Screenwriting Tips

great movies, great scenes, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Matt Damon, One Great Scene, scene work, THE DEPARTED - July 03, 2019

One Great Scene: THE DEPARTED

In this series of articles, we’re going to do a deep-dive on one knockout scene from a great movie. Today’s movie is THE DEPARTED. The scene is when Leonardo DiCaprio’s character interviews to join the police force. Here’s a link to the scene as a refresher (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vInFuLgwR1U). The scene is really about Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg recruiting DiCaprio to become an undercover cop. But they never say that out loud, throughout the entire scene. Matt Damon’s character interviews first, quickly. Dignam and Queenan speak to him briefly. Things are markedly different when DiCaprio’s character enters. Wahlberg asks about DiCaprio’s...

When To Pack It In: Rejection in Screenwriting (The Answer is Never)

If you truly believe your script is great, and you have objective reasons to think that opinion is credible, there is no reason to ever give up on it. The crucial point here is that the reasoning behind the belief must be at least somewhat validated in reality. In other words, if this is the first script you’ve ever written, and everyone who reads it hates it, that might not be the hill to die on. But if you’ve gotten objective third-party reads that have been enthusiastic, and you’ve spent years polishing your craft, and in your heart of hearts...

Write Something They Won’t Make: Ironic Lessons from GAME OF THRONES

Writing in the hopes of your script getting produced can be, counterintuitively, limiting. Setting limits on your imagination before the script has gone into production may seem pragmatic and business-minded, but it can also weaken the final product. This is the ironic lesson to draw from GAME OF THRONES. In an interview with the New York Times before the show came out, George RR Martin explained the genesis of his epic fantasy series – he was a frustrated TV writer. “To some extent, the project was also a reaction to my own Hollywood career. I was out there for 10...

Dead Genres and How To Revive Them: The Serial Killer Thriller

There’s a truism in Hollywood that certain genres are dead. In this 4-part series of blog posts, we’re going to look at these genres Hollywood wisdom says are dead, why their death is the prevalent theory, and what it may take for any writer to revive them with their own script. Fourth up is the serial killer thriller, which was a mainstay in years past but has now migrated to television (perhaps most notably in the first season of TRUE DETECTIVE). As a sign of how far this once-mighty genre has fallen, per BoxOfficeMojo, there were ZERO serial killer thriller...

Dead Genres and How To Revive Them: The Zombie Movie

There’s a truism in Hollywood that certain genres are dead. In this 4-part series of blog posts, we’re going to look at these genres Hollywood wisdom says are dead, why their death is the prevalent theory, and what it may take for any writer to revive them with their own script. Third up is the zombie genre, which hit a saturation point in 2013, and has cooled since. In 2013, six zombie films were theatrically released. WORLD WAR Z was a smash hit at 540 million dollars worldwide gross against a 190 million dollar budget. WARM BODIES was a smash...

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One Great Scene: THE DEPARTED

When To Pack It In: Rejection in Screenwriting (The Answer is Never)

Write Something They Won’t Make: Ironic Lessons from GAME OF THRONES

Dead Genres and How To Revive Them: The Serial Killer Thriller

Dead Genres and How To Revive Them: The Zombie Movie

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