“Francis Ford Coppola may have people over to his house and read his script and discuss things, then go back and rewrite. This is very much like the way I work with the story team.”
Brad Bird
Two-time Oscar winner
Writer/director The Incredibles, Ratatouille
Creative Screenwriting magazine
Volume 14 #3
Page 66
Archive for the ‘screenwriting tips’ Category
The Francis Ford Coppola Way (tip #29)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged Brad Bird, Francis Ford Coppola, Pixar, Ratatouille, The Incredibles on October 14, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Normal is Not Funny (tip #28)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Ground Hogs Day, Richard Water, Sandra Bullock, Script magazine, The Village of the Happy Nice People, Tootise, UCLA, Wesley Rowe, While You Were Sleeping, Will Ferrell on October 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »
One of my all-time favorite quotes about screenwriting comes from Richard Walter at UCLA; “Planes that land safely do not make the headlines and nobody goes to the theater, or switches on the tube, to view a movie entitled The Village of the Happy Nice People.” When things are normal there is no conflict, and [...]
Simplicity in Screenwriting (tip #27)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged Al Pacino, Burt Renyolds, Deliverance, Ellen Page, In the Line of Fire, Juno, Paul Lucey, Robert McKee, Scent of a Women, Story Sense on July 6, 2009 | 2 Comments »
In the past week I watched two modern classic films (Deliverance & Scent of a Women) and read the script again for Juno. Though these movies are different in genre and were made in three different decades they have at least one thing in common – they are simple stories.
Four guys go take a boating [...]
Descriptive Writing- Pt 5, Setting (tip #26)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged Castaway, Jaws, Wall St. on June 18, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Today we’ll look at three well known movies and see how parts of particular scenes were written from the perspective of settings:
INT. MEMPHIS SUPERHUB–NIGHT–LATER
Our executives work amid the army of EMPLOYEES sorting the rivers of Christmas packages that flow relentlessly into the Hub. Some still have ties on, others have on Christmas hats incredibly complex; [...]
Descriptive Writing- Pt 4, Action (tip #25)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Frank Darabont, John Hughes, Misery, Rocky, Screenwriting action, Sylvester Stallone, The Shawshank Redemption, William Goldman on June 17, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Writing action in a screenplay is not to be confused with car chases (though it could be a car chase). The action, or as it is also called the narrative, is simply what’s supposed to be happening on screen. More often than not it is a few blurbs rather than thick paragraphs. If there is [...]
Descriptive Writing- Pt 3, Characters (tip #24)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged Diablo Cody, Erin Brockovich, How to introduce a character in a screenplay, Indiana Jones, James Cameron, Juno, Lawrence Kasden, Nora Ephron, Susannah Grant, When Harry Met Sally on June 16, 2009 | 3 Comments »
When you break down the core aspects of a screenplay you have scene headings (INT. HOSPITAL ROOM – DAY), dialogue (“I’m walking here!”) and what is called scene description, action or narrative. It’s the little blurb that sets up the scene and explains what’s going on in between the the dialogue. Today we’ll look at [...]
Descriptive Writing-Part 2 (tip #23)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged Stephen King on June 15, 2009 | 1 Comment »
There have been over 100 movies and TV programs based on the novels and short stories of Stephen King so it’s safe to say that his writing strikes a cord with viewers as well as readers of his books. Here are some excerpts of what King has to say about descriptive writing:
“Description is what makes [...]
Descriptive Writing-Part 1 (tip #22)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged A Star is Born, Joan Didion, John Leonard, louching Towards Bethlehem, Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream, The New York Times, Up Close and Personal on June 14, 2009 | 1 Comment »
This week we’ll look at examples of descriptive writing and Joan Didion is a fitting place to start. While Didion did co-write the screenplays A Star is Born and Up Close and Personal she is best known for her essays and novels. John Leonard of The New York Times wrote,“There hasn’t been another American writer [...]
Average Length of a Movie Scene (tip #21)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged David Bordwell, Screenwriting by numbers, The Way Hollywood Tells It, University of Wisconsin-Madison on April 20, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday I was reading David Bordwell’s book The Way Hollywood Tells It which as the subtitle says is a look at Story and Style in Modern Movies. Bordwell taught film studies for several decades at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (I think he recently retired.) Robert Ebert has said, “David Bordwell is our best writer on [...]
Writing from Theme (tip #20)
Posted in screenwriting tips, tagged Bernie Madoff, Braveheart, Bud Fox, Charlie Sheen, Dorothy, Frank Darabont, Hal Holbrook, Oliver STone, Scarface, The Shawshank Redemption, The Wizard of Oz, Wall St., William Wallace, writing from theme on April 9, 2009 | 4 Comments »
“I think what makes a film stick to the brain is the theme.”
William C. Martell
“There’s no place like home.”
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