Craft-based articles.
There are, broadly speaking, two ways to convey conflict: implicitly and explicitly. The former involves illustrating some kind of dissonance through setting, silence, the way one character looks at another. …
In this series we look at scenes and moments where a film or TV show has revealed a great deal of character information in a compressed amount of screen time. In …
Like much of Paul Thomas Anderson’s work, the BOOGIE NIGHTS screenplay has an odd structure, divergent POV and a hefty length, yet every page of it is full of worthwhile …
To write omnisciently as a screenwriter often entails, for better or worse, including elements that may never show up onscreen: jokes in descriptions or insights into characters’ thoughts and histories …
ANGEL HEART Alan Parker’s ANGEL HEART is an odd blend of genres, taking noir, psychological thriller and horror to a three-way shotgun wedding. The screenwriting lessons it can teach us …
Thriller Screenplay Power As a genre, ‘thriller’ tends to gently caress several others, namely horror, sci-fi, and drama. As such, thriller screenplays provide a goldmine of various narrative and structural …
While first and third acts pose their own challenges, it’s in the weeds of the second act that many scripts (and movies for that matter) go astray. Introducing a second …
In this series we look at scenes and moments where a film or TV show has revealed a great deal of character information in a short amount of screen time. …
No matter what part of the filmmaking process your job role fits within, there’ll likely be a time when you’ll be expected to give script notes on a project. Across …
One facet of screenwriting which causes writers enormous headaches is conveying a lot with a little. Studying great minor characters is one way of learning this kind of efficiency. Minor Characters To …
In this series we look at scenes and moments where a film or TV show has revealed a great deal of character information in a short amount of screen time. …
Endings are crucial. The feeling an ending gives an audience is the feeling they leave the cinema with. It’s the feeling that will colour their perception of their whole experience …
There are two kinds of rugby player”, the legendary Scottish coach Jim Telfer told his players, “there are the honest ones, and there’s the rest. The honest player gets up in …
In 9/10 cases the protagonist is the driving force of a successful film narrative. We invest in their story because we identify with their goal and become invested in it; …
In this series we look at scenes and moments where a film or TV show has revealed a great deal of character information in a compressed amount of screen time. Writer-director …
Films that are set in the past are often judged for their authenticity. The “goofs” section of IMDb is overrun with anachronisms: this porcelain wasn’t made until six years later; or …
When a TV or Movie Setting IS A Character In the Narrative… Ask yourself this: what is a TV or movie setting? Really think about it. Is it just a …
Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola is one of the greatest writer-directors to come out of the so-called “New Hollywood” wave of filmmaking, having made THE GODFATHER, THE GODFATHER PART …
Writing mythically with cliché is relatively easy: watch a couple of films, read a couple of books then regurgitate the obvious stuff: quasi-religious story world, the quest, the mentor, initiation, …
20 Great James Cameron Quotes on Storytelling With a filmography that boasts the likes of THE TERMINATOR, ALIENS, and THE ABYSS, James Cameron is undoubtedly one of the finest genre …
An almost-great screenplay can be more frustrating than a really bad one. The potential is strong and the execution is almost there, but something went wrong at the final hurdle. …
15 Genius Inciting Incidents by Screenwriters You’ve created a fully developed character or series of characters and are now pondering their motivation through the narrative you’ve started to develop. Inciting …
THE INSIDER INTERVIEWS: MICHAEL KUHN The Insider Interviews series started in 2010 as a set of recorded interviews, featuring the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Gareth Unwin, who produced THE KING’S SPEECH, Ben Wheatley and Hossein Amini, the …
One of the most influential auteurs of all time, Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born in Sweden and worked as a director, producer and writer across and theatre and screen. He …
10 Great Mid-Film Plot Twists by Screenwriters Too often when watching a film, especially for those of us who have seen many of them, you can read where the story …
While it’s true that the star system is not what it once was, actors can still have tremendous power. Many actors have their own production companies, partly as a route for finding interesting …
In this series we look at scenes and moments where a film or TV show has revealed a great deal of character information in a short amount of screen time. …
In screenwriting terms, ‘tracking’ refers to being able to follow or ‘track’ the logic of a premise smoothly. The moment the audience starts to think that the story does not …
The Coen Brothers‘ ability to create amazing, ultra-memorable secondary characters with only a few lines of writing is something that all screenwriters can learn from. Consider the giant sea of …
In this series we look at scenes and moments where a film or TV show has revealed a great deal of character information in a short amount of screen time. …
The legendary director John Ford enjoyed a remarkably long and successful career, working on over 140 films and winning four Academy Awards for Best Director. His most well known films …
Conflict is essential in every great story. The amount and complexity of the situation can obviously vary greatly depending on the scope, settings and characters involved. In some cases, loading …
** SPOILER ALERT: this article reveals key plot points from THE WITCH and THE PRESTIGE ** Holed up alone and away from the world, it can be too easy for …
Genius Character Reveals: Jay Cavendish In this series we look at scenes and moments where a film or TV show has revealed a great deal of character information in a …
Genius Character Reveals Welcome to the first of our new series: GENIUS CHARACTER REVEALS. In this series we’ll look at scenes and moments where the film or TV screenwriter/director has …
OPINION: Scope, Scale and Stakes ** SPOILER ALERT: this article reveals key plot points from 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE ** Scoped Out 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE is an object lesson in the …
Empire Magazine has been a staple in the film industry for many years. The magazine, and now the website, is seen as one of the world’s leading authorities on film-related content …
In our “Unheralded Scene” series, our consultants nominate a classic film or TV scene, which in their view hasn’t received the admiration it deserves. It might be a scene from …
The key is writing characters that – crucially – fascinate… Writing great, multi-dimensional characters is one of the hardest – and most important – facets to successful screenwriting. The …
THE INSIDER INTERVIEWS: BRADLEY QUIRK The Insider Interviews series started in 2010 as a set of recorded interviews, featuring the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Gareth Unwin, who produced THE KING’S SPEECH, Ben Wheatley and Hossein Amini, …
Putting A Film or TV Treatment on the Couch Treatments are misunderstood and undervalued. It’s time to investigate why they’re an invaluable tool in the screenwriter’s toolbox. Imagination can be …
Focus On: THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2012) As a direct contrast to last month’s Unheralded Scene from FALLEN, this month we look at a scene that’s completely without on-screen dialogue. The …
About THE INBETWEENERS script Before we get into the cases “for” and “against” both the script reader and their report on THE INBETWEENERS script, let’s just remind ourselves what …
The critical acclaim, awards nominations and profoundly-felt audience reaction to ROOM highlight one of the most powerful tools in the screenwriter’s armoury – your choice of protagonist. Whether you’re writing …
In our “Unheralded Scene” series, our consultants nominate a classic film or TV scene, which in their view hasn’t received the admiration it deserves. It might be a scene from …
How to Create Intrigue – The Screenwriter’s “Golden Goose” To create intrigue is one of the greatest things a screenwriter can achieve. Be it via an urban rom-com, a micro-budget horror, …
Writing Science Fiction Screenplays Sci-Fi is one of those odd genres – like the Western – that among script theorists often stimulates more argument about ‘defining your terms’ than it …
Writing Horror Screenplays: How to Write Teen Horror From 1974’s BLACK CHRISTMAS – rightly credited with being the god-monster of the modern mainstream genre – through to every postmodern twist …
Writing Horror Screenplays: How to Write Occult Horror Occult literally means ‘hidden’ so all Horror could be described as occult in the sense that all Horror deals with things that …
Writing Horror Screenplays: How to Write Supernatural Horror Supernatural Horror is perhaps the most writer-friendly of all Horror sub-genres because its effectiveness really does live on the page, rather than being hostage to practical …