Advice

Our reader Tim Kessler asks: I have developed an idea into what needs to become a film treatment. Can you suggest how I can take what I've got into a piece of work that can be properly used to apply for funding for the expedition/ documentary? Do I need an agent? I have friends who are themselves doc makers and producers who have told me that I have the bones of a film treatment but I don't have a clear vision of how to create the product. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated more than I can express. Steven...

2004: On the TV show The Apprentice 16 young entrepreneurial types compete to be the apprentice to Donald Trump. It's a truly coveted position because it means learning from a master. For those who don't succeed, their fate is summed up in two words at the end of the show. "You're fired!" 1940: Fantasia opens. Mickey Mouse stars in The Sorcerers Apprentice. Logline: A Sorcerer's young apprentice attempts to practice magic in his master's absence, with disastrous results. Theme: Never underestimate the value of age and experience 1545: The Middle Ages - a brief history. The majority of the people...

Henry James, the great American novelist, in an essay entitled The Art of Fiction, asks a rhetorical question about the nature of character: "What is character," he writes, "but the determination of incident. And what is incident but the illumination of character." The key word of course, is "incident;" what the dictionary defines as "A specific occurrence or event that occurs in connection or relationship to something else." How does this affect the creation of character? Take a look at Mystic River - the entire film is based on an event that occurs when a young boy named Dave is...

Our Reader Allen Ventura from Springfield, IL writes: I am a professional writer who has recently turned his hand to screenwriting. Can you give me the insider's view of "spec scripts?" Is this a sound way to proceed or are there better ways to get my scripts noticed? Richard Walter responds: Writing spec scripts is not only the most traditional journey to make your screenwriting career happen, it's also in your best financial interest. Virtually all the writers I know who make huge bucks "selling their daydreams for dollars" started out by writing spec scripts. Their craft and talent seduced...

For a new screenwriter, the only way to tear down the Hollywood barriers is to burn them down with your passion. Your passion for the story and for the characters who drive it. Without Passion, your script is no more than a tinker toy network of rules and regulations, plot points and pinwheels, bare architectural bones which no one wants to see, or make. My agent one time told me to hurry up to his office; he had the next great idea for a novel and I was going to write it. He sat me down and told me that...