How To Write A Screenplay
of Originality
and Cinematic Power
If you want to discover how to write a screenplay that's daring, inventive and wholly original, trust your own voice. And take risks. Unique screenwriting is what will make your script stand out from the thousands of formulaic derivative screenplays that land on industry readers' desks every week.
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal
in Brokeback Mountain.
Screenwriters: Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana
Based on the novel by Annie Proulx.
Director: Ang Lee. Focus Features.
Screenplay Coverage for How To Write An Outstanding Screenplay
It stands to reason that if you're writing a script you want to make sure it's an outsanding, original one. If you're thinking of getting feedback on your screenplay, you need not just an experienced professional but someone who doesn't simply apply the tired formulaic rules which will almost guarantee it being rejected. If you want an intensive, on-the-pulse script report,
click here for details of the Unique Screenplay Coverage Reports.
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Throw Away The 'Screenwrite-like-this' Crutches
Throw away the old-fashioned 'screenwrite-like-this' crutches you think you need to write a great movie, because crutches can make you end up feeling you'll never be able to walk without them. The most dangerous aspect of following the old, arbitrary screenwriting advice is that it encourages writers to believe that if they slavishly obey the rules, they'll end up with a great, marketable screenplay. But movies aren't recipes. Screenplays aren't recipe books. You don't get your list of ingredients, weigh them till they're precisely the measurement stipulated in the book, then follow the exact order in which you put them in the pot, and yes, what you get is a perfectly cooked cake that looks and smells and tastes like every other cake. Screenwriting Formulas Can Paralyse YouThe books and seminars may talk about the need for you to be original, to be creative, to tell your own story, but the advice they give is applied universally to all movie scripts. It is self-evident that this kind of guidance is not the route to how to write a screenplay of originality and power. Think of all the most innovative and exciting screenplays of recent years. Here's one of the most daring that has only just come out.
Out Now - Synecdoche, New York Script
Read it!
Charlie Kaufman's mind-stretching movie uses all kinds of alternative screenwriting techniques. It's true, that his huge talent and originality and ability to blow up all the rules is not something a less experienced screenwriter might attempt. But Kaufman is a wonderful inspiration to all writers who are trying to avoid the pitfalls of following tired and outdated formulas. So studying any Kaufman script is really required reading for all writers. It's absolutely fascinating to read how he put his amazing ideas down on the page. The idea is not to imitate him, but to be inspired by his boldness and originality to take a few risks as you're writing your screenplay. Screenwriting Formulas Can Paralyse YouThe books and seminars may talk about the need for you to be original, to be creative, to tell your own story, but the advice they give is applied universally to all movie scripts.
How To Write A Screenplay - WATCH INTERESTING MOVIES
The screenwriting guru business is an anxiety industry. It encourages real writers to doubt their own natural story-telling gifts and even their creative instincts. It certainly discourages risk taking - the most powerful force in achieving work of originality and exciting innovation. What can happen all too often is that anxiety about getting your Inciting Incident up by page 10 and your Plot Point II on page 88 means your primary focus is being forced onto the technicals.Developing your story - character, visuals, irony, subtext the essence of your unique script - starts to take second place. The result can be paralysis. The creative process gets stifled. Doubts creep in. Your first action in how to write a screenplay is to play with your ideas, let your imagination free rein and to allow your mind to conjure images. Instead of worrying away at where your catalyst will fall, give your left-brain the chance to wander where it will. This is the creative, imaginative aspect of the brain. You'll be using the right-brain aspect which is the analytical element you'll will need to structure, edit and fine-tune your ideas.
Joel and Ethan Coen,
Screenwriters/Directors of
No Country For Old Men. Mike Zoss Productions
Scott Rudin Productions.
Paramount Vantage. Miramax.
Unique Screenwriting is Risk-Taking
This guide focuses on unique screenwriting - bold, innovative, full of emotional depth, that doesn't insult the audience's intelligence. It's all about ways to inspire you to take risks, and trust your creative and story-telling instincts. In other words, this is not a template using the dated screenwriting conventions that leave movie-goers safely tucked up inside their comfort zones. Today's best movies are based on scripts that entertain and at the same time make audiences think. They disturb and challenge, and often make us question moral assumptions, refusing to offer us neat, comforting endings. If you want to find out what unique screenwriting means - the blueprints for movies that excite and exhilarate the audience and make them leave the cinema emotionally and mentally stretched, you also need to be aware of how to write a screenplay that provides the opposite, and take a long hard look at the kind of films that deliver only what the audience expects. In other words, how not to write a screenplay.
How To Write A Screenplay - READ INTERESTING SCRIPTS
How would these conventional ways of how to write a screenplay serve your story and are they the techniques you want to use to tell that story? Will they just allow you to create a screenplay that's pretty good or great? And if you're happy to write a traditional script, how are you going to make it distinctive? If you can't answer that question and want to experiment with different ways to write, how are you going to transform the script elements in new and powerful ways to create a compelling, innovative screenplay? Whether you want to discover how to write a screenplay that uses alternative narrative structures, or conventional ones, your screenplay must display orginality.
Edward Norton and Meat Loaf in
Fight Club
Screenwriter: Jim Uhls. Director: David Fincher.
Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
Art Linson Productions. Fox 2000.
This site is about how to write a screenplay that remains true to your own vision. In these pages you will find ideas for exploding the rules of the screenwriting bibles for you to play around with. There's nothing prescriptive about them. They're not rules. They're not even principles. That doesn't mean messing around with script elements just for the sake of it. The screenplays of every great, ground-breaking screenwriter working today are not self-indulgent exercises in style. Whatever new and inventive ways they create are firmly grounded in the needs of their stories and how they see best to tell them. Every one of their scripts is an inspirational example of how to write a screenplay. Think of everything you find here as toys in a sandpit. Although this How To Write a Screenplay strand of the Unique Screenwriting Site is being created as a course, it's not so much about learning rules, but everything about discovering and exploring new ways to write your movie scripts. Perhaps the most important key to unique screenwriting is courage. Experiment. Be bold. Be daring.
And How To Write A Screenplay That's Crap
AND AS IT'S ALSO A GOOD IDEA TO FIND OUT HOW NOT TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY, YOU COULDN'T GO FAR WRONG WATCHING A MOVIE THAT HAS JUST WON FIVE NOMINATIONS IN THE RAZZIE AWARDS - THE LOVE GURU.The Golden Raspberry Awards are a spoof on the Oscars that awards "dis-honors" for the crappiest movies Hollywood came up with the previous year. The Love Guru Written By Mike Myers & Graham Gordy Myer’s comedy, in which he receives three “dis-honours” for acting, co-writing and co-producing roles, also picked up nominations for worst picture as well as worst acting nominations for Jessica Alba, Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley and Verne Troyer. John Wilson, who created the Golden Raspberries or “Razzies” in 1980, said Myers had done “everything but make the audience laugh”. The New York Times described “The Love Guru” as "downright anti-funny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again". And to add my ten cents, I couldn't bear to watch even the trailer. But I do recommend for you to grin and bear it and watch this or one of these other movies on the list below, with a notebook handy to jot down and comment on as many script elements as you can. The visual grammar, the structure, the characterisation, the subtext or lack of, etc. It will be a Masterclass in How To Write A Screenplay That Stinks. And keep asking questions: Why isn't it funny? Why don't I care about the characters? And, of crucial importance: What is this movie's attitude to the audience's intelligence? If you ever believed that mediocrity sells, here's proof that it doesn't. The Love Guru 5 Nominations: Worst Picture, Actor, Actress, two for Supporting Actors, Director and Screenplay And just look at the figures for box office and budget: Box Office $32,200,122 Budget $62 million Here are the other Raspberries for Screenplay: Disaster Movie and Meet The Spartans Both Written By Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer The Happening Written By M. Night Shyamalan The Hottie And The Nottie Written By Heidi Ferrer In The Name Of The King:A Dungeon Siege Tale Screenplay By Doug Taylor The other movies in the Razzie nominations were similar giant flops that cost a great deal more to make than the box office returns: Disaster Movie Box Office $14,190,901 Budget $20 million (estimated) (Recently Ranked #2 on IMDb’s Bottom 100 Worst Movies of All Time) The Hottie And The Nottie Box Office $27,696 Budget $2 million (estimated) (Recently Ranked #17 on IMDb’s Bottom 100 Worst Movies of All Time) In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale Box Office $4,775,656 Budget $60 million (estimated) Meet The Spartans Box Office $38,233,676 Budget $20 million (estimated) Disaster Movie Box Office $14,190,901 Budget $20 million (estimated) (Recently Ranked #2 on IMDb’s Bottom 100 Worst Movies of All Time) The Hottie And The Nottie Box Office $27,696 Budget $2 million (estimated) (Recently Ranked #17 on IMDb’s Bottom 100 Worst Movies of All Time) Source: Box Office Mojo These figures say it all. Cinema audiences are, in the main, discerning individuals who stay away from movies that have crap screenplays, lousy direction and bad acting. You've got more chance of enticing audiences into the theatres to watch the results of your script if it's an excellent one. The Golden Globe winners and the Oscar nominations testify to that.
How To Write A Screenplay on
Unique Screenwriting Site
I'll be adding major sections to this strand of the Unique Screenwriting Site - how to write a screenplay - on how to approach the different elements of screenwriting for creating stand-out scripts. The focus will be on aspects of scriptwriting that are rarely found in screenwriting books. Things like visual grammar, exposition, thematic irony, emotional plot, unique dialogue, character subtext and so on. A major aspect of all the guidance on how to write a screenplay that you'll find here is to encourage distinctive screenwriting, and that means trying to get you to ask questions of your script, your ideas and how you can express them in ways compelling to an audience. Which means, of course, shaping your material into a screenplay the industry can't resist. Click Here To Go To Screenwriting Structure
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