Movie Reviews · 1 min

Mini-Review – Holy Motors

Holy Motors Mercifully Short Review by Jonathan Empson A short guy  with a medium-sized penis (you can judge for yourself) drives around Paris in a limo…

Logline It! · 4 min

Logline it! – Week 6

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]: Game of Thrones’ David Benioff on the Writing Process

Screenwriter David Benioff (City of Thieves, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Game of Thrones) discusses how lean, streamlined writing is an important characteristic of the medium. If you…

Story & Structure · 8 min

Write What You Know… And Other Stupid Advice For Screenwriters

Writing is done in isolation.  It drives you batty sometimes.  Like anything that bleeds, you leave a writer alone for long enough and they'll snap. by…

Movie Reviews · 1 min

Mini Review – The Bourne Legacy

The Bourne Legacy Mercifully Short Review by Jonathan Empson We meet genetically enhanced assassin Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) as he survives the Alaskan wilderness. Meanwhile, CIA…

Best of the Web · 1 min

Best of the Web 19 Aug

Story & Structure :: Why Good Description Worked for the Matrix but Didn't for Matrix Reloaded :: Screenplay Review - Cloud Atlas :: Brandon Cohen -…

Story & Structure · 1 min

[Video]: Peter Hedges about “The Odd Life of Timothy Green”

Did you know Google talks to Artists? Well, here's the most in-depth recent interview I could find with Peter Hedges, writer-director of the much anticipated Timothy…

The Screenwriter's Life · 7 min

Ozzywood to Hollywood – Part Deux

So I’m two months into my Los Angeles, Hollywood life and for the most part it’s gone smoothly. There’s been very few hiccups (if any), and…

Best of the Web · 1 min

Best of the Web 12 Aug

Story & Structure :: Create A Compelling Protagonist :: Is Your Hero Wrong? :: Are We Hardwired to Interpret the World Through Stories :: Inception Breakdown…

Logline It! · 4 min

Logline it! – Week 5

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…

Pitching & Selling · 1 min

[Video]: Pitching scripts to Bourne Legacy’s Tony Gilroy

You've been judged on your pitch before, by your mum, your best friend, maybe by a producer. Here is top writer/director Tony Gilroy giving immediate feedback…

Stuff · 3 min

Story catalyst: the most exciting scene in the movie?

The term 'inciting incident' or 'story catalyst' has been defined by scholars and enthusiasts alike, and often they define the term with regard to the opening or…

Best of the Web · 1 min

Best of the Web 5 Aug

Story & Structure :: Film Review - The Dark Knight Rises :: Opaque Heros: They Don't Have to be Likable, But Make Them Relatable :: Real…

Story & Structure · 1 min

[Video]: Christopher Nolan on The Dark Knight Rises

With the recent release of The Dark Knight Rises there has been an avalanche of interviews unleashed onto the web. This one is in my view…

Story & Structure · 5 min

Your screenplay: does it HAVE to be a movie?

What’s film, and what’s TV? Yes, I’m talking about story here – this site’s title is the big clue. It used to be easy to tell…