Sell Your Story
In my years of attending workshops, pitch fests, master classes, and a month-long screenwriting program, I’ve collected words of wisdom from luminaries in the film industry. Now, I’m wondering if […]
Story Craft
The Writing Discipline
Years ago, I entered the world and throes of screenwriting by attending workshops, lectures and a month-long program in Los Angeles. Beforehand, I wrote two screenplays for my senior thesis
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The Series Character
A movie series has a built-in audience. Film studios, promoters, and financiers count on it. But when the actors playing a beloved and well-known character change within the series, there
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Novel Writing vs. Screenwriting
In April of this year, Victoria Griffin of Modern Publishing, interviewed me about the craft of writing. The interview resulted in three separate podcasts that covered distinct discussion areas. One
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Film Noir vs. New Noir
As a college student, I was an English major with a concentration in Film Studies. Many of my classes explored film noir and how the movies reflected post World War
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Intellectually Speaking
Some of my favorite and least favorite movies are based on books, short stories, magazine articles, and poems. In the screenwriting world, these are referred as IP or intellectual property.
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Retcon, Reboot, Remake
Recycle, Reuse, Renew—just a few “R” words that shape our environmental conscience. And in the movie and tv industry, recycling takes on a variation of “R” words as in Retcon,
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Behind the Curtain
If done well, exposition should not expose itself. A scene from the classic film “The Wizard of Oz,” based on Frank L. Baum’s children’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
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Strictly Speaking
As authors and screenwriters, we imagine characters that speak themselves into existence. And if they don’t sound out a word, there’s an expression, a look, a gesture that can speak
The Perfect Blend
Opinions abound on genre mixing for film and literature. I’ll venture that books, fiction and nonfiction, get more latitude with seemingly endless subgenre classifications and Amazon site keywords Films are