How to Write Top Quality Film and Movie Scripts

By Geoff Davis

Inspiring and practical course with many exercises from a professional film writer and expert with many real films and TV series out.

Many sections, great fun and challenging exercises. How to get a unique idea, structure, characters, plots and how to sell your script, and much more. Complete with practical advice on set design, making a set sheet, avoiding bloopers and mistakes. Easy to read and very useful for beginners to experienced script writers or playwrights. Chapters:

Embrace Insanity – Tips for a Good Concept 1
No Formula – Tips for Great Concept 2
Unique Selling Proposition USP
Bid Bad USP – Tips for a Great Concept 3
Inspiration from People – Tips on Coming Up with a Good Concept 4
The Importance of Conflict in Script Writing
Multiple Storylines, narrative and non-linear narrative
Premise and Backstory
Plots and Plotlines
Story Development and Timelines – Non-linear
Set Up (Plants) and Payoff
Putting in a Plot Twist
Journey of the Lead Characters
Characters
Emotional Hook for Characters
Writing Dialogue
How to sell a script
Parts of a script
How To Do A Sequence Breakdown
Props, bloopers and how to reduce them
How To Come Up With An Efficient Shooting Schedule
The Art Director’s Visual Team
How To Create The Look of a Movie or Story
Designing costumes – character detail

Part of the Story Software courses series written by real professionals. Other courses include Fiction & Narrative, Modern Muse: Poetry and Advertising Copy, Genres and others. We also have online courses with professional tutors, and create writing apps. Edited by Geoff Davis MA of Story Software, a PEN International published author. Read it now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geoff Davis
• Release date: Jun 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310089497

Geoff Davis

Books:I have been writing fiction on and off for many years (PEN International, and small presses), all were print published.Editor of an AI Fiction Anthology, please visit the Story Software website below.Founded Micro Arts Group - 1980s Computer Art - which released a text story generator in 1985.Story Software Writing Apps - designed the free creative app Notes Story Board and the older Story Lite. A new AI editor Story Live is also available.

Book preview

HOW TO WRITE A FILM & MOVIE SCRIPT

With exercises

Sath Cruz MA. Copyright © 2012-2015. Edited by Geoff Davis MA.

From Story Software, makers of Story Turbo, the top creative writers’ notes and images app.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from Story Software.

Edition 2.0: May 2015

Want a top popular creative writing app, with notes and images and 100 free files?

Visit Story Turbo now!

Get our other books – How to Write books and others – see Story Software for full list.

Thanks for the interest – I hope you enjoy this book.

Geoff Davis May 2015

Contents

Embrace Insanity – Tips for a Good Concept 1

No Formula – Tips for Great Concept 2

Unique Selling Proposition USP

Bid Bad USP – Tips for a Great Concept 3

Inspiration from People – Tips on Coming Up with a Good Concept 4

The Importance of Conflict in Script Writing

Multiple Storylines, narrative and non-linear narrative

Premise and Backstory

Plots and Plotlines

Story Development and Timelines – Non-linear

Set Up (Plants) and Payoff

Putting in a Plot Twist

Journey of the Lead Characters

Characters

Emotional Hook for Characters

Writing Dialogue

How to sell a script

Parts of a script

How To Do A Sequence Breakdown

Props, bloopers and how to reduce them

How To Come Up With An Efficient Shooting Schedule

The Art Director’s Visual Team

How To Create The Look of a Movie or Story

Designing costumes – character detail

Useful links

Chapter 1: Embrace Insanity – Tips for a Good Concept 1

Embrace Insanity

You got to be crazy. You need to think of things no one has thought about so don’t be afraid to be the weird one in the group.

Neil Gaiman, Graphic Novelist and Scriptwriter, were often scolded by his parents for telling lies when he was a kid.

Well, not really lies but enhancements of realities. He said that his parents used to tell him Do you know what happens to people when they make up stories?. He knows now. They become famous and rich.

Not all your ideas are going to be brilliant. Most likely, you will have 1000 dumb ideas for every one good concept so let it out. Think. Invent. Enhance. Come up with crazy stories. Let it even if it seems senseless and clichéd or stupid or dumb.

Just freakin’ imagine and write.

Chapter 2: No Formula – Tips for Great Concept 2

The beauty and curse of art is the lack of formula. Unlike Math, there is no process you can follow to come up with the right answers to your question. If there is, half the world would be millionaires writing kickass scripts that every A-list actor in Hollywood is willing to cut their fees to a tenth to be in.

So if you are looking at this article to give you tips on how to come up with a good concept for a movie, you’re in the wrong site. We will not do that.

What we will do is give you tips on some stuff you can use to know whether you are thinking on a cool path.

Yeah, you better get used to words like stuff, cool, okay and others because making movies is such a precise science and it deserves precise words.

Be Curious

We have someone here who believes that every artist plagiarizes. That needs a bit of explanation. Plagiarism is defined as stealing someone else’s idea.

Every artist, not just writers, gets their inspiration from something their friend said or did, some place they visited, a stupid thing their niece or nephew drew, a conversation they overheard from a couple of people talking about Jersey Shore’s plotlines, a new development in science they thought they understand after seeing it on National Geographic or Discovery, or a dream their