Last-minute reminder to download all the Oscar screenplays before the Academy Awards — they’ll be taken down soon. Happy reading!
Author Archive | The Reader
John Carter’s Massive Bomb and Screenwriting Beats – Part 3
By The Reader on February 23, 2017 in Adapting, Audience, Beat Sheet, Beats, Character, Concept, Genre, Ideas, Location, Logical World, Process, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2 of this post. Let’s more carefully investigate exactly why John Carter didn’t work. What are the lessons learned from this? Analysis: Flashback and Voice Over Not to overstate the obvious, but within the opening minutes of this $600mm trainwreck, there are two separate instances of voice […]
John Carter’s Massive Bomb and Screenwriting Beats – Part 2
By The Reader on February 23, 2017 in Adapting, Audience, Beat Sheet, Beats, Character, Concept, Genre, Ideas, Location, Logical World, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
Click here to read Part 1 of this post. Click here to read more about screenwriting beats. What went so wrong with John Carter? Well, let’s look at the beats. Here’s a basic breakdown of the beats of Act 1. 1. Open on Mars with the space wars going on. Fast and furious voice over […]
John Carter’s Massive Bomb and Screenwriting Beats – Part 1
By The Reader on February 23, 2017 in Adapting, Audience, Beat Sheet, Beats, Character, Concept, Genre, Location, Logical World, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
If you are unsure what screenwriting beats are or need a quick refresher, please read my article on beats first. Now… The film John Carter was a very expensive, massive bomb in the spring of 2012, almost five years ago now. (Reading online that it was estimated this film would have needed to gross $600mm […]
WESTWORLD, aka Real Doll’s Big Day Out
By The Reader on December 8, 2016 in Character, Concept, Logical World, Story, Television, Uncategorized
Westworld is the new HBO show based on Michael Crichton’s film from 1973. It’s set in a futuristic Western-themed Disneyland where robots are programmed to act out set storylines. The guests participate in these pre-defined scenarios. It’s a bit Groundhog Day (every day is the same), a bit The Searchers. Human visitors come and go […]
Shocker.
She’s BAAAACCCCKKKKK. It’s been a long silent stretch, but I am finally back to the blog. Stay tuned for weekly posts and more. In 2015 I started teaching screenwriting, so get ready for more detailed information — breakdowns, beat sheets, more detailed analysis of beats, genre analysis, analysis of current material. As promised, a lot […]
Screenwriter-to-Screenwriter.com Online Writers Group
Screenwriter-to-Screenwriter.com Online Writers Group So now that I am officially back in Santa Fe, my wonderful, amazing LA writers’ group kicked me to the curb and said I had to drop (boo, hiss). Practical, but I miss them — they were my writing team. I have reached out here to try to find a new […]
From One Screenwriter to Another…
There’s an adage in Los Angeles that everyone has a script. If you’ve ever been out during the middle of the day – when people should be working, but yet the coffee house is packed – you get the creeping feeling that this is true. And a major bummer for anyone trying to break into […]