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…
Read moreTHE SCREENWRITER’S PROCESS
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.
Read moreBECHDEL TEST VS. BECHDEL TEST
For the prosecution: Salon For the defense: Girls on Film With thanks to Kate Kaminski and the Bluestocking Film Series who can be followed here.
Read moreSILENCES
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…
Read moreIf you are looking for your second act, check the first act exposition. Annerocious
Read moreIn screenplays, as in life, what people do is more important than what they say.
Read moreMore on Dan Harmon’s “Story Circle” and my theory it is a cosine wave
More on Dan Harmon’s “Story Circle” and my theory it is a cosine wave chrisdwoo: I’ve discussed before how Dan Harmon (creator of Community, co-writer for Monster House) has distilled the Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth into a very basic tool for describing the arcs of a story. Harmon prefers to see his story structure as a…
Read moreUPDATE YOUR ISSUES: MASCULINITY & FEMININITY
New stories with new angles grab attention. What if you wrote a story about a grizzled ex-marine whose head will explode if he resorts to violence? Or a woman who causes a natural disaster every time she gives in to her overbearing family? When you deliberately cut yourself off from slipping into cliche characters and…
Read moreMATRIX YOUR WAY THROUGH YOUR DRAFT
There are two kinds of scripts, Matrix scripts and Battery scripts (spoiler alert). Battery scripts convey information with words. Matrix scripts tell stories with images. The quickest way to make the jump is to start thinking about WITHHOLDING information. Using The Matrix as an example, because it’s a really good example, the story starts with…
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