Film Writing

No one comes out of a movie talking about structure. What audiences love and remember about a movie are great scenes. Marlon Brando in the back seat in On the Waterfront giving his "I could'a been a contender" speech. Meg Ryan's fake orgasm in Katz's Deli in When Harry Met Sally with the climactic punch line: "I'll have what she's having." In Superbad, Jonah Hill professing "I love you" to his friend Michael Cera by touching his nose with a "boop".

In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.

Here's what started the phenomenon: This book has been a best seller for over 15 years and has been used by screenwriters around the world! Blake Snyder tells all in this fast, funny, and candid look inside the movie business. Save the Cat is just one of many ironclad rules for making your ideas more marketable and your script more satisfying.

Syd Field's books on the essential structure of emotionally satisfying screenplays have ignited lucrative careers in film and television since 1979. In this revised edition of his premiere guide, the underpinnings of successful onscreen narratives are revealed in clear and encouraging language that will remain wise and practical as long as audiences watch stories unfold visually—from hand-held devices to IMAX to virtual reality . . . and whatever comes next.

On October 5, 2017, the New York Times published an article by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey that helped change the world. For months Kantor and Twohey had been having confidential discussions with top actresses, former Weinstein employees and other sources, learning of disturbing, long-buried allegations. The journalists meticulously picked their way through a web of decades-old secret payouts and nondisclosure agreements, pressed some of the most famous women in the world to risk going on the record.

In a new edition of this popular guidebook, filmmakers Alan Rosenthal and Ned Eckhardt show listeners how to utilize the latest innovations in equipment, technologies, and production techniques for success in the digital, web-based world of documentary film.

Lights, Camera Jemuru - Adventures of a Film-Maker in Ethiopia is the remarkable true-life story of a high-flying adman who swapped his expense account lifestyle in London to go and teach in a back-street community film school, Gem TV, in Addis Ababa. Bob Maddams spent years living and working in Ethiopia and filming took him and the Gem TV filmmakers all over the country; from shanty towns and famine feeding stations to the rock hewn churches of Lalibela and the source of the Blue Nile.

How to Write Everything is the ultimate writer's handbook. It tells you about every aspect of writing, from having an idea to getting the idea out into the world and getting paid for it, too. It covers everything from journalism to screenwriting, from speeches to sketches, from sitcoms to novels. With thirty years' experience as an award-winning scriptwriter, journalist, author, and broadcaster, David Quantick is ideally suited, as a writer, to write this definitive writer's guide to writing...everything.

Every aspect of screenwriting is covered with an authority and credibility never seen in any book to come before. Told with honesty, humor, and vulnerability from the real-world perspective of a working, professional screenwriter, Kill the Dog reveals the secrets of what it takes to have a successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter.

Finish The Script! is a screenwriting audiobook for anyone who wants to be a writer. It takes a step-by-step approach and focuses not only on theory but also on the actual writing process. It's a full college course squeezed into audiobook form that will take novice writers from concept through rewrite. Based on actual class lectures and assignments, Finish the Script! is for any writer looking for that extra push and guidance.

Blake Snyder, author of Save the Cat! and Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies, has delivered the audiobook countless readers and students have clamored for. Inspired by questions from his workshops, lectures, and emails, Blake listened to you and provides new tips, tactics, and techniques to solve your writing problems and create stories that resonate.

Eric Edson has developed a new tool for bringing depth and passion to any screenplay or novel - the 23 Actions All Great Heroes Must Take. It's an easy-to-understand paradigm that provides writers and filmmakers the interconnecting, powerful storytelling elements they need. With true insight, this accomplished screenwriter and university professor pinpoints the story structure reasons most new spec scripts don't sell.

Writers will understand why they're stuck and how to get unstuck through proven methods of breaking the logjam of self-judging and second-guessing that keeps good screenplays from being finished. Attain confidence by knowing your story is clear and solid. Seal out negative influences such as industry experts and fleeting trends. This is a way to write a script with integrity that makes a screenplay story-worthy. This is how to write a screenplay that works.

What are the secrets for writing a great ending for your novel? How do you leave readers so satisfied that they'll want another book by you, right now? What tools and techniques can shape your last 50 pages into a powerful, unforgettable experience? Listen to this audiobook, and you will come away with a thorough knowledge of why great endings work and how to create them for every novel you write.

This is a short book, with just one goal - to teach you the simple principles you can use right now to design a powerful scene before you write it. If you've already written your novel, you can use these same principles to make each scene better.

Veteran script consultant Jill Chamberlain discovered in her work that an astounding 99 percent of first-time screenwriters don't know how to tell a story. What the 99 percent do instead is present a situation. In order to explain the difference, Chamberlain created the nutshell technique, a method whereby writers identify eight dynamic, interconnected elements that are required to successfully tell a story.

If you're serious about your screenwriting, then you're serious about seeing your scripts produced. This book cuts to the chase with the point-by-point essentials behind every successful screenplay and shows you how to demonstrate the professional expertise that will get your scripts noticed. It's a quick, concise listen that gets to the bottom line with a no-nonsense approach to put your writing on a level with Hollywood's working professional screenwriters. Making movies is a complex matter so difficult that very few atempt it.

Want to sell a screenplay, but figure there’s no chance it’ll ever happen? I mean, you don’t know a soul in Hollywood, right? You don’t have James Cameron on your speed dial. Christopher Nolan isn’t in your yoga class. Quentin Tarantino doesn’t shop at the same Whole Foods that you do. I mean, who’s going to take a chance on you? There’s no way you could ever sell a screenplay. Right? Well…

Have you ever had an idea and thought to yourself "this would make a great movie?" Of course, storytelling is engrained in us all and movies have become our modern means to tell them. Recent innovations in film technology have made it easier than ever to get your ideas put onto the big screen. So what's stopping you from writing that award winning screenplay? Screenwriting for Anyone is a four book box set that is a comprehensive guide to writing your script starting from the ground up. Each book will detail different aspects of the writing process beginning with the first book. Book One outline how to develop your idea into a feature length screenplay. Book Two gives you a detailed schedule to complete the first draft within 30 days and Book Three is a comprehensive guide on the dos and don'ts when creating a modern masterpiece. Book Four dives into the business side of screenwriting with proven methods on how to pitch your script and negotiate a deal. Screenwriting for Anyone is a one of a kind four book box set that will help you finally get that idea on paper and up onto the silver screen.

TV WRITING TOOL KIT 2nd Edition—is an update of my latest story tools, breakdowns, and handouts. The book covers story structure for a TV pilot and spec script, logline formulas for Logline For Your Life and your story, and character. With character, the book goes into the wound and the flaw. I cover everything that I teach in Writers on the Verge at NBC. There are breakdowns for several shows, including—THE GOOD WIFE, MODERN FAMILY, THE NIGHT MANAGER, HOMELAND, FLEABAG, and DEAD TO ME. The book also explores staffing and development.