Rewriting Your Script, Part 1: Set It Aside source: @GoIntoTheStory #screenwriting #film #story “Since dozens of writers used Go On Your Own Quest to pound out a first draft of their original screenplay, I decided to start off the New Year with a week-long series on rewriting, to honor their commitment and effort, and to encourage them [and everyone else] on their creative journey. We’ve all heard the adage, “Writing is rewriting,” right? Perhaps nowhere is that more true than screenwriting. Aspiring screenwriters know this because of the number of drafts they go through to whip their script into readable shape. Professional screenwriters understand this because of the multiple drafts they do on any project, whether on spec or assignment. Rewriting is just the nature of the screenwriting beast. But that begs the question: How? What are some keys to the rewriting process? Instead of wandering around in the dark not knowing if you’re improving the story or not, is there a coherent approach to rewriting your scripts? First off, the same thing applies to rewriting as to writing: There is no right way to write. There is no right way to rewrite. Every writer is different. Every story is different. And every rewrite is different. That said, this week I will lay out some keys to the process. If they help you, great. Use them with my blessing. If they don’t help you, feel free to chuck them. Part 1: Set It Aside So you just typed FADE OUT / THE END. First draft done. Huzzah! What a bear that was. Days, weeks, months of work. You feel good about getting through the first draft, but you know the script needs work. First step: Set aside your script for two weeks. That’s right: Two. Whole. Weeks. Why? Several reasons. #1: You need to celebrate. For most writers, there is nothing harder than completing that first draft. Every single scene represented an opportunity for you to turn back, give up and stop writing. Yet you prevailed. That is a victory, my friend, an achievement that deserves acclimation. So call up some of your friends and go out on the town. Or locate your significant other… you know that person who’s been looming at the edge of your consciousness for months now… and take them out for a really nice dinner. Best advice: Go to Costco and pick up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for about $45. A great champagne and if there’s one time to drink some bubbly, it’s when you finish that damn first draft! #2: You need to recharge your batteries. Writing a first draft is like……”
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Rewriting Your Script, Part 1: Set It Aside

source: @GoIntoTheStory

#screenwriting #film #story

“Since dozens of writers used Go On Your Own Quest to pound out a first draft of their original screenplay, I decided to start off the New Year with a week-long series on rewriting, to honor their commitment and effort, and to encourage them [and everyone else] on their creative journey.

We’ve all heard the adage, “Writing is rewriting,” right? Perhaps nowhere is that more true than screenwriting. Aspiring screenwriters know this because of the number of drafts they go through to whip their script into readable shape. Professional screenwriters understand this because of the multiple drafts they do on any project, whether on spec or assignment.

Rewriting is just the nature of the screenwriting beast.

But that begs the question: How? What are some keys to the rewriting process? Instead of wandering around in the dark not knowing if you’re improving the story or not, is there a coherent approach to rewriting your scripts?

First off, the same thing applies to rewriting as to writing: There is no right way to write. There is no right way to rewrite. Every writer is different. Every story is different. And every rewrite is different.

That said, this week I will lay out some keys to the process. If they help you, great. Use them with my blessing. If they don’t help you, feel free to chuck them.

Part 1: Set It Aside

So you just typed FADE OUT / THE END. First draft done. Huzzah! What a bear that was. Days, weeks, months of work.

You feel good about getting through the first draft, but you know the script needs work.

First step: Set aside your script for two weeks.

That’s right: Two. Whole. Weeks.

Why? Several reasons.

#1: You need to celebrate. For most writers, there is nothing harder than completing that first draft. Every single scene represented an opportunity for you to turn back, give up and stop writing. Yet you prevailed. That is a victory, my friend, an achievement that deserves acclimation.

So call up some of your friends and go out on the town. Or locate your significant other… you know that person who’s been looming at the edge of your consciousness for months now… and take them out for a really nice dinner.

Best advice: Go to Costco and pick up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for about $45. A great champagne and if there’s one time to drink some bubbly, it’s when you finish that damn first draft!

#2: You need to recharge your batteries. Writing a first draft is like……”

Sweden’s “Bloody Boys” win brussels script award source: @CannesorBust #screenwriting #film #story “The Best Screenplay Award went to Sweden’s “Bloody Boys/JÄVLA POJKAR), written and directed by Shaker K. Tahrer. The films traces three families going through rupture and turmoil. More here. The full list of awards is as follows: GOLDEN IRIS AWARD for best film + Cineuropa Award DEATH FOR SALE by Faouzi Bensaïdi (France/Belgique/Maroc) WHITE IRIS AWARD for best first film CLIP (KLIP) by Maja Miloš (Serbia) AUDIENCE AWARD ITALY LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT by Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi (Italy/Germany)  FEDEX CINEPHILE AWARD KAUWBOY by Boudewijn Koole (Netherlands) RTBF TV AWARD QUAND JE SERAI PETIT by Jean-Paul Rouve (France)  Be TV AWARD NO REST FOR THE WICKED (NO HABRÁ PAZ PARA LOS MALVADOS) by Enrique Urbizu (Spain) PRIME TV AWARD THE DEEP BLUE SEA by Terence Davies (USA/UK)  BEST SHORT FILM AWARDS: A NEW OLD STORY by Antoine Cuypers (Belgium) LE CRI DU HOMARD de Nicolas Guyot (Belgium) and ROBYN O. by Cecilia Verheyden (Belgium). For more informtion, visit the Brussels Film festival.”
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Sweden’s “Bloody Boys” win brussels script award

source: @CannesorBust

#screenwriting #film #story

“The Best Screenplay Award went to Sweden’s “Bloody Boys/JÄVLA POJKAR), written and directed by Shaker K. Tahrer. The films traces three families going through rupture and turmoil. More here.

The full list of awards is as follows:

  • GOLDEN IRIS AWARD for best film + Cineuropa Award DEATH FOR SALE by Faouzi Bensaïdi (France/Belgique/Maroc)
  • WHITE IRIS AWARD for best first film CLIP (KLIP) by Maja Miloš (Serbia)
  • AUDIENCE AWARD ITALY LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT by Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi (Italy/Germany) 
  • FEDEX CINEPHILE AWARD KAUWBOY by Boudewijn Koole (Netherlands)
  • RTBF TV AWARD QUAND JE SERAI PETIT by Jean-Paul Rouve (France) 
  • Be TV AWARD NO REST FOR THE WICKED (NO HABRÁ PAZ PARA LOS MALVADOS) by Enrique Urbizu (Spain)
  • PRIME TV AWARD THE DEEP BLUE SEA by Terence Davies (USA/UK) 
  • BEST SHORT FILM AWARDS: A NEW OLD STORY by Antoine Cuypers (Belgium) LE CRI DU HOMARD de Nicolas Guyot (Belgium) and ROBYN O. by Cecilia Verheyden (Belgium).

For more informtion, visit the Brussels Film festival.”

Specs & The City: Show Don’t Tell and ‘Up’ source: @scriptmag #screenwriting #film #story “Congratulations, it’s a brand new year! 2013 brings every writer another chance to reflect, refresh, and refocus on where we are with our craft. Taking stock and deciding what out next steps should be. With that in mind, I thought it would be fitting to take this week’s column back to the core of storytelling. That one simple truth that ultimately filters everything else you learn through it. “Show, don’t tell.” Screenwriters hear this maxim so frequently, from every possible source, that its importance can eventually be dulled. It becomes ubiquitous to the point of no longer carrying any impact when you hear it. So let’s take a moment to reflect on this advice, and what it really means. First and foremost, it’s a reminder that, even though you’re writing your story out, film is a visual medium. Use that to your advantage, and make your scenes as visual as possible. Think about what would be interesting to you as a member of an audience – here’s a quick example. Would you rather watch a character walk into a room and proclaim “Man, do I have a headache”, or have that same character walk into a room, wince as the door closes a little too loudly, and grab the bridge of their nose between thumb and forefinger, massaging it gently with their eyes closed (if you answered the former, feel free to skip the rest of this column)?  It’s that simple. Show. Don’t tell. I think getting this down is the most important thing you can learn as a screenwriter, but I’ll share a little secret with you. Personally, I don’t worry about this when I’m writing my first draft. Even if you aren’t a believer in a “vomit draft”, the goal of your first draft is still simply to get the basic story out and on paper; to birth it into the physical world. It’s the rewriting where “show, don’t tell” truly becomes important. At least one of your rewrites (that means, realistically, three or four) should focus on going through your script scene by scene, line by line, and asking yourself – “could I find a way to SHOW what is being said?” Of course, as with anything, you can over reach. If you really worked at it, you could take out all of the dialogue and suddenly find yourself pitching a silent movie. That’s obviously not the goal. Sometimes dialogue will work better, so take…..”
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Specs & The City: Show Don’t Tell and ‘Up’

source: @scriptmag

#screenwriting #film #story

“Congratulations, it’s a brand new year! 2013 brings every writer another chance to reflect, refresh, and refocus on where we are with our craft. Taking stock and deciding what out next steps should be. With that in mind, I thought it would be fitting to take this week’s column back to the core of storytelling. That one simple truth that ultimately filters everything else you learn through it.

“Show, don’t tell.”

Screenwriters hear this maxim so frequently, from every possible source, that its importance can eventually be dulled. It becomes ubiquitous to the point of no longer carrying any impact when you hear it. So let’s take a moment to reflect on this advice, and what it really means.

First and foremost, it’s a reminder that, even though you’re writing your story out, film is a visual medium. Use that to your advantage, and make your scenes as visual as possible. Think about what would be interesting to you as a member of an audience – here’s a quick example. Would you rather watch a character walk into a room and proclaim “Man, do I have a headache”, or have that same character walk into a room, wince as the door closes a little too loudly, and grab the bridge of their nose between thumb and forefinger, massaging it gently with their eyes closed (if you answered the former, feel free to skip the rest of this column)?  It’s that simple.

Show. Don’t tell.

I think getting this down is the most important thing you can learn as a screenwriter, but I’ll share a little secret with you. Personally, I don’t worry about this when I’m writing my first draft. Even if you aren’t a believer in a “vomit draft”, the goal of your first draft is still simply to get the basic story out and on paper; to birth it into the physical world. It’s the rewriting where “show, don’t tell” truly becomes important. At least one of your rewrites (that means, realistically, three or four) should focus on going through your script scene by scene, line by line, and asking yourself – “could I find a way to SHOW what is being said?”

Of course, as with anything, you can over reach. If you really worked at it, you could take out all of the dialogue and suddenly find yourself pitching a silent movie. That’s obviously not the goal. Sometimes dialogue will work better, so take…..”

“E.T.” at 30 source: @scottwsmith_com & Screenwriting From Iowa #screenwriting #film #story “In my last post, Tootsie at 30, I mentioned that Tootsie was number one at the box office the week it came out in December of 1982. The weekend Toostie was release, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial came in at number 7 at the box office. That may seem surprising. But as they say, “a number without a reference is meaningless.” I doubt E.T.’s director Steven Spielberg was disappointed by being beaten out by Tootsie, or even Airplane II: The Sequel (which came in at #6), because E.T. was released way back on June 11, 1982. Spielberg says in the book E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, From Concept to Classic, “Never in my wildest, wishful thinking did I imagine that our film would reach beyond a handful of family and friends.” So the fact that E.T. was still in theaters—and in the top ten moneymakers—six months after its release is pretty amazing. The movie went on to have a worldwide gross of just under $800 million. And who knows how many more hundreds of millions in merchandising? From a screenwriting perspective what you’ll like about the book on the making of E.T. is not only Melissa Mathison’s screenplay, but the rules of E.T.’s universe that were set in place in telling the story. Things like, “All adults in the movie are shot from the waist down, except for mom,” and “Everytime E.T. says a word he has to say it twice.” “Melissa delivered this 107-page first draft to me and I read it in about an hour. I was just knocked out. It was a script I was willing to shoot the next day. It was so honest, and Melissa’s voice made a direct connection with my heart.”Steven Spielberg E.T. received nine Oscar-nominations, including Mathison for her screenplay, and…..”
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“E.T.” at 30

source: @scottwsmith_com & Screenwriting From Iowa

#screenwriting #film #story

“In my last post, Tootsie at 30, I mentioned that Tootsie was number one at the box office the week it came out in December of 1982. The weekend Toostie was release, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial came in at number 7 at the box office. That may seem surprising. But as they say, “a number without a reference is meaningless.”

I doubt E.T.’s director Steven Spielberg was disappointed by being beaten out by Tootsie, or even Airplane II: The Sequel (which came in at #6), because E.T. was released way back on June 11, 1982. Spielberg says in the book E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, From Concept to Classic, “Never in my wildest, wishful thinking did I imagine that our film would reach beyond a handful of family and friends.” So the fact that E.T. was still in theaters—and in the top ten moneymakers—six months after its release is pretty amazing.

The movie went on to have a worldwide gross of just under $800 million. And who knows how many more hundreds of millions in merchandising?

From a screenwriting perspective what you’ll like about the book on the making of E.T. is not only Melissa Mathison’s screenplay, but the rules of E.T.’s universe that were set in place in telling the story. Things like, “All adults in the movie are shot from the waist down, except for mom,” and “Everytime E.T. says a word he has to say it twice.”

“Melissa delivered this 107-page first draft to me and I read it in about an hour. I was just knocked out. It was a script I was willing to shoot the next day. It was so honest, and Melissa’s voice made a direct connection with my heart.”
Steven Spielberg

E.T. received nine Oscar-nominations, including Mathison for her screenplay, and…..”

THE HOBBIT source: @CraftyScreen #screenwriting #film #story “THE HOBBIT was disappointing. It had all the spectacle you could possibly want. It had a quest, and evil, battles, a wizard, and a decent, ordinary man caught up in the middle.It left us unmoved. It’s a bad sign when you see a movie in the middle of the day and,  at six, you’re thinking, “Boy, I’d really like to see a movie.”I feel that its tone does not match its story. The book is a light entertainment. It has lots of humor. There is never any really strong reason why Bilbo Baggins needs to go on an adventure, but he does, and many surprising and amusing things happen to him.The tone Peter Jackson takes in THE HOBBIT is the epic tone of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. But that worked for LOTR. That was about a decent man who, very much against his will, undertakes a terrifying journey, because the fate of the world hangs on it, and he is the only one who can do it. (All, right, and his handyman.)Bilbo does not need to go on an adventure in THE HOBBIT, and the only thing that hangs in the balance is whether some amusing dwarves will get their……” 
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THE HOBBIT

source: @CraftyScreen

#screenwriting #film #story

“THE HOBBIT was disappointing. It had all the spectacle you could possibly want. It had a quest, and evil, battles, a wizard, and a decent, ordinary man caught up in the middle.

It left us unmoved. It’s a bad sign when you see a movie in the middle of the day and,  at six, you’re thinking, “Boy, I’d really like to see a movie.”

I feel that its tone does not match its story. The book is a light entertainment. It has lots of humor. There is never any really strong reason why Bilbo Baggins needs to go on an adventure, but he does, and many surprising and amusing things happen to him.

The tone Peter Jackson takes in THE HOBBIT is the epic tone of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. But that worked for LOTR. That was about a decent man who, very much against his will, undertakes a terrifying journey, because the fate of the world hangs on it, and he is the only one who can do it. (All, right, and his handyman.)

Bilbo does not need to go on an adventure in THE HOBBIT, and the only thing that hangs in the balance is whether some amusing dwarves will get their……”