Screenwriting Tips

ACE VENTURA, establish the problem, first ten pages, INDIANA JONES, Introducing the lead, JAMES BOND, JOHN WICK, statement of intention, THE MATRIX - April 25, 2023

THE ALL-IMPORTANT FIRST-10

The first ten pages are the most important because they often determine if anything from page 11 on will be read. It’s a common wisdom among reps and producers that name talent (i.e. movie stars) rarely read past the first-10 if they don’t see their character, and/or if the character doesn’t grab them as interesting. Given that financing is frequently contingent on attaching name talent to the leads, those first ten pages – and how well they can introduce the lead characters – can literally determine if the movie gets made or not. The second key thing the first-10 needs...

ON WORLD-BUILDING

“World-building” is the term used for crafting the details of a fantasy world, whatever that might be. It’s the expression of the project’s internal mythology as reflected by the “reality” of the characters inhabiting this world. The most obvious example of world-building is something based on, for example, thoroughly detailed fantasy IP: LORD OF THE RINGS, HARRY POTTER, GAME OF THRONES, and so on. That is: What our mythical countries are, where they reside in the larger fantasy world, who are the main players in this space, if magic exists and how it works, the backstory of how this world...

SUBVERTING EXPECTATION

I recently had the pleasure of seeing Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Northman. If we only look at the surface, it would be hard to find two more disparate films. But digging a little deeper reveals that these movies are actually (and surprisingly) quite similar. Without going into spoilers, the primary thing these movies share is both sets us up for one kind of story by plot point one, and then continues to make revelations that subvert our expectations while still paying off the goods of their respective genres. In Everything Everywhere All At Once, a person our...

ON TITLES

The title is vital. It is the first point of contact between the script and the reader, and between the movie and the audience. When the audience comes to the theater and they look at the one-sheets and the marquee, the title is both the hook and the handle by which they shall make their ultimate decision: Which of these movies will they see? So let’s talk about titles. A good title accomplishes several tasks within just a word or few. The first task is to reflect the genre. We want to tell the audience what kind of experience they...

Plot Point Two

The common wisdom is plot point two is our “darkest hour.” That is: On or around ppg 70-75, our protagonist fails, hits rock bottom, is defeated, is betrayed, his failures come to the fore, his allies abandon him or vice versa. In many cases, the protagonist “dies,” figuratively or even literally. For example, Joseph Campbell is big on protagonist death in the Hero’s Journey, and we see a perfect example of it with Neo in THE MATRIX. The question becomes: How to craft the best possible version of this vital plot beat? And the answer is often to be found...

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THE ALL-IMPORTANT FIRST-10

ON WORLD-BUILDING

SUBVERTING EXPECTATION

ON TITLES

Plot Point Two

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