Avoid unnecessary parentheticals Let the director direct and the actor act. Don’t presume to dictate the smallest gesture. No smiling, sighing, smirking or hand gestures that don’t directly impact plot. The actor, when filming the scene on page 63, is not going to remember you wanted him to point with his right hand before the […]
Movie Marathoning
May 5, 2012
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I’m an awful person. I have a blog so every now and again I can confess to you, Good Reader. Blog as shrink. Not to tantalize you too much. I won’t be going DARK dark side today, but I will admit to my habit of movie marathoning. You know what I’m talking about. Get to […]
NICHOLL-MANIA!
April 28, 2012
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Yep, it’s that time of year again, the Nicholl deadline, and you’re going crrrrrazzzzzyyyyy! Pulling out all the stops, making yourself a complete nuisance to friends and family to read your freakin’ script. Hitting the message boards at Trigger Street or Moviebytes… It’s the annual screenwriter’s ritual, like salmon swimming upstream. The uptick in script […]
The Adverb/Adjective Hater
April 24, 2012
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Occasionally I’ll have a fiction student invade a film and video class. Their “head” is different. I’ll look at their screen description and see liberal use of adjectives and adverbs. Dense detail, terrific stuff. Because, in the fiction world, a novel can be 300 or 800 pages, they have the freedom to embellish not just […]
When Characters Don’t Change
April 7, 2012
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We talked before the importance of character arcs. I’d like to illustrate a few more famous characters and their journeys. The hope is it helps you think about your own characters and their journeys. I mentioned in the last article that characters gotta change. Like every other screenwriting rule, this one can be broken. Let […]
