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Screenplays or novel writing?
In a recent article we looked at what the top earning screenplay writers achieve for top script sales, including some which don’t get made into movies. Now we can see whether you’d be better off moving your writing skills in to the world of novels. Forbes magazine has just unveiled its top list of novel [...]
Continue reading...Screenplay verses deleted scenes
24. September 2008
I often wonder about deleted scenes. There’s a reason scenes are deleted – usually because they don’t fit in with the flow of the story or they just make the movie too long. Often they’re just not good enough. All screenplay writers should know to write too many scenes as the director is always going [...]
Continue reading...London Olympics 2012.
19. September 2008
Beijing was wonderful. I’ve already talked about how the opening and closing ceremonies were so well planned and produced, with movie scale budgets. I thought I’d write a piece about the closing ceremony, which was excellent. I thought I’d write a post about the wonderful British section, where they accepted the flag and then introduced [...]
Continue reading...Online distribution
16. September 2008
Stacey Parks wrote the excellent book, ‘The Insider’s Guide to Independent Film Distribution.’ She’s recognized as one of the indie film world’s most knowledgeable people when we talk about distribution, but the MeDeploy plan only surfaced after her last book, so I wonder what she thinks of this new service to aid indie film makers [...]
Continue reading...Screenwriter’s fees
13. September 2008
When you look over what the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) say you should get for your screenplay at between $39,290 and $80,427 with another $26,495 to $43,875 for the treatment, you can look to screenplay writing as a good way to earn a more than reasonable living, providing you’re selling more than one a [...]
Continue reading...Should screenplay writers be on the set?
4. September 2008
Writers spend most of their time alone in a room with their computers. Writing. They rarely go outside to see if the weather has changed whilst writing to tight deadlines. What happens when a studio finally says yes to one of your screenplays and invites you to the filming of ‘your’ movie a year later. [...]
Continue reading...Olympics Beijing 2008
8. August 2008
Opening ceremony – outstanding! How many times did you say ‘wow!’? Firstly, apologies guys, this one beats all previous openings. How will the Brits beat that in 2012? What would you have produced with the sort of financial plan used in that wonderful opening ceremony? The budget just for the fireworks alone would be sufficient [...]
Continue reading...Will top actors bring money to your movie?
25. July 2008
You’ve no doubt been so concerned with your low budget independent movie and the amount that you’ve allocated for your star roles. Is it enough? Will it bring the people to the cinema? What if I had another ten million for a star name, will that make me more than the extra ten million back [...]
Continue reading...Film reviews
30. May 2008
I’ve been asked why there have been so many film and movie reviews on this blog recently when so many readers have been expecting updates on the progress of the short film. They want to know if the screenplay is ready yet and is pre-production complete? Well, no. The experts say you should study films [...]
Continue reading...Treatment writing
3. May 2008
This is how I start my treatment thinking. I need to answer these first six questions first. 1. Who 2. What 3. Where 4. When 5. Why 6. How Then I need a rough plan of what happens in the story. Start The middle The ending All stories have a three phase plan if they’re [...]
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3. October 2008
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