REVERSE ENGINEER YOUR REWRITE

Aliens is such a fantastic example of this, you should just watch it five times in a row so you can catch all the little setups and how they are accomplished. Nothing is wasted. Everything does double duty. The power loader is the ultimate in reverse engineered awesomeness, of course, it pays off in well-established…

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REVERSE ENGINEER FOR REWRITE AWESOMENESS

Aliens is such a fantastic example of this, you should just watch it five times in a row so you can catch all the little setups and how they are accomplished. Nothing is wasted. Everything does double duty. The power loader is the ultimate in reverse engineered awesomeness, of course, it pays off in well-established…

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1 Hour Pilot Structure

1 Hour Pilot Structure writerofscreen: “First off, there are usually 5 acts in a one hour television pilot. A teaser and 4 acts (these usually coincide with commercial breaks). The teaser tends to be the shortest of the acts though some, like Lost’s are sometimes upwards of 15 pages (they labeled their teasers as Act…

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5 STAR ESCALATION

Escalation keeps the story interesting. An individual escalation really works when it is set up as the thing we hope doesn’t ever happen. Then when it happens, we know the most shit has just hit the biggest fan. Rinse, then repeat until the end of act two.

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ROLL OUT THE FABRIC, CUT OUT THE BIKINI

ROLL OUT THE FABRIC, CUT OUT THE BIKINI writerlyn: Something that’s important is to not limit yourself while writing a first draft. Write the scenes too long. Write people being talky. Write dialogue where people say exactly what they mean the first time. Write the draft that’s 145 pages. That’s you rolling out the fabric…

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SILENCES

First of all, look at Shirley’s face. Second of all, I got a short script last week that just blew me away. It was in response to my “Yes, I will read for you” post, and this script is literally why I read, the very best reason to read – it makes me a better…

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