To kick things off, I’d like to talk a little bit about the world of comic books and graphic novels, and why Hollywood producers like them so much. With its combination of words and visuals in one attractive package, a comic book can be a great sales tool when pitching your project to movie studios [...]
With this week’s starting up of the Festival de Cannes film festival season is said to be in. But with at last count over 4,000 film festivals every year it’s always festival season. Some festivals disappear, never to return, while new ones are popping up all the time. Pick any theme or a film-loving community [...]
The upcoming column in Script Magazine called Script Symbology is about the study and application of symbols and symbolism to scripts. While there are so-called movie symbologists (Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code comes to mind) to our knowledge there exists no ongoing research, discussion or study of the application of symbols and symbolism [...]
When I speak at screenwriting conferences, I often remind people to look to their left and then to their right. The people sitting next to you are the ones you should be networking with, not just the speakers. Now I have proof. Meet Rebecca Norris and Kevin Resnick, filmmakers on their way to Cannes Film Festival [...]
For those who’ve followed my writing on Balls of Steel, you know how I love crawling into my characters’ heads. This week, I want to share with you a FREE download to help you find plot points that fit with your characters’ story arcs! Get your FREE Structure Grid of Character Development and Plot as [...]
I can recall only three times in my life when I’ve felt weak in the knees. One was on my wedding day. I’d made my walk to the front of the church. Then, as I turned and gazed back across all those over-dressed guests stacked in the pews of Boston’s Old South Church, I saw [...]
Are you a sci fi fan? Then you are certain to love this week’s interview with Mark Verheiden, EP of Hemlock Grove on Netflix! Mark is a veteran of sci fi in several forms: TV, features, and comics. Click image to play video; more details are below. Mark Verheiden is an executive producer of the [...]
Today I want to talk about the importance of location, both in screenplays and in life. We behave differently in different places, and so do our characters. Travelling abroad, we speak to people we wouldn’t necessarily speak to, face fears we wouldn’t normally face, and get in touch with aspects of ourselves we wouldn’t normally [...]
When Story Analyst Dan Calvisi published Story Maps: How to Write a GREAT Screenplay a few years ago, he presented screenwriters with a detailed look inside his own personalized method for breaking down a story. His unique approach to constructing a story in the grand tradition of Syd Field, Blake Snyder, and others, allowed any [...]
