Movies made from true events have one huge problem. Everyone knows how it ends. In “Titanic,” everyone knows the Titanic sinks in the end. When my friend was working as an extra on the set of “Titanic,” he said everyone on the set wondered how the movie could possible maintain suspense and tension if everyone […]
The opening of your story needs to grab the audience right away. The opening scene sets the tone, defines the main conflict (even if we don’t know it initially), introduces us to the story setting, and makes us want to know what’s going on. One less common way to open a story is with a […]
The three main elements of a screenplay are the: Scene heading Action Dialogue The scene heading defines three elements: where the scene takes place inside or outside, the location of the scene, and the time. Typically a scene heading looks like this: INT. COFFEE SHOP – DAY or EXT. BALLPARK – NIGHT Every scene takes […]
One reason why bad movies are so painful to watch is because you, as the audience, has no idea what’s going on. While there might be plenty of action taking place on the screen with explosions, gunfire, and car chases, all this action means nothing if you don’t know why anyone is doing anything. In […]
If you watch this video, you can learn why action scenes suck in most movies. The most common mistake is that action occurs without an emotional arc behind the action. Every scene needs to change a character’s emotional state even if it’s just a little bit. In the opening scene of “Die Hard,” the hero […]
Look at some of the most popular and loved Disney animated films: The Little Mermaid Aladdin Beauty and the Beast The Lion King Tangled Frozen What do they have in common? They’re all basically love stories. Look at some of Disney’s flops and mediocre animated films: Treasure Planet, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Home on the […]
Every scene must link to another scene. Early scenes need to link to future scenes by foreshadowing. Later scenes need to link to earlier scenes by paying off an earlier foreshadowing set up. If you watch this short clip from “Aladdin,” you’ll immediately notice two foreshadowing links. First, Jasmine watches the hero arrive and gets […]
In the making of any movie, lots of scenes get cut, edited, or rearranged. That occurs because filming sometimes dictates changes in the script that actually become more effective than the actual script itself. In “Rocky,” there’s a scene where Rocky and Adrian are supposed to get to know each other while roller skating. In […]
To simplify writing multiple characters, focus first on your hero. Once you know what your hero wants and what type of person your hero is, then you automatically know what all of your other characters are like since the hero, mentor, and ally should all be alike. In “Lilo & Stitch,” Lilo is an angry […]
A screenplay is just a blueprint. If you learn about any movie, you’ll find that many scenes get cut for various reasons. In the above video, you can see how Disney created various scenes for “Frozen” that were cut from the final version. One scene in particular shows how Disney recorded dialogue and drew sketches […]