Advice

A landmark interview series that goes far beyond the typical Q & A to really get down and dirty with today's top writing talent, The Dialogue: Learning from the Masters DVDs give you an unprecedented look into the life of a working screenwriter.From Academy Award winners Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise) and Paul Haggis (Crash) to comedy writer John Hamburg (Meet the Fockers) and sci-fi team Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci (Star Trek reboot), each screenwriter discusses their filmography in intricate detail and provides an analysis of the inner workings of a favorite scene from their film oeuvre. This kind...

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create." - Albert EinsteinYES, BUT CAN I WRITE?This chapter hopes to journey you to the most illogical and wonderful places in yourself. And it won’t always make sense. There are no experts on how you should be creative. In fact, my first rule is: Ignore everything I or anyone else says that might impede your natural process and inhibit your courage to create. What works for one might disable another’s inspirational process.Human experience is unknowably...

Whether a screenplay deserves an Oscar nomination depends on how it reads on the page and plays on the screen. But if you want to learn how Hollywood’s best screenwriters got that way, you have to begin by determining the challenges they faced at the outset of their tasks. Then you can identify, and learn, the techniques they used to meet the challenges.For Oscar nominees, these techniques typically fall into three major categories: mixing and transcending genres, and connecting character to plot to theme. Best script nominees, even when they are indie films, not only combine two or three genres,...

Sick of being controlled by other people’s plans? Frustrated by rules nobody asked you about? How would you like to play God and create a world according to you? Well, you can – write a pilot! Because that’s what a pilot for an original series is: A whole new world. And you get to create it – in your own image. God being God, it took Him/Her a week (depends how you choose to interpret your Bible, of course) to create the world, but you being you – with many more needs than God, like getting another cup of coffee,...

"How do I break in?"It’s the most often-asked question I get at classes and conferences around the country and from my clients. And honestly, I hate this question. There is no ONE answer. Everyone has a different “breaking in” story and everyone gets in a different way. And of course some don’t get in at all. It’s hard to break in - but here are some keys to finding your way.My no B.S. answer to the question is - you should’ve gone to school for it! Going to film school doesn’t give you any guarantees, especially in this economy, but...