During the first key 10-15 minutes of any movie, the audience takes a fundamental decision: they make their minds about going with the film or just disengaging. 10-15 minutes is the amount of time that filmmakers, in general, have to…
Continue reading Video-Analysis: The First Ten Minutes of SEVEN
The Book The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film Systematizes the Basics of Film Adaptations Linda Seger‘s books are well known among script lovers, particularly, Making a Good Script Great and Creating Unforgettable Characters, the two of…
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Welcome to Syd Field‘s Screenplay (The Foundations of Screenwriting): The Sequel. Which is Not a Bad Thing at all. In fact, if you buy The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver, in my humble opinion, you don’t need to read Syd Field’s original…
Continue reading How to Identify Script Problems: On Syd Field’s THE SCREENWRITER’S PROBLEM SOLVER
If you like what follows, don’t praise me. I’m just the messenger here. This piece is to celebrate a great post by Studio Binder about practical effects in film that I felt I had to share. The videos are from…
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It’s Terrific!, Citizen Kane’s tagline insisted in every poster. For many years considered the best film ever (still now by many), paradoxically, if you were in the American film industry in 1940 most possibly you would think that Citizen Kane…
Continue reading Best “Making Of” Books: The Making of CITIZEN KANE
Darren Aronofsky is a prestigious American film writer and director with a very personal style of filmmaking. His career shows widely different movies, some highly distinguished ones, such as π, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler and Black Swan. Below,…
Continue reading The 5 Best Books on Making Movies, by Darren Aronofsky
The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing. In a time when “how-to” screenplay books look very similar despite the fact that they all see themselves as very different and unique, Richard Walter‘s Essentials of Screenwriting is a…
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From the book Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade, the basic rules of pitching. In case you are not familiar with William Goldman (1931-2018), he’s been one of the best screenwriters Hollywood has seen. He was…
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And How the Classic Western High Noon Became a Response to the Wave of Extreme Anti-Communism which Swarmed the American Film Industry. What we Mean by Red Scare? National Geographic summarises it very well here and below: The Red Scare…
Continue reading Witch Hunt in 50s Hollywood: The Second Red Scare
Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz) was a big film star in Hollywood during the 50s and the beginning of the 60s. He made great films like Sweet Smell of Success, got an Oscar nomination for The Defiant Ones and, at…
Continue reading How Billy Wilder’s SOME LIKE IT HOT Was Written
