Making A Good Script Great

"Making a good script great is not just a matter of having a good idea. Nor is it a matter of just putting that good idea down on paper. In scriptwriting, it's not just the writing but also the rewriting that counts. [This book] focuses on the rewriting process and offers specific methods to help you craft tighter, stronger, and more workable scripts. While retaining all the valuable insights that have made the first edition one of the all-time most popular screenwriting books, this expanded, second edition adds new chapters that take you through the complete screenwriting process, from the first draft through the shooting draft. If you're writing your first script, this book will help develop your skills for telling a compelling and dramatic story. If you're a veteran screenwriter, this book will articulate the skills you know intuitively. And if you're currently stuck on a rewrite, this book will help you analyze and solve the problems and get your script back on track."--Back cover.

Teaches writers how to be creative within the craft of screenwriting, and discusses theme development, sensation-thinking, dream images, character opposition, and personal vision.

Let’s cut to the chase:Writing a Great Movieis a practical nuts-and-bolts manual to dramatic writing for film. This hands-on course in screenwriting shows how to create, develop, and construct an original screenplay from scratch using seven essential tools for the screenwriter—(1) Dilemma, Crisis, Decision and Action, and Resolution; (2) Theme; (3) the 36 Dramatic Situations; (4) the Enneagram; (5) Research and Brainstorming; (6) the Central Proposition; and (7) Sequence, Proposition, and Plot—which break the writing process down into approachable steps and produce great results. Author Jeff Kitchen—a working screenwriter, renowned dramaturge, and teacher at the University of Southern California’s graduate film school—shares the insider secrets he has developed over years of writing and teaching.Writing a Great Movieis the complete guide to creating compelling screenplays that will sell. • State-of-the-art screenwriting theory and technique from a master • Author named one of today's top screenwriting teachers inCreative Screenwritingmagazine • Great for writers at every level, beginner to established

Practical and inspiring for both beginning and experienced screenwriters, this guide shows how to structure a film story by focusing on character development. Featuring the "Eleven Step Story Structure," a template that takes the haphazardness out of the process of writing, the book reasons that a strict outline can be turned into a strong script with room for creative and original ideas. Many examples, exercises, and story breakdowns of major motion pictures are provided to spark creativity, as well as advice on necessary selling information to get the script into the right hands.

In this book, Linda Seger shows how to create strong, multidimensional characters in fiction, covering everything from research to character block. Interviews with today's top writers complete this essential volume.

"We need good screenwriters who understand character." Everywhere Andrew Horton traveled in researching this book—from Hollywood to Hungary—he heard the same refrain. Yet most of the standard how-to books on screenwriting follow the film industry's earlier lead in focusing almost exclusively on plot and formulaic structures. With this book, Horton, a film scholar and successful screenwriter, provides the definitive work on the character-based screenplay. Exceptionally wide-ranging—covering American, international, mainstream, and "off-Hollywood" films, as well as television—the book offers creative strategies and essential practical information. Horton begins by placing screenwriting in the context of the storytelling tradition, arguing through literary and cultural analysis that all great stories revolve around a strong central character. He then suggests specific techniques and concepts to help any writer—whether new or experienced—build more vivid characters and screenplays. Centering his discussion around four film examples—including Thelma & Louise and The Silence of the Lambs—and the television series, Northern Exposure, he takes the reader step-by-step through the screenwriting process, starting with the development of multi-dimensional characters and continuing through to rewrite. Finally, he includes a wealth of information about contests, fellowships, and film festivals. Espousing a new, character-based approach to screenwriting, this engaging, insightful work will prove an essential guide to all of those involved in the writing and development of film scripts.

Newly revised and updated, Film Lighting is an indispensible sourcebook for the aspiring and practicing cinematographer, based on extensive interviews with leading cinematographers and gaffers in the film industry. Film lighting is a living, dynamic art influenced by new technologies and the changing styles of leading cinematographers. A combination of state-of-the-art technology and in-depth interviews with industry experts, Film Lighting provides an inside look at how cinematographers and film directors establish the visual concept of the film and use the lighting to create a certain atmosphere. Kris Malkiewicz uses firsthand material from the experts he interviewed while researching this book. Among these are leading cinematographers Dion Beebe, Russell Carpenter, Caleb Deschanel, Robert Elswit, Mauro Fiore, Adam Holender, Janusz Kaminski, Matthew Libatique, Rodrigo Prieto, Harris Savides, Dante Spinotti, and Vilmos Zsigmond. This updated version of Film Lighting fills a growing need in the industry and will be a perennial, invaluable resource.

A respected screenplay writer identifies the principles of great--and bad--screenplay writing through a dynamic, entertaining critique of some of Hollywood's greatest hits and most infamous disasters.