Pitching & Selling · 1 min

[Video]: Chris Terrio and Bryan Cranston on Argo

With Argo, Ben Affleck has firmly established himself as a mature, competent director. This time however, Affleck doesn't take a writing credit. He left the screenplay…

Story & Structure · 5 min

How To Write Compelling Antagonists

Other than your protagonist, your antagonist is going to be the most important active force in your story. by K.M. Weiland The antagonist doesn’t have to…

Best of the Web · 1 min

Best of the Web 4 Nov

Story & Structure :: Planning Action Sequences :: Action Blocks and ‘Alien’ (And a Few More) :: Where Do I Start? :: High Concept—Yes—It Actually Means…

Pitching & Selling · 1 min

[Video]: On Breaking In

A selection of TV writers from British series such as Dr Who, Peep Show, Black Books, and The IT Crowd tell the stories about how they…

Pitching & Selling · 15 min

Green At Pitching? Learn The Bones!

I am riding shotgun in a car as I write this. My laptop is brighter than the headlights, leading the way through the night. Hollywood bound.…

Movie Moments · 4 min

Movie Moment: The Adventures Of Snowy

I love the Tintin comic books. They relaxed me as a uni student suffering from insomnia and now I read them with my 7yr old son.…

Best of the Web · 1 min

Best of the Web 28 Oct

Story & Structure :: Monologues and ‘Good Will Hunting’ :: Jesse Pinkman: A Lesson in Likeability :: How Actual Science Can Make Science Fiction Stories Cooler…

Movie Reviews · 3 min

Notes on ‘Hail’

“A Tour-de-force,” “Fiercely realised,” “Pure cinematic power,” “Remarkable, Visionary,” “Re-imagines cinematic boundaries,” – and these are quotes from people you care about – the Sundance institute,…

Video · 1 min

[Video]: Hollywood’s Black List Sets The Standard for Screenplays

BLACKLIST founder Franklin Leonard offers a surprisingly unique perspective on Hollywood's reality: sleepless script execs slaving through piles of bad scripts, all asking each other the…

Best of the Web · 1 min

Best of the Web 21 Oct

Story & Structure :: How to Create a Great Villain :: Tell a Story to Help You Write One :: Moon – Script Review :: Flashbacks…

Logline It! · 5 min

Logline it! – Week 14

Writing loglines is an essential skill for screenwriters, from early development through to the pitch. In this section, every week our panel reviews a few loglines…

Video · 1 min

[Video]: Alex Garland on subverting Judge Dredd

Alex Garland (writer of the iconic 28 Days Later) talks about why writing a fascist cop protagonist contains the seeds of its own subversion, how to…

Story & Structure · 6 min

Why Protagonists Must Have Some Virtues

In my past essays I have explained how Australian feature film stories could be improved by paying attention to originality, substance, and universal themes.  Today I…

Best of the Web · 1 min

Best of the Web 14 Oct

Story & Structure :: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times :: Openings and ‘Goodfellas’ :: 10 Tips for Generating Killer Science Fiction Story Ideas…

Movie Reviews · 5 min

Killing Them Softly: How A Screenwriter Murdered His Own Protagonist

Killing Them Softly: How A Screenwriter Murdered His Own Protagonist Character Analysis by Jamie Wynen Andrew Dominik’s (The Assassination of Jesse James, Chopper)  latest film is an…