Re: Site: Screenwriter Tips

Ooooohhh...This is really a goldmine

A goldmine of dope that I discovered on the site: Life Tips, in the section Screenplay Tips. Pretty solid stuff and covers extensive topics.

Screenplay Newsletter Archive

Screenplay Links

Site: Screenwriter Tips

A goldmine of dope that I discovered on the site: Life Tips, in the section Screenplay Tips. Pretty solid stuff and covers extensive topics.

Screenplay Newsletter Archive

Screenplay Links

LINDA'S KEY RULES FOR WRITING SHORTS

Linda Cowgill's book was our text book at CFS for writing shorts and script-coverage. Here's some stuff from her to consider:

Ten rules for a successful short script:

1. Know who you're making your film for. If it's for yourself, that's who you have to satisfy. If you're making it as an entry into the industry, your film needs to work dramatically as well as technically. Competition is stiff.


2. The longer the story, the better the film has to be. Length comes down to what the story dictates. But if a film is over 15 minutes it really has to be great to keep people watching.


3. Write the script you can produce. Don't write a script with production values you can't effectively achieve.


4. The best ideas are simple. Focus on one main conflict, develop and explore it in surprising ways.


5. Set your film up in the first 60 seconds. If you're writing a ten minute (10 page) movie, you can't take the first 5 pages to introduce your characters before getting to your conflict. Establish your conflict as soon as possible.


6. Make sure conflict escalates. Know what your character wants (the goal) and what's preventing him from getting it (the obstacle), and make sure your audience understands it, too.


7. Try to develop the conflict in one main incident as the set piece of your project. Many great short films develop the conflict in one incident to great effect, exploring character in ways feature films rarely do because they rely more heavily on plot.


8. If your film is less than 5 minutes, one type of conflict might be sufficient to satisfy your audience. But if your film is over 5 minutes, you're going to need to various obstacles or complications for your hero to face.


9. Just because your film is short doesn't mean you can't have an effective mid-point and reversal. Anything that keeps your audience from guessing your ending is an asset.


10. Make sure your ending is the best thing about your great film. Your pay off is what you're leaving the audience with and it's how they're going to remember you.

Here is the link to above article and also to some great dope by her on plotting, emotions, conflict et al (check the right-side column):
Linda Cowgill

Blog: Asha ‘disowns’ OP Nayyar

By Pankaj Vohra

....There is no doubt that Asha Bhonsle and her elder sister Lata Mangeshkar have been amongst the greatest singers in this country but music history should be a little more objective and not necessarily from their point of view or from the view point of people they have been close to. The two sisters have outlived most of their contemporaries and God should give them many more years to enrich our music. But over the years, they have apparently developed some biases and prejudices and this should not come in the way of giving an accurate account of things.

The programme on Asha was extremely good but she was hesitant throughout in naming OP Nayyar, the composer who actually was her real mentor. Many in the music world still say that had there been no OP Nayyar, Asha's talent may have remained latent and undiscovered for many more years. This composer, who died a few years ago was the original rhythm king of the industry and helped in shaping Asha's career more than RD Burman, also a great composer who later married her....

Full article:
Blog: Asha 'disowns' OP Nayyar

Blog: I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script

We know you've been working very hard on your screenplay, but before you go looking for some professional feedback, you might keep in mind the following piece by A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php

(Excerpt:)

....Which brings us to an ugly truth about many aspiring screenwriters: They think that screenwriting doesn't actually require the ability to write, just the ability to come up with a cool story that would make a cool movie. Screenwriting is widely regarded as the easiest way to break into the movie business, because it doesn't require any kind of training, skill or equipment.

Everybody can write, right? And because they believe that, they don't regard working screenwriters with any kind of real respect. They will hand you a piece of inept writing without a second thought, because you do not have to be a writer to be a screenwriter.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php


SciFi Writer David Gerrold Reacts to Olson's "I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script"
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/scifi_writer_da.php

Short - Signs

Signs (12 mins)

Now...what's stopping any one to execute such a flick?!


Made for Schweppes. Schweppes branding was weaved within the film as was the Schweppes mnemonic device "schhhhhhh'. In 4 weeks The 12 minute long branded film is fast approaching a million views on Youtube and is the 57th top rated film on Youtube, ever.

Details

Interview: Vishal Bhardwaj

In conversation with Vishal Bhardwaj

Extensive interview with reference to Kaminey; solid dope on VB's method of working with actors and his opinion on other stuff like music and editing...

(Long!) Excerpts:

I was really inspired by Tarantino's films, Guy Ritchie. That was the space. In that I had to hunt up something original, do something that hasn't been done before.


"And also it must be said that the boys and girls of this generation are indeed a lot more intelligent, a lot more aware. And awareness comes from exposure, and they have so much more exposure now"

Our audience itself is so star-struck that they need references, it takes them time to place a star in a different context. And a combination like this unnerves them.


If you're in the moment and listening for your co-actor, instead of waiting for your own line… as a director, that is the false note that you have to try and capture. Sometimes things don't look internal enough, the crying looks too surfacial. So you have to keep bringing actors back to the moment, the truth, the reality."

Vishal shuns rehearsals entirely, feeling they decapitate all notions of spontaneity. "You become so rehearsed there's nothing left. So we read the script, and we go deeply into character study."

What is not seen on the screen should be explored, and we should all try to live those unseen moments. So that when we arrive at this moment, the moment that is in the script, we'll bring some sense of that backstory, feel some invisible energy. Then the actor is not just coming and performing those lines."


Borrowing from reality is something that fascinates the filmmaker, and he describes how it was awkward to meet the stammering men, but amazing to hear their life experiences.


The current film, he says, has had a lot of improvisation, largely because all of Kaminey has been shot using handheld cameras. "Nothing was fixed. None of the actors knew exactly which angles we were using so they all had to do the entire scenes all the way through. And we would do axis jumps! Right from the first scene! Paagalon ki tarah shoot kiya hai," he beams wide.


Bhardwaj is almost embarrassingly effusive in his praise for Hussain. "I think we have a really great rapport. As professionals, we have such an identical gelling when it comes to cinema.


What happens is that always before shooting, I make a mix of the song in my own voice, picturise it and then come back and dub. I don't use the original artists till much later, unless it's a sync song. This saves a lot of time and the song is still being made, and because it's my composition I can sing it quicker.


We talk of dynamic editing and cutting scenes to music, and Bhardwaj cuts in, strongly disagreeing. "When you're shooting it, the shot was not conceived to the music, so it starts going wrong. I hate to cut to music. I cut separately. You should not have the music to stimulate you to cut. You cut it the way it should be, emotionally. And then put the music.

Music should follow the edit, edit shouldn't follow the music.

"A film is only made on two tables, yaar. The writing table and the editing table. Everything else is chaos."


Current Indian filmmakers he is impressed by include Anurag Kashyap — the man is all praise for most of Dev D — and Dibakar Banerjee, the man behind Khosla Ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, going as far as to mimic the young-Sardar scenes from the latter.


Consciously I never tried to say anything, but interestingly enough a message is born. A philosophical message.

In conversation with Vishal Bhardwaj