I have to be honest, I’m not a sports fan. But I love sports movies. That might sound illogical but when you consider that sports movies run the gambit of genres (sports/comedy, sports/romance, sports/bio-pic and sports/drama) there’s a lot to like. So, what are the common elements to a sports movie regardless of the genre its married to?
If you’ve got a great idea for a movie centered on a romance the first thing you need to do is understand the structural differences that define each romance genre. Here are the three primary romance genres and some thoughts on how to approach them.
Discussing whether flashbacks are a good idea with writers is about as easy as trying to choose your favorite Star Wars movie. There really isn’t one definitive answer. We just want to say that avoiding flashbacks more often than not is probably a good rule of thumb for all screenwriters.
So, the first thing I found out by researching set-pieces is that there’s not a long of agreement as to what they are exactly. My understanding has always been that a set-piece is a self-contained portion of your story which can stand on its own. That is certainly the dictionary definition. However, some sites are saying that a set-piece is an expensive sequence that is the dramatic or comic highpoint. That’s a definition I disagree with so what I’ll be discussing here is the first idea of a set-piece as a self-contained portion of your story.
In some respects, writing your third act is the easiest part of your script. You’ve done all the exposition, the audience has fallen in love with your characters, and the only thing left is explaining how the story resolves. Well, maybe it’s not that easy. You do have to answer all, or at least most, of the questions you’ve raised, let the audience know what happens to each of the characters, tie up every loose end and make it all really, really exciting.
Christmas movies are becoming more and more popular. This year, the Hallmark Channel ran a Christmas movie for the first 25 days of December. Meanwhile, in the theaters there’s The Man Who Invented Christmas, Daddy’s Home 2, and A Bad Moms Christmas. So, what do you need to know to jump into this growing market? What are the basic elements of a Christmas movie?
The indie biopic I, Tonya tells the story of the infamous figure skater Tonya Harding and her quest for Olympic gold. Writer Steven Rogers (Kate & Leopold, Hope Floats), known for writing in the dying genre of romantic comedies, decided it was time to reinvent himself as a writer. Here’s how he did it.
When we talk about the inner critic we usually focus on someone else’s inner critic—we read the article about the successful director that still suffers from self doubt, or we talk to the person in our writing group who just sold a script and they tell us they’re worried that everyone will think they’re a fraud. In cases like these it’s easy to see the inner critic for what it is: A nebulous cloud of doubts and worries that isn’t rooted in reality. But when it comes to our own inner critic, truth and fantasy become much more difficult to separate from each other.
Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples wrote the original screenplay for Blade Runner based on the Philip K. Dick story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. This time, Fancher wrote a short story that became fodder for the sequel and collaborated with writer Michael Green on the new screenplay.
As a young writer, it is important to understand how franchise writing works. But where do you start? How do you know what kind of movies Lucasfilm will want to make in the years to come? That’s where my investigative work comes into play.
If you’ve seen any of Darren Aronofsky’s films (Black Swan, The Wrestler, Requiem for a Dream, Pi), there’s no doubt he has a dark mind. But seeing his latest film Mother! makes me think he’s only just begun to tap into his own psychological agony. Be warned – this movie isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea (it gave me nightmares) – but there’s no denying Aronofsky’s a genius storyteller.
There are so many things to love about this amazing, wild, ridiculously-complicated world of Hollywood and writing scripts, that we thought listing a few might be a good idea. So, let's get back to basics and see why we do this, and love it a little bit, too.
