Your antagonist is usually a person, because it’s easier for your hero to be struggling against someone they can physically fight with, talk with and understand the differences between them. They don’t have to be human, though. They can be an alien, they can be the sea, they can be a house, but you will need to see them/it at some stage so your audience can get confirmed proof of defeat.

The level of conflict must increase as your writing continues. At each stage the task must be harder; the battle must be longer, the conflict more difficult to overcome than the previous set. Racking up the level of conflict is a screen writer’s target ensuring that it reaches a mighty crescendo at the end of your film.

There can be a number of challengers that wish to ensure the status quo is not maintained. They must always have one person/alien/tornado that is much worse than the rest. The first few can be there for training purposes so your hero learns to overcome stronger and stronger challenges.

As your protagonist manages to find a way to win small battles, the antagonist will be searching for ways to keep the hero’s goals in the distance by placing more and more obstacles in the way.

The best antagonist has a nice side to them somewhere. The audience will want to find some part of the anti hero that they can link to, to believe that the adversary could change, if shown the way, to be a thoroughly decent fellow.

When writing your conflict, you’ll need to find a large enough difference that can be maintained throughout the entire movie. So the conflict must be believable in the sense that if it doesn’t look as though it’s a big enough challenge, your reader will give up and your script won’t see the light of day any further with that person.

The hurdle must always look like one that can be beaten, but you must spend almost your entire screenplay acting as though your hero can’t find a way to beat it.

If you are able to have both lead opposite characters in scenes across your movie, the actual conflict, rather than perceived conflict will have your reader wanting to throw punches for you. If you don’t let the two be seen together, then the sense of a showdown will need to be enormous for the reader to believe you’re going against a challenge of a lifetime.

Remember, the higher the hill, the greater chance of a reader meeting you on the other side.

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Our rating 83%

One man army, Liam Neeson, shows us how he takes on ruthless gangland murderers, drug and people traffickers, to make his daughter safe. He should have taken some friends along for help, but he chose to go it alone, after all, he was CIA trained, probably as a one man terminator.

Screenplay writer Luc Besson has put together an excellent premise; don’t kidnap the daughter of a hired legal killer unless you want to die. In keeping with Besson’s previous work (Léon, always comes to mind), he maintains a high standard.

Liam Neeson shouldn’t be able to carry out his rescue mission alone, but we go with the flow and find great credibility is his methods. Okay, once or twice we thought that maybe his actions were a little bit, well, impractical, but he overcame this with a thoroughly consistent performance of a driven man, determined to save his daughter.

Famke Janssen puts in a good show as the irritating former wife; there must have been trouble when they were married the way she goes on and on at him and treats him so poorly. Before nagging, did she forget he killed for a living or was she hoping that as his child’s mother, she might get away with it?

A $45 million budget gets eaten up running around Paris. The return on the investment hasn’t broken even yet, but the movie is well worth seeing; it floats by so quickly that you lose the body count, but it’s everyone that gets in Neeson’s way. I can assure you it’s high enough; the local army, navy and air force should be out to stop him, but he’s ahead of everyone with his thinking and planning. He can shoot people from difficult angles, while they miss him with automatic weapons; reminding you of John Wayne movies.

Just why did his daughter lie to him just to get away to Europe for a holiday? Didn’t she trust her father?

This movie wins high on the entertainment level, rather than looking to be an intellectual film.

That motivation has already been provided by the writer of the screenplay. If the writer has constructed correctly, the actor will know the character arc of their performance and will understand what the character has to do to travel their journey through the film making process.

It’s the motivation for the actor to do something to get them from this scene to the next that sets the tone for the movie. The writer needs to show what the character ‘wants’ and what they ‘need’ as they’re potentially two very different plans of action.

What they want may take them down various roads with dead ends awaiting them. What they need may not be revealed until close to the movie’s end, but will eventually be so clear cut, they’ll wonder why they didn’t see it all along.

The conflict between your hero and your antagonist will set the motivation for both teams to win their goals. The theatre ticket purchaser will know that there can only be one winner, but do you have to win at all costs?

The motivation must ramp up as the film progresses. The obstacles must get harder and harder to overcome. The motivation must increase as the end comes into sight. The obstacles must appear almost impossible as your lead becomes embroiled in harder and tougher opponents.

When writing your screenplay you must look at all of the elements that have brought the character to where they are today. What makes them tick? What makes them get through from day to day? You need to assess where their final targets are. This will provide the motivation that you’ll need to write into your character’s actions and dialogue as they meet each challenge knowing that they’re motivated by the need to achieve a set target to move along.

If you want to study motivation; read stories about people who became millionaires or billionaires by working hard at building their business up from scratch. Read how Olympic swimmers devote hours every day in training just for the opportunity of shaving a tenth of a second off their previous best time. They’re motivated to get that gold medal, but it’s also the small steps they must take on the way that push on their targets to the biggest objective of all.

A lack of motivation will slow down your script and help your reader place it in the nearest trash can. If you don’t need to root for your stars, then why are you reading? You certainly won’t want to watch an actor who meanders along with no real intention in life.

You need to remember that motivation is relative to where the person started from. An overweight child may strive to play for the school football team, while a school star footballer will expect to go on to play for their national team. We all have our targets, we all have our motivation and luckily, we’re all different, as are your characters.

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It’s a Disney movie so you should know what to expect, accept it didn’t do it for me; it didn’t feel like a family movie, just a kid’s movie. In truth, this should be a 6 year old’s review of how they saw it.

Luckily, having a six year old daughter gives me that point of view.

She though it was very good. She liked the dogs. She liked the way they all went to Mexico to find the dog when it went missing. She was scared when the Doberman looked like it might eat the star. She was glad when the dog was saved. It was fun.

From an older point of view the trailer was brilliant. It contained all the good lines and the good jokes from the longer version, so I could have saved over an hour of my life by just watching the trailer and missing the movie. In the end, I gained the most because I spent quality time with my daughter, which is so valuable in terms of life appreciation. We talked about the movie; she came to me for a cuddle when she was scared. She enjoyed the pizza and water.

Again, I wonder why studios need to spend so much on the cast when its audience (five to eight years old) couldn’t care less who voices the dogs? I know it sells tickets to the parents and guardians, uncles and grandparents, but why?

I was saved from the $6 double bill of High School Musical 3 because one film is enough for a six year old in one stretch, especially if you want them to spend more time reading and keeping your own sanity. I understand (from those that stayed for both films) that I saw the better one by a millions miles. Oh I feel so lucky sometimes.

I’ll go and see any Drew Barrymore film as she brings a presence to her movies. Please be in person next time as your voice only, doesn’t save the day.

Please Disney, you got it right with 101 Dalmatians and so many others. I really believed in those dogs and watch it on DVD every four months and always with my daughter.

Just show me the trailer to Beverley Hills Chihuahua on continuous loop and I’ll laugh my tail off.

On the blurb it says produced by Steven Speilberg, so you know it’s going to be a big budget movie. This is later proved with the number of explosions, car chases and general use of a small county’s GDP with elaborate stunt work.

Dan McDermott wrote the original screenplay, but John Glenn, Travis Wright and Hillary Seitz were brought in to complete it for the final movie version. That makes you think that it took a lot of tweaking to get it right, but did they?

It was one of the fastest films I’ve seen in a long time. So much so, that I can’t remember a faster paced film. The action never lets up, hitting you square on the jaw non stop. The two hours slip by as you’re being entertained and certainly not bored.

There’s going to be a however, however. Movies must be believable, even when the unbelievable becomes plausible by great screenplay writing. The tracking by the master computer was just one processor too clever. We believed that they could track the star’s mobile telephones, but we didn’t believe it when they called the guy asleep on the next bench.

The movie’s based upon the fear that we can all be watched and controlled 24/7 by super computers aided by close circuit television with something more powerful than Window’s Vista.

The leads, Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan certainly go through full character arcs, but at least we’re spared them getting married and having 2.4 children at the end.

This is definitely a big screen movie; it’ll be lost on your home 47 inch plasma or LCD. The stunt work is amazing; the explosions masterful. Yes, we know where the money went.

As of today, the film’s budget of $80 million has been matched by taking $166 million at the box office, so it may not be far away from breaking even.

So the final screenplay was excellent, but which of the four if not all, should we congratulate?

Great special effects. In fact some of the best ever seen in a movie.

The action sequences were very good especially when Angelina Jolie opened her car door to catch a passenger. You’ve got to see it to believe it; the rest is unbelievable.

Angelina Jolie is a quality actress; unfortunately they only give her material to glide through here.

If you’re looking for characters, plot, dialogue; go see another movie.

With a budget of just (ha, ha) £75 million and gross takings of $323 million, I guess the film makers and the cast have the last laugh.

Most reviewers have been so kind to this film, however one critic suggested the title should have the word ‘Not’ tacked on to the front. I tend to agree, but then mindless killing doesn’t always make a movie for me. A brilliant screenplay does. This wasn’t it despite James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Terrance Stamp working (casually) to try and find a genuine story in amongst the killing.

I won’t be at Wanted 2, the return of the fraternity.

Here’s their PR blurb:

Virtual Production Studio Adds New Script Formats and Enables Direct Access to Intellectual Property Registration Web Site

A pioneering force in digital-media production, FiveSprockets™ today unveiled several enhancements to its virtual production studio, including a new suite of script formats, improved profile features and direct access for users to ProtectRite®, an online service for time sealed intellectual-property registration.

“The latest enhancements to FiveSprockets help us meet the needs of a wider group of media creators,” said Randy Ullrich founder, president, and CEO of FiveSprockets. “These are the first in a series of upgrades planned to enable producers of all skill levels, from professional and aspiring filmmakers to video enthusiasts to advertising agencies, to collaborate with others to develop, produce, and promote their work.”

The new script formats include television sitcom/drama, stage play, radio play and comic book. Profile enhancements include rich project pages where users can showcase their work. The company’s partnership with ProtectRite enables FiveSprockets users to access the ProtectRite service directly from vScripter, FiveSprockets online story development and scriptwriting software.

“We chose to partner with ProtectRite because they are the pioneer of online intellectual-property registration. Their established history and industry-leading vaulting process was a perfect for FiveSprockets,” said Ullrich.

FiveSprockets, which launched in September, is an online collaboration platform offering essential resources and on-demand software to enable its users to make better media, more efficiently and profitably, from any location. The site serves as a virtual one-stop shop, providing innovative tools to support the five phases, or “sprockets,” of media production: (1) story development and scriptwriting, (2) pre-production, (3) production, (4) post-production, and (5) marketing and distribution.

Always evolving with new features, the current platform includes:
• vScripter – collaborative story development and scriptwriting software
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FiveSprockets offers functionality for a variety of media projects, including feature films, documentaries, television serials, advertising, Webisodes, Mobisodes, comics and more. For more information, please visit www.FiveSprockets.com

As soon as you know Ridley Scott is directing you know you’re going to get a full on package and he gives us exactly what we expect in this updated spy thriller. The west has stopped chasing the Russians; their place is now firmly taken by Arab terrorists.

William Monahan has completed an excellent screenplay for this film. He cranks it along at a fast pace full of twists and turns so that I felt I was in the cinema for ninety minutes when I was, in fact, there for well over two hours.

Placing an American who looks like an American behind enemy lines in an Arab state might be a clever giveaway for the locals, but to ensure he has connections with the Arab state, which they can torture either about later, they give him an Arab girlfriend. We, as viewers, know this is all wrong, but as a movie it works very well.

The action hits you hard from the very first five minutes. Just as you’re sitting comfortably waiting for the movie to really start it blows up in your face, literally. I’ve never been to Iraq, I’ve never been around when a suicide bomber commits his murder, but I know feel that I have a close idea to what it might be like. Hopefully I’ll never really know.

It’s bizarre that when Leonardo DeCaprio (brilliant here and in both Blood Diamond and The Departed) appears in a scene with Mark Strong, he appears to be the supporting actor. Strong’s Jordanian role (complete with never failing accent) in this movie is exemplary. While we know him from his many television appearances and Fever Pitch, he is now gaining ground as a top line actor able to find a wig to suit and a character as a troublemaker of some kind. Recently we told how Rocknrolla came alive with Strong’s acting. He completes the same for this movie.

That, you would expect, to be difficult when Russell Crowe is also a star of this movie. He appears to be the spy’s boss back in Langly, but spends most of his time sorting out home chores with the children while demanding death and destruction upon Arab lands afar.

The budget was quite high at around $70 million, so it’s going to have to perform well in troubled times to make a profit before going to DVD and downloads. You can see where they spent much of the money as they move from country to country blowing up large districts with precision.

We may never know how accurate the spy satellite cameras really are, but they scare the hell out of you when you see what they might be able to do.

We just knew what would happen when DeCaprio was being tortured to death. It’s not really a spoiler to say the saving of his life came down to James Bond last second timing.

They left the movie lingering on a possible franchise footing. David Ignatius wrote the original book from which this screenplay evolved. I wonder if he’s written the follow up yet?

Once you’ve read and taken in the section on screenplay planning, you’ll know that you should have the overall plan for your writing ready, before you write.

You can use Save The Cat software to plan those scenes for you so you know exactly what will happen in each scene before you write it. Movie Outline cuts a similar flow as does Movie Magic.

You may choose to have your 3×5 cards (one for each scene) on a pin board over your desk so you can see the whole screenplay in one image.

Don’t number your scene headings; they won’t be needed until your movie goes into pre-production.

Each scene heading (called a slug line) gives you information about when and where the scene exists. It has three parts:

1. INT. or EXT. – either an interior or an exterior shot
2. Where – the tangible location where the action takes place
3. The time of day – day or night.

Examples could be:

EXT. HEATHROW AIRPORT – DAY
INT. TOM’S DINER – NIGHT

If you move from an INT shot to an EXT shot, use a new slug line. Keep the reader informed.

Scene locations must be unambiguous and descriptive. If it doesn’t matter what type of train station you’re in, then no name is necessary, but if it must be Grand Central, then say so. It tells the reader where you are. They can picture it, the people and the structure. Once you use a location, always call it the same throughout your script otherwise confusion may arise.

You may have wasted an opportunity to show the reader a ‘picture’ of the location if you don’t name it, but naming Don’s book shop in Manchester when it doesn’t mean anything to anyone (sorry Don) won’t help.

Your scene must contain sufficient emotional content to move your lead characters on. There must be conflict to ensure the movie moves forward.

Don’t bore the reader. Make them want to read to the next scene as soon as possible. Make them want to turn the page.

Make your characters different from each other. Make them stand out. William M Akers has a great line that goes ‘get into the scene as late as possible and get out as early as possible.’ You don’t want to have your characters doing things that aren’t necessary. When someone walks into a house, unless it’s for dramatic effect, we don’t need to see him or her get their keys out, put them in the lock, open the door and walk in. Cut to the chase.

Your action and dialogue must be worth every word you write. Show and not tell is better than telling the reader everything. Let them use their mind to see what you’re after.

Don’t direct either actors or the cameraman through scene instructions. They’re the experts and with the director, they’ll work out what to do.

After you’ve written a scene, cut out all the loose writing. The extra words you don’t need.

Finally, make every scene memorable. If it’s not, change it around until it is, or cut it out.

Need help getting your screenplay ready to show to a reader, producer, studio or agent? Check our screenplay analysis service first. No second chance to make a first impression!