How to write exposition in a screenplay
What makes good screenplay exposition? I compare some exposition in the Raiders of the Lost Ark screenplay with a user-submitted script.
readability
How to get your screenplay under 120 pages
“I loved the movie Django Unchained, but the script was too long…” “The Dark Knight made us millions, but the script was 167 pages, so let’s not do that ever again…” …Said no one ever. Yet, if you’re lucky enough to get your script into the hands of someone who can make or break your … Read more
Screenplay Scene Blocking – How to be clear in your action description
Make sure each element you’re conveying is absolutely mandatory. Favor readability, entertainment, brevity, and audience clarity over making sure the reader and audience fully grasp the historical accuracy and detail you’ve obviously taken great effort to present.
5 Quick Ways to Get a Script Reader to Love Your Script
As Sun Tzu once said, “There are good screenwriters, and there are bad screenwriters.” And while much of the difference between the two can only be measured with abstract criteria (such as “talent,” and “chutzpah,” and “originality,”) the fact is, there are several key criteria good screenwriters do with their screenplays that are not only concrete, measurable, and observable, but also, in … Read more
Writing an “audience draft” to kick your script in the pants
Is your screenplay about the audience? Or is it all about you? My company has read a lot of scripts. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands! (Okay, well, not hundreds of thousands, yet.) Good scripts, bad scripts, mediocre scripts. And they’ve all had their positives and minuses. And super-minuses. But there’s one major commonality across all less-than-stellar spec … Read more
How to tell you’re reading a terrible screenplay
Sometimes, we script readers get lucky. That is, when we dig into a screenplay to give script notes or provide script coverage, sometimes we know right away that the script we’re reading is gonna be a painful read.
Most times, that takes us a few pages. But sometimes, right off the bat, we get some really great clues that let us know “Hey, this screenwriter isn’t professional.”
How script readers can spot an amateur screenwriter
Your script has a lot of working parts — character, dialogue, conflict, action, theme, beats, acts… It’s a heady brew of elements. And that heady brew boils down into an awful lot of specific criteria that anyone reading your script will judge it by, whether you’ve sent it in to a script contest, or a script coverage company, or an agent, or studio, or a name actor.
Free Script Feedback: When CUT TO isn’t needed in action text
The script has texture and realism. Now it just needs presentability. There’s a good conflict being set up. I’m aboard. Honestly, I like the story so far. Now I want to trust the writer more though. The pages can’t be such a chore do digest. Fix the typos which means less typos, more professional presentation. Don’t give them an excuse to put it down.
120 page maximum for screenplays — why it’s a good thing
“A screenplay’s page count should be no longer than 120 pages.” We’ve all heard it time and again about script page count, whether in film school, or just as an anecdotal whisper on the screenwriter wind. 120 pages? Maximum? Isn’t that just a bit arbitrary? Why not 121? Why not 119? After all, The Godfather, (a great … Read more