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by Diana Saenger
Some of today's best and brightest actors willingly
take salary cuts in order to appear in a Woody Allen film.
He has been labeled a 'major force in cinema' and
his Academy Award certainly backs that up. Allen takes
notes on every aspect of daily life and many of the ideas eventually
become templates for a screenplay--which are written
in longhand on a legal pad. Woody Allen's shooting style,
casting, writing techniques, and even his financial deals are
unique slices of a movie pie that he has formed into his own
mold and used successfully time and time again.
by Sam A. Scribner
This Windows-based program is designed to help creative thinkers
by providing them with an elaborate index card system. The
simplicity and user friendliness of the program is perfect
for writers who want to lay out their thoughts without having
to carry a bunch of 3x5 index cards around.
by Andy Kindler
Wracking your brain and banging your head against the wall,
struggling to come up with something that represents your best
effort to entertain yourself and America will only give you
a headache and it still doesn't matter. Someone at a
network will still reject you.
by Steven B. Young
The two scariest words at the Writers Guild of America, besides
'film by' may be 'reality programming.' Supposedly,
those two words will put writers out of the business. But before
you can examine the true effects of reality programming on
the writer, it's necessary to take a look at what the
word reality means as it refers to television.
by Theresa Welty
Which city is best suited for a writer? Both New York and Los
Angeles have good and bad points, but ultimately the choice
between them comes down to your style, personality, and motivation.
by Dina Appleton, Esq. and Daniel M. Yankelvits,Esq.
Employment agreements for feature writers can be among the
simplest to negotiate. Here the authors give you advice on
how to craft an agreement that is best for your career.
by Ray Morton
In part three of our continuing series, we will provide all
of you eager screenwriters with sure-fire tips on how not to
irritate those wonderful people who first encounter your script
and give you hints on ways to keep a reader feeling positive
about you and your work.
by Rita Cook
Richard Showstack has made a list of 25 steps in becoming a
screenwriter. The list later proved prophetic and now Showstack's
career is on the upswing having optioned his first script--Peggy.
by William C. Martell
You've read about the importance of your first 10 pages,
but your last 10 pages are equally important. They are the
last pages a reader will actually read, and that will form
the greatest impression upon him or her. So they had better
be good.
by Samantha Plotkin
Compelling characters are the glue that hold a screenplay or
teleplay together. Getting to know your characters will result
in an audience falling in love with them.
by Debra L. Eckerling
Rock Star tracks the journey of a die-hard music-lover's
perfect fantasy--from wannabe to a real rock star--but
at what price?
by Wesley Strick
Boldly going where most parents fear to tread--trying
to read and understand the minds of teenage girls--Wesley
Strick has fashioned a resourceful, intuitive protagonist,
Ruby Baker, in his film The Glass House.
by James Vejvoda
The Western is back! Hollywood proclaims this every few years
until one Western fails, and then development executives and
filmmakers almost immediately return to saying that the Western
is dead. This summer, however, the genre has once again been
resurrected.
by Rafael Yglesias
For the writer attempting to adapt Alan Moore's graphic
novel From Hell to the screen, its virtues are also
its flaws. Moore's imaginative use of the unsolved case of
Jack the Ripper is a sweeping blend of fiction and fact, of
multiple theories dramatized side-by-side without bothering
to reconcile their contradictions.
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