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/screenplay27
A place to discuss everything related to screenwriting and playwriting including but not limited to the creative process, formatting and terminology, competitions and opportunities, reviews of produced work, movies and TV discussion.
A friend is reading the book I wrote at the start of this year (and has sold only one copy) and told me he's really enjoying it. No better feeling!
Some recommendations
Thank you so much for submitting your script to the 2025 Athena List.
We regret to inform you that after careful review by our team, your script will not be advanced to the next stage. We know how hard pushing that “submit” button can be, and we deeply appreciate your sharing your work.
Please do not consider this a judgment on your writing skills and abilities. There were many scripts we liked that we weren’t able to include in the program. So please, keep writing!
Thank you again! We hope to see your work in the future.
Best,
The Athena Film Festival Team
We regret to inform you that after careful review by our team, your script will not be advanced to the next stage. We know how hard pushing that “submit” button can be, and we deeply appreciate your sharing your work.
Please do not consider this a judgment on your writing skills and abilities. There were many scripts we liked that we weren’t able to include in the program. So please, keep writing!
Thank you again! We hope to see your work in the future.
Best,
The Athena Film Festival Team
Finished Black Doves yesterday.
I loved it. It's exactly the kind of dark, funny, irreverent and fantastical shit I've been trying to write recently.
It is fantastical, which means it borders in the unbelievable at times, but it gets away with it, above all, because it's fun, but also because it's rooted in a reality of humanism and strong relationships.
There is real care put into the complexity that arises for those trying to maintain a grip on normality, while living a life of secrecy. And the moments between Michael and Sam, Sam and Helen, and Helen and Jason (and Wallace) are genuinely moving.
It's also great to see a series set in London, that's properly British, even though somewhat of a characterisation of it. Definitely some lock stock in there along with the jellied eels.
Watch it.
in case this interests you @kentb
I loved it. It's exactly the kind of dark, funny, irreverent and fantastical shit I've been trying to write recently.
It is fantastical, which means it borders in the unbelievable at times, but it gets away with it, above all, because it's fun, but also because it's rooted in a reality of humanism and strong relationships.
There is real care put into the complexity that arises for those trying to maintain a grip on normality, while living a life of secrecy. And the moments between Michael and Sam, Sam and Helen, and Helen and Jason (and Wallace) are genuinely moving.
It's also great to see a series set in London, that's properly British, even though somewhat of a characterisation of it. Definitely some lock stock in there along with the jellied eels.
Watch it.
in case this interests you @kentb
Screenplay tidied up this morning. Sitting at 93 pages. Got to tidy up the slugs and tweak the formatting - i'm never sure how to do that correctly - and check the pacing, which feels a little off on first full read through. I'll do that tomorrow now, though.
Non commercial piece but fuck it, it better represents where my heads at and my current writing style, and it's the kind of thing I want to be writing so that's what we do.
Non commercial piece but fuck it, it better represents where my heads at and my current writing style, and it's the kind of thing I want to be writing so that's what we do.
just finished the first draft of this.... thing. Going to take a break now and come back at it with some fresh eyes in a bit.
Anyone want to play?
Finished watching Last Night At Tremore Beach. Don't think I've felt that unsettled by a series since The Haunting of Hill House. It's very atmospheric, which is partly down to the script, partly down to the director, and incredibly well acted, most notably by the protagonist, who I understand is more commonly seen in must less demanding roles.
This is a drama that deals with themes of mental illness and premonitions, and you're never quite sure whether what you think you're seeing is real, or a fiction constructed within the mind of the main character, right up until the end.
As is often the case with work that deals with predictions of the future we enter into that uncomfortable paradox of not knowing whether actions made with knowledge of the future serve to provoke it or not, and whether any of it is avoidable.
Watch it, I enjoyed it.
This is a drama that deals with themes of mental illness and premonitions, and you're never quite sure whether what you think you're seeing is real, or a fiction constructed within the mind of the main character, right up until the end.
As is often the case with work that deals with predictions of the future we enter into that uncomfortable paradox of not knowing whether actions made with knowledge of the future serve to provoke it or not, and whether any of it is avoidable.
Watch it, I enjoyed it.
Read THE CIDER HOUSE RULES by John Irving...
Then watch THE CIDER HOUSE RULES movie...
Then read THE CIDER HOUSE RULES screenplay, adapted by John Irving from his novel...
Then read MY MOVIE BUSINESS by John Irving...
Then you will know how to write an adaptation.
Then watch THE CIDER HOUSE RULES movie...
Then read THE CIDER HOUSE RULES screenplay, adapted by John Irving from his novel...
Then read MY MOVIE BUSINESS by John Irving...
Then you will know how to write an adaptation.
Added a couple more pages today, which i'm happy with because I didn't have much time to write. Yesterday I spent a lot longer just staring at a blank page and today felt much more fluid.
3 pages written. Bit of a slog today, not coming easy.
Finally i am join this channels
Not much to do on the screenplay today. Just tidying up yesterdays work a bit and going to leave it now for a thinking break over the weekend.
Writing terrifying, three dimensional, truly evil people is hard, and I've always been impressed when a writer manages to do so. That character needs to be compelling enough that we can't take our eyes off them, purely evil so that their path could have been no other, yet three dimensional enough to be convincing.
The best ones for me are rooted in reality, where the evil itself is not seen by that character as something wrong.
Perhaps the best example of this for me in literature is The Judge from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, but some of my on screen favourite representations have to be Teddy Bass, from Sexy Beast, Lorne Malvo from Fargo and Gatehouse from The Shadow Line - I'm sure there are many more I'm forgetting.
The evil in this context is not what we see them doing, but what we understand they are capable of doing (Lorne Malvo aside). They are moral less, selfish, and single minded in pursuit of their goals.
1/
The best ones for me are rooted in reality, where the evil itself is not seen by that character as something wrong.
Perhaps the best example of this for me in literature is The Judge from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, but some of my on screen favourite representations have to be Teddy Bass, from Sexy Beast, Lorne Malvo from Fargo and Gatehouse from The Shadow Line - I'm sure there are many more I'm forgetting.
The evil in this context is not what we see them doing, but what we understand they are capable of doing (Lorne Malvo aside). They are moral less, selfish, and single minded in pursuit of their goals.
1/
So, watched the fourth episode of Last night at Tremore Beach and I've got to say it was probably the toughest thing I've had to see on screen for... a while... I think I've become more sensitive since being a parent, especially to a girl, but man that was a tough watch. My partner couldn't hack it and had to come back when the hard scenes were done. Powerful TV.
Despite the traumatic experience last nights episode was, I'm enjoying the series. Will talk about it more when I'm done with it.
Despite the traumatic experience last nights episode was, I'm enjoying the series. Will talk about it more when I'm done with it.
Alright. Ten pages down today. Mostly dialogue so it's easy to get through it, but two important scenes nonetheless. Got to stop because, amongst other things, the muscle in my shoulder blade is killing me.
Finally stropped Clanking for long enough - clanking is addictive, go and see a doctor if the symptoms persist - to get some writing done. Deleted the scenes I realised wouldn't work from the other day and get ten pages down today.
Happy with that.
Now to check the latest meta and see what 100x I've missed.
Happy with that.
Now to check the latest meta and see what 100x I've missed.
https://warpcast.com/tokenizedhuman/0xd969bc6e
I forgot to update after this. @writer post reminded me that after writing the scene on Friday I've decided it works better written in a slightly different way, so I'm going to dump most of what i put down and replace it with something else entirely. Sometimes to get forward you need to write it out. I felt stuck on Friday and knew basically what i wanted to achieve with the scene, just didn't know how best to do it, until I'd written it and thought about it some more. Plotting in general removes these momentum obstacles, although I've never really been very good at plotting beyond large tent pole moments of where i generally want the story to go.
I mentioned before that writing to move forward is generally the way i used to do things and it feels comfortable being back here. I do think it's important to have and understanding of structure and momentum at the back of your head to know more or less the rhythm you need to create over the length of the piece.
I forgot to update after this. @writer post reminded me that after writing the scene on Friday I've decided it works better written in a slightly different way, so I'm going to dump most of what i put down and replace it with something else entirely. Sometimes to get forward you need to write it out. I felt stuck on Friday and knew basically what i wanted to achieve with the scene, just didn't know how best to do it, until I'd written it and thought about it some more. Plotting in general removes these momentum obstacles, although I've never really been very good at plotting beyond large tent pole moments of where i generally want the story to go.
I mentioned before that writing to move forward is generally the way i used to do things and it feels comfortable being back here. I do think it's important to have and understanding of structure and momentum at the back of your head to know more or less the rhythm you need to create over the length of the piece.
Flush with Audible credits, I listened to KILL THE DOG on 1.4x speed. While most of what Guyot writes is true, his speaking ill of the dead SAVE THE CAT guy is distasteful. He forgets what it's like to be starting out, when the guidelines that SAVE THE CAT provides help in confronting the blank page.
two and a bit pages today. Not much but I've run out of time so it'll have to do. Not so clear on the next bit so feels like a good time to take a break away and think it over.
Probably nothing
Couple of new pages written today, plus a rewrite of a scene yesterday, and another scene I need to try to slot in somewhere. Little by little we chip away.
Three pages today. Flying through just to get it down. Filling in the structure as i go and I'll go back and prune. It's non commercial so not having to rely too much on hitting familiar narrative elements. Enjoying it.