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daring, movie making, screenwriting, unusual -

SCREENWRITING IS UNUSUAL

SCREENWRITING IS UNUSUAL

Writing a screenplay is an unusual thing to do. Not “unusual” in the sense of chasing squirrels in the park to steal their nuts, but “unusual” in the sense of “not usual.” Most people don’t write screenplays. The major screenplay contests often see around 30K+ submissions. Going with the assumption that X number of these scripts are submitted to multiple contests, and X number of scripts are rewrites of submissions from prior years, we can maybe say we’re looking at about 100K new screenplays written per year. This number is wildly inaccurate, and a total guess, but it gives us...

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL, A CHRISTMAS STORY, BAD SANTA, Christmas movies, DIE HARD, ELF, Hallmark, holiday movies, HOME ALONE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, LETHAL WEAPON -

THE INDELIBLE POWER OF THE CHRISTMAS MOVIE

THE INDELIBLE POWER OF THE CHRISTMAS MOVIE

There are holiday movies, and there are Christmas movies. By way of example, there is a type of romcom or romadrama that can be called “the Hallmark movie.” (Though now it’s more accurate to call them the “Hallmark-style movie,” as other companies have seen the value of these films and are replicating the style). The Hallmark-style movie plays by a very specific formula. Very often, they take place around Christmas; often enough that we can lump these under the broader umbrella of “Christmas movies.” Consider how tough it has become to a) sell a spec script; b) get a movie...

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audience, genre, paradigm, sub-genre, tone -

WHAT IS THIS MOVIE?

WHAT IS THIS MOVIE?

“What is this movie?” is the first and most essential question that every screenplay needs to answer. It is the question that is on the mind of every reader at every step in the process, and ultimately the question asked by the audience that is deciding which movie to watch.   By asking what the movie “is,” we’re talking about a variety of elements: genre, sub-genre, paradigm, tone, audience. We know who is going to watch the movie, and why, and what they expect out of the movie they have chosen to watch, and where the movie exists in the...

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FATAL ATTRACTION, GLADIATOR, LA CONFIDENTIAL -

Salaciousness in Screenwriting

Salaciousness in Screenwriting

Sex and violence are key components of popular entertainment. Both scratch a deep itch within the human psyche. However, if all a given audience wants to watch is sex, they can indulge in pornography; if they only want to watch violence, they can turn on a fight or play a video game. Within the context of a scripted feature film, scenes of sex and violence, by the nature of the medium, work best when incorporated in the story. If we have a fight scene, the fight can be exciting and awesome, but it should equally and concurrently work as an...

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ALIEN, AVATAR, coincidence, GROUNDHOG'S DAY, set-up, STAR WARS, structure -

GIMME GIMME GIMME

GIMME GIMME GIMME

In story development there is a term: gimme. A gimme is a story beat that’s built on a coincidence. There are big gimmes and small gimmes. Typically, a well-constructed story has room for one big gimme. Even then, the big gimme is usually found in the set-up, i.e. the coincidence that either creates the set-up, or gets our protagonist into the set-up. For example, in AVATAR our gimme is that Sully’s brother was fitted for a Na’vi avatar, so he’s the only person who can also inhabit it. In ALIEN our gimme is that Ripley’s ship the Nostromo just-so-happens to...

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