Good Reader… Hopefully you are already hip to the SCREENPLAYED. This idea of “clips and scripts” isn’t new. Sit down with a favorite movie, pull up the screenplay, and let ‘er roll. You can see –maybe like you’ve never seen before–all sorts of unknown detail about the movie at script level. What was added? What cut? What’s the character description for Travis Bickle look like? So Screenplayed does this for a scene by superimposing the script under the movie scene, so you can see the changes. And they’ve picked some superb scenes to highlight Check it out! —1917   —THE DARK KNIGHT   ..read more

This week we’re going to look at the A to Z making of my second web series, Devolve. Hopefully you can learn from each stage of pre-production, production, and post. Vamos! CASE STUDY: DEVOLVE I got involved with Devolve in the summer of 2014 and helped produce it in late January, 2015. But let’s start at the end, at a rooftop party in New York July 4th, 2015 where we were launching episode one of Devolve. It was a risky strategy coming out on the holiday but we managed about 30,000+ hits for episode 1, not bad at all. • BEGINNINGS In March 2014, I gave a screenwriting seminar at Chicago Fil ..read more

Good Reader… This week just some big juicy screenwriting links for you! Bring ’em on…  SCREENWRITING SOFTWARE  https://store.finaldraft.com/final-draft-11.html https://www.celtx.com/index.html https://nofilmschool.com/writersolo-screenwriting-software http://www.fadeinpro.com/ Writer’s Duet https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/screenwriting-software/ https://nofilmschool.com/Free-Script-Writing-Software THE TRADES  http://variety.com/ http://deadline.com/ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ BEST SCREENPLAY WEBSITES  http://www.imsdb.com/ http://www.simplyscripts.com/oscar_winne ..read more

Hello Good Reader… Let us continue on with our impossible mission of making the dullest topic on earth– screenwriting format– somehow, some way, sexy. Soldiering on! ACTION LINES Keep it tight! Don’t overwrite! It’s all well and good to tell you this, but how many action lines is too many? Are there rules? Not really. But my own rule of thumb is: When your screen direction can’t be covered by a block of Velveeta cheese, it’s too long. Examine every word, every line. Is it necessary? If you cut it, would the scene still make sense? If the answer is yes, then cut it. Generally, five lines or l ..read more

“I am in the smallest room of my house. Your review is before me. Soon it will be behind me.”—Max Reger Paraphrasing here, when Samuel Beckett wrote of the ugliest word in the English language: “C-r-i-t-i-c”. Charles Bukowski once wrote me about this subject. I was complaining about a bad review. He told me: “You really mustn’t be angry. Anger is vindictive, small. Disgust is the holy water.” It’s true. Anger is counter-productive. You really can’t take reviews personally, you know? Or get down with the constant drumbeat of rejection you’ll get when submitting your screenplay to screenpl ..read more

Just started a new web series class at Chicago Filmmakers so thought I would pull out this post from back in the day about some how-to’s in making your web series. Why make a web series? Because you want to be proactive. I’ve said it many times over the 11 years+ of this blog. Make something happen. Something smaller. Something that gets you noticed. Maybe a short film. Maybe a web series. If you’ve been around you know the Jane Doe saga, documented here. Also the micro-budget feature Chat, which you can find iTunes, VUDU, and elsewhere. Most importantly concerning this post, I’ve written and ..read more

“You have to protect your writing time. The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.”— William Goldman “Some can just knock it out and some have to lock themselves in a room and get to a fever pitch of self-loathing before they turn in a first draft. . . . each writer’s process is screwed up in its own way.”— Warren Leight It ain’t workin’ out. You knew it would take time, and you’ve put in your dues, but M-A-N, that fab screenwriting career has just not arrived. So, what’s up? Is there anything you can do that you’re not doing? In the course of every semester at Columbia College, I have st ..read more

One of my all-time favorite articles is by a fellow you probably have never heard of, Allan Heifetz, who at one point in a pre-COVID world found himself making a buck as a script reader.  The powers-that-be, the money people, the people with an actual vote on whether your script is actually made, are not reading your script until it clears multiple levels of readers. Readers are EVERYWHERE. You will not advance at any screenwriting contest, any production company, any agency, without the script getting some sort of thumbs-up from the withered and withering eyes of the Reader. Micro-Budge ..read more

*Dedicated to Rob Blagojevich, who just got sprung by you know who in the COVID Twilight Zone Year-To-Be-Flushed 2020… Back on December 7, 2011 came this headline… This year, came this headline… Who cares about Blago and what’s it got to do with screenwriting? Because today I’ve got a greatest movie scene that’s never been seen in a movie. It isn’t from a screenplay at all. It’s a call from former Prisoner # 40892-424, current resident of Littleton, Colorado Federal Minimum Security prison, and former Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich. On the other end is former Barack Obama Chief of Sta ..read more

PROPORT:A written report based on numbers; A document characterized by claims that specific quantities have a direct result on the intended purpose of the document; verb: Proports: The juice concentrate package proports; a 1:3 mix to water ratio. noun: Proport: The proport claimed false ingredients. If there’s only thing I’ve learned teaching Millennials at Columbia College for over a decade now is never bluff.  You will get called on your bullshit if you proport to have knowledge of a subject you do not. I am not an entertainment lawyer, nor do I play one on television. So whe ..read more