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 […]
A thunderclap rocked the online screenwriter community yesterday when word came out that Amazon Studios hath been born: Amazon.com’s new “crowd-sourcing” filmmakers community site with a mandate to fund theatrical feature films by emerging, as-yet-undiscovered talent. It looks like it’s basically TriggerStreet.com but with a ton of money behind it and more of a mandate […]
Rain Man is one of those films that has suffered from its success. It’s easy to dismiss at it as a kitschy piece of 80s melodrama, yet another Tom Cruise vehicle in which he plays a man-child with father issues. Dustin Hoffman’s autistic savant Raymond has been copied and mocked so many times that it […]
Are there only seven basic stories or is it more like 36 dramatic situations? Or does it all boil down to Man vs. Nature, Man vs. God and Man vs. Himself? I’ll answer those questions with a question. Who cares?
Good actors, never use the script unless it’s amazing writing. All the good actors I’ve worked with, they all say whatever they want to say. -Jessica Alba in Elle Magazine
With two older brothers and no sisters, I wasn’t allowed to be a Disney kid. By the time I came along, fairy tales were “gay” and animated movies were for babies. I still got to watch a few Disney movies and was read some fairy tales, but the books were put away sooner than with […]
We’d all like to forget the bombs but they’re here to remind us of something important — the problems can almost always be found in the script. It’s easy to blame a bomb on the acting ‘talent’ of Ashton Kutcher or the further contributions to the art of cinema of director Paul W.S. Anderson, but […]
Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist, Frankenstein (1994)) and Gale Ann Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens, Armageddon, The Incredible Hulk) have an incredible pedigree in genre movies so it’s no surprise to see that their first television collaboration is on the level of a studio-quality horror film. The aesthetics of The Walking Dead (which premiered […]
I watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on Netflix Instant streaming (which is fantastic for spontaneously watching movies that you missed or never wanted to pay theater prices for) and I was underwhelmed. I have not read the book, so I can’t speak as to the faithfulness of the film adaptation, but I can […]
Four Advanced Screenwriting Techniques used in The Social Network [Warning: Spoilers] 1) Angel and Devil. The use of two supporting characters who push and pull the Protagonist between Good and Evil. In The Social Network, we’ve got Eduardo (Andrew Garfield), Mark Zuckerberg’s (Jesse Eisenberg) best friend from the dorm days and Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), […]
There are actually three climaxes in The Sixth Sense that satisfy the External and Internal goals of Cole (Haley Joel Osment) and Malcolm (Bruce Willis). Learn more about Story Maps and buy the E-Book Story Maps: How to Write a GREAT Screenplay. Related: Download the Full Story Map for “The Dark Knight:” here Where are […]
I thought I knew everything about Raiders of the Lost Ark until I Story Mapped it out. There is essentially a “soft” climax — Indy and Marian are strapped to a pole and rendered inactive. The day is won, but not at the hand of Indiana Jones. Our big action-adventure hero is essentially inactive in […]
<–Go to Part I: Story Mapping Raiders of the Lost Ark One of the greatest tools for learning the craft of screenwriting is writing Story Maps of your favorite films. When I was working as a professional Reader back in the day I wrote coverage on the original spec script of The Sixth Sense the […]
As any normal screenplay consultant would do, I decided to record some thoughts about the power of Story Mapping Raiders of the Lost Ark while driving on the 405 and 101 South to the first annual Inktip Pitch Summit in the Universal Hilton in Los Angeles. Raiders of the Lost Ark is my favorite film […]
Major movie studio screenplay consultant and professional Script Doctor Dan Calvisi decided to drive and shoot at the same time on the topic of unlocking the structural secrets of the action-adventure classic Raiders of the Lost Ark… Hey guys, I got inspired to deliver a message about the power of Story Maps while driving on […]
As we close out the Summer 2010 movie season, here’s the final box-office Top 10… Rank Movie Title Studio Total Gross/Theaters Opening Weekend/Theaters Open Close 1 Toy Story 3 BV $405,726,000 4,028 $110,307,189 4,028 6/18 — 2 Iron Man 2 Par. $312,128,345 4,390 $128,122,480 4,380 5/7 8/19 3 The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Sum. $298,003,000 4,468 […]
I’m honored to have my original screenplay “Donnington” reviewed on the fantastic site “Scriptshadow,” which is run by the indomitable duo of Carson Reeves and Roger Balfour. I’m a big fan of the site and check in daily to see what the guys have written up. It’s the best way to keep up on what’s […]
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Listen to the Inception Podcast: [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/storymapspodcast/Episode_Four_-_Inception_Podcast_1.mp3] Christopher Nolan and his co-screenwriter Jonathan Nolan used the Story Maps method to structure the screenplay of Inception. If you analyze the narrative, you will see every one of the elements of the “Basic” and “Full” Story Map. The most important element in the Inception screenplay is the GOAL […]
Analysis of Interstellar: Discussion of X-Men: Days of Future Past: Cast and Creator of “Justified” on the show’s excellent writing: Danny Devito and cast of Sunny in Philly talk about what they look for in a script: Me on the structural secret behind the famous ending in The Sixth Sense: More Screenwriting Videos.