MONDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

MISSION IMPERSONAL

The new MISSION IMPOSSIBLE films are great - and there was even an entertainment article recently about what the James Bond franchise could learn from MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. We've had 3 great M:I movies beginning with the success of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL, which became the best reviewed film in the series - an amazing 100% among Top Critics on the Rotten Tomatoes website. And both ROGUE NATION and FALLOUT are amazing films that have become favorites of mine with repeat viewings. Christopher McQuarrie has done a great job! I'm excited about the next two films in the series - and can hardly wait until July 14 when #7 is released. But let's go back in time and look at the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE film that not only made the least money, it managed to get the lowest score from Top Critics on Rotten Tomatoes when it was released...

The mpost bad reviews from "Top Critics" - and when you read the reviews, they thought it was hollow and soulless and cartoonish.

You know the film I'm talking about....

Just before MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3 opened, there was a great deal of press from the film makers about how they had made the bold move to focus this film not on the explosions and stunts, but on the emotional story. "This time it's personal". The odd thing is, everyone seems to forget that it's always been personal. The first film had some genuine emotion at the end when Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) realizes that his father-figure mentor Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) was behind the evil plan... and tried to kill him! In he second film, the woman that Hunt loves (Thandie Newton) is infected with a deadly virus and sent out into the world to infect others as a human bomb. It wasn't that the films didn't have an emotional component, more that the writers and directors frequently fumbled the emotions so that we ended up with *not* a NOTORIOUS clone, as M:I:2 was clearly supposed to be, but a typical 1980s style out-race-the-fireball summer action flick.

But when the publicity department begins touting the attribute of some film, that usually means that's usually the real problem. If they talk about an actor's amazing performance, sometimes it means the audience test screening scores pointed out that was the film's weakness. So publicity tries to convince you that the problem isn't a problem. And sometimes they succeed.

So third time around, they wanted to make sure the film was personal... and ended up with the lowest opening for a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie... and only 63% rating from Top Critics on Rotten Tomatoes - which was *exactly* what the second film got. And the film didn't sell as many tickets on opening weekend... and then ticket sales continued to drop off.... Why didn't the audience and the critics like the third film? Was it due to Tom Cruise's sofa jumping? His weird religious beliefs? Were we just over him? Were action movies dead? Did a box office slump return after a couple of record months? (But how does that explain the critics?) Was it *because* that time it was personal? Why did M:i:III fail to ignite at the box office? ... and with the critics?

I think the reason for M:i:IIIs poor box office and mediocre reviews was because this time it *wasn't* personal. We just didn't care about the characters no matter what the publicity department said. The film was all surface with nothing underneath. They gave Tom a girlfriend, but they forgot to make us care. She was a prop, rather than a person. Never filled in, never made human. The characterization in this flick was so shallow that a friend of mine complained that the girlfriend (Michelle Monaghan) was way too young for Tom Cruise... even though the same actress played a sassy over-the-hill starlet in Shane Black's KISS KISS BANG BANG. In fact, compare the characters she played in each film - one was a fully realized character and the other was a prop girlfriend. They didn't have to use old age make up in KISS KISS BANG BANG to make Monaghan into a starlet only a year away from being old and washed up, they just used *character*. Good writing. They gave her a personality and put her in situations where she reacted to conflict or was forced to make difficult decisions. They also put her in a ridiculous short-skirt elf costume and gave her a gun. Though she gets to wear more serious clothes in M:i:III, her character isn't taken as seriously. She's just the "girlfriend". Even though she's either a doctor or a nurse (kind of unclear), that seems more like an excuse to put her in a hospital scene and have a bunch of cute nurses at an early party scene than to give her a character oriented job. Later in the film there's a scene that requires medical knowledge... and Tom Cruise's character takes care of that.

The tool we use to mine character is conflict. Character is gold. If we look for gold on the surface, we may find a little, but to really strke the mother lode we have to dig. The deeper we dig into character the better the chance of striking gold. If our characters are just sitting around watching TV, we can't learn much about them... but if we give them a problem we can see how they attempt to solve it, plus their reaction to the problem, plus what how they deal with the other people involved with the problem. Without conflict, our characters have no reason to react or act or speak or do anything. I always say that story is conflict, but *character* is conflict, too. We reveal character through conflict.

When we make it easy on our characters, they become shallow.

WHAT THE PLOT REQUIES...

So Ethan Hunt is at one of those big family gatherings when he gets that call from the office. His wife believes he does Traffic Control work for the government - not standing in an intersection flagging cars, but studying patterns in traffic to make my drive on the 405 smoother... in which case, he's failing. So when he's called away unexpectedly for some traffic thing, it's a little suspicious. When a meeting with another IMF Agent results in an emergency mission to save his hot protege (Keri Russell - would have been better if it had been Jennifer Garner), he tells Monaghan that he has an emergency traffic seminar in Texas and will be gone for a few days. Right.

When he returns a few days later (she never asks about his bruises and cuts), she suspects he may be having an affair. When she asks him, he continues with the outrageous story about the traffic seminar and acts secretive and guilty as hell and is obviously lying and hiding a huge secret life from her. We've hit a vein of gold! Then he asks her to just trust him....

And she says "Okay."

Huh? She just lets him off the hook!

She *avoids* the conflict... and the *script* avoids the conflict.

WTF????

Imagine how much we could learn about the relationship if she continued to press him? Continued to *dig*? Imagine how interesting it might be for her to follow him.... In my HARD EVIDENCE film for USA Net, Gregory Harrison has killed a DEA Agent and covered it up, and when his wife (Joan Severance) presses him about what he was doing for the past week, he seems to be lying to her - so she follows him... and discovers things she didn't want to know about her husband... and gets into big trouble with the bad guys, and all of this prompts some pretty dramatic conversations between the two and we learn a lot about their characters and relationships and how far they would go to keep their marriage. The conflict brings out the characters.

But in M:i:III we avoid the conflict, and Monaghan is just a two dimensional girlfriend.

And when Monaghan catches Ethan in more lies, he says: "Marry me! Right now!" Kind of a sofa jumping moment. She says "Sure" and they get married. This seems to stop her curiosity about his string of lies and emergency traffic meetings in Texas. Would a real person get married to someone they keep catching in lies? The movie wants us to believe that marrying her proves she can trust him... but it just makes her look stupid and silly and submissive and unrealistic.

This makes both Ethan and Monaghan's character shallow and false.

If you kept catching your significant other in lies, would you marry them before they came clean? How is that even a believable character?

SO, EVERYONE AGREES?

Everyone else on the IMF team (Ving Rhames, Jon Rhys Meyers, Maggie Q, Billy Cudrup) tell Ethan that permanent relationships and IMF work doesn't mix - don't marry her! Dump her! She's just going to get in the way! This is a business where a relationship is a liability - and maybe even something that can be used against you in battle. This is an interesting idea that really isn't explored - instead of Ethan arguing with them about the importance of relationships and being grounded, he just ignores them...

Avoiding conflict again. Rookie mistake!

So when Monaghan is kidnaped by international arms dealer Philip Seymour Hoffman (for reasons that really don't make any sense) and Ethan goes to the IMF for help, even though it means risking their careers and probably getting killed for a woman they don't know who they advised Hunt *not* to marry...

They say... "Okay".

Huh? They just go along with him!

Again - no conflict!

There was more conflict and more character depth in the silly second film.

Imagine the dramatic scenes if every member of the group had refused to risk their lives and careers for Ethan's girl. Now Ethan would have to convince them that she was worth it - plead with them that love, and this particular love, was so important to him that life without her would be impossible. They'd lose him as a team member... and he would lose everything good about himself. He would have to dig into his own character - expose his fragile inner self to the team. We would be able to understand just how deep this love cuts, how much he needs Monaghan and how much he loves her. Winning over the team would have been some great dramatic scenes - some great character scenes. We might actually learn something about the team members that wasn't surface. This might prompt a big moment for each of them. Maybe some would refuse - and explain why. You can't bring the team together until you pull them apart. You can't create character-based dramatic scenes unless something dramatic is happening. When everyone blindly agrees to help, we stay on the surface and end up with shallow characters.

So the Studio PR Department had to try to convinve the audience that this time it was more personal.... and it didn't seem to work with most of the audfience.

Later in the film Ethan refuses to obey orders because his wife's life is at stake. In MINORITY REPORT when Tom Cruise's character is accused of murder, his own team is sent to capture him. This creates a juicy scene where his second-in-command orders him to give up, and Cruise says he's going to run - "Everybody runs". Here you have the protagonist and his best friend on opposite sides - how far will each go? We not only get some juicy characterization-filled conversation, we get an action scene that explores the relationship between Cruise and his team - he's now fighting against his *friends*!

Compare that scene to the exact same situation in M:i:III where the team is supposed to come after Cruise - but refuses. And nothing happens to the team guys when they refuse! No real conflict, no real stakes, nothing is real in this movie! The characters are so cardboard they bend to fit the story.

Actions speak louder than words, but in this film (unlike MINORITY REPORT) the team doesn't do anything when their friend goes rogue.

<

EMOTIONAL ACTION

Again, let's compare a scene from M:i:III with a scene from another movie: the Key Largo bridge attack scene from TRUE LIES. In fact, both films share *the exact same story* so they are fairly easy to compare. We have the same bridge in both films, we have cars crashing, we have explosions, we have helicopters with missiles... all of the same things in each film... yet, this is an emotionally powerful action scene in TRUE LIES and just another outrun-the-fireball scene in M:i:III. The reason? No *emotional conflict*. What makes an action scene work is the emotional stakes, and there aren't any in M:i:III. Maybe they thought "Tom Cruise might die" is the emotional stakes - but the's the hero - we all know he can outrun fireballs!

In TRUE LIES the theme is trust, and the emotional conflict revolves around Ah-nuld lying to his wife Jamie Lee Curtis about almost everything: his job, his identity, his true self. The only thing that ISN'T a lie is his love for her... But when you spend your entire marriage thinking your husband Harry is one guy, and find out he's the total opposite guy, it's difficult to trust him ever again. This is the same scenario as M:i:III - except James Cameron actually went all the way with the conflict. Tom Cruise is a better actor than Ah-nuld (more emotionally expressive), yet we really care about Ah-nuld and Jamie Lee Curtis in TRUE LIES - they are real people and Cruise and Monaghan are sketches of real people... not fleshed out.

On to the Key Largo Bridge scene - Jamie Lee Curtis is in an out of control limousine on the bridge, an explosion in front of her has created with a premature end... the limo will soon go over the edge and she will die. Her husband Ah-nuld is in a helicopter zooming overhead. For Jamie Lee to survive, she must trust her lying husband Ah-nuld by climbing out of the sun roof of the limo and grabbing hold of his hand as he zooms past in the helicopter. She has to put her life entirely in his hands. These are emotional stakes! This is how you use action to bring character to the surface, and make us care about the characters.

An action scene is a character scene.

Ah-nuld must dangle out of a zooming helicopter, risking HIS life to save his wife. He is SHOWING that he will risk his life for her love. This creates a strong emotional component at the center of the action scene: This is the woman he loves - the most important person in his life. What if Ah-nuld can't reach her? Or can't grab tight enough to her arm? Or drops her? What if Jamie Lee can't reach his hand? Or can't hold on? There are EMOTIONAL consequences for failure. This is a scene that explores the theme of the script, is filled with emotions, and is also pretty darned exciting. This is not some hollow action scene like that car chase in THE ISLAND or the bridge scene in M:i:III - it is a scene designed to expose character. Action *is* character.

NO ROMANTIC CONSEQUENCES

SPOILERS BELOW!!!!

Another scene comparison - in both M:i:III and THE ABYSS (also written by James Cameron - the writers seem to be fans - if that's what you call plagerism) there are scenes where one character allows themselves to die, and trusts the one they love to bring them back to life. In M:i:III this is a dumb scene that isn't very emotional - a big shoot out diverts our attention away from the emotional aspect. The shoot out has no real emotional component and isn't about the husband and wife relationship. In THE ABYSS, the same scene is a huge, emotional scene *about* the husband and wife relationship. It's all about the emotional component - all about the possibility that the person they love will die if they fail. Their spouse's life is in their hands... and they may fail. If they fail - they have killed the one they love. Okay, folks, those are some pretty emotional stakes in an action scene.

M:i:III has swiped the scene - but not the emotional stakes at the very core of the scene. They've only mimicked the *surface* of the scene! Like everything else in this film, it's all surface. A quick fix would have been to add a ticking clock - if the spouse isn't brought back to life in X minutes brain cells will begin dying and they will become a drooling idiot. This is actually part of THE ABYSS scenario, but not used in M:i:III. Now we can make that shootout directly affect the relationship - they have to kill the badguys against the clock and every shot that misses could make the one they love into a vegetable. Then play the same scene with the spouse looking at the clock during the shoot out. Personally, I would have loved had they been late and the character comes back with serious mental damage. Stakes aren't really stakes unless there are *consequences*.

Speaking of consequences - the surest way to turn character into cartoon is to remove consequences. If the actions of the characters don't matter - if what the characters say or do has no meaning - why should we care about these people? So in another scene where another character is supposed to be killed but - fake out - isn't! This scene tells the audience that nothing that happens to the characters really matters. It's all fake. No reason to care, no reason to worry, no reason to feel for these characters. The conflict is false - dead characters are miraculously still alive and completely unharmed. Not like in THE ABYSS where the spouse will die or suffer brain damage, not like in TRUE LIES where the spouse will actually die if the limo goes off that bridge - this is a film where *even when characters are killed* they can come back to life without a scratch. No consequences. No stakes. No real conflict....

And conflict is the tool we use to mine character, to expose character. You can just walk around looking on the surface for gold, and maye you'll find a little here and there. But to find a rich vein of gold you need to dig... and dig deep. You need to press your characters right up against the wall with conflict and force their "character gold" to the surface. You need to dig deeper and deeper with every scene.

Pulling your punches, using false conflicts, or just avoiding any real conflict in your script and staying on the surface are all ways to rob your story of emotions.

Does the audience notice when a film is less emotional, less personal? M:i:III sold fewer tickets that the previous two films in the series (which usually leads to poor word of mouth). When a script avoids conflict it becomes less exciting. Less emotional.

The last MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie FALLOUT brings back Monaghan's character and has a big emotional moment right up front... and then does a great job of making her not just an arm candy prop, but a real person with a real career and real goals... and a real relationship. I loved the scene where she and her husband (Wes Bentley) run into ex-husband Ethan and have a scene filled with tension and conflict - and her husband steps away to let them talk... and you know that he's a good guy. You know that he trusts her. You know that she choose to be with him... and made the right choice. Her character doesn't see like just a girlfriend or wife - she's her own person. The opening scene in FALLOUT (designed to help us remember that they used to be married) has more actual emotions that all of the third film. The dread of the wedding officiated by Hunt's nemisis Solomon Lane, the automic blast that kills everyone, and our hero's *guilt* over causing the death of this woman he brought into his dangerous world. That guilt runs through all of the scenes that include her in FALLOUT and set up Act Three in the film. One of the great things about FALLOUT is that her surgical skills have a purpose in this story - she can help defuse a bomb. Instead of just being a "cute nurse" or whatever she was in the third film for no real reason, her surgical skills come into play in FALLOUT.

The fourth film, GHOST PROTOCOL , also *opened* with a great emotional scene as Agent Hanaway is assassinated moments before Agent Jane Carter can get there - and he dies in her arms. They were in love with each other, but their job came between them ever acting on it. For the rest of the film Agent Carter is a mess - and wants to kill the assassin who murdered the man she loved... But the assassin is a clue to the villain Cobalt - so she must make sure the assassin is kept alive. Meanwhile, Ethan Hunt is introduced in a Russian jail for murdering the men who killed his wife - and *he's* a mess as well. In one scene, Benji asks about his wife - no knowing that she is dead. Ouch! And Brandt is a man with a secret - he caused the death of an innocent person. All of the characters carry "ghosts" and guilt - and much of this is revealed early in the film and informs the scenes that follow. Yeah - it's wall-to-wall action, but each character has a big dramatic moment in the film that is *real* emotions, not just surface. We'll see if the audience likes it as much as the critics.

Your mission should you decide to accept it: Make it personal - use real conflict. There's gold in every character - our job is to dig it out.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 7 is set to be released on July 14, 2023 (this year), with #8 coming June 28 of next year. My book on the first 6 films is on Amazon. (There's a chance that it might split into 2 books after #8 is released - one with the first 4 films, one with the 4 direceted by McQ).

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ONLY $4.99 - and no postage!

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?

Only $4.99 and no postage!

PRO DIALOGUE TECHNIQUES!

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

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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!

Only $4.99 - and no postage!

WHAT IS A SCENE?

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

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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!

Only $4.99 - and no postage!

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!

ONLY $4.99 - and no postage!

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!

ONLY $4.99 - and no postage!

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!

$4.99 - and no postage!

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