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The First Person: Your Thoughts, Please…

So I thought I could do with a new challenge, so I’ve decided to write a novel. I’ve written one before (even though it was many years ago, long story what happened to it, move along now), but I figured it would be like riding a bike in that “you never forget” and all that. It so isn’t. Do you know how long the average spec is? I’m not talking page count. That’s 90 – 100 pages if you’re sensible, any more makes script readers want to stab themselves in the leg with a fork (honestly). That extra twenty or… Read More »The First Person: Your Thoughts, Please…

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Scriptwriting Degrees, pt 1: University

Whilst it’s a given that talent can’t be taught – you have it or you don’t – a scriptwriting degree seems to be the latest “must have” if you’re going to get *anywhere* in this biz. This of course is total pants – some of the most successful writers I know of or have met have no piece of paper that SAYS they’re “trained”, yet still people sign up in their droves: I have a BA (Hons) Scriptwriting for Film and TV from Bournemouth University for example, as does Dom and Lianne. I believe Pillock is going for the MA… Read More »Scriptwriting Degrees, pt 1: University

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Q&A, pt2: Yves Lavandier on Script Reading, Gurus & Philosophy

In the book you reference Claude Berri who asks “How many producers know how to read?” What is the “proper” way to read a script in your view and why do you suppose so many scripts are not read this way by producers? Imagine that to create a symphony, you need an awful lot of money. Imagine that composers send their music sheets to decision-makers in order to raise funding. Can you imagine that the “readers” don’t know how to decipher a score? That they don’t know how to read music notes? That they don’t hear music when they read… Read More »Q&A, pt2: Yves Lavandier on Script Reading, Gurus & Philosophy

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Q&A, pt 1: Yves Lavandier On Scriptwriting

Regular readers of this blog will remember this post where I reviewed the book “Writing Drama” by Yves Lavandier. As anyone who knows me knows, I usually have little time for scriptwriting books since their assertions and formulas largely do my nut, but I REALLY enjoyed Writing Drama because it takes away all the guff and explores the nature of what creates good DRAMA (not scripts!). Here’s a Q&A I did with Yves last week. Enjoy!————————————————- When does drama become melodrama in your view? When it accumulates external obstacles and ill-fortune. I agree with George Bernard Shaw when he says… Read More »Q&A, pt 1: Yves Lavandier On Scriptwriting

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Agents, Part 2: What Do They Do?

Agents are much maligned: you don’t have to go far to find a professional writer who will say all theirs does is take their commission, leaving the writer to do all the donkeywork. I know one guy who insists that he hasn’t heard from or even met with his in fifteen years except at Christmas where she sends him a card… And spells his name wrong every year without fail. So why have an agent, if you have to find your own work? Not only are you in the same position you were previously, you’re now actually WORSE OFF: if… Read More »Agents, Part 2: What Do They Do?

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Having It All

Blogging about screenwriting craft sometimes is like lighting the blue touchpaper and needing to stand WELL BACK… And predictably, my last post started a comments bomb off. One thing that always amazes me about screenwriting craft is how far people *seem* to be at either end of extremes – writers either go for white OR black on the page it appears, the usual worry being story may not be what a writer intended if there’s not enough detail or that “texture” or “colour” in a scene may be missed out somehow. Yet why can’t you have both? Enough black to… Read More »Having It All

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Directing From The Page

“Directing From The Page” is a contentious issue and something levvied at new writers particularly when they send their specs out to initiatives, but also agents I’ve noticed. Sometimes it’s not called “directing from the page”; you might get some feedback that says you have “overwritten” your scene description, perhaps even the whole thing. “WTF? How can you OVERWRITE?” was my initial reaction when I got feedback like this… I *couldn’t* have overwritten anything, I’d stuck to the four line rule, I hadn’t referenced anything like the camera, I’d laid it all out properly! Directing From The Page is not… Read More »Directing From The Page

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Heroes & Monsters: Creature Features

Okay, part of having a problem is admitting it. And I admit it. I LOVE creature features. I just can’t help it, it’s a compulsion. I know they’re predictable and I know they’re not the cleverest or academic of movies and apparently I’m supposed to be “above that sort of thing” as one of my friends pointed out the other day (“And you’re like, a WRITER and you like this crap?” he says with much exaggerated eyebrow movement), but there you go. But then you knew that anyway, right? I’ve gone on about it enough here. I’ve been having withdrawal… Read More »Heroes & Monsters: Creature Features

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Marketing YOU

I found this online… Whilst it is actually about working in business in an office (shudder), I think a lot of transfers nicely to a Scribe and how they market themselves and their work. Enjoy.———————————————— Develop a marketable corporate person: Think of yourself as a publicist with the task of promoting you. Learn to capitalise on your skills, succinctly assert your achievements and project a corporate persona. Giulio Andreotti, seven times Prime Minister of Italy, used to say, “It is not important to be right; it is important that other people think you are right.” [So make others think you… Read More »Marketing YOU

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Hollywood Science

Everyone knows that films are make believe. Everyone knows whole chunks of movies would never stand up, let alone be achieved in so-called “real life”. Right? Apparently not. I have lost count of the number of times someone has watched a film with me and argued that something “could never happen” and thus suck the fun out of it, particularly action movies. (Note I’m saying nothing about narrative logic here: I’m talking about those moments in film that are incredible, but not so incredible within the world of the story we are watching). For me it works like this: as… Read More »Hollywood Science

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More Updates For The List of Wonder

I’ve been promising some updates for a while now and with so many interesting articles out there, it’s hard to remember where they all are, let alone catalogue them! Here are the best of the best in the last three or four months as a Xmas present: For My Beloved “Structure” section: THE STRUCTURAL MONOMYTH BY UNK For the “Misc” section: LOCATIONS AND ARENA BY MYSTERY MAN ON FILM Thanks to Lianne for sending me the link to this one and thanks to her once again, for we have: WRITING TREATMENTS BY LIANNE For the “Scene Description” section: GET IN… Read More »More Updates For The List of Wonder

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Keep It Simple: What Writers Can Learn About Plot From Music Videos

The scripts that pass through my door or desktop often share one thing in common: they’re not simple enough. As I’ve said here, here, here and here, so often stories have so many threads it’s hard to know exactly what is going on as it is difficult to see which is the “main” one. It’s not something that features suffer from exclusively either; often TV pilots have a similar issue and I’ve even seen short films with it too on the page and on-screen. So how can we prevent ourselves from overloading a script with too much plot? By keeping… Read More »Keep It Simple: What Writers Can Learn About Plot From Music Videos

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