A good screenplay moves like liquid. The descriptions are present tense and vibrant. An economy of words carefully chosen for maximum impact. After you write your first draft (or any draft, actually…) look back for these in your action lines: that just stand begins to starts to appears to seems to of the very both [...]
A simile is where one thing is LIKE another. A metaphor is where one thing IS another. Simile: The sun, like a diamond in the sky. Metaphor: The sun, a burning match in the sky. In screenwriting, you have to often describe things that are blah. Remember, it’s all about an economy of words. Getting [...]
Opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one, and they’re rarely pleasant. So these are MY opinions on what makes a good short screenplay. 1) Get in and out. Trust that a director can fill in some of the blanks. This is always dangerous (someone else interpreting your intentions) because they might do it entirely bass-ackwords. [...]
You have to have thick skin. I mean, really thick. Pumpkin pie thick. You’ll want to please everyone, even as people contradict themselves, flip-flop, are ambiguous, have different or changing goals. That’s just the way it is. The question, though, is how do you filter all of the information, get to the core of the [...]
I’m very protective of my time. I have to be. At any given moment, I’m juggling a bowling ball, a flaming torch, a broken bottle, a sledge hammer, and a kitten. When I work, I’m surrounded with all manner of distraction. The key is to be self-aware. To know how to USE THE DISTRACTIONS in [...]
A long long time ago… In a galaxy far far away… I wrote this bad-ass script. First it was called VENTURE, but then, as time went by and people came and went, it was called OSIRIS. I never cared for the title, Osiris, because it was generic. VENTURE is a better title because… It’s mine… [...]
If you love your script, let it go. If it comes back to you, you probably let it go too early. If it doesn’t you did a pretty good job. – Mark Davidson, Poet A script is never done. Never error free. It can always be improved. Obscure typos corrected. Theme and character strengthened. Plot [...]
That question led to a lot of interesting discussion not only on the found-footage genre, but on the specific question — if it’s found footage, doesn’t that imply that the footage has already been recorded — as in “past tense” as in “already happened”? And, if you CAN have “found footage” from the future, how [...]
Late Monday, I put the finishing touches on MY version one of EXITUS. We’re about ten months into the project. Many conference calls, concept art, concept videos, and emails behind us. Notes. Notes on notes. Conversations about notes. Good notes. Bad notes. Nonsensical notes. Spot-on notes. Trivial notes. Epic notes. I turned in two long [...]