MONDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

KNOW WHEN TO HOLD 'EM

Life isn't the cards you've been dealt, it's how you play them. Though we're all looking for a great story to tell, once we find that story we still have to find the best way to *tell it*. You could take a very simple story and tell it in a fascinating way - look at Christopher Nolan's MEMENTO. A husband searching for his wife's killer is a fairly mundane story - it's the way that story is told that makes that film exciting and innovative. Or Nolan's DUNKIRK. The story of the same incident told from different points of view. Telling a story is just relating information to the audience - but the method we use to relate that information is what will make that story a page turner or a bore. That doesn't mean we need to tell our stories backwards or sideways or upside down, but it does mean we have to find the most interesting way to give the audience the information.

Nolan's INCEPTION tells the story of a dream thief Dom Cobb who pulls heists in your mind. Mostly as part of corporate espionage, If your company wants to know their competitor's secrets he will assemble a team, break into your dreams (when your mind is vulnerable) and create a dream with the intent of tricking you into revealing the information. You wake up thinking you just feel asleep on a train, no idea that you've been robbed.

But Cobb's memories - his dreams - are beginning to interfere with their heists. He keeps having dreams of his wife and his two children. At the beginning of the film, we don't even know who this woman in his dreams is... but soon we discover it is his wife... his *dead* wife... and he can not go back to America and visit his children because he has been accused of her murder and is a fugitive. This information is parceled out in the early scenes of the film a bit at a time, and makes us all wonder - what really happened with his wife? Did he kill her? How did she die? What do these dreams and fragments of dreams of her mean? Instead of being given a big information dump and find out everything at once, the backstory with his wife is treated as a mystery and we get one clue at a time and try to piece together the solution. Some clues makes us think one thing, other clues make us think something else... and each clue makes us want to know more - which maintains our interest. If we were just given all of the information at once, there would be no mystery to keep us *involved* in the mystery of his dead wife. But we are dealt pieces of the answer throughout the movie that keep us interested in his personal story as the complex new heist plot also unfolds... saving that last card for close to the end when it will have the most impact on the story (and on the viewer).

PUZZLE OF CHARACTER

Nolan's earlier film INSOMNIA tells the story of Los Angeles detective Will Dormer who is sent to Nightmute, Alaska with his partner to help them solve a murder. Instead of telling us everything about Dormer up front, screenwriter Hillary Seitz parcels out the information a little bit at a time - treating the character of Dormer as a mystery and each new bit of information about him as a clue. We know if they're flying him up from Los Angeles he must be an expert... but on the plane his partner hints that Dormer may have had other reasons for leaving Los Angeles. Bit by bit we find out that there's an Internal Affairs investigation underway - with Dormer as one of the targets. What the heck did he do?

Instead of telling us, the script continues to give us one clue after another - allowing us to assemble the character of Dormer a little bit at a time. Every clue exposes a little more about the man. Some clues make him look like a good cop who may be wrongly accused of something... others make us wonder if he isn't the one who crossed the line without even blinking. Each clue helps build the mystery and make us wonder what - exactly - happened in Los Angeles?

Every time we think we may know who Dormer is, another clue is revealed which strips off another layer and allows us deeper into his character. Instead of a static character - one we know everything about - Dormer seems to be constantly evolving... we seem to learn something new about him in every scene.

What happened in Los Angeles? Why is Dormer's entire career on the line? In one scene we find out the name of the actual case that Internal Affairs is investigating. In another scene Dormer tells his partner that Internal Affairs won't really want to dig too deep into that case - no one wants to find anything that would overturn the verdict... but his tone tells us he isn't quite sure. Dormer worries that what he did was bad enough that they WILL overturn the verdict and let this scumbag back on the streets.

What the hell did Dormer do? The mystery surrounding his character INVOLVES us. We want to know! By the end of the film we will discover the secret of Dormer's past - we will learn what happened in Los Angeles... and we'll be able to decide for ourselves if he's a good cop or a bad cop.

UNFOLDING STORY

Another thing to consider is - do you really need to give us ALL of the *story* information up front? Can some of it be held back and uncovered later? Give us the basics up front, and give us new information as the story progresses. The story "unfolds". Two ways new writers can err are to have no backstory at all and no information about who the characters are and what's going on... or to have all of the information up front in a huge info-dump of backstory. The best thing to do is be somewhere in the middle - enough information that we know who these people are and what's involved, but still hold back information so that the story can unfold with new information. Audiences like finding out new information, getting a new clue to what happened in the past or see the past through the eyes of a different character who may have a different take on the events. Give us the basic information and tease us that there's more - telling us that there are secrets which will be revealed later. That creates suspense and intrigue - we want to know what those secrets are. All of the films you mentioned have secrets that are revealed and "facts" that change with every new bit of information.

Our understanding of the character evolves...

In David Mamet's SPANISH PRISONER we know exactly who Campbell Scott is... but we are constantly given new information about who Steve Martin and Rebecca Pidgeon are. We have a character that we know (our identification character) and the others are revealed a little bit at a time. Same thing in HOUSE OF GAMES - we know Lindsay Crouse (our identification character) but don't really know Mantegna or Ricky or any of the other guys. New information is revealed about them as the story unfolds, and one minute they may be friends and the next foe. We learn the details of who they are one little piece at a time (and by the end we may know less about them then at the beginning). One of the things that's fun about movies like this (and USUAL SUSPECTS, etc) is the way information revealed in one scene may change our perception of a previous scene. As an audience we're constantly adding a new piece to the puzzle and trying to guess what the puzzle will show us when all of the pieces have been put together.

One of the fascinating things in INCEPTION are the layers of story - this is a dense film that requires you to pay attention... almost like 4 hours of film crammed into a 2.5 hour running time. Instead of a straight-forward heist movie, the film features dreams within dreams - each dream taking us deeper into the robbery victim's subconscious and closer to their most private thoughts. Because this time they are not stealing information, they are planting it. The job is to plant an idea in the victim's mind in such a way that they think *they* had the idea themselves. So every time they break into one level of the subconscious mind they are setting up the heist that breaks into the next level... and they keep going deeper and deeper. This creates a story that is complex - and information that is dealt to the audience one piece at a time so that we know the overall mission but do not know what will happen next... and the cool thing is - what happens in a "surface dream" will impact what happens in deeper dreams.

The always great Dileep Rao plays a team member who remains in the surface dream to drive a van filled with the rest of the team and the victim who are all sleeping in the back... dreaming the next level. But there are crazy complications, and what was supposed to be a quiet van ride ends up an insane car chase... and every high speed fish-tail turn impacts the dream the next level down. This is one of the fascinating parts of the film - how something in the surface level of the dream, even something we think is minor, has a *major* impact the deeper into the levels of dreams that we go. There's even a funny reason why it is raining on one dream level.

But instead of giving us all of the story information up front, we only know the ultimate goal (planting the dream) and some key pieces of the plan are given to the viewer on a "need to know" bases - revealed to us at a key point in the story rather than just dumped on us at the beginning of the film. Though, I think one of the flaws of INCEPTION is that the goals for each level of dream are not made clear, so we often don't know if the team is making progress in this level because we have no idea at all what they are trying to do. There is a balance in withholding information - you want to make sure we understand the over-all goal but keep the information on how we get there and what the hidden complications are as cards you turn over throughout the story. The character information about Cobb's wife is a great example of how to do this because it gives us a *question* right up front: why is Cobb accused of killing his wife? and then each card that is flipped over reveals a new piece of information that helps us solve that mystery. If we knew what they were trying to accomplish in the ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE dream, that dream would have worked better within the story. We would have been worried they would not accomplish the mission, instead of wondering what the hell the mission was. Each card flipped over would reveal new information that impacted achieving that goal. Make sure we understand the over-all goal of the story, and use the revealing of information to alter our course to that goal.

Even though Act 1 of a screenplay is the Set Up Act, we do not need to give the audience every single bit of information about the story before Act 2... and we do not *want* to do that. The rest of the script would end up dull! We need to establish the major characters and the main goal of the story and the conflict... and save the story details and characters details and plot complications due to revealed information as cards to play later in the game. We don't want to put all of our cards on the table in Act 1, because then the game would be over. We want to hold on to some cards to keep the audience guessing - does he have that third ace?

MYSTERY CHARACTER

In INSOMNIA, Pacino's character's past is revealed a little at a time - making the character interesting because we KNOW he has a secret, we KNOW he's trying to hide the secret, but we aren't sure exactly what that secret might be. We don't have to know everything about your characters up front, we just need one character that we identify with and enough about the others that we THINK we know who they are. As the story goes on, you can add information that add dimension or even change our understanding of the character and their relation to the story.

Creating a mystery around a character or an event and parceling out clues as the story goes on, makes your story interesting and involving. In my PAST LIVES script from a few years ago, the protagonist, child psychologist Penny Temestra is introduced working in a county hospital in the Appalachian Mountains. On page 15 she has been working all night on a case and stops to take a shower. When she takes off her blouse we see a pair of ugly bullet exit wounds on her back. How did a nice girl like her get shot? Shot twice?

You'll have to wait another 50 pages to find out! Throughout those 50 pages there are clues to the incident in her past that lead to her being shot.

I could have explained her past when she was introduced but that would have been boring. A block of exposition where two doctors in the hospital might have discussed how she's almost back to normal since being shot... or maybe have Penny explain herself. Either way would have just dumped information on the audience in the least interesting way... instead of creating a mystery surrounding her character and revealing a little bit of the answer at a time over the course of the story.

I knew exactly what happened to Penny before I began writing the script - her past is what made her the person she is today. The character on page 80 has the same background as the character has on page 2 - revealing the information does not change the *character* it only gives us information about the character. My Penny character's actions on page 2 needed to *include* the information that would be revealed later. I had to know what that secret was and use it to shade the character (and create "clues") from the moment that character was introduced. So I knew Penny's dark past when I was writing page 1... but decided to hold that information back and reveal it at the most interesting time possible - in the most interesting way possible. Penny's past was my ace in the hole - I had it in my hand but I didn't let any of the other players know it was there.

And in INSOMNIA, Hillary Seitz knew all of the details of the IA investigation into Dormer from the very first scene - little clues we are given in that opening scene are critical to the mystery of Dormer's past... plus, the whole darned film is really about his past (but we don't know that until his past is revealed at the end of the film). She held onto that information so that she could tell the story in the most interesting way possible.

Same thing with Nolan's INCEPTION - he had to know what happened to Cobb's wife when he wrote the first scene - because that information impacts every single scene in the film. In one of the early heist dreams a train comes out of nowhere and screws things up, but that train really didn't come out of nowhere - it is part of the mystery of Cobb's wife. A clue that will not play out until close to the end of the film.

Before you can reveal it., you have to conceal it, and before you conceal it you have to know what it is. How you give the audience information is as important as the information itself. It's not just having a great story, it's finding a great way to TELL the story. Knowing when to reveal the cards, and when to hold them until later in the game.

INCEPTION is a film bursting with information, but instead of getting everything up front, the information is played out on a need-to-know basis... revealed at the best possible time for maximum impact. It is flawed, but also fun - how will a card revealed in this level of the dream impact the other levels?

NEWEST AND BLUEST!

Want To Look Like An Expert?

RESEARCH & WORLD BUILDING Blue Book!

Does this gun fire 6 shots or only 5? In all of the excitement of writing your action scene, you might not have done the research... and your hero could be out of ammo! Whether you are writing a novel or screenplay, you can save your hero, and your story, by doing a little research first! This book looks at Why you should research, Whether you should research First or Later, PLUS the importance of World Building in Science Fiction, Fantasy... and the worlds you explore in every other genre. Movies like JOHN WICK and THE GODFATHER take place in their own unique worlds... and writers must create them! YOU are the technical advisor on your Screenplay or Novel.

Using movie examples like TOP GUN, HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, BLUE CRUSH, ADVENTURE LAND, several of my produced films, JOHN WICK, the novels of Donald E. Westlake and Thomas B. Dewey, SPY KIDS, the LORD OF THE RINGS movies, SOYLENT GREEN (which takes place in the far off future of 2022), and many others we will look at researching stories and creating worlds. The 8 Types Of Research, the 10 Types Of Information To Look For, 12 Important Elements Of World Building. Plus chapters on How To Rob A Bank and Commit Murder And Get Away With It for those of you interested in crime fiction, and Researching The Future for those writing science fiction, and Levels Of Reality if you are writing about a version of the real world.

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FINISHED WRITING?

All About Rewrites!

REWRITES Blue Book!

Rewriting In Waves?

When You Finish Your Screenplay Or Novel...
The Rewrites Begin!

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GRAND FINALES Blue Book!

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The First Ten Pages Of Your Screenplay Are Critical,
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SHRINKING IT DOWN

All About LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING!

LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING! Blue Book!

Distilling Your Screenplay!

Loglines, Treatments, Pitching, Look Books, Pitch Decks, One Pagers, Rip-O-Matics?

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Making Your Own Movie?

WRITE IT: FILM IT BOOK!

Making Your Own Movie?
Writing An Indie Film?
Writing A Low Budget Genre Script To Sell?
Writing A Made For TV Holiday Movie?

You will be writing for BUDGET. On a standard spec screenplay, you don’t have to think about budget, but these types of screenplays writing with budget in mind is critical!

If you are making your own movie, budget, is even more important - and you need to think about budget *before* you write your screenplay... or you will end up with a script that you can’t afford to make (or is a struggle to make). Everyone is making their own films these days, and even if you have done it before there are lots of great techniques in this book to get more money on screen - for less money! You can make a film that looks like it cost millions for pocket change.

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THE BOOK THAT STARTED IT ALL!

*** THE SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING *** - For Kindle!

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Tips FAQ

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THE BLUE BOOKS!

FIND A GREAT IDEA!

*** YOUR IDEA MACHINE *** - For Kindle!

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Expanded version with more ways to find great ideas! Your screenplay is going to begin with an idea. There are good ideas and bad ideas and commercial ideas and personal ideas. But where do you find ideas in the first place? This handbook explores different methods for finding or generating ideas, and combining those ideas into concepts that sell. The Idea Bank, Fifteen Places To Find Ideas, Good Ideas And Bad Ideas, Ideas From Locations And Elements, Keeping Track Of Your Ideas, Idea Theft - What Can You Do? Weird Ways To Connect Ideas, Combing Ideas To Create Concepts, High Concepts - What Are They? Creating The Killer Concept, Substitution - Lion Tamers & Hitmen, Creating Blockbuster Concepts, Magnification And The Matrix, Conflict Within Concept, Concepts With Visual Conflict, Avoiding Episodic Concepts, much more! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is over 175 pages!

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FIGURE OUT YOUR STORY!

OUTLINES & THE THEMATIC Blue Book.

ARE YOUR SCENES IN THE RIGHT ORDER?
AND ARE THEY THE RIGHT SCENES?

Your story is like a road trip... but where are you going? What's the best route to get there? What are the best sights to see along the way? Just as you plan a vacation instead of just jump in the car and start driving, it's a good idea to plan your story. An artist does sketches before breaking out the oils, so why shouldn't a writer do the same? This Blue Book looks at various outlining methods used by professional screenwriters like Wesley Strick, Paul Schrader, John August, and others... as well as a guest chapter on novel outlines. Plus a whole section on the Thematic Method of generating scenes and characters and other elements that will be part of your outline. The three stages of writing are: Pre-writing, Writing, and Rewriting... this book looks at that first stage and how to use it to improve your screenplays and novels.

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GOT STRUCTURE?!

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STORY: WELL TOLD!

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START STRONG!

*** HOOK 'EM IN TEN *** - For Kindle!

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MOVIES ARE CHARACTERS!

*** CREATING STRONG PROTAGONISTS *** - For Kindle!

*** CREATING STRONG PROTAGONISTS *** - For Nook!

Expanded version with more ways to create interesting protagonists! A step-by-step guide to creating "take charge" protagonists. Screenplays are about characters in conflict... characters in emotional turmoil... Strong three dimensional protagonists who can find solutions to their problems in 110 pages. But how do you create characters like this? How do you turn words into flesh and blood? Character issues, Knowing Who Is The Boss, Tapping into YOUR fears, The Naked Character, Pulp Friction, Man With A Plan, Character Arcs, Avoiding Cliche People, Deep Characterization, Problem Protagonists, 12 Ways To Create Likable Protagonists (even if they are criminals), Active vs. Reactive, The Third Dimension In Character, Relationships, Ensemble Scripts, and much, much more. Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is once again around 205 pages!

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I WRITE PICTURES!

*** VISUAL STORYTELLING *** - For Kindle! (exclusive)

Show Don't Tell - but *how* do you do that? Here are techniques to tell stories visually! Using Oscar Winning Films and Oscar Nominated Films as our primary examples: from the first Best Picture Winner "Sunrise" (1927) to the Oscar Nominated "The Artist" (which takes place in 1927) with stops along the way Pixar's "Up" and Best Original Screenplay Winner "Breaking Away" (a small indie style drama - told visually) as well as "Witness" and other Oscar Winners as examples... plus RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is over 200 pages!

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DESCRIPTION & VOICE Blue Book!

DESCRIPTION & VOICE Blue Book.

IS HALF OF YOUR STORY IN TROUBLE?

Most screenplays are about a 50/50 split between dialogue and description - which means your description is just as important as your dialogue. It just gets less press because the audience never sees it, the same reason why screenwriters get less press than movie stars. But your story will never get to the audience until readers and development executives read your script... so it is a very important factor. Until the movie is made the screenplay is the movie and must be just as exciting as the movie. So how do you make your screenplay exciting to read? Description is important in a novel as well, and the “audience” does read it... how do we write riveting description?

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PRO DIALOGUE TECHNIQUES!

*** DIALOGUE SECRETS *** - For Kindle!

***

Expanded version with more ways to create interesting dialogue! How to remove bad dialogue (and what *is* bad dialogue), First Hand Dialogue, Awful Exposition, Realism, 50 Professional Dialogue Techniques you can use *today*, Subtext, Subtitles, Humor, Sizzling Banter, *Anti-Dialogue*, Speeches, and more. Tools you can use to make your dialogue sizzle! Special sections that use dialogue examples from movies as diverse as "Bringing Up Baby", "Psycho", "Double Indemnity", "Notorious", the Oscar nominated "You Can Count On Me", "His Girl Friday", and many more! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is over 175 pages!

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WHAT IS A SCENE?

*** SCENE SECRETS *** - For Kindle!

***

What is a scene and how many you will need? The difference between scenes and sluglines. Put your scenes on trial for their lives! Using "Jaws" we'll look at beats within a scene. Scene DNA. Creating set pieces and high concept scenes. A famous director talks about creating memorable scenes. 12 ways to create new scenes. Creating unexpected scenes. Use dramatic tension to supercharge your scenes. Plants and payoffs in scenes. Plus transitions and buttons and the all important "flow"... and more! Over 65,000 words! Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is around 210 pages!

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SUBPLOTS?

*** SUPPORTING CHARACTER SECRETS *** - For Kindle! (Exclusive)

Expanded version with more techniques to flesh out your Supporting Characters and make them individuals. Using the hit movie BRIDESMAIDS as well as other comedies like THE HANGOVER and TED and HIGH FIDELITY and 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN and many other examples we look at ways to make your Supporting Characters come alive on the page. Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is around 170 pages!

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ACT TWO SOLUTIONS!

*** ACT TWO SECRETS *** - For Kindle!

Expanded version with more techniques to help you through the desert of Act Two! Subjects Include: What Is Act Two? Inside Moves, The 2 Ps: Purpose & Pacing, The 4Ds: Dilemma, Denial, Drama and Decision, Momentum, the Two Act Twos, Subplot Prisms, Deadlines, Drive, Levels Of Conflict, Escalation, When Act Two Begins and When Act Two Ends, Scene Order, Bite Sized Pieces, Common Act Two Issues, Plot Devices For Act Two, and dozens of others. Over 67,000 words (that’s well over 200 pages) of tools and techniques to get you through the desert of Act Two alive! Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is well over 200 pages!

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READY TO BREAK IN?

THE BUISINESS SIDE

*** BREAKING IN BLUE BOOK *** - For Kindle!

Should really be called the BUSINESS BLUE BOOK because it covers almost everything you will need to know for your screenwriting career: from thinking like a producer and learning to speak their language, to query letters and finding a manager or agent, to making connections (at home and in Hollywood) and networking, to the different kinds of meetings you are will have at Studios, to the difference between a producer and a studio, to landing an assignment at that meeting and what is required of you when you are working under contract, to contracts and options and lawyers and... when to run from a deal! Information you can use *now* to move your career forward! It's all here in the Biggest Blue Book yet!

Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is over 400 pages!

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STORY IN ACTION SERIES!

THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES

NEW: Updates On Films 7 & 8 Casting!

All Six Movies analyzed! All of the mission tapes, all of the “that’s impossible!” set pieces and stunts, the cons and capers - and how these scenes work, the twists and double crosses, the tension and suspense (and how to generate it), the concept of each film as a stand alone with a different director calling the shots (broken in the sixth film), the gadgets, the masks, the stories, the co-stars and team members (one team member has been in every film), the stunts Tom Cruise actually did (and the ones he didn’t), and so much more! Over 120,000 words of fun info!

THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES - 347 Pages - Only $3.99 !

BRAND NEW!

*** THE BOURNE MOVIES

NEW: Updates on TREADSTONE TV show!

All five "Bourne" movies (including "Legacy" and it's potential sequels) - what are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? Reinventing the thriller genre... or following the "formula"? Five films - each with an interesting experiment! A detailed analysis of each of the films, the way these thrillers work... as well as a complete list of box office and critical statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just fans of the series.

Only $3.99 - and no postage!

Over 240 pages!

*** THE TERMINATOR MOVIES *** - For Kindle!

He's back! The release of "Terminator: Dark Fate" is set to begin a new trilogy in the Terminator story... 35 years after the first film was released. What draws us to these films about a cybernetic organism from the future sent back in time? Why is there a new proposed trilogy every few years? This book looks at all five Terminator movies from a story standpoint - what makes them work (or not)? What are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? How about those secret story details you may not have noticed? Containing a detailed analysis of each of the five films so far, this book delves into the way these stories work... as well as a complete list of box office and critical statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just fans of the series.

ONLY $3.99 - and no postage!

HITCHCOCK FOR WRITERS!

Strange Structures!

*** HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR! *** - For Kindle!

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Contained Thrillers like "Buried"? Serial Protagonists like "Place Beyond The Pines"? Multiple Connecting Stories like "Pulp Fiction"? Same Story Multiple Times like "Run, Lola, Run"?
HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!

This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock's 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock's *silent* films! We'll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.

Only $5.99 - and no postage!

LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!

*** HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE *** - For Kindle!

Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the *Master Of Suspense*; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?

This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!

Only $5.99

AUDIO CLASS!

NOIR & MYSTERY80 minute MP3 packed with information on writing Film Noir and Mystery scripts. Using examples from CHINATOWN to OUT OF THE PAST to DOUBLE INDEMNITY you'll learn how to create stories in this dark, twisted genre. How to plant clues, red herrings, suspects, victims, spider women, fallen heroes, the funhouse mirror world of noir supporting characters... and the origins of Film Noir in literature Noir dialogue and how noir endings are different than any other genre. All of the critical elements necessary to write in this critically popular genre.
The Noir & Mystery Class is only $15 (plus $5 S&H). First 20 on Limited Black Disk!

PAMDEMIC SALE! $5 OFF!

IDEAS AND CREATIVITY - 80 minute MP3 packed with information. Tools to find ideas that are both personal *and* commercial. Hollywood wants scripts with High Concept stories... but not stupid scripts. Developing *intelligent* high concept ideas. How to turn your personal story into a blockbuster - or find your personal story in a high concept idea. Brainstorming and being creative. Ideas and Creativity is $10.00 (plus $5 S&H)

WRITING INDIES - Writing an Indie film? This class covers everything you need to know - from Central Locations to Confined Cameos. Using examples from SWINGERS, THE COOLER, STATION AGENT and others, this 80 minute MP3 is packed with information. How Indoe films challenge the audience (while mainstream films reassure the audience). Structures, using BOYS DON'T CRY, RUN LOLA RUN, HILARY & JACKIE, and others as example. Writing for a budget, writing for non-actors, getting the most production value out of your budget. Writing Indies is $10.00 (plus $5 S&H)

WRITING HORROR - The essentials of a horror screenplay - what do ROSEMARY'S BABY, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE EXORCIST, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE OTHERS and OPEN WATER have in common? This class will tell you! All of the critical elements necessary to write a script that scares the pants off the audience. Writing Horror is $10.00 (plus $5 S&H).

Click here for more information on CLASS MP3s!

FINAL DRAFT SOFTWARE

Use your creative energy to focus on the content; let Final Draft take care of the style. Final Draft is the number-one selling application specifically designed for writing movie scripts, television episodics and stage plays. Its ease-of-use and time-saving features have attracted writers for almost two decades positioning Final Draft as the Professional Screenwriters Choice. Final Draft power users include Academy, Emmy and BAFTA award winning writers like Oliver Stone, Tom Hanks, Alan Ball, J.J. Abrams, James Cameron and more. * * * Buy It!

copyright 2023 by William C. Martell