Advice

As independent filmmakers craft their projects, working from the script phase right through production, they are faced with this question:What should be their most important priorities in creating a narrative that’s compelling to audiences and commercially viable?Many filmmakers fall into the trap of chasing “production value,” with the idea that if their film looks like it’s more expensive than it is, that will somehow lead to praise and profits. Unfortunately, that would only be the case if your audience were composed of production managers. Trust me, the fact that your $400,000 film looks like it cost a million bucks really...

The results are in! With each round of the Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest it becomes more difficult to narrow it down to 10 finalists, but somehow we managed to make the tough decision and are happy to announce the top 10 deserving entrants: Jennifer Green, “Triangle” – Kensington, MD Jeff Meares, “The Deep End” – Australia Kevin O’Leary and Patrick Trillo, “The Fourth Horseman” – Winston-Salem, NC Tyler Runde, “The Bermuda Device” – Round Rock, TX Thomas Ryan Cuming, “The Son of Edward Teach” – Santa Ana, CA Paul Boyer, “Triangled” – Puyallup, WA K Ray and Robert Statzer, “The Magnificents:...

It’s a new year. You’re rested, well fed, and got your batteries charged up over the holidays. You’re excited, darn it, to get going on with those infamous resolutions. So, what are they? Lose ten pounds, stop biting your nails, exercise and meditate? Right. Now let’s talk about your career. Sell a script? Write every day? Get your work in front of an agent? Get that A-list producer/director/star onboard? Get the financing? But let me ask you this… Did you have any of these same resolutions last year? If the answer is “yes,” you’re not alone.What’s going to make this...

One of the major Achilles’ heels for film producers and directors is the distribution game. Once you’ve made your movie, what do you do? How do you play the game? What strategies do you employ? Is there even a strategy? Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is there are indeed strategies to use and employ. The bad news is that most filmmakers don’t know what they are, and flounder around trying to figure them out. What’s even worse is too many filmmakers throwing in the towel and just dumping their film online, hoping it “hits” somehow....

The Monster story is one of the favorite types of Myth Archetype: the main character goes through an Outer Story, and that Outer Story symbolizes an Inner Story of emotional change.  Monster stories have been popular for centuries. Initially, a monster of some kind menaces the hero and the community. In Beowulf, the village is threatened by Grendel. In the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, the world is threatened by a monstrous supervillain. The monster can be an extraterrestrial monster, as in Alien, a monstrous animal, as in Jaws, a monstrous human, like Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attraction,...