What goes into writing a great movie script?
Last Updated: 26.06.2025 00:00
Research the facts and then throw away the research.
People choose what to see based on the high concept. Make sure to deliver an ending consistent with the high concept -- it is what the audience paid for.
Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.
Why is Taylor Swift re-recording her albums?
Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.
Don’t direct from the page. Everyone, from the director on down, wants to be part of the process of making movies. Let them do their work.
Write in reverse time. Major characters need to change polarity; minor characters may remain the same at the end.
What are some key features of Google Gemini 2.0?
Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.
The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.
What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.
What’s the funniest thing you’ve heard a child cry about?
Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.
To develop a unique voice for each character, try interviewing your characters.
A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.
This Is The Most Underrated Supplement That Actually Supports Men's Health - MindBodyGreen
Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.
Get up there yourself. Be in a movie. Take some acting (not writing) classes. Learn how a trained actor approaches a text. Learn why actors take roles. They do as much if not more than the writer does.
A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”
Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.
Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.
Cut everything that is not a payoff, or a setup for a specific payoff. “Omit needless words.” Think about the sparseness of joke telling, or Grimm Brothers.
Scientists Found Cancer in a Dinosaur – And It Might Help Save Human Lives - ScienceAlert
Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.
Maintain a slush pile/idea file. When you are ready to write, choose the best seeds to plant.
Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.
Actors give better feedback than writers do.
All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.
Outline everything. Use story beats. Keep character’s mouths taped up, until they absolutely MUST speak. Write the script and the dialogue at the last minute, after you’ve revised the hell out of the outline.