If you watch the latest “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” you’ll see the usual band of superheroes along with several more, and that’s the problem. There are too many characters to follow and not enough time to follow any of them so you care much about them. All the superficial attention paid to the superheroes also […]
You only have one chance to make a first impression so your opening scene better grab your audience right away. You can do that by creating a “What the heck?” moment in that initial scene. This “What the heck?” moment poses an intriguing question to the audience without answering it, leaving the audience hungry for […]
The opening scene is a mini-summary of your entire story. Here’s what an opening scene must do: Grab the audience’s attention by making them wonder, what the heck is going on? (Then the rest of the story must eventually answer that question) Introduce the forces of the villain Introduce the hero Introduce the main conflict […]
A fractal is a mathematical pattern that appears as a tiny building block, but when put together, forms a much larger but identical building block to create a beautiful image. With a fractal, the tiniest portions are just smaller versions of the whole image. Movies work the same way. Divide a screenplay into four parts […]
Most people start a screenplay at the beginning and work their way to the end. The problem with this approach is that it often leads to a dead end when you run out of ideas around page 40. If you keep writing, your new writing will likely feel disjointed from the beginning. Then you have […]
This is how most writers get themselves in trouble. They start off with an interesting idea and keep writing until they run out of ideas. With a screenplay or a novel, that usually means getting about halfway through and not knowing how to finish it. At this point, writers often plow ahead and then the […]
Watch most of Hollywood’s latest movies and it’s easy to see the basic formula of using guns and sex to attract an audience. The problem with that method is that guns and sex alone aren’t the real appeal of any movie. It’s the story that Hollywood overlooks every time. You don’t want guns and sex […]
What makes an interesting movie are interesting scenes, and what makes an interesting scene is one where nothing is stable. Picture a man walking down a sidewalk. There’s no suspense or danger of any kind, so watching a man walk down a sidewalk is boring. Now put this same man on stilts and have him […]