Let’s take a look at what a plot twist is, tips on how to write them successfully, as well as three great examples you can learn from so you can write them into your own stories.

More info coming soon  |  Remind Me

Plot Twist Definition 

A plot twist is like a surprise that makes the story more exciting and keeps the audience guessing. It's a clever technique that screenwriters use to make their stories more fun and engaging. Just when you think you know what will happen next, a plot twist smashes all expectations and leaves you desperate to know what’s going to happen next.

Successful plot twists should make logical sense within the context of the story and while they are supposed to take the audience by surprise, they shouldn’t be totally out of left field, or they will feel forced or manufactured. When done well, a plot twist can intensify a movie's impact and leave a lasting impression on the audience – sometimes for decades. 

Read More: 101 Great Plot Twist Ideas to Elevate Your Script

How to Write Successful Plot Twists

Here are some tips for making plot twists work in your own story.

Establish a Strong Setup 

Before introducing a plot twist, make sure your story has a sturdy and engaging setup. Develop well-rounded characters with clear objectives that put your protagonist and antagonist into conflict.

In Get Out (2017), the setup involves beautiful, wealthy and white Rose (Allison Williams), and her desire to take her relationship with her attractive African-American boyfriend, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), to the next level by taking him home to meet her parents. Meeting the parents is a familiar scenario, but we can anticipate that it might not go well considering the racial differences and prejudices that exist in America. With this setup firmly established in the audience’s minds it’s ripe for adding a very dark twist. 

Read More: Best Plants and Payoff Screenwriters Can Learn From

Create Foreshadowing 

Foreshadowing is crucial to make a plot twist feel natural and not forced. Drop subtle hints before the twist so that if you go back and reread the script, you’ll see the possibility that the twist was there all along. This adds a deeper layer to your story. (You can read about a specific foreshadowing technique in this article about Chekhov’s Gun.)

In The Sixth Sense, Cole tells us he “Sees dead people.” While that confession should make us suspect that Dr. Crowe might be dead, most of us just don’t consider it. While it comes as a shock to the audience that Dr. Crowe is actually a ghost, the possibility is foreshadowed when Cole expresses his unusual abilities. 

Read More: 18 Plot Devices That Can Elevate Your Story

Emotional Impact

The best plot twists evoke strong emotions from the audience. Whether it's surprise, shock, sadness, or joy, the twist should resonate with the audience on an emotional level. 

In Citizen Kane (1941), we follow a very unlikable protagonist called Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), an unscrupulous media mogul who utters a single word on his deathbed: “Rosebud.” It isn’t until the end of the film that we learn that Rosebud was the affluent but lonely man’s childhood sled he played with before he was abandoned by his parents. With this realization, we may not like Kane, but we suddenly understand Kane’s personality flaws and his obsessive drive to succeed at any cost. 

Great Examples of Plot Twists in Movies

These examples showcase how well-executed plot twists can have a significant impact on the audience's perception of the story, characters, and themes, while also contributing to the overall enjoyment of the film. 

The Others (2001)

This film employs a plot twist where we are led to believe that the main characters, Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman), her children and the servants are alive and suspect their house is haunted by ghosts. The plot twist is that it’s actually Grace, her kids and the servants, who are deceased – they just don’t know it – and the supposed ghosts, are actually living, breathing humans.  

This plot twist flips the world of the movie upside down, changing the way the audience’s perception of the story and creating a totally new understanding of Grace. Because the story is told from Grace’s point of view, it’s quite a shock to discover she’s actually a ghost. Another filmmaker could make the same film and tell the story from the point of view of the actual living people experiencing actual ghosts, but it wouldn’t have the same shock value or devastating emotional impact – two things highly valued in the horror genre.  

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

In the climactic scene of The Empire Strikes Back, there’s a lightsaber duel between Luke Skywalker (Mark Hammel) and Darth Vader (James Earl Jones). Darth cuts off Luke’s hand and then reveals the shocking plot twist, saying, “No, I am your father.” This revelation implies that Darth Vader is, in fact, Anakin Skywalker, Luke's father. This revelation turns Luke's understanding of his own identity and his relationship with Darth Vader on its head.

The impact of this twist is significant to the entire Star Wars saga. It adds layers of complexity to the characters, and it serves as a turning point in Luke's journey to becoming a Jedi. This twist has become a pop culture phenomenon that is often quoted – and also misquoted as “Luke, I am your father” on the internet.   

Tully (2018) 

You don't usually expect to encounter a plot twist in a dramedy about the unseen and unrelenting exhaustion of motherhood, but director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody really pulled out all the stops with Tully. Charlize Theron plays Marlo, an overwhelmed mother of three whose postpartum experience leads her to hire a young woman, Tully (Mackenzie Davis), as her family's night nanny. As the movie unfolds, it's clear that Tully's help and free-spirited personality are working wonders for Marlo — she's singing and dancing with her kids, cooking meals, and generally looking more revitalized.

However, the plot twist comes in when we learn that Tully was never real. She was just a manifestation of Marlo's younger self. That revelation puts the waitress scene with Marlo's husband Drew (Ron Livingston) into a totally different perspective, right?!

— 

Remember that a plot twist should enhance the overall story, deepen the themes and provide a fresh perspective, rather than just being a surprise for the sake of surprise. While plot twists can be fantastic, using them too frequently can dilute their impact. Focus on one (maybe two) well-executed twists rather than bombarding your story with them. When executed carefully, a plot twist can leave a lasting impact on your audience and make your story memorable.

CHECK OUT OUR PREPARATION NOTES SO YOU START YOUR STORY OFF ON THE RIGHT TRACK!

The post What is a Plot Twist? appeared first on ScreenCraft.

1.) Enjoy Greater Creative Freedom

Unlike their longer counterparts, there are almost no traditional mandates for what a short film script should contain — aside from an exciting or moving story. Short scripts can rely on dialogue or be fully silent. They can feature just one character or even opt to replace a protagonist in the traditional sense with a setting. Tone poems and other “artsy” short film genres completely subvert the usual prescribed must-haves for a film project. While scripts for these may look more like treatments than screenplays, writing one can push the boundaries for an artist’s notion of what a story actually is and allow them to explore their narrative creativity in new ways. 

Read More: 101 Story Prompts to Kickstart Your Short Film

2.) Streamline Your Revision Process

Revision is the most important, but often most painful part of being a writer. Finding people to give notes. Figuring out which of those notes will actually make the story better. Applying the notes, and repeating. It’s far easier to practice this notes process — which, like all components of writing, requires practice — with shorter scripts. Readers have more time for a 5-pager than a feature script. Use a short film script to learn who in your network enjoys your style, what kind of notes they give and how eager they would be to read a larger piece from you. 

Enter Now  |  Regular Deadline in 22 days

3.) Try a No-Fear Page-One Rewrite

Whenever a writer receives the advice to try starting a script over from scratch, it can send us reeling. “Is there nothing of value in this draft?” we ask. But sometimes the solution is to attack a story from a completely different angle. The great thing about a short film script is that it can take less than a day to draft one from concept to completion. And if a writer is curious about what the story might look like from the perspective of another character, or even with a totally different tone or genre lens, playing around with the shortest version of it is relatively pain-free.

Read More: Write Your Short Film in 7 Days

4.) Distill Your Unique Narrative Voice

It’s just as easy, if not easier, to leave a reader with a desired impression via a shorter script. So, it’s beneficial to consider using short scripts to represent your distinct writer's “voice” while you are building a reputation. With less page space to fill, the nuances of your tone and style are amplified. If you’re a comedy writer, your funniest punchline will be the reader’s takeaway. If you write a thriller, your twists won’t get tangled in backstory or B-plot. Writing a short script allows you to shine a light on your favorite facets of your writing, which makes your work more distinctly “you.”  

Read More: 4 Lessons Taylor Swift Can Teach You About Storytelling

5.) Spend Less (Or No) Money on Promotion

Just like feature-length screenplays and teleplays, there is a contest/competition market for short scripts. And guess what? Their fees are understandably lower. Festival-based contests allow short script awardees to participate in all the same on-site networking activities as feature-length screenplay winners. If you’ve earned a place of honor at the same festival as someone who paid a higher entry fee and spent more time writing a longer script, haven’t you come out on top? But there are also some significant free opportunities to promote a short script. I’ve had several of my short scripts reviewed at no cost.

6.) Wear More Creative Hats in Production

The intuitive step for writers looking to expand into directing or producing — or, even acting — is to focus on short-form content. Most short scripts are going to have an independent, non-commercial path to production. That means the financial stakes are lower and there’s more room to try new things and make learners’ mistakes. So, if you’re looking to build up a multihyphenate resume, writing a short film script and helping to see it through production could be your answer. 

Read More: 10 Great Short Films You Can Watch Online Right Now

7.) Increase the Likelihood of Production

Short scripts usually necessitate low-to-no-budget productions, with very few exceptions. At the end of the day, screenwriters write for the screen. And having made it there puts a writer in a better position than one who has not. Whether for student productions or showpieces for working professionals, short scripts are more likely to be produced by people other than their writers compared to long-form pieces. This is because they are a filmmaker’s first stop for a creative showpiece, as full pilots and features have more structured and guarded paths to production. They’re often made with skeleton crews, few locations, minimal shoot days and shared equipment. You might be surprised by the high production value that a short script can inspire, even with a minimal budget.

Read More: 6 Features That Started Out as Short Films 

8.) Open the Door for Your Longer Projects

Another anecdote from my personal vault: a 15-minute web short almost turned into a half-hour series featuring and executive produced by Emmy-winning stars Sheryl Lee Ralph and Niecy Nash. And while “almost” doesn’t pay the bills, you can bet that completing even a short-form project with these names led to development for my longer projects. Your work doesn’t need to be long to pack the kind of punch that draws the right talent to launch your career. Film festivals demonstrate this every year with their short film offerings — and it’s something anyone can achieve.

So, what are you waiting for?

Try your hand at a short film script today and know that ScreenCraft has got you covered throughout the process. 

Read More: How to Write Short Stories That Make An Emotional Impact

CHECK OUT OUR PREPARATION NOTES SO YOU START YOUR STORY OFF ON THE RIGHT TRACK!

The post 8 Reasons Why You Should Write a Short Film Script appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Selected from roughly 4300 applicants worldwide who submitted features and pilots, the ScreenCraft Fellowship includes a week of meetings, mentorship and personal introductions to major studio executives, literary agents, managers and top film and TV producers.

All former ScreenCraft Fellows have gone on to receive offers for representation from top literary managers, and many past recipients have sold their projects to studios and been hired for open screenwriting assignments. We are excited to see these talented writers take the next step in their emerging careers.

Without further ado, the recipients are:

Vanita Borwankar, with her TV pilot In The Storm

Dan Williams, with his feature screenplay N.R.A

Etan Muskat, with his TV pilot Consume

Vanita Borwankar draws on her bicultural upbringing and background in psychology to write stories with a focus on characters navigating marginalized identities. Vanita impressed the judges with her unique point of view and strong comedic voice.

In The Storm is a half-hour comedy about a lesbian undergrad with traditionalist Indian parents, who is forced to make a decision when her graduation day brings the news that her ex-lover is marrying her cousin.

Dan Williams enjoys discovering hidden stories and unexpected characters, digging into the research, and ultimately writing projects that provide new perspectives and inspiration. Dan's ability as a writer to bring a real person’s story to life on screen deeply resonated with our judges.

N.R.A is the true story of a whistleblower who risks everything to investigate and expose the rampant corruption at what she thought was her dream employer: the National Rifle Association.

Etan Muskat is a veteran of the live comedy scene in Canada and an alumnus of the Second City Mainstage in Toronto. He also won over our judges with his dynamic storytelling that embraces personal experience as a way to talk about big ideas.

Consume is a half-hour comedy about a neurotic ethics professor who is forced to confront his notions of right and wrong when he finds himself transforming into a vampire.

The applicants for the 8th Annual ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship reflect a distinctive range of genres and voices. In addition to the recipients above, the ScreenCraft team would like to give special recognition to the following talented finalists:

Janelle Malak

Matthew Kaundart

Kate Johnson

John Graney

Adva Reichman

Noni Salma

Laura LeeLun

Laurie Magers

Shaun Perry & Jay Perry

Stay tuned for the details of Fellowship Week here and on our Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages.

The 9th Annual ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship will open for applications in October. Click here to subscribe for opening and deadline updates.

For all the latest ScreenCraft news and updates, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

More info coming soon  |  Remind Me

More info coming soon  |  Remind Me

The post Announcing the 8th Annual ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship Recipients appeared first on ScreenCraft.

CREATE A SPACE

Anyone who’s worked remotely knows how difficult it can be to work and live in the same space. Add in a personal writing project of any kind and it’s a recipe for restlessness. The temptation to write on the couch or in bed can be overwhelming, but it’s a much better idea to create a workspace for yourself. Whether that be a spot at the dining room table, a dedicated writing desk, or a lap desk you only use when working on your screenplay, creating a space specifically for writing can be helpful in keeping yourself on track and establishing a productive mindset. When you’re there, you’re writing.

STAY OFFLINE

It’s amazing how many distractions we can find in our own homes. When you sit down to write, make sure that you’re actually writing. Minimize distractions by avoiding social media, apps, and websites. Set timers for the apps on your phone, turn off your Wi-Fi, or download a distraction app for your computer. Better yet — leave your phone in the other room! If the temptation to play Candy Crush or check Twitter isn’t there, you’ll be more likely to hit your writing goal for the day.

SMALL GOALS ⏰

One of the most frustrating things about working on your own writing projects is sticking to self-imposed deadlines. This is infinitely more difficult when you’re stuck at home. Hitting deadlines and finishing tasks is a sure-fire way to make yourself feel good about whatever writing project you’re working on. So instead of imposing intense and hard-to-meet goals for yourself, set small goals for yourself. Two pages instead of 10, that scene you’ve been putting off for weeks, or revising one act of your pilot — checking smaller tasks off your to-do list will make you feel accomplished and want to keep writing. Also, mark your calendar for these upcoming screenwriting competition deadlines. And also check out our partner Coverfly.

GO OUTSIDE

We may be practicing social distancing right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take a walk. Being outside can be an immediate way to motivate yourself, and the fresh air can boost or revitalize your mood. The change in scenery might even inspire something in your writing — you never know what you’ll see on a walk around the block.

WRITE WHAT YOU WANT

There are always scenes we look forward to writing more than others. Instead of pressuring yourself to write your screenplay in order or exactly according to your outline, write the scenes you’re dying to write first. If you’re motivated enough to write one scene over the other, go with your gut. Then keep up the momentum and write the other things you’re really hankering to get on the page.

VIRTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Thankfully there are plenty of ways to stay connected while we’re all staying inside. FaceTime, Skype, group texts, Google Hangouts — however you need to keep in touch with your writing group is fine. Tell your writing buddies what your daily or weekly goals are, and make sure they hold you accountable. Send them scenes, lines of dialogue, ideas for new projects. Or have a virtual meeting with your writing group. We’re all in this together… separately.

REMIND YOURSELF

It can be difficult to remember why you’re writing when you’re stuck at home. So whether it’s a well-written Post-It with words of wisdom, a witty coffee mug that you start your day with, or a vision board with writing inspiration, find ways to remind yourself why you’re writing. It will keep you motivated and inspired no matter how long you’re stuck at home!

Britton Perelman is a writer and storyteller based in Los Angeles, California. When not buried in a book or failing spectacularly at cooking herself a meal, she’s probably talking someone’s ear off about the last thing she watched. She loves vintage typewriters, the Cincinnati Reds, and her dog, Indy. Find more of her work on her website, or follow her on Instagram.

For all the latest ScreenCraft news and updates, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

The post Staying Inside? 7 Ways to Keep Yourself Motivated and Continue Writing appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Reflecting on the dinner, ScreenCraft Fellow Anna Klassen described the experience as invaluable. "These are people who have succeeded in this industry, and being able to ask them how they got their start way back when gave me a tremendous amount of inspiration and hope for my own screenwriting career."

According to ScreenCraft Fellow Ryan W. Smith, "each industry pro had a pearl of wisdom to impart, be that about how best to pitch myself and my material, how better to understanding the studio system, or about the ups and downs that come with a career as a writer.  I also gained some serious insight from meeting with well-established writers in the field."

Here's a brief recap of our week of mentorship and pitch meetings around Hollywood:

Monday, July 24th, 2017
3:15PM: General Meeting with Cate Adams, development executive at Warner Bros Studios

Tuesday, July 25th, 2017
2:30PM: Meeting with Aengus McLoone, Vertigo Entertainment (1-on-1 meetings)
6:00PM: Drinks w/ past ScreenCraft Fellowship recipients Mark Stasenko, Nancy Duff, Rob Haffey, T.A. Snyder

Wednesday, July 26th, 2017
10:00AM: Meeting with Michael Colleary (writer of FACE/OFF), Steven E. de Souza (writer of DIE HARD)
1:00PM: Meeting with Jeanette Francis, STX Entertainment (THE GIFT, BAD MOMS, FREE STATE OF JONES)
4:30PM: Meeting with Juliet Berman, VP of Development at Treehouse Pictures (99 HOMES, ARBITRAGE)

Thursday, July 27th, 2017
1:00PM: Lunch with Zoe Wilschinsky (Madison Wells /OddLot - DRIVE, ENDER'S GAME)
2:30PM: Meeting with Heinz Healey, Overbrook Entertainment (WILL SMITH'S COMPANY) at Sony Pictures
3:00PM: Meeting with Don Handfield, The Combine (JEREMY RENNER'S PRODUCTION COMPANY)
4:15PM: Meeting with Charnay Mather, Covert Media (film financier, foreign sales, development)
7:00PM: Fellowship Mentor Dinner with Academy Award-winners: Geoffrey Fletcher, Diana Ossana, Kristina Reed - in Beverly Hills

Friday, July 28th, 2017
1:30PM: Meeting with Jonathan Wu, Development Executive at 20th Century Fox 

STX Development Executive Jeannette Francis meets for lunch with ScreenCraft Fellowship winners Anna Klassen and Ryan Smith. STX's recent films include BAD MOMS and THE GIFT.

ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship winners Anna Klassen and Ryan Smith snap a photo in front of the iconic WB water tower after a general meeting with Cate Adams, development executive at Warner Bros Studios.

The post ScreenCraft Fellowship Weekend 2017 appeared first on ScreenCraft.

In ScreenCraft's five years of existence, we've found lots of success for screenwriters seeking to gain exposure for their projects through commercially-viable genre-specific screenplay competitions. We have 6 annual contests, with prize packages and juries tailored to each genre: Horror, Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Action & Thriller, Family-Friendly - and because many writers requested a contest tailored for period dramas, romantic dramas, historic epics and others, now we announce our sixth (and last) genre-specific feature film screenplay contest: Drama.

Successful feature film dramas drive deep into the heart of what it means to be human, expressing universal themes with nuanced complexity. Our judges are looking for great dramatic stories with original voices and honest emotion. This competition celebrates great film writing. Whether you’re writing a sweeping period drama or a contained relationship movie, we want to read your script! All entries are eligible for optional feedback from a studio-trained professional reader (highly recommended).

ENTER HERE

Grand prize winner will receive $1,000 cash and personal introductions to some of the industry's top agents, managers, producers and film development executives. All top 3 finalists will receive complimentary screenwriting software, thanks to our official sponsor Final Draft.

The 2017 jury includes: 

Jordan Moldo, The Weinstein Company	Development Executive at The Weinstein Company which has produced such celebrated dramas as Academy Award-winner THE KING’S SPEECH, FRUITVALE STATION, Lee Daniel’s THE BUTLER, WIND RIVER, SNOWPIERCER, THE IRON LADY, LAWLESS, Academy Award-winner THE ARTIST, PULP FICTION, GANGS OF NEW YORK and many, many more.
Jewerl Ross, Manager	Manager / Producer with clients including Academy Award-winning writer-director Barry Jenkins, the filmmaker behind Best Picture MOONLIGHT, and Matthew Aldrich who is currently writing OPENING BELLE for Warner Bros. and Reese Witherspoon. Aldrich also wrote COCO for PixarAnimation Studios and director Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) which is slated for a 2017 release.
Andrea Dimity, Manager	Literary Manager / Producer with clients including Pete Barry who recently sold his spec script MARIAN to Amy Pascal/Sony with Margot Robbie attached. She is currently producing BURN RUN written by Mitch Lafortune that is set up at Thunder Road Pictures. She likes to spend time helping writers with their scripts and careers and she reads finalists for such screenwriting competitions as Austin, UCLA, and Page.
George Heller, Brillstein Entertainment Partners	Literary Manager at Brillstein Entertainment Partners, the company behind such renowned Hollywood talent as Amy Adams, Brad Pitt, Charlie Hunnam, Vin Diesel, Eva Longoria, Timothy Olyphant and many more. Manager George Heller and his assistant Kelsi Fleming are looking for unique voices in dramatic screenwriting.
Michael O’Sullivan, Broad Green Pictures	Director of Development at Broad Green Pictures, the financier and production company behind such award-winning and acclaimed dramatic films as 99 HOMES, SONG TO SONG, THE NEON DEMON and KNIGHT OF CUPS.

The post Introducing Inaugural Drama Screenplay Competition! appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Who doesn’t love creating a world from scratch? So many of these places take us far away from our humdrum lives to places that inspire and transfix. Hogwarts, Westeros, Middle-Earth, Pandora, and that galaxy far far away are just a few of our favorite destinations. And with these worlds come endless story possibilities.

However, the process of world-building is an art in and of itself. It can prove incredibly tricky, prompting legions of writers to dump page after page of exposition in an effort to describe the intricacies of the world before they've even had a chance to introduce their protagonist. That’s great if you’re writing a novel, but in a script, it is important to be as economic as possible.

Beyond these concerns, many writers worry that readers and executives will not understand their world if there isn't a sufficient amount of time spent establishing it in the early pages of a screenplay. If you've written a science fiction or a fantasy screenplay before, chances are you've probably seen this trend in some the feedback you've received.

New worlds prompt curiosity, which can sometimes take the form of a seemingly endless barrage of questions and nitpicks.  On the business side of Hollywood in particular, producers and development executives are more likely to approach worldbuilding-heavy screenplays with a degree of trepidation. In other words, it's an important craft to master, and as an aficionado of fictional landscapes both fantastical and strange, I believe there are two distinct methods for creating vast and intriguing worlds without alienating your audience.

THE NEWCOMER METHOD

Harry Potter is by far the most successful example of this approach - at least in the last two decades. Here Rowling begins by giving us an appetizer of things to come with a chance meeting between three wizards – Dumbledore, Hagrid, and Professor McGonagall. This chance meeting is an incredibly important part of world building. Not only is Rowling setting up Harry's circumstances, she's giving us a brief taste of the magic that permeates this world. While we're only given a small taste, it sets our expectations accordingly, and establishes the tone of the story to follow.

The importance of including this "teaser" can't be underestimated. If Rowling had started out simply with a boy who was abandoned and lived under the stairs along with his abusive Aunt and Uncle, we might assume we were in for an intimate, low-key drama. Likewise, if the audience isn't given some taste of the world, the ultimate reveal will feel random and jarring. Think of it as a sort of dramatic irony - the audience should know that there is something more to the hero's world, even when the hero does not. With just a hint of what's to come, they'll be primed and ready to follow the protagonist on a journey of discovery.

From here, the writer's job becomes one of carefully-measured expansion, intricately filling in the gaps bit by bit as the hero crosses each new threshold. We aren't simply thrown into Hogwarts, for example. Instead, the process is a gradual one, beginning at Diagon Alley and later the Hogwarts Express until finally, we arrive at the main event just when we are hungry for more. It's like stepping into a pool - you dip your toe in at first, then slide the rest of your body into the water until you’re fully immersed.

The defining characteristic of this approach to worldbuilding is that the audience is introduced to the world through Harry’s eyes.  He's a conduit - our gateway as we experience the tapestry of the wizarding world for the first time. This also provides Rowling with bountiful opportunities for relatively painless exposition. After all, Harry's got a lot to learn - and so do we.

Or, you can throw all that to the wind, which brings us to approach number two.

THE "HEAD-FIRST" METHOD

The head-first approach means exactly what it says:  throwing your audience straight into the action without a lifejacket. Think of Children of Men, which opens with the bombing of a cafe in near-future London, mere moments after we learn that the youngest person on the planet has died at the age of 18. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. This kind of less-is-more, "in media res" approach places a heavy emphasis on subtle storytelling techniques - environmental cues for example, or subtle shifts in technology or accent.

It can be an incredibly tedious balancing act, if only because it's such an exposition-light approach to fleshing out the world of your story. Every detail must be finely tuned and placed in just the right way for the audience to pick up on it. And in order to steer clear of loopholes and logical inconsistencies, writers have to know their worlds front to back. Especially when the audience does not. Done right, and this approach can make for a thrilling introduction to a brave new world. More importantly, it can make a world feel organic and lived in. As if it's been there for centuries, or millennia. Done wrong, and you risk alienating your audience from the outset.

When diving head first into your world, it's important to avoid overbearing exposition. Particularly in the form of two characters discussing the nature of their world. This might seem counter-intuitive, but think about it. This is their world, which means it should be relatively common-place to them. When's the last time you and your friend discussed the function of an air conditioner or some other earthly hallmark? If you're opting for the "head-first" approach (and many of the best genre films do), you'll have to get especially creative with how you handle exposition. Remember, the goal is to allow the world of your story to unfold like a flower - prompting curiosities, and satisfying them through the natural progression of the story.

THE PERILS OF EXPOSITION

The mistake many writers make is over-explaining their world in hopes of painting a clearer picture for their audience. Fortunately, there’s a simple rule to follow here. Instead of explaining your entire world in lavish detail, you needn’t take us any further than the world of the story. In other word, only show us what we need to know in order to understand the story at hand. Yes, the world can be as vast as you want, but for brevity's sake, limit your world building to the characters, and their plight. George Lucas doesn’t take us to every planet in his universe in Star Wars, for example. Rather, we only visit the planets that pertain to Luke’s story. Yes, we can imagine a vast amount of other planets in accordance with the history of the Jedi, but they're not essential to this particular journey.

This point can't be stressed enough. Never take us beyond the reach of your story for the sake of it, and always resist the temptation to over-explain unless it directly pertains to plot and character. We don’t need to know the inner-workings of a lightsaber in order to know that they’re really damn cool. In the off-chance that you do receive notes regarding the believability of your world building, take a step back and reflect. Chances are, what they’re really saying is that they’re not invested enough in your characters.

World building takes time. As you may well know creators of these worlds sometimes have notebooks and notebooks filled with endless possibilities and endless explanations on the workings of their creation. Does that mean every single, intricate detail ends up on screen? The answer, obviously, is no - but as a writer, they're important details to keep in mind. Together, they form a vast, cohesive canvas that solidifies your characters, and enriches the story you are trying to tell.

The post When Worlds Collide: The Art of World Building appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Anyone who has sat down to write a screenplay knows there’s no defined way to go about it. Storytelling is a messy, frustrating process with few guidelines or paths to help lead you through. Some steps, though, can make it far easier. Arguably the most vital part of the process, and maybe the most difficult, is creating an outline. Before sitting down to write you should know where your story needs to go, and how you have to get there.

Why is this so important?

Simply put, a good screenplay cannot meander. There simply aren't enough pages. Scenes need to be compelling on their own, while building off one another other to create a consistent, coherent, and compelling story. It needs emotional arcs, setups and payoffs, motifs, catharsis… No big deal, right? All of this takes time and experimentation to figure out, but much of that work can be done in an outline, before dialogue and character behavior becomes a major factor.

Gather Your Basic Ingredients

Let's start with the basics. For some of you, this will be review - but it's important to remember that the vast majority of stories are cut from a similar cloth when it comes to their foundational elements. For example, standard story structure always includes three acts - a beginning that introduces an environment and characters, a middle full of conflict and challenge, and an ending that resolves these challenges - or doesn’t. The screenplay also needs a protagonist with a strong objective, along with an antagonist to set up obstacles between the hero and their goal.

Next come the more specific points: an Inciting Incident, the moment that inverts the script’s normal world; the Point of No Return, when the protagonist chooses to chase their objective; a Midpoint or Turning Point, where something in the plot changes; a Critical Choice that forces the protagonist to face their obstacles; and finally, the Climax and Resolution, where the objective is reached or lost.

Of course, these are only the first steps. The screenplay needs to be filled with scenes that evoke a detailed world, develop character, move the story forward, and increase tension until the climax. Choosing these scenes so they feel organic, but also serve the story, is like putting together a puzzle in zero gravity. But some people have laid out the process that worked for them already - we can follow in their steps.

Follow Prescribed Formulas

Of course, not all screenplays follow the same structure, but looking at a handful of successful examples can save a lot of time. Syd Field includes a “paradigm” in his book Screenplay: Act One, the Setup (pg. 1-30); Act Two, the Confrontation (pg. 30-90); and Act Three, the Resolution (pg. 90-120). Each act is a “unit” of dramatic action which introduces the story or continues conflict. Blake Snyder includes a skeleton beat sheet in his hugely helpful book Save the Cat! that is too long to list here, but includes advice on setup and second act blues more detailed than the basic structure.

As a less rigid example, Kurt Vonnegut outlines emotional arcs on a graph - the X axis the beginning to ending, the Y good fortune to bad fortune. A good story either starts at the bottom and goes up, or starts at the top, goes down, and stays there or rises again. There’s Joseph Campbell’s famous Hero’s Journey, which applies to everything from Greek epics to Marvel superhero movies.

There are as many different outline templates as there are writers, so working with one that sounds good for your story, then changing it to fit certain beats, is recommended. The challenge with the above advice, of course, is making that formula feel fresh. Sometimes intuition is the best guideline to follow.

Feeling Stuck? Notecards Allow for Flexibility

Intuition also doesn’t follow rules. Ideas can come in random spurts of scenes, unconnected images, or less linear emotional arcs. Sometimes a scene in the script’s second act is the catalyst, and requires a story to be built around it. This isn’t an excuse not to outline - it just means that the process may be less organized. If the scenes feel disconnected at first, it can help to create notecards for each scene and order them, reorder them, until it starts to feel right. Then fill in the gaps with other notecards. It can be an annoying and disorganized process, but once the order starts coming together, the more traditional structure can be applied.

If you’re telling a more experimental story, notecards can help keep it consistent regardless. Even if you jump through time or explore a concept rather than a narrative, you have to infuse your writing with an arc. Notecards can help keep this in perspective.

Create Your Beat Sheet

Whether you follow a traditional formula or try your hand at notecards, a beat sheet becomes one of the most tedious and most important steps in the outline process. It’s the final gateway between a rough outline and an actual draft. What’s the difference between beat sheets and a standard outline? This format requires a precise description of each scene, including character reactions, conversation twists and transitions, from beginning to end. Many times, these documents end up being 20-30 pages long. But it helps immensely to describe your scenes in such detail - you can see what works, what doesn’t, and what is missing. It’s a last measurement before the plunge.

Rework, Rewrite, Repeat

Even when you’ve filled in all the gaps, that doesn’t mean your outline is complete. These formulas are guidelines, but they aren’t foolproof. It’s up to you to judge whether your structure flows organically and conveys a successful emotional arc. Revisit your scenes until each of them feeds the story exactly as it needs to. Then, when you think you’ve got it, start writing. If it doesn’t work, change the outline. Keep altering and rethinking until you’re satisfied and you have a full draft.

So, there’s no one way to write your script, but outlining can simplify the process immensely. Knowing that your disparate scenes and characters connect into a fully-realized story is hugely important. It’s painful, a little boring, but it can save a lot of strife when you understand what you’re creating from the start. So, go for it. Start putting those objectives together.

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Great writing is a balancing act of interwoven, unifying elements. That is, Points at which the story gains coherence, when things truly start to “come together”. The marriage between protagonist and motivation is once such element; the interplay between “obstacle” and “quest” is another. Structurally speaking, the most unifying element of a screenplay may in fact be its geographic center, located around the sixty-something page count and commonly referred to as “the midpoint”. In Blake Snyder’s classic book Save the Cat, he describes midpoint as an interval in the story where the stakes are raised; that is, where the enormity of the task confronting your protagonist is fully revealed.

One problem with crafting a midpoint in a script is that “middles” don’t garner much attention or fanfare. Nobody ever leaves a movie theater raving about the midpoint—they talk about endings, they rhapsodize about an opening set piece. But the center, the crest of your second act usually passes under an audience’s radar. It’s as if the better it works, the less important it seems. But just because middles go unacknowledged doesn’t mean they’re expendable, or even easy to write.

The midpoint represents—at least for me—a swampy nether space that resides smack in the middle of what had been a fully engaging and (possibly) even joyous writing experience. If you’re like me, you may find that by the time your reach “the sixties” you may have crafted your very best action sequences. The first half of your script may feature your sharpest dialogue, your most inspired imagery, your most deftly integrated story beats. Enthusiasm always translates to the page, and (again, if you’re like me) you sense a flagging of enthusiasm when you pause to consider that you are only halfway home.

So what’s the remedy here—other than drugs and alcohol? Blake Snyder advocates presenting your protagonist with either a false peak (e.g. an “up” midpoint), or a false collapse (a “down” midpoint). In both instances, the stakes are raised for the hero. The midpoint could also be regarded as the last vestige of “setup” in your story. All major characters have been ushered onstage. The scope of the conflict is fully manifest. To borrow a metaphor from the world of chess: All of the pawns have been ejected from the board and we’re now playing with rooks and knights and bishops.

Although Snyder’s template is extremely helpful, I have found that your choice of genre can expand and inform how you handle midpoint. But first, let’s look at some prominent examples of both the “ups” and the “downs”; from false peaks to false collapses.

1) The False Peak:

• Titanic: Jack and Rose evade her husband and consummate their whirlwind relationship—a false victory—before the ship hits an iceberg.
• Barton Fink: Another false victory—Barton and Audrey consummate their relationship. The next morning, Barton wakes up to find her brutally murdered.
• Gravity: After surviving a fire onboard the American space station, Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) commandeers a Russian capsule (a second false victory) only to find that it is also defective.

2) The False Collapse:

• The Imitation Game: Commander Denniston, supervisor of the British cryptography team, fires team leader Alan Turing and orders “Christopher” (the name of Turing’s primitive computer) destroyed.
• The Revenant: Hugh Glass survives being left-for-dead, manages to bind his wounds and restore his health. He rescues Powaqa, daughter of the chief of the Arikara. The Arikara war party, however, mistakes Glass for one of Powaqa’s rapists. They ambush him and drive him and his horse off of a cliff.
• Schindler’s List: Oskar Schindler has succeeded in sheltering several hundred Jews from transport to the camps by employing them at his cookware factory. At the midpoint, this entire enterprise is threatened when SS commandant Amon Göth arrives on scene, ransacks the Krakow ghetto and transports all of the surviving Jews (including Shindler’s workers) to the Plaszów concentration camp.

These categories are broad with each containing any number of variants. Genre can influence how you craft a midpoint, as well. For instance if you’re writing a “closed” mystery (that is, the audience knows only what they protagonist knows), then instead of a false collapse or a false victory, the protagonist is handed a kind of treasure map. He or she obtains just enough information to realize what they don’t yet know. I call this midpoint the “Our true enemy has not yet shown his face”; a line of Sonny Corleone’s cribbed from The Godfather, Part III. Here are some examples of films that used this technique:

3) The True Enemy Revealed:

• The Big Short: At a conference in Las Vegas, Mark Baum has dinner with a Mr. Chau, presented as an insider in the mortgage-backed securities world. Baum exhibits absolutely zero regard for things like investment fundamentals or the dubious value of the mortgages that comprise his product. Mark is horrified, leaves the meeting and instructs his colleagues to “short everything that guy touches”. The scale of this looming catastrophe is far greater than he imagined.
• Seabiscuit: The unexpected excellence & determination of Seabiscuit is established through the first half of the second act. Then, at the midpoint, Seabiscuit’s training team (and jockey Red Pollard) is presented with their most difficult challenge; a match race against superhorse War Admiral. 
• Chinatown: Water & Power department chief Hollis Mulwray’s body is discovered drowned in a reservoir. The second half of the movie chronicles Jake Gittes’ inquiry into the murder and its many implications.
• No Country for Old Men: Two parallel stories collide at midpoint in this story: Llewelyn Moss has stumbled upon a fortune in drug money. He’s survived an initial manhunt in the desert, but because he had to abandon his vehicle, he knows the cartel will easily track him to his residence. He hustles his wife, Carla Jean, off to her mother’s house while goes on the lam. Llewelyn doesn’t know who is coming—he just knows that somebody is. The “somebody”, Anton Chigurh, is established as a “loose cannon” psychopath in his parallel story. The two men collide at midpoint when a tracking device attached to the money leads Chigurh to Llewelyn’s hotel room.

In romances and romantic comedies, there often appears a midpoint variation of false victory that is instantly followed an emotional nadir; a dark and deep pessimism about the lovers’ prospects for happily-ever-after. I call this…

4) The "Seemingly Doomed" Relationship:

• Sideways; Miles and Maya consummate their relationship; then, in the course of a picnic breakfast, Miles accidentally spills Jack’s true status—that he’s engaged, that this wine country idyll is actually a bachelor blowout before Jack’s wedding. Maya’s sense of betrayal sparks a whole series of repercussions—all of them bad.
• Knocked Up: Allison has decided to keep her baby, even though she has grave doubts about Ben’s ability to commit to fatherhood and transition from boy-man to adult. This conflict reaches its crescendo at midpoint when Ben agrees to drive Allison to an obstetrician appointment. They argue in the car, Allison ejects him. She then drives alone to the doctor’s only to find that Ben has followed her. They resume their raging argument in full view of a nurse and break up.

And lastly, there exists a kind of free-form, anti-narrative midpoint in some movies that causes you to leave the theater shaking your head in bewilderment. The story may take a darker turn, it may be part revelation, part misdirection. I call these instances…

5) The “What just happened?” Midpoint Crisis:

• Inception: The central motivation here is to gain corporate advantage. A scion dies, his son and heir (Robert Fischer) is kidnapped. Fischer is taken to a kind of pop-up lab where the kidnappers perform an induced dream procedure to alter his decision process. There’s some risk involved (other than getting arrested for kidnapping). The possibility exists that the subject will go “under” and stay under, permanently lost in a kind of infinite subconscious. But they do it anyway. Because Christopher Nolan.
• A Place Beyond the Pines: The midpoint in this otherwise riveting film amounts to a protagonist swap. The person you think is the hero, motorcycle stuntman Luke Glanton, is caught robbing a bank and shot dead by a police officer named Avery Cross. The character “tags out”, WWF style, and then Avery Cross’s character takes over the narrative. That’s two movies for the price of one!

The imperative in crafting your midpoint is that your protagonist experience one of two things: 1.) A revelation that suggests a far greater obstacle looming on the horizon, or 2.) a false something; either a false peak or a false debacle that propels the narrative toward resolution. Notice that in both of these instances the stakes are raised—or at least, they should be. Don’t dwell on the notion that you’ve got half a movie to go. Don’t despair that you may have expended yourself in writing your best dialogue, your best action set pieces, etc. Rather, take comfort in the idea that if you do midpoints well, the audience may not even notice.

Monty Mickelson has written YA feature films for cable television, and has worked as a Creative Executive for a  literary manager.  He also teaches screenwriting through the Recording, Radio, Film Connection and CASA Schools (RRFC) in Los Angeles.  

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The winners are:

• Michael Thai for his screenplay 10G
• Patrick Biesemans for his screenplay The Beautiful Country
• Michael Leung for his screenplay Rendezvous
• Yucheng Sun for his screenplay 凛冬夜/Snowy Night

These Orb Media China-Hollywood Screenwriting Fellowship recipients will receive roundtrip travel to China where they will meet with industry professionals and financiers in Beijing as well as attendance at the Shanghai International Film Festival, where ScreenCraft is hosting a special panel with some of Hollywood's top blockbuster creatives including James Gunn (writer-director of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 1 & 2, screenwriter of SCOOBY DOO and DAWN OF THE DEAD) and Max Borenstein (screenwriter of KONG: SKULL ISLAND, GODZILLA and HBO's VINYL). These ScreenCraft winners will also have the opportunity to join these Hollywood luminaries for a special mentorship dinner in Shanghai next month!

Additionally, we wish to recognize the talented finalists, as chosen by Orb Media and ScreenCraft:

Congratulations to the talented winners and finalists listed above, and congratulations the semifinalists announced here, and the quarter-finalists announced here.

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We often call good characters “three-dimensional.” Three-dimensional characters are complex and unique, with fully developed fictional lives. This makes them seem like real people. And the more real the character seems, the more the audience will identify with them and care about what happens to them. Also, realistic characters are necessary for the audience to suspend their disbelief and buy into the story. This is especially true with stories set in unfamiliar worlds, like science fiction, fantasy, and historical drama. We need realistic characters to ground us in these strange environments. Underdeveloped characters are called “flat” or “cardboard” for a reason. They don’t engage our emotions. We don’t care about what happens to them, so we don't care about the story.

Why do we say three dimensions, rather than four or five or ten? Because there are three aspects of a person’s (or character’s) life:

Physical:

The nature of a character’s body affects their attitude toward the world and the world’s attitude toward them. Are they male or female or transgender? How old are they? What is their race? Are they athletic? How is their health? Are they graceful, clumsy, sexy or sickly? Naturally attractive or ugly? Do they have a high-pitched, squeaky voice or a deep, soothing voice?

Psychological:

Psychological traits are the elements of the character’s personality. Are they outgoing or shy? Optimistic or pessimistic? Patient or short-tempered? Greedy, overly-sensitive, confident, competitive, charming, uptight, lecherous and/or kind? What are they most afraid of? What do they enjoy? What are their political, philosophical, and religious beliefs? Are they gay, straight, or somewhere in between?

Social:

Social characteristics can be thought of as demographics. Is the character single, married, divorced? Are they dating – if so, who and for how long? Do they have kids? Are their parents alive and do they get along with them? Is the character popular, stylish, a jock, or a nerd? What is their job? What religion do they belong to (which may be different from their spiritual beliefs) and do they actively participate in it? What is their socioeconomic class? Education level? What ethnicity, and are they a minority in their environment? What social groups are they part of – friends, work groups, hobby groups? Where do they live – what city and what kind of domicile? Whom do they live with?

You can get a good start building a multidimensional character by simply listing traits under those three categories. Here are three additional exercises that will help make your characters into more fully realized, complex human beings.

1. Give them plans.

In order for your characters to seem like real people, they can’t just be sitting around waiting for your story to happen to them. The story has to interrupt a life in progress. In other words, your characters have to have plans. I try to establish my characters’ short-term, medium-term and long-term plans. The movie Little Miss Sunshine demonstrates this well. Richard isn’t sitting around waiting for his daughter to get into a beauty pageant. He has plans. His short-term plan involves the inconvenience of taking in his brother-in-law, Frank, after Frank’s attempted suicide. In the medium term he’s trying to confirm a book deal for his “9 Steps” plan. In the long term he wants to be a motivational guru. Showing the characters’ plans helps to establish who they are and what they want.

2. Make them really good at something and really bad at something.

We are interested in people who are exceptional. But a character who is great at everything is both unbelievable and a little annoying. Similarly, though dark anti-heroes are in fashion right now, a character with no positive qualities is hard to care about. The best characters have both an exceptional talent and a massive flaw. That’s what makes Tony Stark one of the best characters in the Marvel cinematic universe. He’s a brilliant inventor, but he’s saddled with a massive ego that constantly gets him in trouble. On the show Mad Men, Don Draper was the best creative executive in the business, but he was a disaster at personal relationships.

3. Break the stereotype.

Most characters could easily fit into some kind of stereotype – the doctor who is smart and arrogant, the soldier who is macho, the CEO who is greedy and heartless, the scientists who is a nerdy man. It’s not surprising when the stereotype version of a character is a screenwriter’s first instinct – after all, that’s why they’re stereotypes. But when you settle for the stereotype, your character will seem like an icon rather than a person. Imagine the stereotypical version of your character, and then do something different. Instantly your character will feel like a unique individual. Sometimes you need to maintain an element of the stereotype for your story, though. Let’s say you need that CEO to be greedy and heartless. What other elements of the stereotype can you change? Maybe rather than a middle-aged white guy, you make your greedy, heartless CEO a southern Black woman. In the Netflix show Jessica Jones, Jessica is in many ways a stereotypical noir detective. She is tough, brooding, antisocial, and a raging alcoholic. But by making her a young woman with superpowers and a close relationship with her sister, she feels fresh and unique.

You do have to find some kind of consistency as you employ these techniques. Randomly attaching adjectives to your character will result in a confusing, implausible character. But sometimes adding one or two unexpected elements is all it takes to really bring a character to life. Like most things in writing, the more specific and detailed you are, the better.

And when you create fully fleshed out and realistic three-dimensional characters, the audience will be anxious to find out what happens to them.

Guest blogger Douglas J. Eboch is the original screenwriter of the movie “Sweet Home Alabama.” He wrote the how-to book “The Three Stages of Screenwriting,” and co-wrote “The Hollywood Pitching Bible” with producer Ken Aguado. He was awarded the Carl Sautter Award for Most Promising New Voice in feature films for his screenplay titled “Overload.”

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Last week ScreenCraft hosted its first ever conference for writers in Nashville in conjunction with the amazing Nashville Film Festival It was a weekend of panels, parties and networking with some of Hollywood’s top screenwriters, agents and producers. If you were there then you know how awesome it was. If you couldn’t make well, we’ve got you covered a little bit here. For this week’s show, we’re going play a recording of one of the conference’s most popular panels, the representation panel. We know so many of you have questions about representation: what’s a manager do? Do I need one? How do I get an agent? When should I start looking for these people? 

SEE ALL SCREENCRAFT PODCAST EPISODES HERE!

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Katie O'Connell Marsh has been appointed as the head of their new Global Live Action Television division. She will be based at the Glendale headquarters of the company starting in January 2016.

DWA CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg says: "Television has quickly grown into one of our most successful businesses and, as the demand for kids and co-viewing content continues to rise, extending the DreamWorks Animation brand to live-action TV in a strategic and financially disciplined way will spur even further growth. Katie's proven track record of developing hit live-action television programming, coupled with her success in quickly building television businesses from the ground up, makes her the perfect executive to lead us into this new genre."

DWA President Ann Daly says: "Our move into live-action will enable DWA to further capitalize on the evolving television landscape by creating new opportunities on both traditional and emerging platforms for our branded series. Moreover, live action will give us yet another creative lens with which to explore our library of rich storytelling and memorable characters that have resonated with audiences for the past two decades."

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However, some new revelations have proven that the sequel is back on track. Tom Cruise recently commented on the sequel, saying that if they did it he'd insist on using practical stunts using real fighter jets. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Paramount recently signed a new deal together. Justin Marks was hired to write the script. 

Word has it that the story revolves around old school pilots struggling to remain relevant in a world when wars can be fought by drones. 

The newest revelation is that Val Kilmer has announced on Facebook that he has just been signed to reprise his role as Iceman in the sequel.

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Guest post by Michael Patterson, our favorite cinephile with an uncanny ability to predict Telluride's lineup:

The 42^nd Telluride Film Festival is four weeks away (Sept. 4-7, 2015) and over the past several years, it has become one of the most influential film festivals in the world. Six of the last seven Best Picture Oscar winners started at Telluride on their way through awards season to Oscar glory. The festival has also premiered a number of films that have won Oscars for screenwriting including “Juno”, “The King’s Speech,” “The Imitation Game” and last year’s Best Original Screenplay winner “Birdman”.

Unlike other major film festivals, Telluride's lineup is kept secret until just a day or two before the festival begins. This means that attendees shell out a substantial investment in purchasing passes and securing lodging and travel with faith that the program will be outstanding.

I began attending in 2006 with almost no idea of what it was and fell in love. Before I returned in 2007, I made a point of learning a lot more about the fest and how it works. I was intrigued by the notion that 3,000 or so cinephiles would make the not-so-easy-trip to a remote southwest Colorado town for a four day event. I also thought that if someone worked at it, that it might be possible to peek behind the curtain and get a sense of some of the films that the TFF curators would select before their announcement each year.

So, in 2008, I started a blog (link below) to share my research into Telluride's possible film lineup and report to those who might have an interest. I expanded it in 2009 to include coverage of the films that played Telluride and their effect on the annual awards season.

What films will play in four weeks at the 42nd Telluride Film Festival??

Here are the ten films most likely to make the Telluride's 2015 lineup:

10) “Steve Jobs”-The Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”, “127 Hours”) directed, Aaron Sorkin penned look at the Apple co-founder. The film is already announced as the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival in October and will close the London Fest as well. “Steve Jobs” will open in the U.S. on Oct. 9.

9) “He Named Me Malala”-Documentarian David Guggenheim’s (“Waiting for Superman”) look at 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai. Malala was the target of an assassination attempt by the Taliban in 2012 for daring to want an education. She survived to become a spokesperson and activist for women’s and children’s rights across the world. The film is slated for release on Oct. 2.

8) “I Saw the Light”-Marc Abraham (“Flash of Genius”) directs this biopic of the very brief life of country music legend Hank Williams. Tom Hiddleston stars as the musician who is often claimed to be the father of country music but who died at the age of 29. Elizabeth Olsen also stars as Williams’ wife Audrey. “I Saw the Light” is set for a Nov. 27 release.

7) “Carol”-Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara star in this Todd Haynes directed film of a Patricia Highsmith novel set in the 1950’s and centered on the budding romance between two women at a time when “polite society” condemned the notion. Mara won Best Actress at Cannes. “Carol” opens on Nov. 20.

6) “Suffragette”-Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter fight for their right to vote in early 20^th century England. Meryl Streep makes a cameo appearance as famed suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. Abi Morgan (“Shame”, “The Iron Lady”) penned the script. Sarah Gavron directs. “Suffragette” is set to open in the U.S. on Oct. 23.

5) “Room”-Director Lenny Abrahamson’s follow-up to his 2014 indie “Frank” is this adaptation by Emma Donaghue of her own novel and stars Brie Larson as a woman who is held captive for years in a single small room. Release is scheduled for Oct. 16.

4) “Anomalisa”-Co-directed by Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman. This stop-motion animated film is described as focused on one man’s attempt to deal with the mundanity of life. Kaufman, who wrote “Adaptation” and “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” also wrote the screenplay for this. No date is currently set for U.S. release but the film has been announced for both the Venice and Toronto festivals.

3) “Beasts of No Nation”-This is what Cary Fukunaga was up to after finishing season one of HBO’s “True Detective”. Idris Elba stars in this story set in a war torn African nation where children are swept into the horrors of the conflict on a daily basis. “Beasts” is set for release on Oct. 16.

2) “Black Mass”-Scott Cooper follows his “Out of the Furnace” with this biopic about notorious Boston mobster/hitman Whitey Bulger with Johnny Depp playing the gangster. It’s already getting attention as Depp’s return to serious acting. Joel Edgerton and Benedict Cumberbatch co-star. “Black Mass” will play Toronto and Venice and is set for domestic release on Sept. 18.

1) “Son of Saul”-This Cannes prize winner (Grand Jury Prize) was a sensation coming out of that festival in May. First time feature director Laszlo Nemes explores the horror of the Auschwitz death camp through the eyes of Saul, a young Jew charged with disposing the bodies of the dead. “Son of Saul” will open in the U.S. on Dec. 18.

That’s my current ten best guesses for Telluride. I update them each week, so check out my blog over the next month to see updates as I continue to try to solve the puzzle that is the Telluride 2015 lineup.

---

Michael Patterson is the publisher, editor and head maintenance dude for Michael’s Telluride Film Blog (and The Film Awards Clearinghouse). He’s been writing obsessively about the Telluride Film Festival since 2008. He lives in Guymon, Oklahoma with his wife Kristy. In his real life he teaches high school drama, speech and debate.

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Today we're excited to announce our new Short Film Production Grant Program!  In partnership with BondIt, a film and media fund based in Beverly Hills, we're giving a new production grant to our favorite short screenplay every few months!  Apply below.

We're offering between four and ten production grants per year to talented filmmakers for short film and online series that display originality, vision and exceptional potential. Grant amounts will vary from $10,000 (ten thousand dollars) to $20,000 (twenty thousand dollars) depending on the scale and merit of the project. We also offer matching funds for crowd-funding campaigns.

This program includes creative development from the ScreenCraft team and production guidance and industry resources from BondIt and Buffalo 8 Productions.

APPLY HERE!

We're looking for projects containing 3 important elements:

1. An excellent short screenplay with a unique voice
2. An impressive producing team and/or director with a strong vision statement
3. Great adaptation potential for the short film to be eventually made to a feature film or TV series

Tell us about yourself! Along with your short screenplay, please upload a letter that expresses your vision for your project. This letter is meant to help the judges get a sense of your creative vision and professional experience. If you've made a short film before, feel free to include a link.  Make your cover letter as fun or formal as you like. We recommend 1-2 pages in length.

As seen in IndieWire:

ABOUT US: 

ScreenCraft is a Los-Angeles based media company dedicated to helping screenwriters and filmmakers succeed through competitions, events and educational content.

BondIt is a film and media fund with recent film credits including “Sharknado“, “Wild Horses” (starring James Franco and Robert Duvall) “31” (directed by Rob Zombie), “By Way of Helena” (starring Woody Harrelson, Liam Hemsworth and William Hurt) & “The Invitation” (SXSW winner).

APPLY HERE!

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We caught up with ScreenCraft winner Aaron Steven recently - here's the interview:

1. Congratulations! How did you get your manager? How was your initial meeting?

I got signed as a direct result of placing 2nd in the 2014 ScreenCraft Action/Thriller Contest. One of my prizes for coming in 2nd was a phone consultation with a literary manager, and that happened to be Taylor at Kaplan/Perrone. By the time we spoke he had already read The Narrows. We got along really well and seemed to have similar tastes. I pitched him on my next spec, which I was just finishing up, and he said he would pass The Narrows around to some other folks in his office. About a week later I got a call telling me how excited they were to read my next spec as soon as it was ready. Flash forward a few months, everybody's schedules calmed down, and I went in for a meeting to go over my work and see where things stood. I ended up kind of hijacking the meeting and pitched a couple new ideas that I'm really passionate about and everything just kind of clicked. He signed me on the spot!

2. What's it like having a manager?

It's still early days so I can't speak too much on the specifics, but so far it's a dream come true. For young writers just starting out, it's such a balance between the writing side and the business side. Before you're signed you spend so much time and thought on how to market yourself or make the best connections. It's a great feeling to know that somebody has your back and that you can just focus on the craft of screenwriting.

3. Have you entered other consulting services or contests?

Before entering my script in ScreenCraft I had done the usual circuit of The Black List, The Nicholl Fellowship, Austin Film Festival, etc. While The Black List was really helpful in terms of getting notes back, I still felt like I was at a disadvantage since I was competing against scripts of all different genres. So when I saw the ScreenCraft Action/Thriller contest my eyes lit up. Not just because I'd be going up against a much smaller set of scripts, but because the industry judges were all people who already loved scripts like mine. It's a great system, not just for the writers but for the judges too.

4. How did you get into screenwriting?

It was probably a combination of my father, who is a novelist and a cinephile, and my experience in film school. From a young age I knew I wanted to tell stories and had a passion for filmmaking. Going to film school gave me exposure to all the different aspects of the craft, and pretty immediately the one I gravitated to was screenwriting. I went to a smaller school called Towson University in Baltimore and I had the benefit of some fantastic teachers there. In particular a guy named Michael Angelella. He's a great mentor to me and a brilliant writer, and he really taught me how to approach the entire thing. After school I moved to LA and started working in production. The last 5 years have been a balance between working in the industry and my own writing. There's been a lot of late nights and I'm lucky to have an incredibly supportive wife and family.

5. What advice do you have for emerging screenwriters who are looking for Hollywood representation?

Don't sit on your laurels. Before you're signed, you need to take getting yourself out there just as seriously as you take your writing. The days of writers being solitary, tortured geniuses are long gone. Get out there and network. Be over-prepared for everything. Practice your pitches religiously with anybody who will hear them. Send query letters and enter contests, especially ones with strong industry presence like ScreenCraft. Don't listen to anybody who tells you these things don't work because I can tell you they do. Read everything you can get your hands on, especially current scripts that are getting sold, made, etc. At the end of the day, you get out what you put in, and the best screenwriting contests can still only get you in the door. It's up to you to make those connections matter.

GOOD LUCK AARON!  We look forward to many more success stories from you!

The post ScreenCraft Winner Aaron Steven Secures a Manager! appeared first on ScreenCraft.

“I want to be Shonda Rhimes. I want to create a whole night of TV!”

“I want to become a household name filmmaker and do cameos in my films!”

“I want to star on a network sitcom!”

People tell me their big dreams. When I am meeting students at the colleges where I speak or on the phone with potential clients for my career consulting, they often announce those dreams, sometimes by way of an introduction. Initially, I am impressed with the size of their vision for their entertainment career. But then they ask the follow-up. “How do I do that?”

How do you go from being a college senior outside of the entertainment industry to being Shonda Rhimes, Quentin Tarantino, Jim Parsons?

“Well, let’s see…,” I will say, stalling for time.

It feels like someone coming up to me on the corner of Santa Monica and Westwood Boulevards in West L.A. and asking me how to get to a particular street in Russia. As with a physical journey over a long distance, I don’t try to break down the entire trip from here (college student, industry neophyte) to there (showbiz bigwig). It would be a very long conversation and besides, there are many routes to get to the same place and sometimes there are lucky breaks and/or surprise setbacks along the way.

Instead, I focus on the big picture and give them advice that will get them started:

1. Look for the opportunity to wear the fish head. Or be the fish’s head. That advice is meant both in a general way and specifically. In general, look for opportunities to contribute in small ways – to be a background player – because those types of opportunities are more plentiful and will at least get you started. Bigger opportunities will come once you show you can deliver in supporting ways.

The fish’s head also refers to the only part Seth Meyers had on his first episode on “Saturday Night Live.” It might seem unglamorous, maybe even a little bit of a letdown after getting to the promised land of comedy careers, but sometimes being given the opportunity to be a little-noticed face – or fish’s head – in a scene is a blessing. Meyers remembers it fondly and starting small turned into great things for him. He later became a “Weekend Update” anchor and head writer on “SNL” before transitioning into his own late night television show.

2. Be a detective. As I said above, people talk to me all the time about their careers in entertainment. I am often surprised that people with very specific dreams have no idea how to make them a reality. There may not be a book titled “How to Become a TV Showrunner,” but there are plenty of show runner career profiles and articles about becoming a showrunner posted all over the internet. Oh, and there is a book called “Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show” based on the documentary by the same name, which contains plenty of information on getting to that job, as well as what a show runner does.

Though there is never just ONE way to get to a given position, there are best practices and common paths. Spend some of that dream time pre-moving to L.A. or when you first land here studying up. Knowing how you could do it will make you that much more ready and able to do it. And by studying up, you will likely learn that it’s also a good idea to…

3. Get set up for the long haul. For practically your whole life, you’ve been dreaming of making it as an X in Hollywood. A screenwriter, a director, an actor, a film producer… Whatever it is, it feels like you’ve been wanting for it so long, you’re going to bust through whatever is standing between you and your dream pursuit as soon as you hit town. No years of toiling in obscurity for you. You. Are. READY.

Unfortunately, though you can dream the dream and fast forward in your mind, you have to live the reality. There is a chapter titled “The Myth of Overnight Success” in my book, “Breaking into the Biz: The Insider’s Guide to Launching an Entertainment Industry Career,” that talks about how, when I was new to the industry and a friend told me it took an average of 10 years for someone to become a working writer, I thought that was crazy. But now, knowing many writers both personally and professionally, and having interviewed many for YourIndustryInsider.com, that seems about accurate.

Yes, it could happen for you in less time, but if you study the careers of successful people doing what you want to do, you will discover the same typical time frame. So even if you aren’t interested in climbing the ladder to a job as an agent, studio executive, creative VP, etc., you would do well to find a livelihood that is reliable, that pays decently, and that you like enough to do it long-term (or that will lead to something you will like to do long-term).

If you are able to leave your day job before the 10 year average, great. In the meantime, without struggling to make ends meet, you will have a lot more time and energy to devote to pursing your dream.

4. Join a Rock & Roll Band. Or start one. This is not literal advice – unless you have musical talent and a hankering to tear the roof off this place. I’m recommending you join an organization of like-minded individuals all pursuing a dream together. It could be an improv troupe or a writing group or a band of indie filmmakers working on each other with projects. You never know what could happen to your little troupe when some of you start getting traction in the industry. (Think Upright Citizens Brigade.)It’s also always easier to stick to a plan when you are accountable to others and, unless you are Guns & Roses or Van Halen, usually it’s more fun.

5. Get Help. “Help” can mean any one of a number of things. A mentor, for instance, though mentors can be hard to come by unless you have a beloved uncle in the business. People are often too busy pursuing or maintaining their own dream career to be a reliable sage advisor for your career. Join an acting studio or take continuing ed classes at UCLA Extension or the other local schools. Or, if you are in L.A. and need help figuring out the job piece of your life, whether it’s a day job you are looking for to accompany your dream pursuit or you want to identify, market yourself and land the right next job on your career path, attend Your Industry Insider’s Breaking Into the Biz Workshop being held February 7^th and 14^th. You will get expert help with career planning and tailoring your resume to the job you are searing for, and learn how to be a job hunt ninja. Click here for more information and to sign up.

I hope if you have not started to work toward your dream, this gets you started, and if you have started in that direction, I hope this hastens your pace. I know the average journey to working at your dream pursuit sounds like an awful long time, but when you get there, I am confident you will fill that it has been worth it.

The creator and writer of Your Industry Insider, Jenny Yerrick Martin is a 20+ year veteran entertainment professional with experience in the film, television and music branches of the industry. She has spent the majority of her career as a hiring executive at a studio-based production company, where she found that the people she was interviewing had little idea how the industry worked or how the position they were up for would (or wouldn’t) get them where they wanted to be. Ten minutes with her provided more of a real-world industry education than anything they learned in college or since.

The post 5 Steps to "Making it Big" in Hollywood appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Also - don't miss our list of 2015 Awards Season Screenplays to Download!

BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR
American Sniper, Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, Bradley Cooper and Peter Morgan, Producers
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher and James W. Skotchdopole, Producers
Boyhood, Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland, Producers
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson, Producers
The Imitation Game, Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky and Teddy Schwarzman, Producers
Selma, Christian Colson, Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Producers
The Theory of Everything, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce and Anthony McCarten, Producers
Whiplash, Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook and David Lancaster, Producers

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Steve Carell in Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper in American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Robert Duvall in The Judge
Ethan Hawke in Boyhood
Edward Norton in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons in Whiplash

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones in The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore in Still Alice
Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon in Wild

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Patricia Arquette in Boyhood
Laura Dern in Wild
Keira Knightley in The Imitation Game
Emma Stone in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Meryl Streep in Into the Woods

ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR
Big Hero 6
Don Hall, Chris Williams and Roy Conli
The Boxtrolls
Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable and Travis Knight
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold
Song of the Sea
Tomm Moore and Paul Young
The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya
Isao Takahata and Yoshiaki Nishimura

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
Ida (Poland)
Leviathan (Russia)
Tangerines (Estonia)
Timbuktu (Mauritania)
Wild Tales (Argentina)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
American Sniper
Written by Jason Hall
The Imitation Game
Written by Graham Moore
Inherent Vice
Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson
The Theory of Everything
Screenplay by Anthony McCarten
Whiplash
Written by Damien Chazelle

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo
Boyhood
Written by Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher
Written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Screenplay by Wes Anderson; Story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness
Nightcrawler
Written by Dan Gilroy

ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Emmanuel Lubezki
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Robert Yeoman
Ida
Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski
Mr. Turner
Dick Pope
Unbroken
Roger Deakins

ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Milena Canonero
Inherent Vice
Mark Bridges
Into The Woods
Colleen Atwood
Maleficent
Anna B. Sheppard and Jane Clive
Mr. Turner
Jacqueline Durran

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
CitizenFour
Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky
Finding Vivian Maier
John Maloof and Charlie Siskel
Last Days in Vietnam
Rory Kennedy and Keven McAlester
The Salt of the Earth
Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and David Rosier
Virunga
Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry
Joanna
Aneta Kopacz
Our Curse
Tomasz Sliwinski and Maciej Slesicki
The Reaper (La Parka)
Gabriel Serra Arguello
White Earth
J. Christian Jensen

ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING
American Sniper
Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach
Boyhood
Sandra Adair
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Barney Pilling
The Imitation Game
William Goldenberg
Whiplash
Tom Cross

ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Foxcatcher
Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SCORE)
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alexandre Desplat
The Imitation Game
Alexandre Desplat
Interstellar
Hans Zimmer
Mr. Turner
Gary Yershon
The Theory of Everything
Jóhann Jóhannsson

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SONG)
“Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie
Music and Lyric by Shawn Patterson
“Glory” from Selma
Music and Lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn
“Grateful” from Beyond the Lights
Music and Lyric by Diane Warren
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me
Music and Lyric by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
“Lost Stars” from Begin Again
Music and Lyric by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois

ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
The Imitation Game
Production Design: Maria Djurkovic; Set Decoration: Tatiana Macdonald
Interstellar
Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
Into the Woods
Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
Mr. Turner
Production Design: Suzie Davies; Set Decoration: Charlotte Watts

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
The Bigger Picture
Daisy Jacobs and Christopher Hees
The Dam Keeper
Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi
Feast
Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed
Me and My Moulton
Torill Kove
A Single Life
Joris Oprins

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Aya
Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis
Boogaloo and Graham
Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney
Butter Lamp (La Lampe Au Beurre De Yak)
Hu Wei and Julien Féret
Parvaneh
Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger
The Phone Call
Mat Kirkby and James Lucas

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING
American Sniper
Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Martín Hernández and Aaron Glascock
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Brent Burge and Jason Canovas
Interstellar
Richard King
Unbroken
Becky Sullivan and Andrew DeCristofaro

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING
American Sniper
John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga
Interstellar
Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten
Unbroken
Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and David Lee
Whiplash
Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley

ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist
Guardians of the Galaxy
Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould
Interstellar
Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer

The post 2015 Oscar Nominations Announced! appeared first on ScreenCraft.

LINK: Consumer Reports - Americans Prefer DVR Recordings and Streaming Over Live TV

It was a year Americans with Tivo, DVR, and other digital recording devices time-shifted television shows at an extraordinary rate.  Reports say as much as 60% of TV audiences don’t watch at the designated time. Netflix’s chairman said the rating system has killed TV.  Netflix is planning on releasing around twenty new shows per year!

LINK: The Huffington Post - Netflix's New Shows 

There has also been a trend of A-list movie stars who now are turning to television. The title characters of True Detective dominated headlines and when season two was announced it was hard to find an actor or actress in Hollywood who was not mentioned in the rumor mill. Producers and creator Pizzolatto finally agreed on Vince Vaughn, Colin Farrell, and Elizabeth Banks.  All of them dying to have the next phenomenon dubbed "the McConnissaince."  The only thing that diverted attention was the ongoing debate on Pizzolatto’s plagiarism which few pundits understood but everyone had an opinion on.

LINK: The Hollywood Reporter - True Detective Season 2 Casting

LINK: The New Yorker - The McConaissance 

But HBO faced bigger issues this year.  Other cable networks took leaps forward in terms of high-quality programming. FX, AMC, and even Cinemax scored award nominations. The times certainly are changing.

LINK: Vulture - Steven Soderbergh directing The Knick 

In the feature film space, this was a year dominated by sequels – though that’s not surprising given the current trends of studios. Surprisingly, this year's sequels here were not only well-received at the box office but also well-reviewed by critics. Captain America: Winter’s Soldier, Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Dawn of The Planet Of The Apes all sucked up plenty of cash and also received favorable reviews.

We also saw Universal join in the "shared universe" space as they released Dracula: Untold with plans to utilize their monster universe of The Mummy, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman for crossover films and one large team up. Dracula opened to middling numbers but Universal still has plans to keep pushing ahead.

LINK: ScreenRant - Universal plans to reboot Monsters for a movie!

Marvel continued its domination of the superhero space, adding another blockbuster to their impressive slate with Guardians of The Galaxy. Warner Brothers, not to be out done, announced Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice with Zach Snyder winning the lottery to direct and Ben Affleck, Jason Momoa, Gal Gadot, and Henry Cavil facing off against Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor. But fans will have to wait until 2016 to get a glimpse . . . at least we’ll get a trailer next year!

LINK: ComingSoon.net - Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice Wraps Filming! 

Sony struggled with the underperforming Amazing Spider-Man 2 . . . though that wound up being the least of their problems as their controversial comedy The Interview sparked North Korean hackers to release confidential emails and documents. The scandal forced Sony to cancel the release of James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg's The Interview in an unprecedented move.

LINK: Time.com - The 7 Most Outrageous Things we Learned from the Sony Hack

This was a big year for indie film as well. Leading the charge was Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. A rare film that outperformed expectations, topping many lists as a favorite for Best Picture.  The President himself named it his favorite film of the year. Vying for their time in the spotlight are Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

LINK: IndieWire - The Best Indie Movies of 2014 So Far

Notably, Universal was the only major studio that shied away from big-budget franchise sequels, opting for more moderately-budgeted pictures which included: Lone Survivor ($149 million worldwide on a $40m budget), Ride Along ($153m/$25m, with a sequel on the way), Endless Love ($34m/$20m), Non-Stop ($222m/$50m), Neighbors ($268m/$18m), A Million Ways to Die in the West ($86m/$40m), The Purge: Anarchy ($110m/$9m), Lucy ($458m/$40m), Get On Up ($31m/$30m), As Above/So Below ($40m/$5m), A Walk Among the Tombstones ($53m/$28m), Dracula Untold ($212m/$70m), Ouija ($72m/$5m), Dumb and Dumber To ($116m and counting/$35m), and the upcoming Unbroken which cost $65m to produce.

Remarkably, the studio reported a record year in earnings without a single massive-budget tentpole franchise film.

LINK: Forbes - For Universal Pictures, Zero Blockbusters Equals Record Profits 

Outside of all this we have to take into account the growing popularity of web series and podcasts. Who didn’t listen with intent as Serial attempted to solve a modern murder mystery? And how many people loved getting Jerry Seinfeld comedy every week with a cup of coffee?

LINK: Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

On the screenplay side of things we’ve had a big year for spec sales. Several million-dollar sales to studios like Winter’s Knight and Catherine The Great crowned what is shaping up to be a year where we finish ahead of last year’s 182 specs sold. That means things will be looking up for writers, unless they’re Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino was involved in a landmark case when Gawker leaked his script, The Hateful Eight, to the general public. Leaked scripts are a way of life in Hollywood but Tarantino was not ready to back down. He first cancelled the movie, then did a live-read of the script, then announced the project was back on, to shoot in 70mm.

LINK: ScreenCraft - The Hateful Eight Movie

According to the Scoggins Report - December 2014 Spec Scorecard 87 specs sold this year along with 58 pitches. The vast majority of those specs were Action/Adventure tales (21) with the next highest genre being Comedy (12). Colombia bought the most specs (9) with Fox (8) and Universal (6) rounding out the top three. CAA clocked in the most client sales (20 ) follows by WME (14) with APA at a distant third (7).

Our ScreenCraft team has had a great 2014; last year's ScreenCraft Fellowship winners, T.A. Snyder, Robert Haffey and Amanda Parham, all signed with agents and managers and now have projects in development with various production companies around town!

LINK: ScreenCraft - Now Launching 2014 ScreenCraft Fellowship

We also had ScreenCraft Comedy winner Jared Frieder and runner up Katiedid Langrock sign with top managers! Jared went on to win the Austin Film Festival Comedy Contest, and his script was featured by The Black List as their "Script of the Week."

LINK: ScreenCraft - Interview with ScreenCraft Comedy Winner Jared Frieder 

ScreenCraft is ending 2014 on a strong note, with our second annual Fellowship, featuring d mentors Jen Gisanti, Jordan Horowitz, Michael Costigan, and Scott Neustadter to take on a new group of writers and give them creative and career advice. We also have the Family-Friendly Film Screenplay Contest featuring a stellar panel of judges from Sony Pictures, Affirm Films, and Chernin Entertainment.

Our most popular blog article by far and away was our list of Pixar's 22 Rules on Writing. Some other favorites were our post on writing loglines, and interview with Layover director Joshua Caldwell, and the Top Screenwriting Terms.

LINK: ScreenCraft - Pixar's 22 Rules for Storytelling

LINK: ScreenCraft - Writing Effective Loglines

LINK: ScreenCraft - Interview with Joshua Caldwell

LINK: ScreenCraft - Top Screenwriting Terms

This year we bolstered our readership, with over 400k of you scrolling through our site!

We’re growing with our writers and excited to see what 2015 holds for you and for us. We have a few very exciting announcements we’ll save for the New Year but for now we want to thank all of our fans who have followed us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Tumblr. It’s been our pleasure providing you with blogs, interviews, events, and helping you with your projects and careers.

The post Hollywood's 2014 in Review: Television, Sequels and Hackers appeared first on ScreenCraft.

** If you have written a feature screenplay with four-quadrant appeal, be sure to consider ScreenCraft's annual Family-Friendly Screenplay Contest with major studio executives as judges!

Let’s check out some Holiday ("Chrismahanukwanzaka") movies to see how they use the seasonal celebrations to help their screenplays:

THE JOURNEY FILM:

Typically, the journey film involves one or more characters on a wild adventure to get home. Each of them uses the holiday as a time lock, or a goal the leads must accomplish by a certain time. Whether it’s a promise they made to a spouse, a deal for money, or a favor, these movies make their characters suffer through bad transportation, assignments, and interesting bit characters trying to accomplish their missions.

Examples:

Four Christmases - The set up is simple. A couple that is afraid to get married visits four other christmases from each side of their family where marriage and commitment have faltered. This could have been a fairly serious drama but instead the families are treated like elaborate character set pieces with our protagonists always playing straight men to their family's antics.   The journey is not so much about getting to one place as it is about getting to know oneself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8nzbUR9dgI

I'll Be Home For Christmas - a more traditional take on the journey film it finds Jonathan Taylor Thomas trying to make it home for . . . you guessed it . . . Christmas. While the title explains it all this film uses Christmas to really jazz up the idea that he's late getting home to see his family and girlfriend. This is a movie that could work without being set at the holiday time, it allows the Santa suit he's been glued in and Christmas themed fiascos along the way to bolster the road aspect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wpJAH1GJG8

An American Tail - Here's a great use of the holidays for theme. An American Tail has a touching opening where Fievel Mousekewitz celebrates Hanukkah with the rest of his family. They're Russian mice coming to America for a better life. The movie is about Fievel's journey back to them but it uses the melting pot of a new world, new traditions, and holidays to emphasize what it means to be with your family.

THE DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY FILM:

A tried and true version of the holiday film that can either appeal to the whole family or be only suitable for adults. Everyone has a crazy story about their family and thus many screenwriters have sat down to type them out to appeal to the widest audience. These stories usually involve the main character either hosting the event or arriving home after a long time away. These movies are rife with exposition but you’d never know it because most writers hide it behind “catching up.” They are usually about love, togetherness, and accepting your family for who they are.

Examples:

Christmas Vacation - Probably the ultimate family christmas movie people often forget that this was the third in the "Vacation" series of films. We'd already gotten to know Clark Griswold and some of his family but this film brings them all under one roof for the holidays. What sets this apart from the other Vacation installments before it is that they were traditional road movies. John Hughes, perhaps knowing his Planes, Trains, and Automobiles would never be topped, chose to keep Clark and the family indoors, forcing them to deal with each other and building the lunacy slowly. It starts with gift-wrapped cats, pool side fantasies, a sled that won't stop, and crescendos into exploding trees, kidnappings, a SWAT team, and the best version of the National Anthem ever sung.

The Family Stone - a more traditional drama, the Family Stone takes the usual tropes of a wacky family but plays them a little softer, instead focusing on budding romances, meeting new people for the first time, and all the pent up aggression and jealousy that can only come from being with the ones you loved for days on end. This movie is really about an engagement but like most dysfunctional family films you need an excuse to get everyone under the same roof - a holiday provides the perfect caveat for such an endeavor.

THE ROM-COM

Everyone wants a little love and it seems like the winter holidays are the perfect time to be with one snuggled up by the fire. Hollywood has long played off this trope without using seasons to help but these films exploit the feelings we already get around hte holidays and inject with a bit of romance.

Examples:

While You Were Sleeping - A film with a logline that could be for a horror movie - "a woman obsessed with a man she's never talked to poses as his fiance in front of his family after her slips into a coma when he's hit by the subway." - but instead is a cheerful romp around New York City during christmas as Sandra Bullock gets adopted by her mystery man's family, falls for his brother, and finally gets the love and affection she's craved her entire life. The holiday here supports the theme of togetherness and accentuates her loneliness.

Love Actually - savaged by critics upon its release for being overly long, saccharine, and about nothing. This movie TOOK OFF soon becoming a perennial classic and proving a lot of people wrong. The movie, at nearly three hours long, moves at a dizzying pace to give us twelve stories centered loosely around a holiday, about love. As you can see from the Honest Trailer below . . . the story does get off course . . . but still it's an inventive, if not overused at this point, way to hook an audience.

THE ACTION FILM

One of the most fun ways to use a holiday is the action film. Action films have their own rules to live by and don’t always have the ability to create a depth of world. Holidays help make the characters more relatable and give an “everyman” quality to many of the protagonists.

Examples:

Die Hard - easily my favorite on this list. John McClane, toting a teddy bear, losing his sneakers, using gift tape to put a beretta on his back, "ho-ho-ho now, I have a machine gun," killing terrorists who are in it for the money. This is a movie about being with your family, no matter what. It's about stopping corporate greed and getting back to what matters. Also, it's a blast to watch, full on one-liners, and really has fun with itself.

Lethal Weapon - here's another suspect entry on our list but how can you not love Mel Gibson chasing perps though fields of Christmas trees, killing mercenaries on a front lawn draped with lights. Shane Black loves setting things during the holidays (the Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) and this, his break out hit, is no exception. The holiday has no real function here except adding depth to the backdrop and fun with the family dynamic of Danny Glover's home.

The Hebrew Hammer - the opening dredel spin says it all. Adam Goldberg's avenging rabbi sets his course for injustice and the Shaft-like theme song lays it all our for the audience. In this rare holiday action comedy the traditions are used as gags, weapons, and exploited as plot points. Through the hilarity we follow the Hammer and receive enough nostalgia and good tidings to last all eight crazy nights.

HIDDEN GEMS:

Here are some excellent films that tend to slip through the cracks when people compile their lists . . .

Go - this title sparked a twitter debate this week when I called it a Christmas movie but the fast-paced, drug laced, tale of Christmas Eve has less to do with the season and more to do with the party.

Millions - Danny Boyle's most sentimental film that explores what it's like inside the mind of a child and what the "true Christmas spirit" is really about. the trailer says it all, truly an understated holiday film.

Brazil - this one is our erudite film snob pick. Terry Gilliam's mind does wonders as we follow a bureaucrat that abandons the safety of his normal life to follow a woman who’s literally from his dreams. The setting is Christmas and Gilliam makes use of it to take a swipe at commercialism, consumerism, and the state of affairs in the economy.  Brazil clocks in one of the finest cultural commentaries of the era.

What's YOUR favorite holiday movie?  Let us know here or on Facebook, Instagram or  Twitter.

The post Writing a Holiday Film (Christmas & Hanukkah Edition) appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Pitching, like writing loglines, is an art form of its own. Robert Kosberg, who was considered the Pitch King in the 80s and 90s, sold a re-visulization of the popular television series Dragnet, by simply humming the famous theme song, “dum da dum dum,” and then naming the cast, “Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd.”

Most pitches will not that be that easy, so as a writer, not only do you have to have the skill set of mastering the craft of writing an amazing script and logline, but the art of selling while under a strict time limit. Think of pitching like the Olympics. It takes you years to get to the game and it lasts only a few minutes. (This should not also be how you think of sex.)

A pitch needs to be concise but engaging.
Detailed but not long-winded.
Entertaining and unique but not gimmicky.

One way to be concise and capture instant attention is to reference other popular films. (You would never want to pitch, “Ishtar meets The Lone Ranger.”)

Yes, your film is original, but every story has elements of other stories, so use examples of popular and successful films (or television shows) to help the executive understand quickly what your film is going to be like. Alien was sold with the pitch, “Jaws in space.”

The Die Hard franchise is probably one of the most overused examples:

“It’s Die Hard on a ship.” [Speed 2, Under Siege]

“Die Hard on a plane.” [Air Force One, Passenger 57, Non-Stop]

“Die Hard in the White House” [Olympus has Fallen and White House Down]

A pitch meeting can last as little as ten minutes (you did not make a sale) or as long as 45-minutes (you are getting closer); if other executives are invited into the meeting that is a great sign.

Another aspect of the art of pitching is being detailed, and having answers for every question, but not being long-winded, or boring. DO NOT get into minutia that has no relevance to the story even if you think it is cool. For example, this pitch will end after this sentence, “Once, when our lead was five, he spent the night alone in a dark, forest, which was part of his parent’s fifty-acre farm that had been in the family for four generations, and was actually part of a historic Civil War battlefield, where our lead’s great, great grandfather had heroically saved a squad of soldiers and won a medal of valor, and it was on this night alone in the woods that our hero first had to survive on his own, and that is how he becomes so self-sufficient and strong.”

Stick to top-level ideas and themes, but be able to answer details if asked. If the executive is engaged in your pitch they will have questions. Reiterate your logline, expound on the theme and what the heart of your film is, then give broad strokes of the story. If you are pitching a television show then you need to be able to explain the central concept and characters in two minutes and then how that concept will be able to translate into 13 - 22 episodes a season for six seasons. In TV, the pitch is about the concept, characters and how it/they have longevity; in film it is about how the story will grab people on opening weekend.

Remember, film is a collaborative art. The studio, production company, actors, director, will all want to add their ideas, which will hopefully make the story a fine jambalaya and not a goulash. Engage the listener so they feel involved. BUT, do not lead with rhetorical questions. “What would you do if…?” You are not playing a game of 20 Questions. The producers want you to share a great story, capturing their imagination so that they want to go on this adventure with you.

They are buying into you as a storyteller as much as the story. Can you sell the story? Make it entertaining? Do they want to know more?

Keep in mind these execs hear hundreds of pitches. There is nothing they haven’t heard before, but you still have to be special, presenting your story in a manner that makes them want to see the film—and be a part of making it.

Be firm but flexible. If they want to turn your simple love story into an epic, superhero, summer tent pole, then you need to state why that is not the story you have in mind, BUT, “I’d be interested in developing that story for you!” The point is, you want two results in a pitch meeting:

Sell a story
Build relationship

Sometimes it is not about the sale as much as nurturing the relationship. Even if they do not buy your idea now, you want the door to be open for another meeting. Remember, the junior executive you pitch today, might be head of production tomorrow.

Be entertaining. You do not have to sing and dance and you certainly don’t want to be gimmicky. Do not dress like a radical terrorist to sell your edgy war film. You will get results, just not the one you were hoping for.

Smile. Be confident. If you are pitching a comedy, be funny. If you can’t make them laugh in the room, how are you going to make them laugh on paper?

Walt Disney used to act every part of his animated films to explain to his animators what he envisioned. You should be prepared to do the same, within reason.

You have to be able to think on your feet. If you get shot down in the first two minutes, have a backup idea or a twist on the story so you can keep pitching. You want them to see you as creator, a storyteller. If you fold after the first negative reaction, you’re done.

Visuals are great--look books, sizzle reels, artist renderings. The Matrix was sold because the Wachowski brothers had a complete vision for that film. Not only did they have the script, but they storyboarded the entire film almost like a comic book. The executives saw there was a clear vision for the film, which the writers were invested in, and this made it easier for the studio to invest.

The point of the pitch is to be able to capture the executive’s attention and imagination, drawing them into your world and story so that they want to know more and be part of it. Your logline set up the pitch. The pitch takes them further into your story so that they want—NO—need to see the finished film.

Because they are going to spend more than a year of their life working on your project, the people you pitch have to want to invest that time as well as money. Executives are also staking their reputation and career on your story. Make it one they are willing to put their neck on the line to shoot.

Douglas King has been writing professionally for 25 years in film, television and print. He has pitched to all of the major studios and some of his meetings lasted more than 45-minutes.

For more instructions on how to write loglines along with hundreds of examples, check out Douglas King’s book, “Loglines: the Long and Short of Writing a Strong Logline” available on Amazon.

You can also read daily loglines on King’s blog and Twitter account @LoglinesRUs

The post Perfecting the Pitch! appeared first on ScreenCraft.

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In your wide-ranging experience as a screenwriting instructor, television executive, consultant and judge of film festivals and script contests, what are the qualities that you find in winning screenplays?  What are qualities that you look for as a contest judge?

I look for a strong story told with an original voice and a fresh angle. I look for advanced story techniques such as the use of theme, symbolism, and message. I look for a strong set up where the personal dilemma is clear and there is a strong rooting factor for the central character. I am also big on structure. I like to read a story with strong act breaks that raise the personal and professional stakes.

How can drawing on personal experience for screenwriting be valuable and/or detrimental to a screenplay's viability? 

Emotional truth is what connects the writer to his/her audience. So, when a writer draws from their personal experience, it allows the audience to really feel their story. Also, when you write what you know, you can go deeper into the experience. The key is understanding how to add fiction to your truth so it doesn't feel autobiographical. The market now is all about "why are you the perfect writer to tell this story?" So, if the writer draws from personal experience, it does establish why they are the perfect writer.

What's unique about the ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship program? 

What is unique about The ScreenCraft Fellowship is the time and care that they put into developing writers. I don't know of any other program that spends this amount of time and dedication. The program increases the chances for the writer of getting represented and making a sale. The expertise of the people involved lend to the positive results that they've received so far. The key to success in this business is finding talent first. Then, it is about guiding them toward the end goal through working on their development.

In your books and articles you talk about the importance of understanding why we want what we want. How does this understanding improve a screenwriters' work? 

When we understand the why behind the what, the level of emotion in the story gets elevated. When the emotion is there, the audience feels your story at a much deeper level because they understand the stakes. The why is reflected by the wound/personal dilemma of the central character. The external pursuit represents one step toward healing this wound. When we understand what the wound/personal dilemma is and the flaw of the central character that gets in the way of moving past it, there is a real opportunity for growth with the success of the external pursuit. Your story should start with a loss. The loss is often due to a bad choice that the central character makes. The external pursuit represents an opportunity to gain what was lost in an emotional way. It is a step toward healing the wound.

What resources do you recommend for screenwriters who are looking to improve their craft? 

Fellowships like this one, writing programs, writing groups, constant and continuous ongoing education on story, attending panels and functions to hear from people that are where you want to be, podcasts (I have a Storywise Podcast on iTunes that gives the story behind our top storytellers), working one-on-one with consultants, getting feedback from experienced people in the industry, networking (I have an event called Friday Night Drinks/Social that I do with the Scriptwriters' Network). The business is all about relationships. You need to be active in building your network base. I have a Resources section on my website that has a subpage titled LINKS. It is full of resources.

The post Interview with Jen Grisanti, Mentor for the 2014 ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Which brings up a great question - Why does "genre" matter? 

Related articles across the web

• ScreenCraft Secures Michael Costigan as Fellowship Mentor

The post The Complete List of Film Sub-Genres appeared first on ScreenCraft.

You can check out Josh's directing reel here. His debut feature film LAYOVER had its World Premiere at the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival where it was nominated for the New American Cinema Award and is now available at LayoverFilm.com.

Joshua’s debut feature film LAYOVER is now available on VOD at LAYOVERFilm.com. (http://www.LAYOVERfilm.com) Use the following link (or coupon code SCREENCRAFT) to receive $1 off the download price of the film: https://gum.co/layoverdl/

1. What inspired you to become a Writer/Director?

There isn’t one single moment I can point to, but rather a collection of them: my dad taking me to see movies, his love of Westerns; suburbia and the rise of VHS; playing and acting out BATMAN and other movies with the neighborhood kids; building worlds and stories with Legos and Playmobil; watching Discovery Channel’s Movie Magic and learning how movies are made; and the discovery of what writers and directors do. It was a series of inspirations that evolved and led me to greater and greater insight and to the realization that this was not only a real and viable career, but that it was also my passion.

2. Who and/or what are some of your key influences?

I grew up on the movies of the 90s, that time period when you saw a lot of maverick directors doing some of their best work. Michael Mann, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher…movies like THE USUAL SUSPECTS, FIGHT CLUB, THE ROCK, HEAT, PULP FICTION, FIGHT CLUB, OUT OF SIGHT were all coming out. I mean, it was an incredible time for cinephiles.

What really stuck for me was that there were directors out there making studio films with really specific visions. You could see the difference between a Michael Mann film and a David Fincher film. I responded to that in a huge way. Over time, I’ve come to love and respect Soderbergh’s experimental approach to what he does, Eastwood’s economy, Michael Mann’s style and aesthetic and commitment to research and prep work, Werner Herzog’s attitude, and John Cassavetes' desire to make films his way at any cost. That influence has changed and evolved along the way to the point that I no longer consider anyone else when making a film. I’ve figured out what I want, what I like, and how I want to approach the story I’m telling.

3. Did you go to film school?

I did not. I studied Communications at Fordham University but my film school was making films. I was fortunate that my high school had a media program with digital cameras and Avid editing systems. I learned by getting out there, making films, failing, taking what I learned and applying it to the next one. I learned by copying other filmmakers and other films. I read voraciously and listened to DVD commentaries. I didn’t have money or all the tools available, so I had to recreate them as best I could: a dolly built out of plywood, skateboard wheels, and PVC pipe; VFX tutorials found on the internet; and picking up equipment along the way.

I applied to film schools, but by the end of high school, I had already developed a broad— though not necessarily refined—technical knowledge. I went to Fordham because I felt that living in New York for four years was going to teach me way more about directing than any classroom would.

I think that film schools can be very valuable if you’re interested in becoming a Director of Photography or Editor because you'll meet many aspiring directors who will need someone to shoot and edit their projects. So, you get experience without having to pay for it (outside of tuition). You can just focus on shooting, shooting, shooting (or editing, editing, editing). That is invaluable. Plus, there is a technical side to those disciplines that should be practiced in a non-professional setting.

But writing and directing? That’s storytelling via experience. It’s not necessarily built from someone in a classroom saying “do this and do that.” The technical side of writing and directing can be learned in an afternoon. The real education comes in the practicing of what you’ve learned -- the doing. If you want to direct you have to direct as much as you can. If you want to write, you have to sit down and write. Over and over and over again.

I also think that screenwriters can benefit greatly from seeing their work performed, either via live readings or actual production. Seeing the inner workings of your script through production is incredibly valuable and can completely change how you approach your writing. You can’t fully appreciate a screenplay’s purpose until you’ve seen it through to its natural conclusion as a film, until you’ve heard an actor try to say the lines you wrote, or you see what goes into shooting a piece of written action like “he falls out the window.”

4. Did you intern in LA? What were some of your early jobs in the industry?

I was fortunate that right out of college, I won a MTV Movie Award. (It just so happened that MTV introduced a Student Film category that year.) I was on the show, gave an acceptance speech, and received an iconic Golden Popcorn. I was also unfortunate in that right out of college I won an MTV Movie Award. I wasn’t experienced enough to be given the responsibility of directing a film, but I wasn’t green enough to get jobs starting at the bottom.

Following the award win, I started directing music videos for artists at Sony BMG, MySpace, Universal Music Group and Epic Records. By then, however, music videos were becoming a dying breed, and I didn’t want to spend ten years slogging through music video after music video. I wanted a job in the industry, but finding a paying one proved challenging.

As a result, I took whatever I could get. I interned at Yari Film Group in the television department. That experience eventually led me to Dare to Pass, the production company of CSI: creator Anthony E. Zuiker. I started doing small jobs on his digital projects, which eventually turned into a full-time executive position, along with producing and directing content for him. It was an incredibly valuable opportunity, and it was a real education in traditional Hollywood (our television deals) and in the new, evolving world of digital media. Zuiker allowed me to be very, very involved, and I’m thankful for it. In probably no other executive job would I have gotten to produce and direct. I worked there for three years and left in June, 2013. Since then, I’ve been directing and producing full-time.

5. How did you raise the money for Layover?

When I started the process of putting LAYOVER into production, my plan was to start with a budget of $0 and then only pay for what was absolutely necessary. However, Travis (my writing and producing partner) had a cousin who had wanted to invest in and support one of Travis’ projects. In the past, Travis had turned him down because we were only making shorts, and there wasn’t any potential for a return on his investment.

When Layover came about, Travis asked if he’d give us $5,000, which he agreed to. With that money, we put together an actual budget and realized to be solid, we’d need another $1K, which I threw into the pot. It was a fairly simple process.

6. What’s your process like when writing a script?

So far, the process on every script has been different. LAYOVER was particularly unique in that I typically don't solo write, preferring instead to co-write or just have another writer solo on a project. I realized in college that writing solo wasn’t my greatest strength. I’ve never thought of myself as the guy who can go away and pound out a script. I consider myself a director who writes more than a writer who directs. I believe the films I make are enriched because of collaboration. With another writer, I like to spend a lot of time spitballing and talking things out. Solutions that would take me hours to figure out on my own happen like that when I’m talking it out with someone else who is also immersed in the story.

Whatever the mechanics of the actual writing, they all start with a nugget of an idea or a character. In the case of LAYOVER, the idea of a woman stuck for 12 hours in an unfamiliar city was a really interesting starting point. I let it just sit in my head for months, occasionally sitting down and writing out free association thoughts on anything that came to mind. When it came time for me to write, I only had about half of the story in my head. I knew how it started, where it got to by the mid-point and how it ended. But everything else was a mystery to me. But I felt compelled to start writing. I figured if I sputtered out at 30 or 40 pages, I could hand it off. But once I started typing, I had a full draft in under two weeks.

I like to create an iTunes playlist with music that fits into the mood of whatever I’m writing. I prefer to write in coffeeshops instead of at home. I use Scrivener for development and prep work and then do the actual scripting in Final Draft. And I like to get out of the first draft and into revisions as quickly as possible. I have a weird thing I do when I’m rewriting: when I'm doing big revisions I like to literally retype the script as I write. Sometimes I change things, sometimes I just retype it. I find that I discover so much more and come to understand so much more about the story and characters than if I just isolate myself to the specific moments. Eventually, I just make the small changes but for those first couple drafts I find retyping it incredibly helpful.

7. How do you manage your time between family, work, and what to write next?

I've been married for seven years, and my wife and I had our first child last December; I feel like I could easily say, "I just don't have enough time." But I try to be disciplined and make the most of what little time I have.

So much of the work that I do is predicated on collaborators working after hours and/or below their normal fee. It's important to me that I never use the "not enough time" excuse, to both set an example and as a sign of respect. I've always wanted my collaborators to see that I was working just as hard as I was asking them to.

Same with my wife. Since I don’t have a full-time job with a steady income (and she does), I never thought it would be fair to not work as hard as I possibly could with the time I had available. If we are not spending time together, I'm working­­. Time with my wife and my son is extremely important to me, and I try to take advantage of it as much as I can. Time management is much easier when I don’t have “free time.”

“What I want to write next” is usually dictated by “what am I interested in making next?” And it’s almost never singular. For instance, I’m currently writing or developing three different projects: one paid, one of my own films, and I’m developing a feature with another writer. I’ve never been one for working on one thing at a time; I don’t see that as a sustainable business for me. I try to have as many plates spinning as I can.

8. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned since you began writing?

I have to be interested in the story I’m telling. If I’m not, it's incredibly difficult to craft an engaging script. I’m sure others can fake it or power through, but it’s agony for me. There’s just no energy behind it, and I feel like I'm back in school being forced to write a paper I have zero interest in writing.

That said, I don’t have be interested in everything about it, I just need an “in.” I need that one aspect that makes me go, “Okay, that’s different. That’s something I haven’t seen before,” and that can usually carry me through.

9. What other projects are you working on?

In addition to ongoing commercial and industrial work, I’m currently prepping to direct the feature film ASSASSIN in December. This is the second film in the LAX Trilogy (LAYOVER being the first); each of the three films begins with the main character arriving at LAX and venturing off from there. I’ll start shooting the third and final film TEN (X) sometime in November—since it’s a series of short vignettes, we’ll be shooting those sporadically over the next several months in a unique production model that allows us to keep costs down and (hopefully) attract some name talent.

I’m developing out a fourth feature, NEGATIVE, with screenwriter Adam Gaines, which is intended to be another no-budget production. Finally, I’m attached to a bigger indie feature with the producers of THE DEVIL INSIDE which could go at any time next year.

That said, Travis and I are always writing and finding ways to load up to the “to be filmed” queue. Down time makes me itchy, and I start to pace around.

10. What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given?

My dad once told me, “Something is only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it.” That has always stuck with me.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Joshua’s debut feature, LAYOVER, is now available on VOD at LAYOVERFilm.com. (http://www.LAYOVERfilm.com)

Josh would like to ScreenCraft readers $1 off the DIY DOWNLOAD of the film which comes with commentary, interviews, and more.

Follow Joshua on Twitter @Joshua_Caldwell

The post Ten Questions with Layover Writer/Director Joshua Caldwell appeared first on ScreenCraft.

With films like Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings crowding multiplexes and studio slates--Sony and Warner Brothers are developing franchises based on titles in the public domain (Greek Gods and Arabian Nights, respectively)--there's no better place to forage for big ideas that are primed to sell.

Ever wonder why there are so many Oz and Alice In Wonderland movies in development?

Generally speaking, most works in the public domain are older. We're not talking about ancient myths or just the works of Homer, however. The public domain includes any work published in the United States before 1923 or works published before 1964 for which copyrights were not renewed. Even some films have fallen into the public domain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqqEKQEriuI&list=PL3Ec3l0zN5Dlpw5Zpg01Mn8H9F9dGNDJk

For those of use who aren't historians, we need only to turn to the trusty Internet for helpful tips and suggestions. One of my favorite sources to find out about works in the public domain is Project Gutenberg. You may have heard of them before, but they're on a mission to make all sorts of projects available to the average citizen once the copyright is free and clear. Their site hosts 46,000 e-books, a treasure chest of free material that waits to be adapted.

We're talking Tom Sawyer, Moby Dick, Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, and fairy tales.

Another excellent source is the Digital Public Library of America. Their catalog covers 1.6 million items and is easily searchable for keywords and phrases. The content here is not all free, but outside of sitting in the Library of Congress or hiring a personal researcher, this is one of the best sites to help you get to the heart and essence of the story you want to tell.

Another book full of free stories that people keep going back to is the Bible. It sounds crazy but, given the rise of faith-based filmmaking and filmmakers like Ridley Scott and Darren Aronofsky taking shots at biblical epics, the Bible is an amazing place to peruse for free content. Don't forget the Quran, Torah, and Bhagavad Gita!

This isn't to say we think you should stick to the stories told; just use them for inspiration. Use them for structure. Use them to craft your own, unique spin! It's no secret that Hollywood fiendishly craves intellectual property,  and while you have little to no chance of securing the rights to the next Gillian Flynn novel, your spec about The Count Of Monte Cristo in space (freebie for you) could be this year's hot property.

There are troves of Shakespeare out there primed for the the ready. Remember 10 Things I Hate About You? O? Kurosawa's Throne Of Blood? Even West Side Story's reimagining of Romeo and Juliet won it a bevy of Academy Awards!

Everyone loves an original idea, but sometimes you need a little gas to go along with the spark. Check out the millions of articles, books, myths, and even songs in the public domain and see what sticks. You never know what you'll find.

The post The Public Domain: Mining for Ideas appeared first on ScreenCraft.

One thing every writer that's trying to break into the business needs to remember is that the people you're trying to get to love your script aren't only the agents and managers; they're the assistants.

Your first ten pages are the gateway to Hollywood and you need to get the people reading invested so that they'll tell their bosses what an awesome read they had the night before.  Assistants usually check out 2-3 scripts per evening and 5-7 on the weekends. To stand out amongst the masses your first pages need to WOW them and make them so excited to tell their bosses that they send an email with your PDF attached as soon as they start page 11.

We're not just talking proof of concept here but also endearing us to the characters and stakes at hand. Your voice has to pop off the page and so does the script's intentions.

Think of your favorite movie openings - which ones really grab you, tell you what the movie will be about, show incredible promise?

Your openings need to be powerful, funny, and compelling. They need to define the core characters, set up their journeys, and make us care. The truth of Tinseltown is that unless you can convince someone to keep reading, they probably won't. The noisier your hook, the more probability you have of people wanting to keep going, to keep reading, and to contact you.

When we read "FADE IN:" we want to be entertained. We desperately want to be taken on a journey we care about. No assistant, reader, agent, or manager has ever picked up a script and hoped it was bad; don't give them a reason to think it will be.

How do your first ten pages excite the reader? What do we learn about your characters? The stakes? The world?

The post Beat The Reader!!! appeared first on ScreenCraft.

In the video, Roth talks about writing in MS DOS...a now-defunct program Windows users over 40 may remember from the early 1990s. What's so interesting about the use of this program is Roth's statement that he "fears change" and that it "keeps him honest" when it comes to act breaks (you can only save 40 pages at a time!).

I have a sneaking suspicion that writing in DOS has another added benefit: no Internet connection.

One of my favorite  Jonathan Franzen quotes is "It's doubtful that anyone with an Internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction."

While the Internet is undoubtedly an excellent source for writers it is also the ultimate time suck. One of the most popular gripes from modern writers is that Wi-Fi has destroyed their productivity. I have friends who are screenwriters that book flights across the country and back just to get seven solid hours away from devices. The Internet is everywhere and as the government circles bills that would spread Wi-Fi access all over the country for free, it does not look like it is going anywhere.

Personally speaking, I've gone so far as to make an alias login on my laptop that only has my screenwriting software and severe parental protection so I cannot do anything else but write. When I'm logged in that means I'm in the zone; more importantly it's a hassle to log out and access the net.

Where do you go to escape the madness?

For Eric Roth the answer is DOS - what is it for you?

The post Eric Roth: Creative Spark appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Q&A panel followed by a networking mixer with Digital LA and complementary brews provided by Heineken

With: YouTube, Chill, Mischievious Studios, Big Frame, Fullscreen and Maker Studios!

Where & When: Mischievious Studios in Hollywood, Thurs May 2nd at 7:30pm

Live Video Stream:

The digital entertainment tsunami is approaching quickly, and nobody knows the current business climate better than the companies leading the charge in this quickly growing sector of digital entertainment. Join the All Business School Alumni Network and Digital LA at this exclusive panel and mixer. We'll be talking to industry leaders about the present and future state of digital entertainment content creation, distribution and monetization. Topics to be discussed will include: changing content distribution platforms, evolution of content monetization, microtransactions, advertising, developing a loyal audience, international audiences, crowdfunding, branded entertainment, viral video strategies, content production, mobile entertainment consumption, targeted and social media marketing and the new role of talent agencies in the digital entertainment space.

The post The Future of Digital Entertainment - Q&A Panel - May 2nd 2013 appeared first on ScreenCraft.