Instructors from the nation's most popular writing school share their insights into how to perfect the craft of screenwriting, covering such fundamentals as plot, character, dialogue, point of view, theme, setting, voice, and more and analyzing five outstanding sample screenplays--Tootsie and The Shawshank Redemption, among others. Original.
Let’s cut to the chase:Writing a Great Movieis a practical nuts-and-bolts manual to dramatic writing for film. This hands-on course in screenwriting shows how to create, develop, and construct an original screenplay from scratch using seven essential tools for the screenwriter—(1) Dilemma, Crisis, Decision and Action, and Resolution; (2) Theme; (3) the 36 Dramatic Situations; (4) the Enneagram; (5) Research and Brainstorming; (6) the Central Proposition; and (7) Sequence, Proposition, and Plot—which break the writing process down into approachable steps and produce great results. Author Jeff Kitchen—a working screenwriter, renowned dramaturge, and teacher at the University of Southern California’s graduate film school—shares the insider secrets he has developed over years of writing and teaching.Writing a Great Movieis the complete guide to creating compelling screenplays that will sell. • State-of-the-art screenwriting theory and technique from a master • Author named one of today's top screenwriting teachers inCreative Screenwritingmagazine • Great for writers at every level, beginner to established
This little book aims to help you figure out how to get your story told on big screens or small. It offers nearly thirty years of observation of how things happen in the business of entertainment. Dr. Ken Atchity's Hollywood experience ranges from writing to managing to producing; he's seen Hollywood from nearly every angle.
In this introduction to screenwriting, author Darsie Bowden provides sage, real-world advice and instruction on the process of writing film screenplays. This text will help budding screenwriters to structure their dramas, refine their characterizations, and craft their language, while also introducing them to the appropriate screenplay formats. It covers the complexities of writing for the screen and points out the contradictions to expect if readers pursue this work as a career. In addition to covering the elements of the dramatic film screenplay, Bowden discusses writing for such "alternative" markets as documentaries, independent films, experimental films, and other non-Hollywood options. Features of the text include:guidelines for working as a screenwriter;applications and exercises to enhance skills;suggested readings for further development; anda comprehensive list of resources for screenwriting.Successful writing for film lies in being able to heighten one's perceptive abilities about the world and to communicate those perceptions in a cinematic way. In this text, Bowden introduces readers to an approach to screenwriting that will help them see the world in a different way and write about it using different genres and media. This most valuable skill prepares readers for the range of possibilities they will encounter on the path to successful screenwriting.
This is a step-by-step guide for the beginning screenwriter from the original idea through the completed-and marketed-motion picture script. It tells how to plan and organize the screenplay, how to develop characters, how to write dialog, how to prepare the script, and how and where to submit it for sale. Also included are interviews with well-known film professionals (Ernest Lehman, Robert Evans, Delbert Mann, Frank Rosenfelt, Michael Zimring, Gene Wilder); excerpts from actual scripts; a glossary of terminology; and a list with addresses of agents. The authors have had experience both in creative writing (films, short stories, and novels) and in business.
In this essential writer's guide, a professional screen-writer shares her know-how on the elements of writing for the screen, from the basics of character development and creating the structure to resolving problems and revising in only three drafts.
Erin wants a fresh start. With her thirtieth birthday coming up, she's taken a long hard look at her life (the job she hates, the wedding she just cancelled) and concluded that it's basically a mess. If only she knew where to begin. A trip to her hometown in Ireland to visit her beloved grandmother is a welcome escape from her disappointments. But, there, Erin also finds an unexpected solution to her problems, in the form of a magical family heirloom. No more of the 'what ifs' she's been tormenting herself with -- now all she needs to do is whisper two little words and she'll be able to see for herself what might have been, had she chosen a different path. But as Erin gets caught up in one 'if only' after another, changing her life proves more complicated than expected. And she starts to realise that, by chasing dreams and searching for an easy fix, she might be missing out on what's right in front of her...
This third edition of the UK's best-selling filmmaker's bible, builds upon the most successful features of the previous books. Including illustrations, diagrams, and box-outs, this book comes with a DVD, packed with further interviews with filmmakers, as well as theatrical trailers.
Screenwriters are storytellers and dream builders. They forge new worlds and beings, bringing them to life through storylines and idiosyncratic details. Yet up until now, no one has told the story of these creative and indispensable artists. The Writers is the only comprehensive qualitative analysis of the history of writers and writing in the film, television, and streaming media industries in America. Featuring in-depth interviews with over fifty writers—including Mel Brooks, Norman Lear, Carl Reiner, and Frank Pierson—The Writers delivers a compelling, behind-the-scenes look at the role and rights of writers in Hollywood and New York over the past century. Granted unprecedented access to the archives of the Writers Guild Foundation, Miranda J. Banks also mines over 100 never-before-published oral histories with legends such as Nora Ephron and Ring Lardner Jr., whose insight and humor provide a window onto the enduring priorities, policies, and practices of the Writers Guild. With an ear for the language of storytellers, Banks deftly analyzes watershed moments in the industry: the advent of sound, World War II, the blacklist, ascension of television, the American New Wave, the rise and fall of VHS and DVD, and the boom of streaming media. The Writers spans historical and contemporary moments, and draws upon American cultural history, film and television scholarship and the passionate politics of labor and management. Published on the sixtieth anniversary of the formation of the Writers Guild of America, this book tells the story of the triumphs and struggles of these vociferous and contentious hero-makers.
