Screenwriting, A Learned Skill

Screenwriting, A Learned Skill


You need some talent to be a writer. Talent for the chosen field is a given, but just about everyone can tell a simple story. The art of the novel is 80 percent talent and twenty percent technique. The art of screen writing is twenty percent talent, forty percent technique and forty percent persistence.

The good news is that the technical aspect can largely be gotten through basic software programs. We have gone over them before and I can do a quick listing of some of the best no budget options for you.
 Celtx is great and is free to use. There is a upgraded version that cost about ten dollars. Unless you are going to be producing the movie as well the upgraded copy is not necessary. There is the great store and working on your screenplay online resource Scripped. This site s free to sign up at. Free to use. Free to store your screenplay there online. They have a screenplay registration service that is great if you do not use the writer’s guild or want to file for a copy write. There is also the free software known as Roughdraft. It has templates for stageplay screenplay and novel. It is great and very simple to use.

Next I can not teach you to have talent. Either you do or you do not. If you have little or no story telling talent that is okay. You can still find a way to craft a screenplay. You can adapt someone else’s story or a true story that you have read about or heard about. The talent to tell a great story is not needed if you can find a great story. Once the story is found all you have to do is to fall back on the technique of writing the screenplay. Identify the lead character. Figure out who or what are the protagonist and the antagonist. Learn all that you can about creating conflict. Conflict is what drives a narrative story forward. Opposing forces pushing against each other.

Next learn the basics of the three act structure. It is as simple as beginning middle and end. If you can understand that Act I is the beginning, Act II is the middle and Act III is how to script will reach an end.
Now since this blog is about low to no budget screen writing then I have to remind you that you must limit the size of your cast and the number of locations. To pick up and move a crew and actors cost money every time that you do it. To secure a location cost. To move equipment cost. Even if a production does not pay the actors they have to be fed and travel cost as well so keep those things in the back of your mind when writing your micro budget screenplay and in the front of your mind when rewriting it.

The last word has to be about persistence. You have to face that plank screen everyday. Write something everyday. Aim for a rough draft pace of five to six pages a day. That is between a thousand to fifteen hundred words. At this pace you can finish your first draft in about three weeks. It this pace is too much that is okay. One page a day, everyday, for a year is equal to four ninety page screenplays a year. That is a great
pace. What I am trying to tell you is that as long as you write something everyday you are doing better than ninety five percent of the writers out there. Write as often as possible. Writing is like lifting weights. You get stronger and it gets easier. Persistence pays off over time. Keep writing. Keep writing and did I mention that I think you should keep writing?

Okay that is it for today. Thank you for visiting and please take a moment to stumble us on stumbleupon and to share this post.

The Anthology Script, Know Your Nouns

The Anthology Script, Know Your Nouns

The problem with many Anthology scripts in not the individual stories within the movie. It is how they connect. Imagine trying to write a hit song and the backing music constantly changes with each verse and every time that the chorus repeats. That song would not sound good and it is a sort of back beat that is required for an Anthology film script to work.



What I am saying is that there needs to be a connecting element.

There needs to be something that binds it all together. That something is a NOUN. Some of us who are beyond the age of thirty learned first about nouns by watching a Saturday morning cartoon named schoolhouse rock. A really cool two minute song that taught us that a noun is a person, place or thing. Every person that you know and every place that you can go, you know that they are nouns, they are nouns.
The binding element should be a person, place or thing that recurs and connects each short film that will form the complete feature length Anthology film. There have been some good tries at making anthology films, but I think they missed greatness because of the problem with nouns. Look at the movie VHS, the connecting element is a video tape and I would argue that this is so vague that would it had been any different if they had used a television to connect the stories. The parts do not fit because the noun is not strong enough to hold the entire film together. We get two good stories and three okay ones that do not have anything internally to connect them. They are not even all the same genre.



When writing your anthology screenplay I would suggest picking your noun and sticking to it for three to six stories, any more than that and you are talking the ABC’s of Death and I do have to say that the alphabet is not the best way to connect one story with another. People will get tired after five or six stories. That is just the history of the genre. Again find the noun. A place that connects all the stories. This is a good idea when writing a micro budget script. Using the same location as much as possible really helps to keep a budget in line. Pick an object that connects the stories. It could be a book or a smartphone or a mirror or a ring. Anything that can move from person to person and or place to place logically. Then there is the person. The person can be the actor who will play many roles, think of the amazing anthology Trilogy of Terror where Karen Black plays a school teacher, then twins and then a woman being menaced by a killer doll. Always the same face with a different name and location for each story. The face connects the stories. A common character or group of characters and do this as well. A lawyer or a priest or a group of cops. They can begin the story together and spread out over the entire length of the film script and perhaps finish the story together.
There are a thousand ways to do this, but it will be so much easier to get from fade in to fade out if you keep focused on the nouns.

Final note about this subject. It does not have to be horror. I know that most modern anthologies are horror films, but it can be done with drama, suspense or even comedy. Do not limit yourself to one genre because it is popular or you think that it will make more money. Write what you love. If that noun allows you to combine genres then go for it.

Try to write everyday and try to read as many scripts as you can. It will make you a better writer.
Good luck guys and please take a moment to share this post with a friend.

Screenwriting, A Lose Of Suspense

Screenwriting, A Lose Of Suspense

When people think about writing a low budget screenplay they tend to turn in one of three directions. Comedy, drama or horror. I understand this. These are the movies that populate theaters and cable tv these days. We write what we read and we write what we see. That old run of writing what you know comes into play. The problem is that the two dominate forms of screen writing has all but been lost during the last decade.

We no longer write westerns. I understand this based upon budget to a certain extent, but the micro budget rules can apply to a western as well as other types of films. If you are the writer and the film maker and you live in an area of the country that offers a western setting then you should not be afraid to write a western.




The suspense script is not so much about budget as it is about technique. Most of you have not been taught how to write a suspense script. Many confuse suspense with mystery. For most of the past century suspense was king and horror lived in a back room. Hitchcock dominated the box office with one suspense story after another. Suspense films still are a large part of the international film market it is just here where the suspense film has been filed away.

Why should you consider writing a suspense script?

Suspense offers the best of all worlds. A little horror, comedy, action and drama. When done well they stand the test of time. They will challenge you as a writer.

What are the rules for writing a suspense story?

One rule applies always. This rule is the exact opposite of a horror script.

In a horror story something is chasing you. In a suspense story you are chasing something. You being your lead character of course.

Jason, Michael Myers, Freddie and the shark from Jaws is chasing the lead. They are always being stalked or menaced by the creature in the darkness.

In a suspense story the lead is doing all the chasing. He or she is trying to track down the monster. Find the threat before it is realized. Locate the bomb before it can go off. Get the wife or child back before it is too late.

Modern suspense classics are Disturbia (remake of Rear Window), Taken, Basic Instinct, The Usual Suspects and Momento. I recently saw the movie Stoker and this disturbing little film reminded me of what world class suspense is like. I watched the movie the first time as a writer and the second time as a film maker. The budget is listed at twelve million dollars. I imagine that a lot of that budget went to pay the stars and for once I have to admit they earned their salaries. Every performance was pitch perfect and the suspense does not work nearly as well if the number one person who is in danger is not some one that we as viewers are not familiar with. The movie need Nicole Kidman in the same way that Hitchcock’s films need Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly.



Okay back to the budget. If you take away the salaries for the stars and the director and shot it using a small digital production crew this film could have been shot on an ultra low budget.

You need to look at movies and read script from films shoot in the forties and fifties. Many of the great suspense films from those days were low budget B suspense films. Many of the rules that apply to micro budget film scripts were learned from those films. Limit the cast and the locations and the number of sets. Find a lead character that can not let it go. A character who has to chase the answers down. A character who does not blink and then let them go for it. Or you could show us two sides of a characters personality. One side decent and kind, the other side dark and violent. Which side will come out in the end? Which person will reveal themselves and to whom? Suspense is built that way. It comes down to when will the bomb go off. Just keep in mind that sometime the bomb is a secret or sometimes it’s a person.

Okay that is it for today guys. Good luck with your no budget screenplay. Please take a moment to stumble us on stumble upon and to share this post with a friend.

Low Budget Screenplay, Characters and Dimensions

Low Budget Screenplay, Characters and Dimensions

The problem with most screenplays begin before we get to whether or not the plot is sound. The problems begin at the level of characterization.

You have heard about three dimensional characters. In an effort to produce such a character you go out and write a character with a series of traits and skills that you hope will add depth to your character. This never works. This is not how a three dimensional character is created.

Look at dimensions as layers. Try to create a character when writing your screenplay that has layers.


Ask yourself a question about the lead character.

Who do they say that they are?

If they say I am a good person who loves my family, my dog, my friends and the whole wide world. Or the reverse I am a good person, but I can not stand my family, my dog, my so called friends or this crazy world I live in.

That is fine to start of with, but if that is your character from page one to page one hundred and one you have created a boring one dimensional character.

Here is a quick glimpse at a villain who is definitely not one dimensional.



Go beyond this to the next layer.

Who is this person underneath?

I love my family, but I need to spend hours away from them one a fishing trip or at work just to get away from them. I love the world, but I do not care about everything that happens to it, on it or inside it. I love my friends, but I am tired of dealing with their problems, their drama or even their upbeat attitude.

Or I hate the world, but there is one person that would make me fight to save it. It could be a child. It could be a love. It could be someone that they know, but has never said anything to. Shyness in a character or self doubt is a great second dimension. There are any number of character traits that can add dimension to a character in your low budget script.

To review. What a character says they are or even what other characters say about the lead character and who or what they actually say or do in reality adds a second dimension.

The third dimension is more tricky.

Here is a character that is fully three dimensional.



It could be something that the character discovers about themselves. Something good or bad that they never knew was there. A hero finds out that he is a coward when the going gets really tough. A person who has never stuck his neck out for anyone finds that he is willing to risk his life for a stranger. It is what the character does not know that adds that extra. It surprises both the character and more importantly the audience.

Writing a low budget screenplay requires that you pay more attention to characterization. Big budget films can and do get away with paper thin characters. They can hide this behind massive special effect and stars. The success of your low budget screenplay will depend on how well it is written. On how strong your characters are. Get to know these characters. You will over time discover things about them as they discover things about themselves. I am not going to lie to you and tell you that it is easier to write fully realized characters. It is harder, but is is also more rewarding.

Good luck with the screenplay. Please take a moment to bookmark this post and to share it.

Horror Film Writing, Beyond Props

Horror Film Writing, Beyond Props

Hitchcock when asked about horror films said that he did not make them (maybe the Birds). He said that all they really amounted to were movies about walking props.

The Frankenstein monster was just a prop and the history of horror movies is mostly dependent upon them.


Jason is just a walking machete.


Michael Myers a walking kitchen knife.


Freddy is a walking glove that cracks jokes.


These films in their original forms were not all prop and no content. I would argue that Michael Myers in the
original film was more than a knife. The character represented a total lack of humanity that in is own way made him a compelling creation. In the Rob Zombie remake (the only remake worth talking about) the character represents aggression and rage. A kind of overwhelming rage that is triggered all to easily by people in the world around him.


Freddy when he was first introduced represented our own inner demons. Our worst nightmares come to life. Then the character began a franchise and soon after he became little more than comic relief.


When sitting down to write a screenplay we all to often go for the cheap scare. Creating characters who’s sole purpose is to die in as gruesome a way as possible. Is this the best that we can do?


Can you name any of the character who went out like that?


I can name Heather from the Freddie films because she is the only real character in those movies. She fought, she struggled, she tried to survive as any of us would do.


I know that Ripley was the star of the Alien films that were good.


I remember Sam and Juno from the Descent.


Can you name one single character from any of the Final destination films? Who were they? You do not know because you were never asked to care.


It is the character first and not the situation that makes for great horror films. Far too many horror movie scripts are written with situation in mind. When writing a horror screenplay it is easy to think up a place where character will find themselves trapped and then butchered by another character who is nothing more than a prop. Look at the movie Saw. It could have been just another slasher film and that is the problem with its sequels, but the first one does a great job of getting you inside the heads and lives of the two guys we meet chained in that filthy bathroom.


Writing about characters that you know and like will be one of the easier things that you ever do. Can you imagine being Sam Raimi and partner sitting down to write more dialogue for Ash in one of the Evil Dead movies. That trash talking character has become loved by millions of fans because he was first loved by the person who created him.


Create good characters and the story will take care of itself.


Or create Props and they will lumber around like the dead weight that they are.


No one ever said that screen writing was going to be easy. It is fun at times, but rarely easy. None of us really consider ourselves masters of this craft. We have good weeks and bad weeks. There are times when pages will flow and then there will be weeks when you will not be able to write more than a sentence or two. Just try to do one thing when ever you sit down in front of that blank screen, try to do your very best. Try to create characters that are more than blocks of wood.


Okay that is it for today. Please take a moment to share this post with a friend.

Horror Movie Writing

                Writing A Good Horror Film


    There is a pattern that has developed over the past few years at the box office. Horror films open up at number one and then the bottom drops out of their box office.

    Hollywood is a hype machine and they have become expert at hyping horror movies. The problem is that they pick really bad movies in an effort to steal a few quick bucks. Most of these movies fall into three categories. Terrible originals, terrible remakes and terrible redone versions of foreign horror films.

    Let Me In vs. Let The Right One In.

    The Chainsaw Massacre 3D vs. The Chainsaw Massacre.

   
    Some of this is the quest for money. Some of this is the directors fault and some of this is poor writing. In the case of Let Me In it is the director’s fault because the original has an almost perfect script.

    This post needed to be written for the simple fact that many of the micro to no budget scripts that will be written will be horror screenplays.

There are actual rules to writing a good one and I guess that it is about time someone wrote them down and reminded the screenwriting world of them.

    The rule that is broken most often and usually in the first five minutes. The rule that once broken the story has a huge mountain to climb before it can reach the level of watchable. The rules that you must keep in mind at all cost is,

    ESTABLISH REALITY!

    Your script must establish the real world before it can or should introduce the supernatural world.

    “But I want to start my script with a bang. I want to jump right into the story.”

    Seriously? If you want to write a great film that will be remembered over time then do not break this one rule.

    The movies that followed this rule as if it is religious doctrine are the following:

    The Sixth Sense. Wife, husband, home, normal world, violence, and then mom and boy, street, church and now the supernatural begins to creep in.

    The Exorcist, old Priest, dig in holy lands, people working, heart problems, a hint at something bizarre or supernatural. Jump to a city in America, a Mother and daughter, a home, a ordinary world that is rocked by something supernatural almost 30 pages later. The recipe for the greatest horror film of all time.

    The Descent, a rafting trip with friends, a drive home, a fatal car accident, friends gather at hospital, friends unite a year later for another group outing, they worry about the one who almost lost her life and did lose her family, they go cave diving in an un-explored cave because one of them is a risk taker and they end up in a life and death struggle with flesh eating cave dwellers.  Released at the end of a summer movie season, totally untouched by the Hollywood hype machine, barely lasted in theaters for three weeks and has gone on to be considered a modern horror classic.  (Note, I was lucky enough to see The Descent at a film festival where it won best after dark film. The house was sold out and the place rocked from almost beginning to end. There is nothing like seeing a really good horror film.)

    The Original Chainsaw Massacre watches like a documentary at times. The opening scenes of that movie establishes reality and then goes on to create what feels like a darker level of reality.
    The same could be said for the original The Hills Have Eyes.

    They all became classics by establishing reality first and then subverting it.

    The next Rule has been written about before at this blog and I must go over it again.
    Rule 2,

    THEY WILL BELIEVE ANYTHING ONCE!

    The audience will believe in a killer shark.

    They will believe in a possessed child.


    They will believe that a massive undersea creature is rampaging through New York, Cloverfield.

    They will believe in Vampires.

    They will believe in any one thing, but not two things. Two or more things is comedy and not horror.

    Child’s Play 1 and 2 are horror movies. Once you get to Bride of Chucky you are into comedy.
    A Killer Shark is Jaws, a Killer Shark that can swim under the sand is Sand Shark, it is a sci-fi channel film and it stinks.

    No matter what that second thing is do not include it in your screenplay. Do not make the argument that M. Night does it all the time. A twist ending is not the same as a second thing that they must believe. Hey I do not like the ending of The Village any more than the rest of you guys, but it was fair and he did not ask you to believe more than one thing. We were just fooled by what the story really was about.

    The movie that broke this rule and completely lost me and many of those who had high hopes for it is the movie Grave Encounters. Great premise. Solid Act I and part of Act II. This movie promises an experience like the Shining and out of no where jumps to Rose Red and a second rate episode of the Outer Limits. Spoiler Alert!  For those of you who have seen the movie the ghost hunting team arrives at the building and get locked inside. At this point we have a time limit given to us where around 6 AM the doors will be opened. Survive until then and all is well. Then the building starts changing shapes. Really? Then time does not run the way that it does in the rest of the known universe. Really?

Too much to believe. I think the movie falls apart when these things are introduced and never recovers. I will offer a slight defense and maybe a reason why this happened. The script was written by a writing team.  That could explain the introduction of these unnecessary elements.

    Find a horror film that disappointed you and ask yourself if it asked you to believe in more than one thing. I would bet that almost all of them did.

    There are a few more rules, but at the end of the day these rules are the most important. If you break any of them then you are probably writing a bad horror movie.

    How to write a really good horror film is going to be another post and I will try to be as helpful in this area as possible, but no one has perfected a formula for this yet. The greatest screen writers of all time are hit and miss.

    Okay that is it for today. I have added social marking tabs on the post so could you please share this and any other post you like and tell a friend about this site.

    Last note, I am working on doing an Anthology contest this year. Unlike most of the recent anthologies that have been released this one must have a common theme and the theme is still being discussed. It will be suspense/horror and it will need something to tie it together. Watch Trilogy of Terror (find it on Youtube) as an example of what we will be aiming for.

Vampires And Budgets, Your Screenplay

            Vampires And Budgets


    There is a mega budget feature film world that is dominated by Vampires. Sure they are vampires covered in glitter, but still vampires. There is room in the low budget and micro budget world for vampires to dominate as well.

    When writing your screenplay it is okay to glance at some of the films that are being made and are dominating the competition. If you did not do this you would not be doing your job as a screenwriter. Look to the big budget films and understand that they are mostly dominated by over paid stars and massive special effects.  The low budget counterparts are usually plot and character driven.

    Today we are going to look at the most successful vampire saga in modern history and the best vampire movie produced during the last twenty years and they do have many similarities.

    The most successful is of course the Twilight Saga.

    The best is the amazing low budget foreign film Let the Right One In. Please do not confuse this movie with the watered down and dumbed down Hollywood remake that came out a year after the original.

    Okay both movies are basically love stories. Twilight buries the fact that this is a somewhat creepy relationship between a old old man and a teenage girl. Appearances are all that matter in the universe of this film. Everyone looks good and that is all that counts.

    In Let The Right One In, it is more of the love between two friends than an actual romance. The boy is twelve and is on the verge of being hazed to death by other vicious boys at school. The girl appears to be twelve and since she is a vampire is a great deal older. This character is handle much better than any in the world of twilight. Though there are special effects in this film and because they are far between and amazingly well paced they are far more affective and realistic than those in the mega budget Twilight. The script of this film is so well crafted you never for a moment get that waiting for the next massive explosion that most larger budget horror films give their audiences. The final act of Let The Right One In is about the price of friendship. Both characters have to make sacrifices and take risks for the other. The characters are younger than those in Twilight but are so much more mature in how they interact with their world and the people around them.

    Let The Right One In shows us how plot and character can make up for a massive budget. Your no budget script can be one that stands out from the rest if you focus on the idea that we stick with and stand by characters that we know and can relate to. Hey not everyone has been the outcast, but all most everyone has felt like an outcast at one time or another. The children of Let The Right On In feel more familiar than the Romeo and Juliet like teens of Twilight.

    The no budget screenplay world is usually a world filled with characters who do not have it all together and never will. The character we introduce at the beginning will most likely be just as screwed up at the end of the story with the only difference being that they have someone to share their journey with.  The greatness of Let The Right One In is that the characters only seem to have it together, to have control over the world they occupy when they are together.

    Good luck with your screenplay and remember to try to write something everyday.