HOW TO BECHDEL FOR FUN AND PROFIT

Ask any producer who has Scarlett Johansson or Viola Davis’s agent on the phone whether that cop character could be a woman. That is how binary we are. In dollar signs. It is flashy news that Bechdel-passing scripts did better with paying audiences than Bechdel-failers last year. So now that it’s ridiculously simple and can…

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Let’s go to the movies!

misterdelfuego: Movies set in the future: Everybody is white. Movies set in the past: Everybody is white. Movies set on other planets: Everybody is white. Movies set in virtual worlds: Everybody is white. Movies set in mythical worlds: Everybody is white Movies full of mythical creatures: Everybody is white True. Could also read white men….

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BLIND SPOTS

Your screenplay is weak in those places where it intersects with what you don’t really know about yourself. Not that you’re a great tangled mystery, but you take most of your own personality for granted and don’t notice it until someone yells at you about it. Politics and religion and -isms are great examples of…

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BLAH BLAH BLAH

Writers are verbal people. We make everything into words. EVERYTHING. When you write your script, you have to turn that off and think in images. How can you communicate a character trait? Put them in a situation they have to react to, then we see who they are. End blaaaaaaah blaaaah now. Conversations are for…

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Notes from a Screenreader: The Wonkavator

Notes from a Screenreader: The Wonkavator nywift: Photo via Go Into the Story. Willy Wonka: No, it’s a Wonkavator. An elevator can only go up and down, but the Wonkavator can go sideways, and slantways, and longways, and backways… A screenplay should not be a Wonkavator, even if it isn’t linear. What you want in…

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