If you just wrote a screenplay, congratulations. You just completed one of the hardest things to do in Hollywood. And if you’re like most first-time screenwriters, you’re wondering what to do next. Do you contact a producer? Get an agent? Enter a screenwriting contest? Or raise money and produce your film? There are no easy … Read More
Do you write or acquire a screenplay? Think about it. 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. In your journey to bring ideas to life, you will … Read More
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’ve been privileged enough not only to work as a screenwriter for the last twenty years but to talk to many other screenwriters about what they do and how they do it. So I am going to steal some screenwriting advice from them. One of my favorites is from writer Mike Werb. He says when … Read More
If you want to get your script noticed in Hollywood—and your talents compensated for—then you cannot be just a ‘good’ screenwriter, you’ve gotta be great!
When I read screenplays for a producer, many of the screenplays I read were unprofessional. In this article, I list 5 tips for avoiding the trash can.