Story & Structure · 1 min

[Video]: Steve Kaplan Thinks You’re Funny

Off-beat comedy writing genius Steven Kaplan discusses the idiosyncracies of comedy writing, including the idea of a flawed non-hero undergoing a Hero's Journey. Are drama and…

Stuff · 4 min

Movie Moment: Blade Runner – Meeting The Maker

Rarely does a memorable movie scene lack the main character; this one does. And Blade Runner lacks a lot more… like a plot that works. Despite…

Best of the Web · 2 min

Best of the Web 3 Mar

Story & Structure :: How To Write The Perfect Ending :: Everything You Need to Know about Specs Part 1 :: Writing Dialogue Banter That Works…

Story & Structure · 5 min

Writing Short Films – What Is The Point?

In his commentary to The Lives of Others, german director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck - who also helmed The Tourist - says that the seven short…

Movie Reviews · 4 min

Review: Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas suffers from an increasingly frequent problem: being critically hyped as a perfect storm of great screenwriting, powerful action and innovative storytelling techniques, and then…

Pitching & Selling · 3 min

Logline it! – Black List 2012 – Week 5

Writing loglines is an essential skill for screenwriters, from early development through to the pitch. In this section, we review the loglines and short synopses of…

Story & Structure · 1 min

[Video]: Argo writer Chris Terrio – Figuring It Out

Rising star Chris Terrio (screenwriter of Argo, recipient of this year's Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay) talks about failure, frustration, the ad-hoc path to screenwriting,…

Story & Structure · 5 min

Writing the High ROI Screenplay (Part 2)

This week we continue with part two in a twelve part series of JT Velikovsky's doctoral thesis: “Understanding And Exploring The Relationship Between: Creativity; Theories Of…

Best of the Web · 2 min

Best of the Web 24 Feb

Story & Structure :: The Art Of Higher Stakes :: Film Endings and ‘Rocky’ :: Death and the Modern Western in 'True Grit' and 'Django' ::…

Stuff · 5 min

[The Writing Director]: My Relationship with Criticism

"This is probably the gayest clip ever made." This is what I’m getting myself into. I spotted this constructive feedback on a music video I wrote…

Logline It! · 5 min

Logline it! – Black List 2012 – Week 4

Writing loglines is an essential skill for screenwriters, from early development through to the pitch. In this section, we review the loglines and short synopses of…

Story & Structure · 4 min

Book Review: The TV Writer’s Workbook

The thing about studying screenwriting is that you don’t always get taught as much as you expect, despite the tonne of money you shelled out for…

Story & Structure · 1 min

[Video]: Walking Dead showrunner Glen Mazzara

In an interview with podcaster Jen Grisanti, showrunner Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead, The Shield, Crash, Hawthorne) discusses the difference between cable and network TV writing,…

Story & Structure · 4 min

Same But Different

I remember being in one of Karel’s seminars once when he said that most movies were ‘the same, but different’. It was something that stuck with…

Best of the Web · 2 min

Best of the Web 17 Feb

Story & Structure :: How Screenwriters Find Their Voice :: Scene Questionnaire to Help With Your Re-write or Pre-write :: TV Writers Podcast Ep 70 -…