September 14th, 2007 by screenwriterguy
 Asked who I admire in the field of screenwriting, I suppose I’d give many of the standard answers. There’s a reason David Koepp makes the money he does. Charlie Kaufman is a mad genius. William Goldman has a career of mostly masterpieces, and Lawrence Kasdan’s credits include some biggies. Then of course you’ve some of my faves, like Alan Ball, Cameron Crowe, and of course Joss.
But I just watched the first episode of the BBC miniseries Jekyll, and I’m thinking that Steven Moffat’s name belongs on the short list. |
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Posted in Story Structure, Dialogue, On Writing | 4 Comments »
May 10th, 2007 by screenwriterguy
 “It’s silly. It’s a silly movie. There just isn’t much there. Once you take it all apart, there’s not much story, is there?”
That’s what George Lucas reportedly said about Spider-man 3.
Um.
I haven’t seen Spider-man 3, yet. I’ve heard it disappoints. But… the guy who wrote Annakin’s line about not liking sand because it’s all rough and scratchy, unlike the smooth softness of Padme (worst dialogue effver…) thinks Spider-man 3 is silly? The inventor of Jar-Jar Binks is pointing fingers? |
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Posted in Dialogue, Industry News | No Comments »
April 28th, 2007 by screenwriterguy
OK, a bit of a bait-and-switch with the headline. This is a post about where IDEAS come from. Hey, if you’re a writer, ideas ARE babies.
Earlier this week a friend asked about the process in my head when I create humor. I wasn’t sure how to answer. I spend very little time thinking about the source of funny.
On her most-excellent blog, Jane Espenson recently posted about two kinds of comedy writers, people who say funny things naturally and then write them down, and people who analyze the shapes and patterns that make jokes and recreate them as they write.
I don’t think I’m an either-or. My brain works enough like an engineer’s that analyzing humor is very appealing. But I also have sufficient experience with improvisational acting to know that the magic of the moment can create humor that an outline and some graph paper simply will not produce.
I had two different experiences with housemates this week that very much demonstrated there is value in being able to think both ways:
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Posted in Comedy, My Writing, Dialogue, Character | No Comments »
November 25th, 2006 by screenwriterguy
With this posting I make a promise to you and to myself that the following lines shall never make their way into my writing. I’m not targeting clichés like, “What seems to be the problem, officer?” because people overuse them in real life as much as they do in movies and TV. Instead, the below phrases not only get tossed into screenplays with alarming frequency, they just aren’t how people talk.
| #10 |
“Is that all you got?” / “Is that the best you can do?”
For some reason, if a hero (especially a superhero) finally gets into a fight with the Big Bad of their story, the two must taunt each other for a while early on in their battle. So if your opponent has dealt you a weak blow, the most logical response is verbal antagonism? Hell no. It’s to attack back as hard and quickly as possible. Notice also that the answer to, “Is that the best you can do?” is always something equally lame like, “I’m just getting warmed up.” See it’s, another brilliant strategy our combatant has used. See, I thought I’d start with something less than full power, just to see if I would really need to TRY in order to defeat you. |
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Posted in Top 10 Lists, Dialogue | 12 Comments »
