Holy crap it is Nov. and it’s that month NANOWRIMO – which affects just about everything writing whether we want to talk about that or not. Novelists to be, yes, all other writers, yes. It’s a bug that bites – a time of year that get the writer in everyone so inclined all antsy to DO something, stare at deadlines in horror and just plain fling themselves into the air with vibrating intensity – and yes that includes me.
I write novels. I write scripts. I even jumped into writing a comic book series. Am I crazy? You betcha! (pardon my use of that word, I couldn’t help myself, it’s that vibrating to distraction thing). But here’s the thing. How do I know the above? Well, as a general rule blog posts on writing get many more hits in October and November and sales of books about writing, all kinds of writing, pretty much do a spike. Come on , you can admit it, you bought a book on screenwriting, or novel writing or copywriting or did some online searches recently on writing. Yep, it’s that magical time of the year.
I hear you. You can’t help it. It’s something in the air. Maybe it’s because the year is about to end and you haven’t met your writing goals, maybe you’ve got big, scary deadlines (you should be so lucky), maybe it’s that whole Nanowrimo thing – you know National novel writing month. (And despite the ‘novel’ thing, yes, this includes you other types of writers – it’s contagious.)read article
This is worthwhile reading, especially if you’ve ever entered a TV or film writing contest like the SPEC SCRIPTACULAR and wondered what the judges were thinking as they scrolled down your words. (And this article isn’t even about writing contests!)
Design by Nick Wanserski
by Mike D’Angelo
Film critics watch a lot of movies, but we can’t watch everything. With approximately seven weeks left in 2015, I’ve seen (as of the day I’m writing this) 204 features that have been commercially released this year. That’s kind of a staggering number, but it’s less than a quarter of the truly staggering 857 features that have played at least a week-long run in New York City since January 1. When I vote in various year-end polls, I’m always acutely aware of the likelihood that I’ve missed something I’d have loved, even though I make a point of seeking out every film that gets strong reviews. There’s just not enough time to sit through it all.
A few years ago, I started making an effort to give some of the also-rans a chance, by watching as many of them as is feasible (once they’re viewable at home) in what I call sampling mode. Basically, I give the movie 10 minutes to grab my attention. Most of them fail, and get turned off at that point. If I’m still interested, though, I’ll watch for another 10 minutes. There are two more potential bail-out points at 0:30 and 0:40; if I still want to keep going after 40 minutes, I commit to watching the entire film, even if it turns awful later.Since 2012, I’ve sampled just over 500 films in this manner. That amounts to roughly 6,150 minutes, not including the 36 films I wound up watching all the way to the end. Here’s what I’ve learned from spending an accumulated four full days of my life, so far, receiving an intensive education in how movies begin.
• 10 minutes is more than enough to identify mediocrity.
People who read screenplays professionally often say that the vast majority of scripts are dead in the water by page 10. Completed films are no different. It’s not that most of them are terrible right off the bat, by any means—it’s just that most offer no compelling reason to stick around. In many cases, it’s clear that the movie is on autopilot within the first two or three minutes. Characters are indistinct, dialogue is functional, shots are banal. The plot, if there is one, usually hasn’t kicked in yet by the 10-minute mark, but that doesn’t matter. When a movie is firing on all cylinders, waiting to see where it’s headed is a pleasure. Its opening minutes should extend an invitation. Too often, all they do is serve up bland exposition.
Granted, there are exceptions. One of my favorite films of the past 15 years, the Georgian drama Late Marriage(2001), starts off so tediously that I nearly bailed on it at the festival where I initially saw it, and doesn’t really get going until about half an hour in. But those cases are rare enough to be worth ignoring. As a rule, if the film doesn’t grab your attention right away, it’s never gonna. Feel free to move on.read article
What do you, as a viewer, want from the TV shows and films that you watch? How important is it that the script give it to you? Some smart people have been looking into this, and here’s what they’ve found:
by (Sorry, but we don’t know whose name belongs here. If you do, fill us in!)
The chemistry between Ed Helms and Christina Applegate was fantastic and laugh out loud funny. Everything overall about this film was fantastic and nostalgic.
Although this is a sequel of sorts to NATIONAL LAMPOON’S SUMMER VACATION, there’s absolutely no sign of Chevy Chase in it anywhere.
Yeppers, we thought you would. And these scripts from the current season / series of DW are perfectly legal and cool to download because they’re being made available as a service of the BBC.
by Diana Vaccarelli