A good screenplay is a wonderful thing, but no matter how impressive a script may be, its potential will remain forever unfulfilled unless it is actually made into a movie. There are a lot of factors that influence whether or not a screenplay gets produced, but in today’s film industry, the most crucial of these [...]
If you want to make it as a screenwriter, don’t waste your time and energy dreaming up stunts and gimmicks. Instead, put all of your focus into writing a great script. If you do that, then it may take some time, but it will get it and you where you want to be.
This is the story of Le Dieu du Carnage, the international hit play by acclaimed novelist and playwright Yasmina Reza. Based on a real-life incident, translations of Reza’s satirical comedy won an Olivier Award and a Tony® before director Roman Polanski and Reza wrote a new translation, for the screen. Ray Morton talks to the celebrated writer.
I was recently given a copy of a very interesting new book called Stan Lee’s How to Write Comics by Stan Lee and Bob Greenberger, a step-by-step guide to crafting scripts for comic books, co-authored by the legendary comics writer, editor, and publisher and co-creator of many of the medium’s most classic characters, including Spider-Man, The Hulk, Thor, and The Fantastic Four.
Trying to make sense of all of the dos and don’ts of scriptwriting can be very confusing, especially when so many of them seem to be contradictory. Mastering all of the rules can often seem like an impossible task and can cause many people to become discouraged and even consider giving up. Here’s why you shouldn’t.
Readers aren’t trying to steal your creativity. It’s just that if you make the process of reading your script far too arduous and time-consuming, then all you are doing is giving development people — all of whom are always pressed for time and always have a million other scripts to read — an excellent excuse to give up on your screenplay and move on to the next one in the pile.
If you have some spare time to read anything other than the next draft of your screenplay, Ray Morton recommends these texts on Hollywood history.
I recently finished reading for the Big Break™ screenwriting contest, something that I do every year. Over the course of this months-long assignment, I evaluated approximately 300 scripts, which gave me the opportunity to see what’s going on out there in spec-script land.
The Dino De Laurentiis’ production of King Kong premiered on December 17, 1976 and I was first in line to see it. I was not disappointed. As promised, in John Berkey’s striking illustration for the poster, the film made spectacular use of the World Trade Center as the stage for Kong’s heroic last stand.
