Winnah Winnah Chicken Dinnah!

I won the NexTV Screenwriting Competition!

Your screenplay has been selected

Greetings and salutations from Fantastic Planet!

We are pleased to inform you that your screenplay has been selected as one of the twelve finalists in the short screenplay competition at Fantastic Planet Film Festival this year. Congratulations!

The Crazies

Watching the “Crazies.” The opening visual is a flash forward, showing a town destroyed and on fire. Then a caption, “Two Days Earlier.” I like this. It immediately connects the visual with the rest of the story, and build anticipation. I don’t think this technique should be used all the time, which would dilute its impact.

The moment after the flash forward is of the community when everything is okay. The camera follows the sheriff’s car.

Predators

I’m watching the new “Predators.” It uses the same opening as my script, “Forever War.” Disturbing, since I wrote “Forever War” some months ago, and I’m just watching “Predators” today.

Books vs. Movies

People who read are often willing to “go along for the ride,” which is not acceptable in film. The audience demands a discrete structure in film which is not demanded from books.

“Scriptease” is an Editor’s Pick!

Oh, the Irony…

“I’m very happy to get these comments from you . but they are only useful to ‘sell’ your book (in-house, at least), if they are professors or screenwriters.. Then I can convince my marketing and sales colleagues here that there is a market..not that the people you list aren’t the market.it’s just not as convincing.”

Me: I understand what you say about marketing/sales colleagues. Ironic, since working screenwriters are not the ones who seek out books, but those who WANT to write screenplays, but don’t know anything/much about it. It’s like believing that famous chefs are the ones best suited to comment on a restaurant, rather than the customers who eat there.

Have you noticed that everything related to Hollywood in even the slightest way always has a touch of the ironic?

Wisdom learned while watching “Inception”

If the secondary character is going to provide the solution, he must have learned the lesson leading to the answer from the lead character.

This is not what happened in “Inception,” but it should have. What happened was, the secondary character pulled the answer out of her ass.

Scriptease Available at Amazon

Scriptease: the Hollywood Screenwriter’s Little Black Book now available! Help me achieve my goal of becoming a multi-hundredaire and help a few screenwriters along the way.

https://www.createspace.com/3466214