Screenwriting is the heavy lifting for your movie. Without a good script you limit your chances for success from the onset. Your goal is to only work with the best material you can get your hands on. You will want to decide if you will write your screenplay yourself, with a writing partner or if [...]
If you want to know how to sell your screenplay, you’re in luck. When I was working for a filmmaker in New York, one of my jobs was to read screenplays, write coverage and hopefully find a gem. During that time, I learned some valuable lessons that I would like to share with aspiring screenwriters [...]
Because I’ve written a few books about screenwriting I sometimes get questions from people just starting out on their careers. One query that has started coming up more often recently is whether it’s better to chase the Hollywood dream or get involved with indie films, including ones made for the web…
People always point out that a relationship with an agent is something like a marriage, but without the sex (usually). Which means that sometimes there will be a divorce—at this point, the high profile one is J. K. Rowling dumping hers…
To avoid having any one element of foreshadowing be too obvious, often the writer will throw in some red herrings–some things that could be foreshadowing but in fact don’t pay off or pay off in a different way than we expect. The person who has the gun in the drawer may become an immediate suspect in our minds, but later maybe we see him use it to light his cigarette and we realize it’s not a real gun (of course he may have a real one somewhere else….). That kind of misdirection keeps the audience guessing.
I think what we can learn from documentary makers is to pause before we launch into the obvious story and dig deeper to see if there’s a more interesting, perhaps more subtle, one lurking underneath…
