Everyone has heard of horror stories of Hollywood butchering a script and turning something wonderful into a pile of garbage. However, it often works the other way around too. Too often, Hollywood takes a good script and tuns it into a crappy movie. However, sometimes the reverse happens where Hollywood can take a good story […]
Story Structure
The Hero and the Villain
Most screenwriters focus on creating a story from the hero’s point of view. However, you should also create that same story from the villain’s point of view to give your script a deeper, more complicated story structure. The typical way of creating a screenplay is to think in terms of the hero. Of course, there’s […]
The Hero Affects Many
In most bad screenplays, the whole focus is on the hero and all the other characters exist solely to help the hero on his (or her) way. While the hero is the focus, the hero actually changes others around him (or her). In every screenplay, the hero must change. In every good screenplay, the hero […]
From an Actor’s Point of View
As screenwriters, we tend to look at a story from the author’s point of view. Step back a moment and look at your story from the actor’s point of view. You may be surprised at how your viewpoint may change. Probably the biggest problem with most screenplays is that the characters are flat and only […]
Seeing Movies Twice
‘If you’re an aspiring screenwriter, you must watch movies, but you need to do more than that. You must also read movies as well. If you want to be a screenwriter, you need to watch every movie twice and then read the screenplay. The reason for this is simple. The first time you watch a […]
Anatomy of a Bad Movie
It’s easy to find examples of great screenplays. “Citizen Kane,” “Casablanca,” “The Godfather.” However, it’s also easy to find bad movies too. Since you can learn what not to do by studying bad movies, here’s an analysis of “G-Force,” a good example of a bad movie. Most screenwriting books focus on analyzing great screenplays to […]
What Isn’t Seen
What you see in a movie isn’t what was written. In fact, movies often cut out scenes that were written and filmed, but later deemed unnecessary. Sometimes this is true and the movie doesn’t suffer from the omission, but sometimes this missing scene wrecks the entire story. This is what you can do to minimize […]
The Classic Three Act Structure
Every movie tells a story and every story follows a basic structure known as the three Act structure. By understanding this basic structure, you can shape your idea into a basic story. Almost everyone can agree on a good story when they see it, but how do you create a good story in the first […]
Telling vs. Showing
A movie tells a story visually. Where many movies fail is when they forget this basic idea and rely too much on telling rather than showing. Here’s how to recognize this problem in your own screenplay. “The Shining” is considered a classic horror film that relies less on bloody action and more on horror, which […]
Everything Must be Interesting
What makes a movie suck? Look back at the movies you disliked and at some point the movie lost your interest. Here are some of the reasons why. Movies are an experience. When we watch a good movie, we feel like we’re participating in the story. We know we’re not Indiana Jones or Hans Solo, […]