Tag: Spec Scriptacular Contest

The comedy writing rule of…twos?

duetsby Ken Levine

I have this astounding ability to watch a lot of sitcoms and pitch the jokes mere seconds before the actors say them, almost verbatim. It’s an amazing skill. Houdini never could do that. Audiences are mystified.  Talk about magic.

Of course, the truth is that after years of writing comedy I just can identify the most obvious punchlines. And there are shockingly way too many sitcoms that are guilty of this.

You might think this is a byproduct of multi-camera shows where rhythms have become stale and predictable, but single-camera shows are sometimes worse. They often resort to irony so it’s not even jokes. It’s catch-phrases or “Gee, THAT went well.” read article

The 1st Person to Write 2 Back to Back Oscar Winners for Best Film Speaks

Said person being Paul Haggis, of CRASH, MILLION DOLLAR BABY, and TV shows like DUE SOUTH and WALKER, TEXAS RANGER. Haggis knows his stuff, so all we can add here is: “Listen up!”

Peggy Bechko: Writers Thinking About Settings

Fantasy

by Peggy Bechko

If you don’t think much about it and just sort of throw settings in as you need there, just for color and background, then maybe you need to pause and think about that again….

Okay, done thinking? Hope you’ve come to some good conclusions, namely just how important settings can be to novel or script. In fact, setting can become so central to a story that it’s almost another character. Think about it – Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian series – he created his own Mars.  Settings and characters to go with it. There were precise and detailed settings full of color and life on  their own. And when the movie was made all that detail became real on the screen. And, the director didn’t need to have pages and pages of written instruction to get there.

He also didn’t need a lot of those pages when he has at his fingertips the ability to project lots and lots of images for the ‘reader/watcher’ to absorb. read article

Give Everything You Write the Best Possible Title

…Cuz it’s all about bringing the suckers readers and viewers in, right?

Right:

by Rita Karnopp

One of my favorite things to do is give my book a title.  Most times I’ll give it a ‘working title’ because I know the ‘true title’ will reveal itself while writing the book.Karnopp-WhisperingWinds200x300 read article

Peer Production: BECOMING RICARDO Episode 4 hits the Interwebs Today!

Watch the new episode here and now!

by the creators of Becoming Ricardo

All of us at BECOMING RICARDO want to share the latest news: Episode 4 of Season One is premiering today, Thursday, August 7 at 10 am on our website.The title of our latest masterwork is “And Then There Was Steven”. In this episode Jesenia finds herself featured in a major tabloid because Ricardo is quickly becoming the hot new Latino lead on “Crime, Law, and Justice.”  All this fame seems to be getting to Jesenia’s head, but she is quickly distracted by a possible new love interest, when she meets Steven Castillo. Thing don’t go as smoothly as they should, though, because someone seems to be stalking Jesenia’s every move – which makes living her double life even harder than it’s been!

For those unfamiliar with BECOMING RICARDO, it’s a web series that gives Latino actors the opportunity to showcase their talent in a way we don’t typically see on TV or film these days. With the release of this NY Daily News article, it becomes overwhelmingly important for Latinos to create their own content complete with the highest quality, solid writing, and the kind of candor that seems hard to find in entertainment outlets that feature us. read article