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Screenwriting Basics - by Zolle Studios

teacher avatar Zolle Studios, Creating Impact Together

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Course Trailer

      0:30

    • 2.

      What is Screenplay Format

      6:04

    • 3.

      L2 What is Story(F1)

      1:53

    • 4.

      What is Story?

      3:22

    • 5.

      L3 What is Plot(F2)

      4:47

    • 6.

      What is Plot?

      6:16

    • 7.

      What is a Scene?

      4:05

    • 8.

      L5 Script Structure(F1)

      4:25

    • 9.

      Genre Theme

      7:36

    • 10.

      Characters Heroes & Villains

      7:22

    • 11.

      Dialogue

      5:00

    • 12.

      Endings

      4:38

    • 13.

      Getting Ideas

      4:35

    • 14.

      Starting the Darn Thing

      10:21

    • 15.

      Writing Style, Think of the Reader

      4:53

    • 16.

      Writing Tip #1 Let Your Script Breath

      1:05

    • 17.

      Writing Tip #2 Start With the End

      0:48

    • 18.

      Writing Tip #3 Short Films

      1:41

    • 19.

      Writing Tip #4 Finishing the Script

      1:05

    • 20.

      Writing Tip #5 Find Time

      1:24

    • 21.

      Writing Tip #6 Find your voice

      1:01

    • 22.

      Writing Tip #7 Criticism Notes

      2:42

    • 23.

      Writing Tip #8 Read Produced Scripts

      1:03

    • 24.

      Writing Tip #9 Dont Lock Down Talent

      0:54

    • 25.

      Writing Tip #10 Script Directing

      0:47

    • 26.

      Writing Tip #11 Useless Dialogue

      0:52

    • 27.

      Writing Tip #12 Writers r Readers

      1:04

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About This Class

This course is designed to teach you the minimum skills you need to be an effective and efficient screenwriter/film maker. This course contains over 20 videos of lessons and tips on screenwriting. Every day a lesson video will be released to you for viewing. We are constantly improving and adding content to our courses. To move on to the next lesson be sure to mark the lesson compete and this will add to your progress bar as well. If you have any issues with viewing the videos or with the course itself. Please, contact us at support@zollecreate.com

Meet Your Teacher

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Zolle Studios

Creating Impact Together

Teacher

Hello, I'm Mayson.

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Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Course Trailer: is always reading course is designed to quickly teach you the minimum of the central skills you need to tackle the majority of screen writing. Basically, I've created the course I would have wanted. Collective Super fine Many years of studying writing features of forces lessons are learning how to create strong stories, have well structured parks with interesting and memorable characters. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the course. 2. What is Screenplay Format: Hey, guys, welcome back. We're gonna go through our first lesson about Well. What is a screenplay, screenplay or script is a written story with visual descriptions of drama. Basically, it's a blueprint for what needs to be film began to know what's needed to make the film, such as locations, camera placement, wardrobe, and it also determines the link to the film. Film is a visual medium, therefore you can't have information that can't be filmed or shown on the screen. What a script is not is well. It's not a novel where you can write huge amounts of your character's inner dialogue and thoughts and always collaborate Tigress. They can create sentences that are deep and artistic Now that's not to say that a screenwriter can be artistic, but a script needs to be as efficient and written as vividly as possible. We'll have to remember, is that a screenplay as action and dialogue? Whatever you hear and see on screen is the action, and the action is written in the present tense. In a way, it's like watching a film with a visually impaired person. You have to explain what's happening in the movie as it happens up next. We're gonna cover format because you've seen a screenplay. It's formatted differently than anything else. All right, now let's talk about format. If you've seen the script, you probably noticed that it has a format unique on Uh, it's kind of unusual. So here's a page of the script, right? So why this crazy four man? Well, it's a way to show and to know where the action takes place and who's doing what and saying , You see the word spacing Well, it has to do with time and money. The length of a screenplay gives a filmmaker an idea of the possible length and budget to make a film in a screenplay. One pages roughly one minute of screen time Final movie. We've run a little shorter or longer, and the Funt is pretty much established to be 12.10 pitch and typefaces, basically the Coyer type, the major components of a screenplay or action and dialogue action is what could be heard and seen by the audience. Like the descriptions of settings, character movements, actions or side effects, action is written in the present tense. Dialogue is what the characters say. Individual components could be broken further into hitter or slugline. Action line, character, character, pathetic dialogue, parents, dialogue itself, transition and the over black title cards. So let's look at each of these and let's use this group basics page. Okay, so we're gonna look at slug. Let's screenplay has sluglines at the start of every scene and usually has three pieces of information where the scene is set inside, which is interior or outside Britain as exterior specific location. In the time of day, each slugline begins a new seat, the actual line. Well, what that is is that basically, is what is happening on the screen and what the audience season. Here's as you see, it's written in the present tense. Okay, so we're gonna look at the character, okay? This is the component that basically has the name of the character is gonna be in all caps , and then right next to it will be the character. Parents think this is gonna indicated the character is offscreen on the phone or speaking over a phone and then below that is going to be the dialogue. Parents think this is the show. A gesture or an attitude that is mostly visual. It can also show a character pause before speaking. And you put the word beat in parentheses. A word of warning. Too much description or direction here can be seen by the reader and director as well directing on the page because Director is gonna be like giving directions underneath. All that is gonna be the dialogue. This is basically where the characters say what they have to say, and then there's gonna be a theme transition like this is the show. One scene going to another and it could be dissolved or cut two. Or it could be time cuts and last is gonna be the much black or the title cards. And this is gonna go in the very beginning of your script or at the very end. So now we're gonna look at what makes a story a story. Hey, and welcome to Zali Studios. You need some professional video stuff. I want to share with you a few of the often benefits that come with being a prime Villager with Holly Studios. Every month, you can enjoy a 31 hour sessions with a professional crew. If you're an actor, did your audition tapes. If you're a business owner coming. Create content for your business at a reasonable price. You can even change the color. Also included in our prices. One had stopped per year. Become a prime Villager today, get access to these benefits and more as a crime Villager. Join today at Dolly studios dot com. Our goal here is always to help artists create opportunities for themselves. That's why every month we hold collaboration events. In addition to our Vince, we give actors and screenwriters from all over the country the opportunity to create their own concepts and scripts that are professional crews helped him produce. We call those many things you also receive discounts on all the services you need as a creator, actor or screenwriter. Click or enjoy the village to get a detailed list of all the awesome opportunities you get as a Zahle. Villagers, in addition to the paid casting opportunities way, look forward to serving you and I'll see you in the village 3. L2 What is Story(F1): the stories of structured series of dramatic events about characters dealing with a problem . It's gotta have five basic elements. What the character or characters have to have a predicament which forces them to have to a solution to fix the predicament, not a recent solution. There's gotta be three Planet fall, but there's gonna be obstacles. That's four. And the obstacles come uniform of people. Monsters, Time, villains, Winner. And you gotta have five Consequence of the stakes if the characters a solution. So why don't we look at what's not a story? Okay, so here's an example. Um, I woke up, got dressed, ate that, um, a car. Go to the store, got more cereal. That's not really a story because it didn't have those five elements. Okay, here we go. Here's a story with those five elements. The predicament is I woke up. There's no food in the house, so solution I gotta go gets more food. And so the plan is to go to a car and drive to the store. But the obstacle is there's a huge grizzly bear sleeping in my car. The consequences and the stakes are that well, if I don't wake up the bear and get rid of it. I will be able to go to the store, but very waiting. Well, Bear is gonna eat me so you can see that would be a story. Because it has this ability and you can actually see kind of a minimal minimalistic version of that. If you go to YouTube and check out a video called Baby Go on or vs Snakes, it's very short and basically does. It is a story. It has those five elements to it. All right, so we're gonna look at next lesson ease plot. 4. What is Story?: the stories of structured series of dramatic events about characters dealing with a problem . It's gotta have five basic elements. What the character or characters have to have a predicament which forces them to have to a solution to fix the predicament. Now the reason. Solution. There's gotta be three. Plan to fall, but there's gonna be obstacles. That's four. And the obstacles come in the form of people monsters, time, villains, winter. And you gotta have five Consequence of the stakes if the characters a solution. So why don't we look at what's not a story? Okay, so here's an example. Um, I woke up, got dressed, ate that, um, a car drove to the store, got more cereal. That's not really because it didn't have those five elements. Here we go. Here's a story with those five elements. The predicament is woke up. There's no food in the house, so solution I gotta go gets more food. And so the plan is to go to a car and drive to the store. But the obstacle is there's a huge grizzly bear sleeping in my car. The consequences and the stakes are that well, if I don't wake up the bear and get rid of it. I will be able to go to the store, but very welcome. Well, Bear is gonna eat me so you can see that would be a story. Because it has this and you can actually see kind of, Ah, a minimal couple minimalistic version of that. If you go to YouTube and check out a video called Baby Go on or vs Snakes, it's very short and basically does. It is a story. It has those five elements to it. All right, so we're gonna look at next lesson. Ease plot. Hey, and welcome to Zali Studios. You need some professional video stuff. I want to share with you a few of the often benefits that come with being a prime Villager with Holly Studios every month, you can enjoy a 31 hour sessions with a professional crew. If you're an actor, did your audition tape? If you're a business owner coming, create content for your business at a reasonable price. You can even change the color. Also included in our prices, one had stopped per year. Become a prime Villager. Today, get access to these benefits and more as a prime Villager join today at Dolly studios dot com. Our goal here is Ali is to help artists create opportunities for themselves. That's why every month we hold collaboration events. In addition to our vents, we give actors and screenwriters from all over the country the opportunity to create film cost subs and scripts that are professional crews helped him produce. We call those many things you also receive discounts on all the services you need as a creator, actor or screenwriter. Click or enjoy the village to get a detailed list of all the awesome opportunities you get as a Zahle Villager. In addition to the paid casting opportunities way, Look forward to serving you and I'll see you in the village. 5. L3 What is Plot(F2): Hey, welcome back, everybody. Okay? This lesson we're gonna cover. Okay, So what is a plus? Could be while it's best to set a plot is how all the different things that happened in your script or arrange it's the way the story structure. Now, without a plot, the story will not have an order of dramatic events organized best in the audience. Now we've all seen movies. They had a lot of action going on a lot of energy, but they were forgetting and they were underwhelming. Were the big reasons why can be because a plot problem a big problem is when the story overall has no clear goals and Franz for the characters to follow. And if these unclear parts were arranged in a sloppy way in the movie is a series of actions and make a little sense of the characters. Actions make no sense in the audience, loses interest and walk out All right, just stop watching. Here's a mini story of range in the gray. Sloppy. It's not gonna happen. ST. A little different money would never be effective now laughing at me, highness with ineffective myself so far, nor this law with them tired, wrapped in my chef cooking that steak and lobster on Dr Status. You know, like the match. The pattern is saved by the master. I'm here when they after brakes. Yes, on blasted pockets with peace with that, madam, in a guess, in this congress in the stage just aside. So it's a mess Now, here's the same. Any story with better street lights, a little different money would never be effective now laughing at me, Highness, with ineffective myself so far. Nor this law with them tired, wrapped in my chef cooking that steak and lobster on Dr Status. You know, like the match. The pattern is saved by the master here when they Yes, with matter, yes, in this madness Congress Center stage. You know that mercy? That must. Mm. - Watch of a little movie made from a readable script. So you see that the plot is the structure of the story. Basic structures have all of the actions fall. These can be seen as little episodes of meeting. These little episodes are seats. And we're gonna cover that in our next lesson. See you. Of course. You guys can download the pdf so it shows the examples of non story. And there's also gonna be example of non story but written five elements of my ex. A story, a story, and you're also going to see examples of how they can be plotted badly, right? 6. What is Plot?: Hey, welcome back, everybody. Okay? This lesson we're gonna cover. Okay, So what is a plus? Plus, could be its best decided plot is how all the different things that happened in your script or it's the way the story destruction. Now, without a plot, the story will not have an order of dramatic events organized best in the audience. Now we've all seen movies. They had a lot of action going on a lot of energy, but they were forgetting. And they were underwhelming. Where the big reasons why can be because a plot problem a big problem is when the story overall has no clear goals and brands for the characters to follow. And if these unclear parts were arranged in a sloppy way in the movie is a series of actions and make a little sense of the characters. Actions make no sense in the audience, loses interest and walk out All right, just stop watching. Here's a mini story of range in the gray. Sloppy It's not gonna happen. ST Sounds No, a little different money would never be effective now left in that many highness with benefactors myself. So for an artist loft with them tired, wrapped in my chef cooking that steak and lobster on Dr Status. Second, like What's the matter? I'm here with a after breaks. Yes, and blasted pockets stuffed with peace. But that's a matter, man, I guess in this country is center stage just aside, so right, it's a mess. Now here's the same many story with better street light. A little different money would never be effective Now left in that many Highness with benefactors myself. So for notice, lost with them Tired wrapped in my chef Cooking that steak and lobster on Dr Status Second ? No, Like I said, the match. The pattern is saved by the master way. Yes. With matter. Yes, in this matter Cumbria center stage. You know that Must. Mm. - Watch of a little movie made from a readable script. So you see that the plot is the structure of the story. Basic structures have all the actions fault. These can be seen as little episodes of meeting. These little episodes are seats, and we're gonna cover that in our next lesson. See you. Of course. You guys can download the pdf so it shows the examples of a non story. And there's also gonna be example of non story but written five elements of my ex. A story, a story, and you're also going to see examples how they can be plotted badly, right? Hey, and welcome to Zali Studios. You need some professional video stuff. I want to share with you a few of the often benefits that come with being a prime Villager with Holly Studios every month, you can enjoy a 31 hour taping sessions with a professional crew. If you're an actor, did your audition tape? If you're a business owner coming, create content for your business at a reasonable price. You can even change the color. Also included in our prices. One had stopped per year. Become a prime Villager today. Get access to these benefits and more as a crime Villager. Join today at Dolly studios dot com. Our goal here is always to help artists create opportunities for themselves. That's why every month we hold collaboration events. In addition to our Vince, we give actors and screenwriters from all over the country the opportunity to create their own concepts and scripts that are professional crews helped him produce. We call those many things you also receive discounts on all the services you need as a creator, actor or screenwriter. Click or enjoy the village to get a detailed list of all the awesome opportunities you get as a Zahle Villagers, in addition to the paid casting opportunities way, look forward to serving you and I'll see you in the village. 7. What is a Scene?: What's the scene you can think of. A script is a change, a story chain, which are made of links that are unique, but they're all connected. These links are scenes and are like little episodes within the script, with the same five elements of story. Predicament, solution, plan, obstacles, Consequences, steaks. All that stuff makes drama. Scenes contained drama in scenes, a lot of drama to progress by showing characters trying to get what they need and what they want. A script usually has a big drama that takes place over a period of time. In different locations. A scene is a little link of little drama that happens during a chunk of time in a specific place. You can create scenes by taking the overall goal of the characters and divided them into smaller goals needed to reach the big gulf. And if there are smaller goals, then just added be predicaments, little solutions, little plans, obstacles and even the consequences. Steaks are a little too seems that have that create drama, and that keeps the audience engaged. Viral thing to remember is that it seemed constantly moves the story forward. It has to do that because a film has to have momentum to zoom along to an effective, memorable ending. As you create your scenes, make sure that they're relevant to the entire story. He has to make sure that they contain actions that makes sense for the character. So show characters getting something or getting information, and that prompts a change of action. You need that never seen. And always remember that scenes have to move the drum. Moved, apply. Move the story so you only have an hour and 1/2 max. If your scripts a week, that means we have to create scenes that all the audience to get into the scene late and get out early. So no Dog Lynn Useless info and please don't have characters. Just info. Dumping Explain. Otherwise, rescript won't flow and it won't hold. The audience is attention, so during each scene you create, you have to ask yourself what to my characters want at this time and why. And if they failed to get what they want, then what's gonna happen when you answer those questions? Then you can in the sea when your character meets a goal. It's new Info needs a new character and more Mrs Up. It should connect to the next link of storage. Okay, so that leads us to structure. And that's where we're gonna cover next. Hey, and welcome those Ali studios. You need some professional video stuff. I want to share with you a few of the often benefits that come with being a prime Villager with Holly Studios. Every month, you can Enjoyably one hour taping sessions with a professional crew. If you're an actor, get your audition tape. If you're a business owner coming, create content for your business at a reasonable price. You can even change the color. Also included in our prices. One had stopped per year. Become a prime Villager today. Get access to these benefits and more as a prime Villager. Join today as dolly studios dot com. Our goal here is Ali is to help artists create opportunities for themselves. That's why every month we hold collaboration events. In addition to our events, we give actors and screenwriters from all over the country the opportunity to create film concepts and scripts that are professional crews helped him produce. We call those many things you also receive discounts on all the services you need as a creator, actor or screenwriter. Click will enjoy the village to get a detailed list of all the awesome opportunities you get as a Zahle Villagers in addition to paid casting opportunities. Way, Look forward to serving you and I'll see you in the village. 8. L5 Script Structure(F1): Hey, guys, welcome back. We're going to look at structure. So earlier, I mentioned that you can think of a script as a chain, a story chain made of links that are unique but also connected. How those links are connected makes a huge difference in making your script understandable , readable and engaging structures. How you link up your scenes structure that is common in many stories and films and TV programmes are pretty simple, the one that seems to be popular and effective to help a range instructor Story is the story Circle by Dan Harm. This is a tool to help you structure your script, and I use it to arrange my scenes and major actions to see if that makes sense. Now. Word of warning. Using it as a template is tempting, but you run the risk of molding your script to fit the structure. You run the risk of letting your fear of not writing your script the right way get in the way of being creative and different. It is a tool to help you not to hinder you. So I basically took the story circle, and I kind of tweaked it to suit my way of writing. So all your scenes with their many predicaments, solutions, plans, obstacles, consequences, stakes all of the many goals and many dramas can be arranged with this tool. Okay, so number one on the story circle and it's gonna be basically eight parts. Everyone is. You have to introduce the characters, the world and the rules of this world. Two is gonna be the predicament that is affecting them. Three. This is gonna be the inciting incident. This is the big problem that gets the characters moving. The predicament gets so bad that your characters have to deal with it and there's no turning back, so the motivation and the consequences could be obvious. Here four gonna be basically the sink or swim portion of the structure in this, the characters are going to struggle to solve the predicament, and it's gonna look like they're taking ownership by taking action. But they're really reacting, and it's gonna get them into deeper trouble, and they're gonna have a deliver. They're gonna have to pick the lesser of two evils to overcome and salt to predicament. This is going to lead to Section five. The characters find something crucial to the solution of their predicament. It's gonna be a combination of a hard external truth and hard internal truth. The solution is gonna cost. This is gonna lead to six, which is where they accept the external and internal truth of the situation. And they realize that they can now act instead of just react. They're gonna become their own boss. Is there pretending this leads to seven where it's all or nothing. The characters intersolv to predicament or they face the consequences and finally, in the last portion, become full circle. The characters have solved predicament and their changed by their struggles and have a new external and internal truths. Basically, they've kicked ass. Undeniable external truth is going to refer to the world that your characters live in. It's gonna include the rules that govern that world and that creates the reality of their situation. The undeniable external truth can be something good or something that may be a bit of both . It's definitely gonna be something they can't ignore. It can be a solution or the predicament. Or it could be a careful The undeniable internal truth refers to the mental and emotion reality of the characters as they slam into the external, truth can be handled changing. Can they handle changing on the inside psychologically and emotionally and where change was going on on the outside? Lots of movies have. This happened Section six as the end of the second act that creates extra drama for the third act that could make the ending express the theme in a meaningful way and ending. That's good and memorable as people living our lives we encounter situations will leave bump against undeniable external truths that forces to face are undeniable internal. It's no different with your characters. You have a lifetime to face those things, but your characters have less than two hours now. If you feel intimidated by the challenge of structure in your stories, just accept it, work at it and realized that when it comes from running our own stories, you seem to forget this innate sense of story structure. And it might be just that maybe writing a story uses parts of her brain differently than just listening or watching, however hard it is to properly structured script, remember that it's from the good of your story and for the so that basically wrapped it infrastructure, and we're gonna look a genre and a theme next 9. Genre Theme: Hey, welcome back and we're gonna look a genre and theme All right. Spurs Genre. Um, basically, whenever you decide what movies were, shows him watch. So I go by John. No words. The kind of movie or a TV show such as science fiction drama Western fantasy romance, comedy joiners could be defined by time and location. Take sci fi friends usually tackles themes of humanity, struggles to survive and flourish in the future. Westerns have at their core issues of freedom in the struggle to control the land, animals and people, especially people who don't want any drama is about people in settings and situations close to reality as possible. Fantasy can be about eight me set anytime and anywhere genres useful. You want to write about certain themes in subject matter. There's so many films being made nowadays that are blurring the genres. You can blur them, too, but you have to be careful. Jonah seems to be easier to accept if there's nothing to confuse the audience. Many people like westerns but dislike science fiction. And if you mix the two, you create a hybrid that, uh, we need extra care story wise and character wise to engage the audiences. So basically, that's it about genre. So let's move on to think. Now, if you read film reviews and academic studies of filming probably come across a subject of things, theme could be defined as with stories about it's the point of the story. As a writer, you with the tackle, certain subjects and ideas. I want to communicate your views via the story of your character. Now there's a lot of books or writing that stress theme in others that's a theme is a side effect of the story. Now this can seem confusing to a writer starting out. So the question is, how do you write a script if you're concerned whether or not you have a theme now for me? I think theme is something that I noticed after I noticed a pattern of ideas and or subject matter based on what my characters are doing and feeling I see themed pretty much as visiting a person's home in seeing how they've decorated or not decorated their rooms, you start to notice how their environment reflects their mind. You look at the colors that they like, how clean are missing their houses, you get an overall feel and understanding of that person's values and priorities. In other words, you get a feel for their care. And since stories are mostly about people and their struggles, we can say the theme and character can be linked and that they can move along the story. Ching together theme is like a particular person who travels in a particular car. Each could be separate, but they help each other get to the same place. Let's take a look at how seen pops out of a story more helps create a story. Now let's say I write a script about a teenage boy. Let's call him Gerald, who has trouble expressing himself by talking Gerald. He wants to speak, but the words staying his hand. That's the basic character trait that he has. His friends and family have accepted this to varying degrees. They find it annoying and some give him a hard time about it. He feels insecure, so let's say Gerald wants to protect someone from a situation that will turn out badly. He could speak up, but he's got problems doing so. Plus, the situation is so unique the besides that, taking the blame and not speaking at all is the best way to protect this person. The story asks if a perceived weakness could be a strength. The theme could be something like Silence is a virtue or the make shell inherit here. If we look up the word meek, it can also mean being strong enough to endure suffering. To allow others to appear strong, especially, prevents harm to the innocent. The more I work on the story and plot moral notice what the theme might be, the more I developed Gerald's traits and those of the other characters. The closer I get to the theme in this script, I could accentuate the thing by showing he's a good listener. I can also show that he likes to do quite things like reading and taking pictures. Now Gerald doesn't usually stay silent by choice. He actually does have a hard time speaking, even when he wants to, until he meets a girl, Jenna, who accepts him for who he is. Then he discovers he has no problem talking when he's around her and his friends and family notice and something. It's a good thing, and some think it's well, very giving it all, I decided to have general take the blame for something to protect Jet. His family demand an explanation, but he refuses to use his newfound ability to express himself, so his actions have to speak for him. And he does that by staying silent endures by using what was a perceived weakness is difficult to speak. It seems to me that the theme of the make sure inherit the Earth. It's this I can show the opposite of the theme by having antagonist an obstacle who is in the form of Janice ex boyfriend, somebody who is loud and brash. I could also include other characters, pretty much fall in the middle. Everything that the characters do and say goes towards expressing this thing. So you could say that theme is in the details and theme is the impression you get from those. As you can see, working on the theme is difficult to do without having characters creating characters, creating their wants and needs in creating a story that shows their struggles will help develop theme. In short, you have to develop your characters and character Development is what we're gonna look at next, so that pretty much wraps it for steam. Hey, and welcome those Ali studios. You need some professional video stuff. I want to share with you a few of the often benefits that come with being a prime Villager with Holly Studios. Every month, you can Enjoyably one hour taping sessions with a professional crew. If you're an actor, get your audition tape. If you're a business owner coming, create content for your business at a reasonable price. You can even change the color. Also included in our prices, one had stopped per year. Become a prime Villager today. Get access to these benefits and more as a prime Villager. Join today at Dolly studios dot com. Our goal here is Ali is to help artists create opportunities for themselves. That's why every month we hold collaboration events. In addition to our events, we give actors and screenwriters from all over the country the opportunity to create film concepts and scripts that are professional crews helped him produce. We call those many things you also receive discounts on all the services you need as a creator, actor or screenwriter. Click will enjoy the village to get a detailed list of all the awesome opportunities you get as a Zahle Villager in addition to paid casting opportunities. Way. Look forward to serving you and I'll see you in the village. 10. Characters Heroes & Villains: Hey, welcome back. We're gonna look at creating characters and villains. Now, if you remember, a script is a story that has drama in. This drama is caused by characters having problems and challenges that they're trying to overcome. Now, why do we care so much about characters that don't exist? That's because most people have empathy and characters and seem real enough alive Enough can create that empathy an audience. In some films, the characters don't stimulate empathy, but they're interesting enough to keep the audiences attention. So how do we create interesting and memorable characters that seem alive and stimulated? Well, we take our cue from real life. Now when I'm in, I observe people. Some people stick out my form an opinion, and I remember that right is because of how they look, talk, act and how they react to people in situations. If I over hear them, what they say also helps me form an impression. It happens until we form an impression of a character based upon what we see in here on the screen, and you will be writing those details in your script. Our minds are made to observe and assess what and who is around us. We collect dots of information and reminds them for ways to connect the dots. Let's say you and a friend your friend points to a woman at the other table says. Oh, she's the ex Marine with an artificial leg who robbed a bank and got caught by the police when she stopped to save a drowning. That's all you need to start seeing the woman issue away. Your mind will be creating a mini movie. Your mind will be connecting those dots of info. Form your own backstory. You'll wonder why more better rubber band kisses are remember And like your friend to restaurant, you give the audience just enough dots of information so they can connect. These dots are the characters appearance, what they're saying and what they do. It can even be what they don't say in the story. It could even be what they don't do in the story. Like Gerald, who stays silent in the script as a life you also notice of a person dresses day after day , how they talk and walk and whether they walk that talk. Even a person's car can give you clues about the personnel such as is in a budget electric . Is it new? Is it old? Clean? Dirty is an old but spotless Now you might be thinking, um, don't have to create so much detail. That's pretty much your car. There are characters that have the bare minimum of info for the audience to go. But remember that video on YouTube of the baby Guana vs Snakes? That's just the bare bones entity in a dire situation that kicks up anything right away. So let's take a look at something that Hollywood seems to stress, which is likability and Baxter. Yeah, there's a problem with likability. I know the Hollywood studios tend to stress that, but, um, I think it's due to the fact that a lot of audiences they like to like the characters that the following and you pricing films that had characters that were hard to like but are still interesting and compelling. So the audience really doesn't have to always like a character, go for understanding. Go for compelled in this forest backstory. Well, that's a forget about unless you love thinking and if it helps to create a character, go ahead and create a backstory. But the audience does find about. If you watch those spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood in them. I mean, there's no still backstory for his character. Heck, he's known as the man with No Name. But consider this. If you want a back story that doesn't take up much time, you could write a short one and be like your friend at the restaurant, pointing out that mystery woman who's a vet, bank robber and savior of drowning kids and, best of all, tried to it visually. An example of that is the first few minutes of Alfred Hitchcock's rear window. Now, pretty much he gives you all the back story. You need to know how the main character broke his leg, but you also have a character reveals something about their past or another characters past just by talking about it. You can do this, but it better not be just exposition and info dumping. It would have to be vital to the story in things. An example of this would be like in Star Wars. A new hope. Obi Wan Kenobi briefly tells Luke Skywalker about his father by giving him just enough info for Luke and the audience to connect the dots. Now remember that an essential part of the story are obstacles, and that includes people. They could be obstacles, and these people are called Dylan's now their struggle. Israel two villains also have needs and wants, and they happen to be needs and wants are extremely dangerous to your characters. That's why they're called antagonists. Ah, well developed antagonists can be seen as a protagonist was their own predicament. Solution, plan, obstacles, consequences. Stakes If you tell the story from their point of view, and villains should have lots of determination, energy to pursue their goals. Their characters represent opposing sides of the theme, so this leads us to believable characters. So it's about letting the audience the involved emotionally after the get a feel for higher characters act and react. It's about what your characters would do to remember. Even if your plot doesn't make much sense, at least have your characters, actions and decisions make sense. If you've established how your characters behave and then sell it, make them say and do things, they're totally out of character. Without any logical or just a probable reason, your audience will no longer be engaged, and they no longer care. So the important thing is you have to make your characters understandable. You have to show their needs and wants and flaws through a plot that's well structured. So even though in real life you're characters known exist, you have to make sure their struggles seem really and you can base many themes on higher characters. Face these particular for struggle. These include death, isolation, meaninglessness and freedom. All of these issues makes one ask you, Emma, What is the world think I am? What do I want? So you do the same thing. Characters. You have to think about higher characters. We deal with these issues of being cute. Story will also show how they tackle these serious issues. Your characters will do what we did. They're going to struggle. We're gonna learn they're gonna adapt and hopefully will become different and better versions of themselves. The audience will know only root for them part, remember? So that wraps up pretty much this. Listen on, creating characters. Now, what we're gonna do is gonna take a look at what these characters are going to be doing and importantly what they're gonna be saying. So that's going to lead us to the next lesson, which is 11. Dialogue: Hey, welcome back. This lesson is gonna be about dialogue, Okay? The main use of dialogue is to show how your characters behave. Dialogue is how they show what they need and what they dialogue is how they show how they see themselves in the world, in the eyes of others. It's what they say and how they say it now. Dialogue also has to keep the momentum of the plot. It has to move things to the next scene will keep the audience enthralled and engaged. If you have your story, plot and structure, you can get the feel of what your characters are going to say and also how they're going to say it. This could be ineligible. Pdf's That's gonna have examples of dialogue that's well written and dialogue that could be better. Okay, so it was importantly regarding dialogue. Your job is a screenwriter is to be alert to how people talk. They pause and how they phrase things, especially when they're trying to fool themselves and for other people. Basically, when they're trying to get something from another person, your job is a story writer is to listen so that you can mimic on paper the rhythms, cadence, style and tone of your care. This will be crucial in your script in making your character something like people struggling with real channel. Remember that film is a visual medium, and it has to have drama and momentum. Dialogues should not get in the way of that. You should avoid having your characters explain what's happening. It one needs that that's called Exposition. An exposition is information that's given cold information is better presented visually. Inter with sound. The audio's wants to figure out what's going on, how the story will go. They like to feel involved and that they might have the story figure out. But if you have characters telling everything through dialogue, then it's just telling it. It's It's not showing in unless you can write dialogue like Elmore Leonard or David Mamet. Then you'd better refrain from having your characters explain stuff in each other. Movies are short, so you have to make dialogue multi task. If your story has something so momentous that forces the characters to be at a loss for words, go ahead, use the power of silence. Now you're gonna be creating a whole bunch of different characters and that is going to include ethnic care. Right? The dialogue, without trying to make the character sound like they have accents, you'll simply indicate the specific race of a character and then indicate that they have an accent. It's up to the director and the actors to do the rest. Many writers misspell words to give a character the appearance that they have an accent. It's tiring to read. It could be seen as insensitive. Go online and read the script for boys and notice how Singleton avoided going crazy with the ethnic dialogue. Go online and read the script for boys in the hood. Notice how Singleton avoided going crazy with the ethnic dialogue he doesn't misspell. Now. People hardly ever go to the movies to hear great dialogue. But people will remember if the dialogue was bad, boring and not believable. Everything. Your script must work together to carry the story, and it has to engage the audience along with it to the very end. And that is going to be our next lesson. We're gonna look at endings. Hey, welcome to Zali Studios. You need some professional video stuff. I want to share with you a few of the often benefits that come with being a prime Villager with Holly Studios Every month, you can Enjoyably one hour taping sessions with a professional crew. If you're an actor, did your audition tape? If you're a business owner coming, create content for your business at a reasonable price. You can even change the color. Also included in our prices. One had stopped per year. Become a prime Villager today. Get access to these benefits and more as a prime Villager. Join today at Dolly studios dot com. Our goal here is always to help artists create opportunities for themselves. That's why every month we hold collaboration events. In addition to our events, we give actors and screenwriters from all over the country the opportunity to create film concepts and scripts that are professional crews helped him produce. We call those many things you also receive discounts on all the services you need as a creator, actor or screenwriter. Click or enjoy the village to get a detailed list of all the awesome opportunities you get as a Zahle Villagers, in addition to the paid casting opportunities way, look forward to serving you, and I'll see you in the village 12. Endings: Hey, welcome back. We're gonna be talking about endings. Either you remember a movie from having a good ending or a bad in a forgettable ending in a way, is worse than a bad. If I forget how a movie ended, I'm as well never have seen it. Of course, we have seen films that started well but have disappointing endings. You start to think, Why didn't the writer figure out? The ending endings could be a source of a lot of anxiety for writers. Many novelists plug away writing hundreds of pages before knowing what the ending will look like. Well, it's a screenwriter. You're not gonna have that luxury. You're gonna have to have some idea of the ending before you start writing the first draft . Creating the ending early allows you to have an ending that you could tweak. Figuring out the ending of your script is important not only to reward the audience for their effort to engage with your characters, it is also imported as a story retro engineering. This allows you to figure out what needs to happen backwards and the time frame of your script. That way, the actions of your characters will make sense and be logical and just the file. Now the ultimate aim of most endings is to wrap up all the struggles of your characters and show how they win at the end. It's also emphasized the theme of your story. I say most endings because there are types of stories that are not just about heroic triumphs but also about heroic failures. There are also unheroic failures and unheroic triumph. Let's take a look at some common types of que. The most common one is the crowd. This is a heroic try. The audience likes or respects the protagonist, and the protagonist wins. In the end, the audience take away is a I want to be like that. The other type of ending is the Don't do this. This is the unheroic failure the audience dislikes. The protagonist loses in the end, and the audience take away is and I don't want to be like that. The other type of ending is what's wrong with people. This is a heroic failure the audience likes or respects a protagonist loses. In the end, the audience feels what that sucks. What's wrong with people in society? The other type of ending is what's wrong with world. This is an unheroic. The audience dislikes. The protagonist winds up winning, the audience feels. Yeah, I got to rethink what I believe about my society people myself. You're the type of ending could be labeled as the Vega and one in which the audience is left hanging, wondering what happens after the film is ended. The audience gets to stay engaged. After the ending. They will try to come up with their own conclusions. Now. The vague ending is tricky to pull off because it can irritate the audience, leaving them feeling manipulated and cheated. They will not stay engaged after the movie is over. When you work with your ideas and construct a story, I think of what type of ending you want. Knowing what type of point you're trying to make can help you narrow down the type of ending that fits. Make sure the ending wraps up the stories that all the characters actions will have been logical, justifiable, surprising and effect a lot of endings or weak because the writer didn't have a firm idea. But all the drama and adventuring was all about. That's why having the predicament in the solution for the story is important. That creates the plan, the obstacles and stakes. Every important part of making a story is making sure that there are consequences to your characters actions. These could be considered as the stakes. Those are the things that will happen if your characters don't get what they need and don't get what they want. It's what will happen if they don't make changes and actually step up and do what needs to get done in order to overcome the obstacles. A lot of films you see that they're not very effective And that reengaging, because the stakes are high enough. Now you have to be careful not making the stakes too high, because then it could be unbelievable. It's almost like it's gonna be too much to expect from the characters to basically overcome their obstacles on Boyd The stakes. So it's a fine balance of basically trading something that's believable and justifiable and something that's gonna keep the audience engaged in watching the characters go through their struggles. So that basically wraps it up for endings, and we're gonna look at getting ideas of writing the script 13. Getting Ideas: Hey, eyes, welcome back, and we're gonna be talking about getting ideas. Now. A lot of people ask writers. Hey, what do you get your ideas now? Writers don't have a hidden power where they get entire scripts popping into reality and smacking us in the face. I mean, great if that was true. But screenwriting is about his imagination taking fax feelings, ideas and information so that you can play with them to see what story can come out of it. Now I can teach you to be imaginative, but you can learn how to stock pull ideas and other things so that you can become or imagine. We get ideas by living and observing like everyone else. I think writers tend to be more curious and observed. The good thing is that you can train yourself to be more of the same way when you're out of work for at home observant, take notes, mental, Make notes on paper on your phone. Make sure that you read because reading is a huge source of ideas. It feeds Your reading about human psychology is vile to knowing how people act and why it will help with creating interesting characters other sources of ideas are reading about meeting people with interesting job. Like I said, reading a wide variety of things will feed your mind and love for dots of information to be connected in interesting ways. Now, personally, I keep in imagination file on my computer. It's full of ideas, images and situations of pop into my head. I don't catch those ideas and write them down will fade away, and I'll be left of this memory of well, of letting a good idea slip away. I also keep a dream journal. I'm a vivid dreamer and usually have a pretty good recall of my dreams that if I wait too long, it's gone. So I write him down right down the imagery of people. But they did what I did. I also write down what my senses detected his drinks. What did I touch? What did I smell? What I taste, what were the sounds and music? I also keep a journal and keep track of what I'm going through. My real life struggles in my drink. All that is food for thought and fearful creativity. I also never underestimate the power of daydreaming and reporting the brain seems more open to ideas when it's in a daydreaming mode. Another interesting mental state is right before you fall asleep or wake up. Many times I've had spiking and unusual things pop into my mind where I'm really sleepy and about in summary, wherever you can get your ideas right even down is useful. And playing with these ideas is key to generating characters store after he have enough ideas captured and saved, you could move on to creating your script. So basically that covers basically coming up with ideas. Next we're gonna cover. Well, we're gonna cover writing the darn thing. So I'll see you next. Us. Hey, and welcome to Zali Studios. You need some professional video stuff. I want to share with you a few of the often benefits that come with being a prime Villager with Holly Studios every month, you can enjoy a 31 hour taping sessions with a professional crew. If you're an actor, did your audition tape? If you're a business owner coming, create content for your business at a reasonable price. You can even change the color. Also included in our prices. One had stopped per year, become a prime Villager today, get access to these benefits and more as a crime Villager. Join today at Dolly studios dot com. Our goal here is always to help artists create opportunities for themselves. That's why every month we hold collaboration events. In addition to our Vince, we give actors and screenwriters from all over the country the opportunity to create their own concepts and scripts that are professional crews helped him produce. We call those many things you also receive discounts on all the services you need as a creator, actor or screenwriter. Click or enjoy the village to get a detailed list of all the awesome opportunities you get as a Zahle Villagers, in addition to the paid casting opportunities way, look forward to serving you and I'll see you in the village. 14. Starting the Darn Thing: Hey, welcome back work went to go over well, starting your script. So now it's time to raise your imagination file and use those images and scenes that have hijacked her brain. So you're gonna take what's in those files and metaphorically dump it on the floor like Legos, and you're going to choose what goes where. Now, if you like to cook, you're going to raid the fridge and put all your different ingredients on the kitchen counter in both metaphorical situations. You're going to have to get an idea of what you're going to end up with. What kind of ending. It's also time to figure out what will be the inciting incident, the big problem, part of your structure of your story. What's what gets your characters on their dramatic journey. If you can't figure out those parts yet, start from the beginning. Start with the undeniable external truth of the world that your characters and have it basically you will connect. You have to create the in between events so that you have a basic beginning, middle and end. Once you have the basic chunks of drama advancing scenes, you will start to connect what happens in between those parts by creating smaller bits of action and drama. It's like making a quilt a mosaic, like a jigsaw puzzle made of unique moments of time filled with drama. You're gonna end up making an outline. No, I know many of us find outlines tedious and constricting. When I was in school, I hated outlines. Why? Because I felt like I had to force fit my ideas and stories into something that was kind of appreciate You didn't help that the majority of outlining was for writing essays and term papers. But once I started writing scripts, I had to write a sentence for every major thing that would happen in the story. I noticed that it was basically outlining as a side effect of trying to make sense of all this stuff in my head on paper. So that's what we're gonna do next. We're gonna make it out, making the what happened before and after out. So we're gonna go into how I started script. Okay. Before you fire up your script writing software and type of first Logan line, you better have a detailed big picture of your entire story. It's kind of like being on Google maps. Were you zoom agency detail parts. That's gonna be pretty much how you're gonna make your story. You can think of making the outline is a quilt or a mosaic of a script chicken mixture. You have a story. We're also checking to see if your plot makes sense and that your characters actions make sense to. Now. My outlines are simple sentences of who is doing what and why they do it and what's gonna happen if they don't get what they want and what they need. I start with a basic components of this story. Remember, the story is a structured Siris of dramatic events about characters dealing with a problem . So when I do next is that I make sure I have these five basic elements off. Basically, what makes a story a story. The character characters have a predicament, which forces them to have a solution to fix the predicament, and in order to reach a solution, they gotta have a plan to fall. But there are obstacles in the form of people, monsters, tying villains, whatever. And then there are the consequences. The stakes. If your characters don't find a solution So what I do is I feel in what I have so far as the predicament, solution, plan, obstacles, consequences, stakes and for those in. So let's take a look at how I develop my script titled Gerald and Jet. So in my imagination, Pharrell had these basic images, scenes and care. I had a desire to explore the biblical verse of, and the meek shall inherit fears. I wanted to explore it as basically putting the lesser known definition of meat and close it in the guise of the mostly known definition. I wanted to write about someone who was vulnerable, sensitive and who appeared weak. In other words, meek. I wanted him to do something courageous by using the very things that made him appear weak . So that's how Jerrell was created. A shy 15 year old who had trouble speaking a boy who saw refuge in quiet interests like reading, art and photography. I saw in my inner movie screen Gerald falling for Jim. Now he works at a car wash, and Janet pulls up and gets out of the car. She's a goddess of a college dropout. Gerald is hypnotized in my imagination. I had scenes of them having a friendship blossom between them, and Gerald discovers he can speak freely when Janet is with. I also had images of his mouth, a single, and that there was a ritual in his house. He had to be home at a certain time, and he had to leave his backpack in the hallway so his mom could inspector. Now that was crucial to the ending. I wanted Gerald to prevent Jen from getting in trouble with the law. He steals an illegal substance from her car. Now she had no idea was there. But she has spared. When she actually gets pulled over by the police. Gerald stay silent and lets his mom assume the illegal substances hiss. Now it's a matter of fleshing out the structure. So using the five aspects of story, I got what Gerald's friendship with Janna is threatened by the arrival and bad influence of her export for a boat to Geral decides to protect her when he discovers drugs or ex head in her car. Three. Gerald plans to sneak out of his house, and while John and Bo, at a party break into her car and steal the drugs for he has to defy his mom and risk getting caught by boat. Five steaks are. If Gerald fails, Janet could get arrested. If he succeeds, he could get in trouble and cause shame to fall on his family. I knew there was more to the story but had to start some, so I used a story circle and arrange the main scenes in each of the eight sections. So I started with the characters, the world, its rules. So in a small town lives Gerald, who is shy and it's awkwardly quite. He has his freshman year feeling isolated, lonely. He gets a summer job at his uncle's car wash. Janna, a college girl visiting her family, becomes a customer and mesmerizes Jerry to the predicament that affects them. So a friendship losses between Gerold Ingen. He's not shy and awkward when he's around her. Instead, he was alive and valued. But Gerald's mom has mixed feelings about the friendship due to the age difference because she knows something of Jana's recent past that leads to three big problem Gerald Magennis. Friendship deepens. She teaches him to drive in general, notices her brake light is out and almost gets pulled over by a cop. Later, Gerald buys her a brake light so he could gallantly replace it. But she says to do it some other time, and she hands him a spare teacher car necklace. Things change when Janice troubled an arrogant ex boyfriend. Beau Appears wants to get back together with her, the end of spending time together and Gerald So that leads to four with a character struggled to solve to predicament. Gerald Struggles picks up Janice Absence He's back to feeling isolated and alone. He's awkward again. That leads to five characters find something crucial to the solution of the predicament combo of a heart external and internal truth. Geral is at the car wash when Janice Car pulls up. He's excited but out of the car steps bow, who regards Gerald as the kid that Janet toxic Gerald grudgingly begins to clean the car but first looks in a secret compartment used by Geralyn Janet, a high gifts. He discovers drugs hidden there. He goes back to uneasily cleaning her car Boat returns and Gerald mentions about the brake light, and Bo brushes him off. Now Geral is worried for Jenna, and he feels powerless to help that's gonna lead to number six. After accepting the external and internal truth, Janice getting back with Bo and his bad ways and generals and ability to stop that the characters realize they can out act instead of reactive predicament. So Gerald goes to assuming party, knowing that Janet will be there. Bo is there, too, and demands Janet to leave soon to prepare for a week and get away in her car. Gerald sneaks away interlocks Janice car over the spare key. He takes the drugs and breaks curfew. Getting back home. He leaves the drugs where his mom can find them. Seven. This is the part where all or nothing characters salted predicament or face the consequences. So next morning, Jan and Bo leave town. Janet drives and bickers with Bo, and he insists on meeting a friend on the way and get pulled over by a canine unit for the busted brake light. The police dog detects drugs, but none were found, and they get off with just a warning. That same morning, Gerald's mom finds the drugs and is furious and interrogates him, But Gerald stays silent. Even his uncle's patient pleading yields no answers Gerald's cousin is there, too, and she sends a text to Jannah asking her to come because she knows that Gerald will talk to her. Jan and Bo drive back to Gerald's house. Bo is silent, and he glares and Gerald thinking he's going to tell the truth. Instead, Gerald States, quite even with Janet gently asking him to speak the truth, Gerald glares back in boat. Everyone realizes the truth, and Jenna asks about to speak. Bose humbled, realizing that Jerrel has saved him in jannah from some serious trouble. And he agrees to confess. That leaves in Section eight, where the characters solved predicament and your changed by the struggle, and they have a new external and internal. Basically, they kicked ass. So Geral is at homecoming in his bro taller, and he's turning into a handsome young man. He's still alone while surrounded by the couple's Jenna's car appears. The crowd gasps says they recognize the former homecoming queen. She switches to the passenger side as journal gets in and they drive away. No. So your script, it will be fleshed out into a more detailed outline from the structure you give it. Remember, it's a matter of feeling Indian between spots by creating what happens before and after your main pieces of your story. So up next we're going to write the script and we're gonna write it so it'll be read very easily so 15. Writing Style, Think of the Reader: array. We're gonna cover writing style. So as a writer, your job is to make sure you make your script enjoyable to read, easy to understand and easy to visualize on the big screen. You're going to have to make your script a page turner. You're going to use the present tense when describing the action. Your word choices are gonna have to be precise. It is essential that your wording allows reader to see the movie in their mind. That means you will have to know in your mind where every scene takes place, who is where and what they're saying and what they're doing. You cannot risk confusing the reader about what's going on. You're making a blueprint for a movie, and that means what is being read has to be easily understood so that it can be made if you If you can't shave words out of your sentences and dialogue and still keep the actor information in it, you must say more with less. There's one more thing you will do, and that is thou shall not bore the reader. You will use precise words to make vivid sentences, which will become visually engaging scenes of your hard to put down script. So go Online and Dallas, grips of famous films, re the ones that won Oscars or were nominated. Read the scripts of your favorite films and study the wording and compare with three go online and download scripts of famous films. Read the ones that won Oscars or nominate. Read the scripts of her favorite films and study how they're worded and compare that with how you Right after you do that, and after you write your first draft, you will get out to the business of editing it, which is that's where the real fun begins. So you think you wrote the next award winning script? You read it over and you have your trusted friends read it and you realize you've written a steaming pile of crap. Now what? What you do is you listen to all the feedback and see why things weren't working. One of the main things that could derail your script is spelling folks. Bad spelling kills everyone. It makes one look sloppy and uncaring about the reader. It comes off as lazy. It also sends a signal to the reader that if something as easy as running a spell check wasn't done. What about the story? What about the plot? You know, the really difficult things to write. So what you do is you go back and you correct everything. Read your script out loud. It's better to wince now instead of later. Then you read it again. If you see more mistakes or your trusted readers still or I'll blow it away, fix it until it does. Being a screenwriter also entails getting tougher. I tried to look for criticism, seek it and listen to the feedback. It's the attitude to have so that your character is gonna have a better life. Once you have gone over your script and feel you can't do anything extra to make it any better, you're done. Put it away for a bit and then read it later. And if there's still nothing more to do to improve it, you're done done. Then you send it to whoever wants it or whoever would want. Then what you do next is rager. Imagination file and you start another script. So that's basically it on editing and writing it to make it more readable up. Next, we're going to cover procrastination so I'll see the next course. Stop. Hey, and welcome to Zali Studios. You need some professional video stuff. I want to share with you a few of the often benefits that come with being a prime Villager with Holly Studios every month, you can enjoy a 31 hour taping sessions with a professional crew. If you're an actor, did your audition tape? If you're a business owner coming, create content for your business at a reasonable price. You can even change the color. Also included in our prices, one had stopped per year. Become a prime Villager today. Get active these benefits and more as a prime Villager. Join today at Dolly studios dot com. Our goal here is always to help artists create opportunities for themselves. That's why every month we hold collaboration events. In addition to our Vince, we give actors and screenwriters from all over the country the opportunity to create their own concepts and scripts that are professional crews helped him produce. We call those many things you also receive discounts on all the services you need as a creator, actor or screenwriter. Click or enjoy the village to get a detailed list of all the awesome opportunities you get as a Zahle Villagers, in addition to the paid casting opportunities way. Look forward to serving you and I'll see you in the village. 16. Writing Tip #1 Let Your Script Breath: when you're writing the action scenes in the script, trying not to write it as one big giant block of text, try to break it up, try to break it up visually so that action looks like it's being it'd reader reads it. The reader should be able to visualize cut for edit That way, when it's on the page, Reader doesn't see like all this black ink, that's pretty tough to read through detail. That's amazing. Scripts need to have some air that way. There's nothing that box because they make your skin age join easy to read and easy to visualize, because Winter scripts made into films so make it as easy as possible. 17. Writing Tip #2 Start With the End: wanted for you is to start your story. Start your script with the ending first. It sounds counterintuitive, but a lot of times that is the easiest way to go is a happen ending and then work backwards to what happened before the ending. Then what happened before? The thing that happened right before the you keep going backwards and backwards until you get to a beginning. It does seem to sound backwards to do, but that's most efficient ways. Figuring out your decent. It's very important because you have a decent script for have made into a decent. 18. Writing Tip #3 Short Films: Here's a tip for those who don't particularly one, write a feature film that's about 90 minutes long. There are a lot of short films out there, and I definitely think about an Oscar to best short film. Uh, short film is like a short story, a novel which has definitely a distinct beginning, middle and end and could be quite long. Short story could be considered as almost like has the writer Neil Gaiman said that a short story is almost like the last chapter. It's really more of a slice of life. Something happens Greece all period of time, and it's not gonna have much of plot a large structure as a feature film. But a lot can be said in a short film for those, maybe an avenue to explore. Definitely, I think it's worth your time to try and write those. One of the biggest advantages Air writing a script for a short film is that it becomes easier and easier to start a script and finish it. It's very common for writers to started start a feature Phil length script and they just get halfway in the new definition. But short film you can actually have a 10 page script, 20 page script, and that's something that's realistic to start and because finishing so important. 19. Writing Tip #4 Finishing the Script: you know, a tip on Finishing a good one is to always consider that the script that you do finish that someone can read it's gonna be much better then the script that you have in your head and again I stress that you have to finish what you start. I mean, there times when you will start something and it doesn't pan out on you feel like I just have to just don't even see it through. But that's the case. Just start something else smaller, maybe a short film script. Go ahead and finish and see it through to the end because you have to see something that you finished to complete something because it's gonna be a lot better. Have something tangible read from Start just reading invisible script that no one else can read being stuck in your head 20. Writing Tip #5 Find Time: a lot of you who are wanting to write full time but can't because he have a day job and feel frustrated. Always considered that instead of saying, you know, I wish I had all data right instead of complaining that he's all I've got is an hour and it doesn't seem like it's even worth doing, anything within an hour should change her attitude and actually think that Hey, man, I've got an hour. Actually, I could get something better, even if it's just writing a sentence of the night. So those of you this is your day jobs. Just lunch break. Many breaks our two before work the hour two before you go to bed, those add up, you gotta fill those up with writing. It is just, you know, writing just a bunch of rough ideas, just capturing things that you have seen or thought about. Those hours add up and you have to treat those little extra hours a zoo, a part time job. So you have to say to yourself, This is my little part time job, and I have an hour to do this job, which is right. One portion off on idea. That's gonna go. My script 21. Writing Tip #6 Find your voice: something that a lot of writers talk about is the importance of finding your voice to me. I think that finding your voice is really a side effect. A writer's voice is their style. It's the way they write that when you read them, you're like, Oh, this is so you know, like this writer or that writer. But the weight find your voice is really doing the work of writing and writing, especially finishing what you start. If you do that enough times, gradually, you're going to go way of writing to you. It's gonna be pretty much the side effect, all the work you put in all the stuff that you've done from start to finish. Voice is a side effect, the writing diligently. 22. Writing Tip #7 Criticism Notes: So let's let you finish your script. You got that first draft and you want to have somebody read it. Try to find people that you know, you know, their friends, but the top of friends that just tell it to you straight. If you have family members reach your stuff, it might be that they love you so much that they're afraid to say something that needs to be said. So give it to them so they could read it anyway. But just very mind that you might be sure, Sugar coating some things that really you need to be looking at more diligence. So find readers that definitely are gonna shoot it straight. Really hurt your feelings didn't offer you. It's called constructive criticism. Your job is to have 40 to actually seek out because you want to be fooling yourself thinking, Oh, wow, I've written something amazing. I'm ready to send it out. Maybe he's got things that needs to be addressed. We all have blind spots and blind spots air there because we just can't tell them that they're there. We don't know that there are other people can see them. So definitely, uh, constructive criticism is a way for you to get better faster in the film industry, there are these things called notes, and a lot of screenwriters get perturbed about getting notes from people involved in the film because, hey, they're not writers. So what do they know? I'm going right in this thing. I'm doing the work but actually knows very important, because thing about notes is that definitely read them. You don't have to really change anything based upon the suggestion of it's need to look closely at what caused that person to have to write a note in the first place. It could be something that was confusing, something big, and that's something definitely worse looking at. So you do get notes the very gracious, polite and very open because making films is a very collective, team oriented endeavor, and if they're writing notes, basically means that they read your script, care enough to let you know that something needs to be addressed. So take it with good my gratitude. Small your pride, you might learn something new 23. Writing Tip #8 Read Produced Scripts: you nowadays. It's so easy now to read scripts back when I was in college in the eighties and nineties was pretty much before the Internet, and if he wanted to read a script, you had to find one at the library just by one bookstore. But nowadays online, you can find a lot of websites. I have scripts, but I recommend is getting a PdF file of actual shooting script instead of a text file of a transcript. Because the transcript is This is just a dialogue that's been written down into a transfer . But a shooting script in his instrumental Learning Stream writer wrote the film, and with that you could burn when they wrote it, techniques creating action. And also you start to see how different shooting script would be from the final product. So I definitely recommend reading as many film scripts as possible. 24. Writing Tip #9 Dont Lock Down Talent: Okay, so you're starting your script and you have these amazing characters and you think you definitely think that Brad Pitt needs to act in this movie that you're writing? Uh, don't put any descriptions of your characters with any references to actors because it's not up to the writer. It's gonna be up to director. It's gonna be something that's very much between the director and the casting director. So don't right Tom, a tall, dashing, muscular type just like Brad Pitt. Don't do that because that's just something that it's not up to you just a 25. Writing Tip #10 Script Directing: screenwriter. You are gonna be responsible for providing just enough detail in the action so that the reader can visualize it in the film Scream of their mind. The one thing about detail that had to be careful about is not to put so much detail on how the character is saying something or how they're doing something, because that could be construed reader, especially directors and the actors as screenwriter. Basically directing on the page detail is something that you again just enough amounts to give Justin a complete picture of what's going. 26. Writing Tip #11 Useless Dialogue : okay. As a screenwriter, Definitely going to be involved in running dialogue. You gotta have your character say something. But you got to do is make sure your characters are not talking like normal people. Like people. You can't stay. You know, the ones that just go on about the weather and just say Hey, what you doing? Oh, I'm not doing much. Hey, what are you doing? That's just useless. Basically, dialogue has to move. The plot has to show character, and it has to be very efficient in conveying This is the information to get the story going so right dialogue that is compressed and not the jibber jabber banter. You don't like to hear real life. 27. Writing Tip #12 Writers r Readers: So, as I mentioned earlier, Reading is so important, writer, especially to a screenwriter. And there are so many books out there screenwriting, and I've read quite a few of those are red quite a lot in college and definitely afterwards read a character plotting formatting many different things. But a different one book I would recommend that explains things very thoroughly and did change the way I write scripts. Is the spring riding down to the Atoms? And it's by Michael Shaq. Definitely. I would recommend that. Get this book. I got mine on Amazon. Uh, I think that, uh, you get a lot from this. Writing down to the Adams is my recommendation.