sylvester Stallone and directed by John Avildsen, is a classic American film and screenplay. It has become the template for so many sports films and what have come to be known as “underdog” stories.
I’m excited to offer a partial Story Map for the 2008 drama, The Wrestler, written by Robert Siegel and directed by Darren Aronofsky. The full story map for The Wrestler is available in my book Story Maps: How to Write a GREAT Screenplay. (Please note that the maps in the book are text-only; they do not contain images like some of the sample maps on my site.)
The Wrestler‘s running time is 105 minutes, which is closer to my suggested length of 110 pages that my Story Map paradigm is built on. Actually, anything in the 100-110 pages zone is gold, in my opinion, and this comes from working as a professional Story Analyst and experiencing the horror of being handed a 144 page script, for which I would be paid the same paltry amount as a 99 pager. Yikes. Read more
It’s been about one week since Amazon announced its Amazon Studios site, pledging $2.7 million in grants and prizes to new screenwriters and filmmakers.
There’s already 1,078 projects posted.
I’m kind of surprised there’s not more. But I bet that will double in the next month, and then go up exponentially before that first January 31, 2011 deadline.
Reactions from bloggers have been flooding in, including a number of industry insiders. Read more
