WRITE A MOVIE IN 14 DAYS: Fast Screenwriting for Screenplay, Storytelling, and Film Success

1. Write a Movie in 14 Days with website resources: Hey, I'm Joining the Mila, a proficient screenwriter with over 25 produced credits, and I have years of experience selling screenplays. I've written dozens of feature films and multiple genres for many directors, producers, and production companies. In this course, I will teach you how to write a movie in 14 days. Each section of this course will reflect a different day. And each day, I'll show you what to focus on to get your screenplay done. Your movie won't just be in an ID anymore, but it'll be a finished screenplay. You'll see my process from outlining the script to writing it daily, and how writing every day can be fun and rewarding. It also hold you accountable to keep moving forward. And I'll be using examples from commercially successful and critically acclaimed films. Many people out there just talk about writing. And then there are writers who actually do write. I want to help you be a doer and get your screenplay done. In this course, I'll teach you how to be a writer who finishes their script. Like the heroes in your story who have a goal they want to accomplish. I'll show you how to accomplish your goal of writing and selling your screenplay. Now, let's start writing, so you can finish your screenplay. For free student resources that correlate to this course. Visit my website at www.jordanemiola.com. There, you can also find my ebooks, podcast, script coverage services, and a whole lot more. My website offers one on one writing sessions and group courses over Zoom. Can teach you to write your first movie TV show or how to write and produce your series or film. I have clients who work nine to five jobs, and have had ideas for movies or TV shows for years, but they just haven't taken the action to put their ideas into a script. And I can guide you on how to do that and make sure you finish it. You can find more information on my website at www jordola.com. 2. Screenwriting Terminology: Before you start your 14 day journey, here are some screenwriting terminology that you should know. Pretty much every story has three acts, and we'll cover this more in the next lesson. Your first act is the beginning. Your second act is the middle, and your third act is the end. Antagonist. The antagonist is the villain of your story. What is fighting your hero from winning their goal? This could be a person or a thing, or even just running out of time. Whatever is fighting your hero is the antagonist. But a strong antagonist is usually a strong character exposition. This is the backstory of your main characters. What happened to them in the past before the movie started? But when they talk and give out exposition, you always want to entertain the audience. If you look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the original 1990 film, we learn how the Turtles became mutant, but it's shown and not told. The exposition is told to April by Splinter, but it's still entertaining the audience, interior and exterior. You'll start each scene with a scene heading and we use capital and T period, which means interior and capital T period which means exterior interior pretty much means inside an exterior means outside and then lets the place the scene takes place. And if it's day or night, for example, interior coffee shop day means inside a coffee shop. You then use action description below that to state what's going on inside the scene. If you're writing your first screenplay, one important note is you only capitalize the name of your character in all caps when they are first being introduced. Using all caps is the way the reader knows that this character is being introduced for the first time. We know this is a new character. If they have all caps and their name fade in and fade out, fade in is what happens when the movie starts. Before we see any characters or action. The first words in your script are fade in contrasting. That is fade out. These are the last two words of any screenplay, and this states This is the end of the film. You will never have a fade in more than once and you will never fade out more than once. Internal motivation and external motivation. Okay, so this is something I had trouble with when I was in college and I first started writing scripts. The internal motivation is what the character wants inside. They may not even be aware of their internal motivation, but it's the motivation that isn't talked about. And usually the internal motivation gets resolved at the very end of the film. The external motivation is the thing they want, that they actually do talk about the external motivation and Home Alone, as Kevin wants to be away from his family and he wants to be home alone. But the internal motivation is he wants to prove he can be more of an adult and actually does want to be appreciated by his family. Logline. A logline is a very quick synopsis of your movie. You use your logline to pitch your film to producers, directors, and even friends just so they can get a concept of the movie very quickly. But don't reveal everything. Make it intriguing so they want to read the script. The first screenplay I ever sold the logline was a feel good comedy about a boy trying to kill himself. That's only 11 words and one sentence, but it made a lot of producers want to read the script. And the irony in this logline made some producers laugh, which also helped sell it. Option An option is usually what happens first before you sell a screenplay. If a producer wants to buy your script, they will option it first for 10% of the sale price, and then they own the rights to the script for a limited amount of time so they can find cast, crew locations, etc. to make the movie. So, for example, say the sale price is $90,000, a producer will pay you $9,000 to option it for a certain amount of time. Most of my options are a year and a half. So in that year and a half, they have to get everything ready to produce the movie. We call this the development stage or pre-production. If after that amount of time they don't have everything together, then the rights go back to the writer and the writer can try an option and sell it to someone else. And the initial money they paid you to option the script is always yours from the minute you sign the contract and get that 10% check. Celebrate with that money. I always go out for a nice fancy dinner on those days. If the producer does get everything ready in that amount of time, then they pay you the other 90% of the money. So if it was a $90,000 sale price, you would get $80,000. Once the film goes into production, buy yourself a really fancy breakfast, lunch and dinner on those days. Protagonist The protagonist is the hero of your story. It's the main character we follow throughout the story. And Bridesmaids. It's Annie and the Pursuit of Happiness. It's Chris Garner and Happy Gilmore. It's Happy Gilmore. If you're writing a film with an ensemble cast, then you can have several protagonists set pieces. A set piece is really just a fun thing in your movie. Sometimes it doesn't have anything to do with the plot, but it's just fun. It could be a car chase or an animal or a building blowing up. Set pieces usually give a payoff to the audience watching, and they're usually expensive to produce. Show. Don't Tell. This is a term used by producers and other writers. When you get notes, it's when a character is talking about something instead of the audience seeing it. Whenever you can show the audience, whatever they're talking about, we generally remember what we're shown and not what we're told. 3. How to Format a Screenplay: If you're brand new to screenwriting, then this quick video lesson will show you the basics of how to format a screenplay. There are many screenwriting softwares out there to choose from. For the first decade of my career, I used final draft, which was considered the industry standard at the time. But then in 2016, I discovered my favorite screen warning software, writer Duet, and I've been using writer Duet ever since. I'll be using writer Duet for this demonstration, and you can sign up and use writer Duet for free at writer duet.com. There you can write your first three scripts for free. For this quick demo, I'm going to rewrite the first page of my feature film screenplay, Leap Day. It's an ensemble comedy about the craziness, confusion, and chaos that can only happen on that extra day we get every four years. These are the basics, and this will get your story going. All right. So the first thing you do for any screenplay is fade in. You're only going to fade in once at the very beginning of the screenplay, and at the end, the last thing you do is fade out. So open a document. You'll see this. When you press Enter, you'll see all these choices. What I want to do is transition. So transition and then fade in. With a lot of screenwriting software, they make it super easy. All you have to do is press enter and you'll get choices, and you can just keep moving forward. Back in the day people had use a typewriter, but now it's super easy, and anyone can do this from anywhere. So after you fade in, then you'll start every scene with a scene heading, which is also known as a slug line. For leap day, it starts off in a hockey arena. I put interior hockey arena. You're always going to use INT for interior and EXT for exterior. Always remember, interior means inside, exterior means outside. If this scene was outside a hockey arena, I would put EXT period hockey arena. But since it's inside, I'll use INT period hockey arena, which means interior hockey arena. All right after that, then you start writing the action description. For this, I'm going to put, it's a packed house. In the third row, Lucy, who's my main character. She's 29, usually put the age after the character, and then you describe them. She wears punk rock wardrobe. I could say that word. She's frazzled because she's about to do something she's never done before. And she's with her sister right now. So talks with her sister, Jade, 31 business casual tire. She's way more professional than her sister. She's cool calm, cool, and collective. Now you'll notice, I capital put this in All Capitals. Her name, Lucy, and I put Jade in All Capitals. You only do this when you first introduce a new character. This is how the reader is going to know this character is brand new. But from this point on, I'm only going to have the first initial of Lucy's name be capitalized and the first initial of Jade's name be capitalized. After that, I'll do some dialogue. I just press Enter and tab, and then I'm going to type in Lucy. Now from now on, you'll see this in all screen noting software. It's going to keep this name. It's going to be easier for me to write and I'll just pop up, and I'll show you that in a second. I can't believe I'm going to do this. Then again, enter and then I press tab, bring dialogue again, I'll type in Jade. You and Tommy have been together. It's okay to mispeel things. I do it all the time. It's about time you got engaged. If you're figuring this out now, Lucy's about to ask her boyfriend to marry her. I'll put Lucy, hold a ring and looks at the empty seat. Next to her. Then I press enter again, tab because I'm going to go back to dialogue and you see SCR pops up Lucy. I got to use press L and then boom. It gives me that press L and then enter, and it fills in the rest of the name. I don't just keep typing in Lucy every time I put in dialogue. I'll put in L and it'll find it for me. I don't know about this. And then I'll again enter tab. There's J. J just pops up. If there's only two characters, you screen software, we read like who's going to be next. I'll put women, propose to men all the time. Especially on Leap Day. It's a Leap Day tradition. It is. I've done a bunch of research on Leap Day, and this actually is a huge tradition. Take a leap. Then, I just pressed tab again. And then I'll write down Lucy. I'll go, Okay. Okay. I'm leaping. And then I'm going to introduce Lucy's boyfriend. I'll start typing an action description again. They look behind them. As Lucy's boyfriend, enters the aisle. I'm going to describe him. He's a blond. You always describe the character, especially main characters. You don't need to describe minor characters. L say, you just have a random I know waiter. You don't need to describe that person, but any time as a main character, you want to give them a little description. The reader knows this person is important and they're forwarding the story. He's a blond, tatted up 29. You year old musician. Named Rocket. Again I'm going to capitalize. Just for now I'm going to capitalize his name in all caps because this is a brand new character. This makes it easier for the reader to know, this is a brand new character. Rocket launcher Tommy. As you can see, the screen software doesn't know, I have a new character in the dialogue, but it will from this point on. I put a Rocket Tommy, and then I do his dialogue. I'm not going to do all caps anymore. Hey, sweetie, here. I got us all more beers. Anything else you need before the third period. Again, as you can see, it has all the characters now that I've written so far. As I add more characters, they'll just show up. All I got to do is just type in the first initial and it'll just pop up automatically. All screen learning software does this pretty much. I'll just have type in L. Lose using it pops up, press Enter, and then that's it. No, honey, that's all. That's that's the basics. This scene goes on for another four pages, but I don't want to waste your time and keep showing you things I just shown you. That's pretty much all you got to know. This scene a Jade leaves, and then Lucy gets down on one knee and there's a big announcement in the hockey arena. Then the camera goes on Lucy and rocket Launcher Tommy. By the way, Rocket launch Tommy, yes, it's a parody of what's his name, Machine Gun Kelly. But anyway, Lucy proposes to Rocket Launcher Tommy and rocket Launcher Tommy says, No and breaks up with her in front of thousands of people. This is the first scene of my screenplay leap day. But that's it. If after this scene, again, this isn't a full scene yet. But the scenes four pages long, but after the scene, when you want to start a new scene, again, you just go to a new scene. If I wanted to do a new scene, say I want to do a coffee shop. I could do INT period again, which means interior and then coffee shop. Again, the screening software will remember the different locations. If ever wanted to go back to the hockey arena, it'll remember it. I'll just put day. As you can see, there's day, night, continuous later moments later in morning. The two you use the most are day and night. You can use the other ones, continuous, especially use if you're going from inside a building to outside a building and it's a It's continuous within the scene. You use that every again, but really the basics are day and night. Those are the ones you'll use the most, and you can use these other ones if you like. But day and night are the ones you'll see the most. I'll just put into your coffee shop and then keep going. Whatever next scene is. Lucy drinks coffee. Blah, blah, blah. If you're like me and you make spelling and grammar mistakes, you can go back and fix them later. I always tell my clients progress is more important than perfection. The first screenplay I ever sold had a bunch of misspellings when I looked back at it years later. But the reason it sold is because the story was great. And if you have an amazing story, people don't notice those mistakes because they're so into the story. If you like to see the first ten pages of Leap Day or other script examples, you can find these on my website at WWW Jordan emola.com slash Examples. 4. Day 1 - Inspiration Day: Welcome to day one of how to write a movie in 14 days. I like to call this first day inspiration day, because what you do today is going to inspire you for the next two weeks. To kick things off, I would suggest getting these materials a large corkboard. You combine this online or at retail store, a pack of index cards, texts to stick your index cards on the cork board, some pens and screenwriting software. There's a ton of them out there. My favorite is right or duet. We'll be using a corkboard to plot out scenes for your movie and lay out the structure. Whenever inspiration hits you for our new scene, write it down on an index card and put it on your court report. As you can see, the sport is blank, but I'll be reading my own movie over the next four days. And by the end of it, and this work was filled with cars. And we'll each have a first draft of the screenplay done. Here's a picture of an old cork board I used from years ago. I use this to write my family comedy. Quit your kids. Here are a few things you should do today to help build inspiration. Give every character a name today, write down all the names, your main characters, and start to think about their wants and their goals and your story. It's important to give your characters names as soon as possible because it helps build and remember the characters in your brain. Saying a story about a dude is very general. And a dude can be literally anyone. But if you use names like Alex or marvin or Zoe, this helps you build a character more in your head and it will help draw inspiration. Use names with different initials. Try to avoid names with the same first initial. It'll be easier for your brain to remember them right now and not to get them mixed up. Instead of naming character is like Dana, Diana and Denise. Try to have Lana, Diana, and Shirley. Nothing is permanent. If you want to change the name of the characters later, that's an easy fix. Watch a movie or movies similar in tone to yours. Today, watch a movie, or if you have time, watch several movies that are similar in tone and genre to the one you're writing. If you're writing an action buddy comedy, than watch critically acclaimed and commercially successful buddy action comedies like rush hour, the heat or 21 Jump Street. If you're writing a movie about a hockey, then watch the money ducts, snapshot or Goon. If you're reading an animated road trip movie, than watch Ice Age Finding Nemo or the Mitchell's versus the machines. Whatever you're writing. What successful movies that are similar logline. Today you want to figure out your logline for your movie. Think about writing as a road trip and the logline are the directions on how to get there. You can change routes and still get to the same destination, but you need to start somewhere. My college professor always taught me to never make a logline over 30 words. And I think this is a good rule of thumb. If it's over 30 words, read it again until it's under 30 words. In this course, I'm not only going to teach you how to write a movie in two weeks doing this myself as well. The movie I'm writing isn't ensemble comedy title leap day. And I have a few ideas for it so far, but not much. I'll be doing everything I'm teaching you and you'll see my process and action. And again, I can't stress this enough. Manuscript ideas can change the next 13 days, and that's totally okay. Right now, we're trying to get the creative juices going. I like to brainstorm and write ten log lines. And then I pick and choose the one long line. I like the most from those ten. As you can see here, the one I highlighted in yellow is my favorite one right now for leap day, all the movies I've sold so far, the logline has been one-sentence. If you need to make a logline two sentences, that's usually fine too. But you want to draw the interests of the reader without giving away too much. Let them find out more about reading the script. Another thing you could do is brainstorm a bunch of log lines and then email your friends and let them choose their favorite one. Here's an email for a script I option to couple of years ago. And they responded with a number they liked most corresponding to their favorite logline. One thing to note is your logline might change after movie gets sold and produced. The logline for the Christmas Zoom movie I made in 2020. Christmas vacation was when a family can't be together on Christmas, they bring their dysfunctional family Christmas online. Christmas vacation is now on Tooby and they changed the logline on there. The logline on to-be is a young woman throws a Christmas Zoom party with her extended family, proving that fun holiday chaos doesn't have to happen in person. I actually don't mind this change at all. And I liked that someone on TV took the time to do this. I like their logline. Start to think about your three acts. Act one is the beginning and setup of your story. Act two is the middle confrontation and heart of your story. And act three is the big event and ending of your story. In Wonder Woman. We spent Act One on the island of the mascara, seeing Diana grow up. Act two is one. Diana leaves the island for the first time and goes to find and fight Aries, the god of war. Act three is when she finds areas and as the epic fight between them, speed. All of act one, we meet our hero Jack, played by Keanu Reeves and the villain Howard Payne, played by Dennis Hopper. Act one is when Jack takes down Howard for the first time. And we think Howard is dead, act too. It's all about the bus. We learned if the bus slows down under 50 miles per hour, Obama blow up and I've wanted the bus will die. Act three is the final fight as Dennis Hopper kidnaps Sandra Bullock. And there's a subway fight scene. Jack and Howard fight each other on top of the subway car, one-on-one. If you don't know screenplay structure, I see just from watching my first-class where I cover screenplay structure. And I keep it fun by using examples from movies like home alone, alien, dodgeball, and many more. I use some of those examples in this class too. But that one really dives into the structure even more. You can also find that class on Skillshare by clicking on my profile. For today, set up your workspace with a cork board and materials. Put all your ideas in one place. And then if you can lay out five scene ideas and an ID cards and put them on the court board and they don't have to be an order. Okay. So that's my reading session. This is what my board looks like right now. As you can see, I took pieces of paper and put X1, X2, and X3. All of these pieces of paper and my index cards might move, but this will get my brain organized right now. And I also named all my characters. 5. Screenwriting Tips: Here are some helpful guidelines to get your movie done. Try to write for 14 days consecutively. If you can't do this, it's okay. But the more days you're at consecutively, the memorial will stay in your subconscious and inspiration will find you. If you only write once a week, then you spend a lot of time reviewing and remembering what you did last week. This brings me to my second, I recommend writing first thing in the morning before you go to work or school, or if you have kids before they wake up. Most people think they can right after they get out of work. But by then, their bodies and minds are too tired and they find excuses not to write once they get home. But if you wake up and right, you'll be thinking about your script throughout the day and inspiration will come to you spontaneously. I like to carry a notebook or loose sheets of paper for when this happens. But you can also use your phone to write down ideas or carry some index cards with you. When writing, put your mind in jail and just write. If you're in jail, you wouldn't have a phone to distract you or email or internet or anything like that. So just sit down and get it done. You'll be glad you did at the end of every writing session. All those distractions can wait. If writing this movie is important to you, then you have to make it important. Shonda rhymes as a writer, I look up to, and she has one scheduled time of day when she looks at e-mails, it's in the afternoon, before and after that, she is constantly writing. I've sold an option, several screenplays, and that's because I know everything else can wait. I often leave my phone in a separate room. I won't get it until I accomplished my writing goal for the day. I'd like to make money from writing to treat it like a job. Also, I would watch his class as a whole first. So you know what's coming up as you write. And you might be inspired to write future pages after you read the pages you have for each day. But don't get intimidated by what's ahead. Only focus on the lesson of that day. Take it day by day, and focus on one thing at a time. 6. Day 2 - Outline Day: Welcome to day two. Today is outlined a take that document or no, but they started yesterday. I tried to organize all your ideas and keep adding ideas to create an outline. For today, brainstorm different storylines if you don't know your storylines already. For my film, I'm writing an ensemble comedy and I brainstormed about 39 different storylines that can happen on leap day. Some of them are god awful, terrible ideas, but brainstorming and not judging my own ideas the time let some storylines that I really like. Out of the 39 storylines I brainstormed, I'm only keeping four of them. You can also brainstorm different scenes today and don't worry about the order. Tried to focus on the beginning of your story a little bit more as we'll be reading the first acts soon. But if you have ideas for act three, by all means, add those ideas to your index cards and add them to the board. It always helps to know what's going on in the future. Also, throughout this class, use both your outline and your index cards. The index cardboard is a great way for seeing the whole story. And you can move things around and get an idea of the whole picture. But if you feel inspired to write down more detail information or Dialog conversations, feel free to keep them in your outline until you add them to the script. As you brainstorm different scenes, think about the emotional shift in each scene. Going from a positive moment for your hero to a negative moment for your hero. For example, if you look at the first scene of Iron Man, it starts off on a positive note and ends at a negative note. The scene starts off with Tony Stark drinking and laughing and taking pictures and an army truck. It's all positive until things blow up and Tony gets kidnapped. There's a major or emotional shift, positive to negative. I suggest using a plus and minus system on your index cards to track the conflict and emotional shift in each scene. This is a tip I read and Blake centers excellent book, Save the Cat. But I've also seen it in the book story by Robert McKee and a few other places. Writing rooms will also use this. And it helps you think about conflict in every scene. The first scene of my movie, leap day, my main character Lily and her best friend Jade, are excited and happy because Lily is going to propose to her longtime boyfriend. This is a positive emotion. But when she does propose her boyfriend, not only it says, no, he breaks up with her in front of thousands of people. This is negative and it creates great conflict in the scene. As you outline a brainstorm new scenes. So you have five more carts, your court report. A general guideline is there's about 40 scenes in the movie and each scene is about 2.5 minutes. It's completely varies with every movie in every scene, but that's just a guideline to help you. Next week your board will have 40 scenes, give or take. My boards generally have around 45 courage to represent 45 scenes. But again, every movie is different. 7. Day 3 - Character Day: Alright, day three, character day. Today is all about your main characters and figuring out who they are and what they want. I've added a character questionnaire to drive your characters. Have fun with these. Remember to make your character's flawed. Everyone is flawed, so we want to see flawed characters onscreen. Think about your favorite characters in movies. They probably all have major flaws, especially at the beginning of the movie. Nobody likes to see perfect people. Perfect people are not interesting. Make your characters distinct and different from each other. Nobody should sound the same. If you look at the hangover, Every main character is different. We are introduced to them one-by-one, and they all have distinct introductions. Do character questionnaires. I've attached a character questionnaire to fill out for all your main characters. And if you ever get stuck in your story, looking back at the answers to these questions can often get the creative juices going. Again, the answers to these questions don't have to be permanent. One thing may lead to another and the other thing you may keep. But the idea that stem from is the one you might cut later. Alright, I wanted to go over the questions in the character questionnaire. You should be answering these questions for every main character you have in your story. And this will really help inspire ideas and goals for your character and you'll know them past, present, and future pretty much after you answer these questions. And what's great about this question as well, is if you ever get stuck writing and your key can't figure out how to move your story forward. It always helps me to look back at these questions. And it always inspires ideas. Sometimes come up with a different, different angle or I'll be like, Oh, the character we respond this way. This really helps, you know, their dialogue as well and just, you know, the character in and out after you answer these questions thoroughly. So let's just, let's just dive right into them. So first question is, what is their full name? So do they have a middle name? Do they have is to just first and last name. Every character is different, but you want to include their firstName and lastName at the very least. Number two, how old are they? Are they 30s, 20s, teens, or whatever. Every, every character should have an H. Number three, what is their physical description? So this could be their height, their weight, the way they present themselves, the way they dress, their hair? Do they have long hair? Do they have short hair or they bald? I think, really think about physically when you see them, what do they look like? This will really help paint the picture in your head of what this character looks like. So feel free to go crazy on this. Write a whole paragraph, or just write a sentence that really paints a picture. Number four, what is their marital status? Are they single? Are they married? Are they are they are they straight or gay or whatever their romantic or not. So romantic relationship is. If they have any, put that down. This could be, could be one word. It could be a sentence totally up to you. Could be a lot more. Number five, what was their childhood like? So think about what they're, what they're like from ages five to 15. I think a lot of times too. Did they have siblings? Are they Are they the oldest sibling and their family? Are they the youngest sibling? Are they an only child? I think growing up with siblings or being a sibling can really shape who you are. So think about that. Also. Where did they grow up? Did they, did they live in the same city when they were a kid or do they move around a lot? They have the same childhood home. You want to spend a good probably paragraph or more on that question. What was your childhood like? Number six, what is their current occupation and what were their past jobs? So think about where they work right now and then think about how they got there. That's kinda what it really helps me. They could be working at the same job for the past ten years and maybe they love it or maybe they hate it, maybe they're sick of it and they wish they went to other jobs. Maybe the job hot, maybe every six months they got a different job. And so they're very experienced in a lot of different different things because they worked out all those past jobs. I generally like to go like ten years. I think about where they're at today and then every job they had the past ten years. And, you know, you could you could do bullet point, bullet points for this one, you could do paragraphs, totally up to you, whatever helps you pretty much just how when you get to this question is you want to think about how this is going to help you in the future? Number seven, what was their education? Do they get a PhD? Did they get a bachelor's? Did they just pass the fifth grade and then stop there and never went to middle school. Every character is different. If a kid, they're probably still in school. If they're in their '50s, they probably they probably done with school or maybe they're not. Maybe they're going back now to get a degree. So think about that. Number eight. What are their hobbies? Do they play any sports? Think about, maybe they don't play sports currently, but maybe they did. Maybe they played hockey for 12 years and then quit. I think there's a lot of amazing female hockey players that quit after college because the pH F isn't big enough yet, but hopefully it will be in a few years. But you want to think about that. You want to think about sports they did play in the past. It's sports, sports they currently play or other hobbies. Maybe they knit. Maybe they like to make music at night. Whatever whatever shapes them into who they are. I think about that. Again, this can be paragraph, this could be different bullet points. Maybe they play several sports. So you bullet point every sport they played and when they started planning it and when they stop playing it, or maybe they just started playing it. Anyways. Number nine, what is their favorite book? Movie and album. Okay. Technically it's just three questions. I get it, but just just do a quick sentence for boat for all three. I answered these really fast. I put a book and I put a movie, then I put an album. This question is relatively quick for me. For most characters. Number ten, they could, they could just be in the movies and books and not listen to music, maybe whatever. Number ten, what is a typical Saturday night for the character? So think about what they do on Saturday nights. Maybe their home bodies and they just stayed home with their family and read books and not listen to music. Or maybe they go out and party every single Saturday. They go downtown. They spent a bunch of money and they loved music. They go to concerts all the time. Every, everyone's different. And maybe depends how old they are to think about what they do in different on a Saturday night. This question actually helps me way more than I think it would be for them, right when I answered the question. To answer it, it really inspires ideas for me, at least. Alright, number 11, what is their biggest regret in life? Wow, that's a, that's a big question. You take your time on that. It's usually this is usually a paragraph for me, but I really have to, as a thinker, a lot of times where maybe you know the answer right away at the bat, but yeah, what is their biggest regret in life? Number 11. Number 12, who or what does the character love? This could be family members, this could be activities, this could be the friends. Think about all the things they love on a daily basis. On the opposite of that, number 13, who or what does the character hate? And guess what? These two things could be the same. They could, they could love their sister and also hate their sister at the same time. So think about that. Could be completely different answers to these two questions, or they could be connected. Number 14, who or what does the character fear? Maybe it's something in their past. Maybe it's maybe they're making things up in their brain for the future. I think a lot of people fear things that never happen. So maybe they're one of those people. They could also fear the antagonist. Whoever the antagonist or whatever the antagonist is in your movie, they can also fear that, alright, number 15, What is the character's internal motivation? What they need, and what is the characters external motivation, what they think they need. Again, I know this is kinda two questions in one, but there's a really helped define your character. Usually, I like to think about it like this. The internal motivation is usually what they get at the end of the story. Something they earned or something they don't realize that they need or something they appreciate. They might appreciate their family a whole lot more at the end of the story, like if you look at home alone, e.g. that's something they they don't they don't think they need, but they get at the end of the story. The external motivation is usually the goal, something they're going after the entire story. And they could get both of these things at the end of their move, at the end of the story. Totally up to you. But yeah, what they need and then what they think they need. Again, this is usually the goal. If that helps you. Number 16, what is the character's fatal flaw? Great characters have great flaws, especially fatal flaws. So think about, think about your favorite characters to, I like to think about I like to think about Michael from the office. He had a bunch of laws, but it made him a great character though and made me want to watch them every week. So lists a bunch of laws that your characters hats, and if you don't know what the most fatal is, just maybe write five or six flaws and it'd be like This is the big one. This is the one that's the most fatal. Alright, moving on, number 17, what is the character secrets? Yeah, think about, think about their biggest secret. Could be small, could be big. You know, every character is different. If it is big than it probably could push your story, push the story forward. So yeah, think about that. This is usually, there's usually a paragraph for me or sentence and then I had to keep thinking about it and go deeper. So make it a paragraph. But yeah. Take your time with that. Number 17. Number 18, how does the character speak? So this could be determined by environment. This can be determined by their education too. Growing up in Montreal, Canada, how they speak could be French and English. Maybe they mix up words freshman English, French, and English. If they grew up in Montreal. If they grew up in Gainesville, Florida, they speak, they probably don't speak French. So think about how they speak. Think about their dialogue, their vocabulary as well. If they're well-educated, Frederick Frazier's are very well-educated man. And the way that Frazier speaks, the words he uses or not, words that most common folk use. You would never see, I don't know. Charlie Chaplin use the same words as well. That's terrible example because Charlie Chaplin doesn't talk. But you get what I'm saying. How do they speak? Think about their vocabulary, where they grew up, all that stuff. Number 19, What is the character's goal in the story? Alright, so characters, so what's pushing the story forward? Pretty much what do they, what are they going after? Sometimes they might not know right, right off the bat. Next one they might be forming their goal. The goal might come to them or something. But usually in act two, they're going after their goal. And then an act three, they accomplish their goal. So think about that. This is very influential on your story. Number 20, is the character active and achieving their goal? Well, if they're the main character, the protagonist, they very well should be. If they're not the main character, maybe they are, maybe they're not, maybe they're just along for the ride. But usually the main character is active in achieving their goal, especially in the second act. Again, they might, they might be hesitating in the first act. They might not know what their goal is. But in the second act, main characters, protagonists, they go after their goal. They become active and achieving it, especially in act two and at the end of Act three. Alright, so number 23, what is the transformation arc of the character? So how characters start in the big stories is not how they end. Great stories have great arcs for their, for their main characters. So think about that. I'm trying to think of a really good example. Okay, I'm Michael from The Godfather. His arc, e.g. at the beginning of that movie, he didn't want to be involved in the family business. He was the brother that didn't do a lot of Godfather things. But then at the end of the movie, guys who becomes the godfather, the one who didn't want it. So that's a great main character because it's a great arc. So think about, think about the arcs and how they grow throughout the story. Okay, Number 24, who are what helps the character change? This could be their friends, could be their family, it could be, could be the antagonist. Can be a lot of things. But think about throughout the story if things are going to influence and push your character, different directions make them change. And this will, this has to do with their arc. So these two questions are very much connected. So think about all the things that make them change out the story. Number 25, who is the characters mentor? They don't need, they don't need a mentor, but a lot of great characters do. Luke Skywalker had Obi-Wan, Kenobi, dodgeball that they had that patches or Houlihan coat coach. Mentor is don't actually have to appear again in Act One. A lot of times they appear in act two, and then they might die before act three, depending on the story. But yeah, they don't need a mentor, but this does, this does help me and inspires my story. If I give them a mentor or at least think about maybe they had a mentor in the past and then that mentor died. And we don't we never see that mentor. Everyone's different. Alright, Number 26. Does the character have any conflicting personality traits? This is a great question. And think about this because the way they may want to act is not the way that they do. But yeah, this really will help. This really will help you. In terms of how they respond. Yeah, think about things that they're fighting with internally. A lot of times that helps with that question. Number 27, what is the character missing in their life? A lot of times this has to do with their goal to maybe there's something the goal thereafter is what they're missing in their life. But think about that, you know, maybe, maybe they there are widowed. So they're looking for love again or companionship. At least. Maybe. They always wanted to become a blackjack dealer and they never did. And before they die, they want to become a blackjack dealer. So they're like That's what's missing in my life. Just spit balling ideas out there, but think about what they're missing in their life. This a question again, I go to a lot when I'm stuck on the story. And it's kinda helps me inspire whatever I answer it will inspire the story. Alright, next and last question. What is the first image or the character? What does this tell us about them? This is essential, I think, because whoever reads your story, to read it, and the first scene or the first image of the first, how they see your character first is going to paint the picture in their head or who this character is and what they do. So do all these questions for all your main characters and it's going to help you so much has you write. And it'll inspire a lot as you write and you'll come up with a lot of ideas too. So have fun with these. There's some work, but it's fun work. And it helps her story immensely. After you fill out the character questionnaires, try to get other five cards on the board represent five scenes. And then I'll see you tomorrow. 8. Day 3 - Character Day: Alright, date, Greek character day. Today is all about your main characters and figuring out who they are and what they want. I've added a character questionnaire to draw your characters. Have fun with these. Remember to make your character's flawed. Everyone is flawed, so we want to see flawed characters onscreen. Think about your favorite characters in movies. They probably all have major flaws, especially at the beginning of the movie. Nobody likes to see perfect people. Perfect people are not interesting. Make your characters distinct and different from each other. Nobody should sound the same. If you look at the hangover, Every main character is different. We are introduced to them one-by-one. They all have distinct introductions. Do character questionnaires. I've attached a character questionnaire to fill out. We're all human characters. If you ever get stuck in your story. Looking back at the answers to these questions can often get the creative juices going again. Again, the answers to these questions don't have to be permanent. One thing may lead to another and that other thing you may keep. But the idea that stem from is the one you might cut later. Some questions include, what is your character want? What is the goal on your story? What is preventing them from achieving their goal? Make sure to answer these questions as best as you possibly can. After you fill out the character questionnaires, try to get other five cards on the board represent five scenes. And then I'll see you tomorrow. 9. Day 4 - The First 10 Pages: Welcome to date for I hope the character questionnaire is generated more ideas I know they did for me. It really helped me focus on their goals and get to know them better. Now that we know our characters in and out, there'll be focusing on reading the first ten pages. For the first ten pages, think about a killer foreseen something that we'll hook the audience and right away. You want to introduce your main character or your antagonist. And an interesting way, let's look at a few examples of great opening scenes. The dark night, we meet the Joker and the first six minutes is him robbing a bank and killing members of his own team. We know this guy is dangerous, loves anarchy. In Raiders of the Lost Ark. We're introduced to Indiana Jones as an adventurer. As the movie opens on him getting an artifact out of a cave on his way in and on his way out, he avoids poisonous darts and a giant boulder in Jaws. The opening scene is the first shark attack. After a killer foreseen the first ten pages is all about setup. You want to set up the story and set the tone. If you're writing a comedy, give us some jokes. If you're running a horror, give us a hint of horror or what we should be afraid of. Also, think about your character wants. What are the setups you can do now? They'll pay off an act to Home Alone. Kevin wants nothing more than to get away from his family. He wants to be home alone, and that's exactly what he'll get. No, you can do this. Ten pages may sound intimidating at first. You may think, I'm nuts, but keep in mind, ten pages in the screenplay is not like reading ten pages in a novel. In fact, having a lot of whitespace on the page is a good thing. It makes it a faster rate for the reader. I had a screenwriting class in college where the professor would give us 15 minutes to write three pages and every student had to do this. And none of those pages were perfect. But we all did three pages and 15 minutes. So it is possible to write ten pages in an hour. You can take more time than an hour. I usually spend two to three hours writing ten pages. When I question if I can do something in front of me, I think my favorite quote by Henry Ford, If you think you can or think you can, either way, you are right? So thank you, Ken, and you will think to yourself, writing is easy. If you think it'll be hard, it will be hard. But if you think it's easy, it'll get a lot easier, right? One page at a time. Don't worry about page nine when you're still on page one. Just go from page one to page two, to page three, etc, etc. Just write one page at a time and you'll get to ten pages. If it helps, think about how much money you will make once you sell the script, it'll be worth it. Or think about when you're in school, you had assignments due on certain dates and you probably waited until the last day? We all did. But you still did it, you know, you can do something when it counts. So make this count. I once had a deadline, one time, I'd write 58 pages in one day in order to get paid. All I did that day was sitting in a coffee shop from when they opened to when they closed. But I wrote those 58 pages and at the end of it, I felt so accomplished and I made money. When you write, stay away from your phone and email. Remember what I said about putting your mind in jail with less distractions, the faster you can get this done. Don't aim to be perfect. Allow yourself to be bad. Sometimes you need to write a bad scene. So you can write a good one. You can always cut or fixed that bad scene later. For action description, I try not to write more than two or three sentences of action before dialogue. Because if you have a page with just action on the script and no dialogue, that page is going to take a lot longer for someone to read. And it looks more like a book than it does a script. Interject your inspiration. If you're like, Oh, I gotta wait for inspiration to hit me. Guess what? You'll never get this done. There are plenty of times I don't feel like writing, but you have to interject your inspiration. It may take five to 20 minutes of just sitting there and forcing yourself to write crap. But eventually you'll find a groove and find things that you want to keep. And you can always cut the crap out later. After you write your first ten pages, get five more. Curzon tried to focus on X1 because tomorrow we'll be writing pages ten through 20. 10. Day 5 - Inciting incident and Your Hero’s Hesitation: Okay, day five by nine should have 20 courage and your corkboard, which is about half your movie. Good job. Today you'll be reading pages ten through 20. You want to focus the inciting incident and start pushing your characters to what a new direction that will drive your act to. Remember, the inciting incident is unexpected. The incident, an incident will change their lives forever and an often just comes out of nowhere. Here are some examples of inciting incidents. In Toy Story. It's the arrival of Buzz Lightyear. He will rock the world of woody and all of what he's friends. And die-hard is the arrival of Hans Gruber and his crew in zoo lander. It's Derek zoo lander, losing male model of the year to Huntsville. Derek has 13 times in a row, but not the fourth. This makes Derek wonder if he's still cut out to be a male model. And him losing makes them want to retire from the male modeling world. In Wonder Woman, the inciting incident is the arrival of Steve Trevor, who lands on the island of thumb mascara. This is the first man Diane has ever seen her life. From here on out, Diana and her mom will debate to leave the island so she can save the world. After the inciting incident, the hero often hesitant to accept it. In Toy Story. At first, what he doesn't like buzz, they don't become friends until later in the movie. Initially, what he wants buds to go away. In die-hard, John McLean is trying to get help. He finds a way to pull the fire alarm, to get the cops to show up. He hasn't taken things in his own hands yet. Keep yourself and you hear on moving forward. I can't stress this enough. You might be tempted to look back at your old pages, but don't look back until you hit your goals for the day and keep your page count moving up. You want to focus on the inciting incident and start pushing your characters forward toward a new direction that will drive your ACT to have the discipline to get it done. This is advice not only for today but everyday moving forward. The difference between writers and people who want to be writers is wannabes just talk about it. Actual writers actually write and you need the discipline to get it done. Don't judge your pages today. Just be proud you're moving forward and know you can do this after you write pages ten through 20 at five more cards to your board, a certain focus and act to think about things you've set up an act, one that'll pay off and active. 11. Day 6 - Finishing Act 1 and Starting Act 2: Alright, days six. Today we'll be reading pages 20 to 30. You'll be finishing up to one that's already dried act to have a clear act break. In this section of the script, you'll be entering a new world figuratively or literally, or both. And the hangover, this is one of the guys can't remember what happened last night and they need to export Vegas to find their friend Doug and home alone to loss in New York. This is when Kevin gets in New York. In the original home alone. This is when Kevin realizes he's home alone. Think about that event that could push your protagonist into E2. Home alone. It's when it's family gets in the plane and they don't realize he's home alone until it's already too late. Start your B strike. If you have one, you'll be straight. Often introduces a new character. The bee story and bridesmaids starts when Andy gets pulled over and she meets her love interest, officer roads. The a story and the four-year-old version is Andy trying to lose his virginity. But the story is him falling in love. Don't get stuck looking back, move forward. I know I keep mentioning this and it's the last time I swear I'll do this. But this is where amateur writers will stop writing. For years. They will just have an act one, they are working over and over and over and they will never move forward. Me, not you. If you feel the urge to tweak the pages you have done, don't tweak them until you've finished the pages you have assigned for today. This means don't look back at the first 20 pages you have done until you get to page 30. After you write 30 pages at five more curves here, corkboard, and think about all the fun things you can do with your characters as we continue to act two. 12. Act 1 Review: Here's a quick review of act one and some writing advice that may help you haven't exciting opening that will draw and hook in your audience. Then set up your characters in an interesting way after your setup, have an inciting incident. This is the thing that will forever change their lives and push the story forward. Then find a way to make your character hesitate to change. Here's some advice for act one and brainstorming ideas. Rule of ten. If you're having trouble writing a scene, I'm a big believer of the rule of ten. I think I heard Jerry Seinfeld first talk about this, but I've heard many others talk about it too. It's where you brainstorm ten things. Then you'll find that one thing that works. When I'm stuck on a scene, I'll brainstorm ten things that could happen. Some of them are good ideas, some of them are terrible. But I do find that one I like after I brainstorm ten. Don't put pressure on yourself to make all your ideas, good ideas. Sometimes writing down a few bad ideas, you know, won't work. Watson spark good idea that will work. Determine what your main character wants and then put your protagonist and antagonist wants against each other. Again, if you get stuck in a scene, especially with dialogue, think about what your characters want in that scene. Show. Don't tell. If you ever find a character saying something the audience needs to know. See if you can find a way to show it. Be disciplined about your writing. If you want to complete your story, you have to be disciplined about your writing. And here's a few things that can help that writing a little bit every day will go a long way. Some people take ten years to write one thing because they say they never have the time. But all your excuses are not going to move your story forward. If you write a little bit every day, you'll have a lot done after a month. And it will make it easier on your brain to remember what you have done so far and where you're going. 5 min a day rule. I'm a big fan of the five-minutes a day rule, and I often tell this to my friends a lot. Before you go to bed each night, make sure you wrote for at least 5 min and five-minutes. Isn't asking too much of yourself. And many times, five-minutes will become a lot longer if you'd become inspired and if you don't, after five-minutes, just try it again tomorrow. You have to treat the creative process like a muscle. Muscles have muscle memory, work that muscle every day. If you wait a week for right, you'll spend half your time thinking about what you already done instead of moving forward, find a ritual that helps you, right? See if you can find the time of the day that works best for you. I always recommend mornings before you go to work because this way, you'll think about your writing throughout the day. Keep the file open on your computer. Keep your writing file open on your computer constantly. This will make you think about your story more and more. Make it the last thing you look at, and the first thing you look at when you open your computer. 13. Day 7 - Embrace Change and Explode the Entertainment: Alright, day seven. Today we'll be reading pages 30 to 40, focusing just on act to, here's a few things to remember. This is the section where you explode the entertainment because your crew is now in their adventure. And you really want to entertain your audience and don't question your choices too much, just roll with them for now, once you make a decision, keep moving forward. During this section of pages, this is where I start to question myself. Does this work for the story? But we have to remember, we won't know until we write it all out. I won't know if it works until I write the entire story and I can always change it later, I might as well write all my decisions. I've written several movies before. We're in the first draft. I just have too many storylines going on. And the second draft I completely cut out some storylines altogether. But I might keep some ideas and set pieces from storylines I cut. So I might as well write it all out. Think about your trailer moments as you write out act to try to think about all the trailer moments in your movie. These can be big set pieces are high jinx that your character gets into, ad or loose characters. Feel free to introduce new characters to move your story forward and meet the parents. The audience is already met Pam's parents, but an act to we meet the rest of PAMPS, family and friends. And the hangover, the three main characters travel across Vegas, an act to you in search of their friend Doug. And they made a wild cast of new characters, including Jade, Leslie Chow, and Mike Tyson. You can also lose characters. Sometimes in romantic comedies, the main character will lose their current boyfriend or girlfriend in these pages. Or if you're reading a slasher film, characters will start dying one by one. Also in action movies like die-hard, the main character may start killing bad guys one-by-one. After you get to page 30 at 5-mer occurs through cork board and feel free to move things around. As you can see it kind of organize mine a little bit more. After today, you should have 35 cards to represent 35 scenes. 14. Day 8 - Write Up to the Midpoint: Today is all about pages 40 through 50. Try to write all the way up to your midpoint. And remember, midpoints are big moments in your story. In these pages, keep the fun, entertainment and trailer moments going on, but start to hint that major conflicts is lurking. And then with that, make your midpoint big. If you're having trouble figuring out what your midpoint is, think about what is the biggest thing that can happen here to my main character in Die Hard, john Maclean's, there's killing bad guys and act to a. But at the midpoint, Hans Gruber finds out who John is in the matrix. A lot of e2e is Neo training to be the one until the mid point. When we find out he might not be the one in Jaws. The townspeople think jaws is dead as they call the shark and act to a. But sheriff Brody and Matt don't think it was jaws. The midpoint is Jaws comes back with a vengeance and kill someone in the beach. When the beaches more full of people than ever before, Sheriff Brody almost loses his son to the shark, something has to be done about the shark situation right now. Make sure to increase the conflict and the tension at the midpoint. And Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs were contained in the first half of the movie, but now the gates don't work anymore. At the midpoint, the dinosaurs escaped from the gates. The midpoint and Toy Story is when Woody and buzz or taken by Sid, the kid who mistreats his toys. They enter Sid's house, which is the opposite of Andy's house. In Spider-Man, things are going alright for Peter Parker. He's getting closer to mary jane and things were looking good. But at the midpoint, this is when he fights the Green Goblin for the first time. In many superhero movies, the super hero and the villain will go at it head to head at the mid point. After you read it to your midpoint. At five more cards to your board, you should have 40 cards to represent a 40 scenes. And you might be done outlining all your cards. But if you want to add more than 40 cards, go for it. 15. Day 9 - Rise of the Antagonist: Today we'll be reading pages 50 to 60. Remember to raise the stakes for your main characters, whatever or whoever your antagonist is. This is where they gained momentum. In these pages, things are falling apart for your hero internally and externally. A lot of times relationships are tested. Friends and families start to question one another, and heroes are losing control of the situation in the matrix, the team gets double cross by cipher, one of their own team members and to other team members are killed than their leader, Morpheus gets kidnapped and Jurassic Park, Alan and the kids are separated from everyone else. And the dinosaurs are starting to kill people and Mean Girls. Katie's first and real friends, Janis, Ian, are mad at her because she didn't bite them to her party. Sometimes these can be the hardest pages, right? But if you feeling stuck or unmotivated, look back at your character questions from day to look at your characters biggest fears or Secrets. Make their biggest fears come true here, or have them reveal their secrets. However, you can keep finding ways for the antagonist to win. Now that you have 40 cards on the board, Feel free to move them around and add more if you need to. As you can see, I've done that for tomorrow. Keep thinking about how your antagonist is winning. 16. Day 10 - Write Up To Your All is Lost: Today you'll be reading pages 60 to 70. Keep thinking about ways your antagonists can be winning and to your hero hazards they're all is lost moment. The all is lost moment is the lowest point for your hero. There are even worse off than when the film started. Relationships may be ending. Family and friends may die. All the plans your hero is made may fail epically. In the hangover, the wolf pack wins enough money to buy their friend Doug back for Mr. Chow. But when they exchange the money for doug, they get the wrong God. In The Wedding Singer, Julia, it goes around his house and finds Linda. Julia, Thanks. Robbie and Linda got back together. When Robbie goes with Julius house, he thinks Julia actually wants to marry Glenn. But Julia really wants to be Ms. Robbie heart. She doesn't want to be Julia. Julia in Wonder Woman. Diana, thanks, General Eric Lander. Ralph is Aries the god of war. But once it kills London Ralph, she finds out it's the wrong guy. The war is still going on in areas, is still out there. Many times in movies during the l has lost a character close to your main character will die. In Happy Gilmore, happy shows chugs, the alligator that bit off, chops fingers, and this accidentally kills jobs. After you write the all is lost moment. It's okay to feel sad for your protagonist. Tomorrow, your hero will find ways to win again. 17. SkillShare Superpeer Coaching Promo: Hey, if you're interested in one on one coaching sessions, I'd love to help you during your creative process to make sure your project gets finished. You're interested, you can book a session on SkillShare using their new Super purer feature. To book a coaching session, just click on my SkillShare profile and click Book Now. These coaching sessions can be weekly or bi weekly, whichever you prefer. I offer coaching sessions on writing movies, TV shows, web series, producing your own film or series, and much more. I can coach you once a week or every two weeks to make sure you stay on track and create the accountability you need to finish your story and project. Contact me to book your first session now. Thank you, and now back to your regularly scheduled course. H. 18. Act 2 Review: Here's a quick review of what to do and act to and some advice that may help you write more. Enact to your hero must embrace change, and enter their new world. In their new world. Built some memorable and unique moments by exploding the entertainment. Towards the middle of your story, your hero will hit the mid point. This is a major moment that will change and propel the story drastically. From there, you want to amp up the stakes, conflict, intention as things come crashing down on your hero. Advice for E2 and following through. Keep moving forward. A very common pitfall that many writers fall into when they reach act two is they keep rewriting the pages. They had an act one. Instead of moving forward. Rewriting is always easier than writing, but here's the thing. You're going to rewrite anyway, once you get to the end of your story and finish a first draft, only then you'll have a grand picture of your entire story. You can drive yourself crazy rewriting Act One over and over. So don't, the best thing to do for your story is to get to the end of the story and then rewrite, set times to write and do nothing else. We live in a world where distractions are so easy. And this makes writing hard, e-mails, text messages, phone calls, and just reminds, being curious about random things can distract us. But what often helps me as setting a timer on my phone and making sure I don't check my email or phone until the timer goes off. I often will do 1 h blocks for that period of time. I will only write if my mind wants to Google something. I won't Google it unless it's research for my story. If it's not, then it can wait till later. If I don't have time to do 1 h, then I'll set a timer for 20 min or even five or 10 min if it's late at night and I haven't written yet that day, stick to your deadlines. It's so easy for us to say, we'll do it later and then later becomes never. So many people have asked one of their story done and then just sit on doing Act 2.3. I'm guilty of this myself. The first screenplay I ever sold, I had the first accurate and for about eight months and never kept moving forward. And it wasn't until I sat and stick to my deadlines that I finished the script a few months later. A few weeks after that, I optioned and sold the screenplay. Keep your goals in check. Your beginning of Act. You can have a lot of fun moments, but always keep your main character's goal and check. Let the a story drive the narrative and never stray too far away from your protagonist goal. It's also your goal to finish the story. 19. Day 11 - The Comeback: Today we'll be reading pages 70 to 80. After all is lost moment, your hero has been beaten down, but they are still alive. And when there's a will, there's a way. Think about these pages as the comeback. In these pages, your hero regains the trust of others, rebuild their team and repairs relationships. And after that, they prepare for battle. The battle is the main event coming up in your finale. In the Incredibles, violet helps her family escaped from syndromes layer and they decide to fight syndrome together for the first time. Before this, Mr. Incredible was working alone and hiding it from his family, but not anymore. Now, everyone is a part of it. An alien, Ripley decides to self-destruct the spaceship. There's no way she's letting the alien get to earth, shall fly out and an escape pod and let the alien blow up in the spaceship. In the matrix, it's the helicopter seen when new and Trinity come to the rescue and save Morpheus. Today, write down all the preparation steps that you are here I was taking for the finale, which overriding tomorrow. 20. Day 12 - The Big Event: Today we'll be reading pages 80 through 90 and focusing on the finale. Focus on the big event or mission that your heroes must win. And Happy Gilmore, it's the PGA championship, pretty much in every sports movie. This is the championship or the biggest game the team has to win. In every Rocky movie, It's the fight between rocky and the villain of that movie. Makes sure to pin your protagonist and antagonist against each other. If you're reading a superhero film, this is the big fight between superhero and super villain in Spider-Man, It's Spiderman versus the Green Goblin and Wonder Woman. It's Diana versus Aires. In Iron Man, it's Tony versus his business partner, Obadiah stain. It helps too. If every main character in your movie is there, at least the ones still alive in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? It's the fight with shredder. You'll notice that every character is there one-by-one. The turtles take turns trying to fight trader and lose. But then splinter shows up to fight and defeat shredder. All the turtles are on top of the building, but below them is April Casey Jones and a huge crowd of people. Remember, your hero has to save the day. In Star Wars, a New Hope. Lucan, the other pilots go to the Death Star. But Luke is the one who blows it up. Tomorrow, we'll be reading the last ten pages when you finished the big event and then wrap everything up. 21. Day 13 - Wrap It Up: Today is about pages 90 to 100. Finish up your Finale and then wrap up by your storylines. Keep the final scene memorable and keep the tone of the film. If it's a comedy and then a funny scene, if it's a horror, give us one last scare. The movie revolves around music and non music and whiplash. Andrew is determined to prove he can do the drum solo, and he does that in front of everyone in the pursuit of happiness. Chris has finally hired for the job he desperately wanted, tried to have a final surprise or several of them in Happy Gilmore as happy as about to do spinal put a tower falls and blocks has shot. Now we asked to take the shot with the tower in the way and dodge ball after Vince Vaughn gets hit, it looks like the game is over and global Jim has one. But then surprise, we find out Ben Stiller stepped over the line. The referee calls a penalty. Now, Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn do Sudden Death Dodgeball. The protagonist and antagonist are pinned against each other. In Iron Man, Tony Stark also surprises the audience and he tells everyone that he is Iron Man. Planet of the Apes has the amazing Statue of Liberty is seen, which is not only a surprise, but it's incredibly memorable. Once you write up the page 100, congratulate yourself for writing 100 pages. You may have finished your first draft, but if you need to tweak some tomorrow or right, more than 100 pages, that's fine too, but feel good. This accomplishment. 22. Act 3 Review: Here's a quick review of what to do and act three and some advice that may help you write more. And act three, you will make a comeback after experiencing and all is lost moment. This is when they build their team and get ready for the big event. The big event is the climax of your story. The most exciting, intense, and important part of your story. If you don't have a big event already, think of one and make sure to add it to your story. After the big event, wrap up all your storylines, including your a story and NAB story, sea story, the story, etc. Writing advice. Celebrate when you finish. Take a few hours to celebrate when you finish your first draft, maybe you go to dinner or see a movie you want to see. You might still have a lot of work ahead of you. But once you get to the very end, you'll have a better idea of your whole story. And finishing a first draft is a huge accomplishment. So many people think of ideas and never take the action. You took the action. And yes, there may be work ahead, but there's also work behind you. So be proud. You did it. Keep the first draft just for you? Once you get a first draft done, I recommend taking a few days to a couple of weeks off, but don't take too much time off, you still want to keep the momentum going. You might have several ideas that you want to change. Some scenes that are not good, but you wrote them just to keep the story moving forward. Rework those scenes before you send another draft to other people, set a date to get it out into the world. What's the point of writing something? It was going to sit on a shelf or stand your computer forever. But if you set a date to get it out into the world, or at least try to get it published. This will drive you to make sure it gets better and better with every revision. Rewriting tips, tightened relationships. As you write, you'll discover more about your characters and their relationships. After a first draft tightened the relationships even more. E.g. I. Made to my characters who were best friends. I made them sisters because friends come and go. But family is forever define your characters more. I'm sure you've discovered a bunch about your characters as you're writing. So now you can use those details to draw your characters even more. I've added a character questionnaire that can help to find your characters even more. So feel free to fill this out as you write your first draft or after you write your first draft, have emotional shifts in each scene. It often helps to think about how your heroes can go through ups and downs. If you're stuck on a scene. Think about how to start the scene on a positive note for your hero and ended on a negative note or started on a negative note and ended on a positive. Makes sure that main characters have arcs by the end of your story, your hero should not be the same from when your story started. Make sure they learned all the lessons they need by the end of your story. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Be happy with what you got done. It's easy to criticize ourselves. When, when would you have done isn't perfect. But even if you struggled to write this and you know, there's a lot of rewriting ahead. You're still a lot farther than when you started this journey. Get notes and set more deadlines. Get notes and set deadlines for those two. After you take a brief time off, after the first draft, get back to work and set deadlines to send your writing to friends or people who will read your work. Tell them a date as to when you want to send it out. So you have accountability. Don't wait until the day after or week after, either. Do it that day. Even if it's at 11:59 P.M. that night, if you say a date, sent it to them on that date, also asked for deadlines as to when you want notes back. I always find out there without deadlines, things just fall to the wayside. But if you have a hard deadline, people will stick with their deadlines. Listened to everyone, but follow your heart. When you ask for notes, you're gonna get a lot of notes. But that doesn't mean people know what they're talking about. They didn't slay away for hours reading your project. You did. So only take notes that you really love or you truly think will improve your work. If you're getting the same note from different people, then definitely take that note into consideration. But if you apply a note that you really disagree with, chances are you're going to regret it later when your work is published. So stay true to your writer's heart. Know when the story is cooked. After you do several drafts and you know it's in good shape, let yourself be done with it. We can drive ourselves crazy, making things perfect. And often perfection is what prevents us from getting things done or putting it out into the world. At some point, you have to embrace the imperfections and let it go. And chances are if your book is getting published or your film is getting produced, people like editors or producers are going to change things anyway. But we should embrace imperfections and really just be proud that we've finished something and it's out there. 23. Day 14 - Celebrate Your Accomplishment: Today if you need to write a little bit more for you type fade out, or if you need to tweak a little bit, go for it. But after today, take some time off before you rewrite. Today, if your script is over a 100 pages, but you still need to finish the story. Keep writing until you get to the end and then write fade out. Finish it today, you got this. If something is really bugging you and you want to fix it before you take some days off, go for it, go for it, fix anything that's really bugging you. So you don't think about it on your days off. After you finish it today. Treat yourself. You finished a fricking screenplay. Celebrate that, and congratulations. Here are some tips for rewriting. When you're ready. Take some time off, but not too much time off. It's good to look at the script with some fresh eyes. But if you want to sell it, don't put it on a shelf for years to come. I recommend taking off a week or two, but no more than a month to rewrite. You still want to hustle. Do multiple table reads. A huge favor you can do for your script. Do multiple table reads. A table read is when you get a bunch of actors or just a group of friends and assign character roles for them and read the entire script out loud. You'll be amazed at the things you can find out about your script. By doing this, you're really find out the rhythm of each scene and find out what seems maybe too long or too short. If you have jokes, sometimes you'll find a joke that you think isn't so funny, really is really funny, or vice versa. Sometimes a joke will bomb. I don't need to cut it. Before I send my script doctor producers, I do at least three tablespoons of it. Know when the script is cooked. This is advice from Shonda rhymes. I know some writers who keep rewriting and rewriting so much that they never get a chance to market it. The aim for perfect, but there was no such thing as perfect. That's why IMDB has a goof section. Get to a point when you know the script is cooked and then send it out. Don't burn it. Eventually, when a producer wants to make it, they'll have their own notes. But then they should pay you to apply those notes. After reading today, reward yourself for putting in the work. Find a way to celebrate a finished screenplay. And when you feel the script is ready, let the world see it. Best of luck. 24. How to Write a Logline that Sells and Gets Produced (course version): Alright, let's talk logline. Boom. Okay, so a logline is a very short synopsis of your movie. It could be usually 30 words or less. That's what I was always taught in college is you make it 30 words or less. Sometimes you can make it like 31, 32, 35, at most, but try to keep it 30 or, you know, if you can do it all in one sence, especially if it's a comedy, you can make people laugh, do it all one sence. I've sold scripts where the logline was just one sence, but it was a joke, and it made people laugh. And then they go, Oh, this is funny. They're laughing from the logline, and it's a comedy. They take that as a good sign that the rest of the script is funny. So they will then want to read the script and then, you know, buy it. See stuck logline. These are several of my log lines. So, as you can see, most of them I try to keep one sentence. Sometimes I do two sentences. So as you can see, sometimes you can use a comp. So in 2007, when I wrote this script, Superbad was very big. So I used this as a comp Superbad with senior citizens after an old man loses his wife. His friends in the retirement home trying to get him laid. And that script was really funny at the time. It's still funny. But it was nominated for WGA Fellowship. And as you can see, most of my log lines are about one sent. I try to keep them one sentence if I can. If I have to the two sentences, then I will, as you can see with this one. But usually they are one sentence. Important to note, too. You don't want to give away the whole story in a logline. You want to tease the buyer to make them read the screenplay. The first screenplay I sold, the logline was a feel good comedy about a boy trying to kill himself. And that logline doesn't give away any of the story, but it made producers laugh. And they requested the script, and then I got several meetings. And then after a director read the script, the screenplay sold. You want to get a really good logline, and sometimes this takes a lot of brainstorming. Sometimes when I'll do it I'll take a notebook. Um, and I'll write down 40 different logline, like 40 different logline for my movie in this one notebook. And then as I'm writing 40 logline, it's usually one or two that stick out. If I do get stuck, I will still make, I'll circle all my favorites of the log lines. And then a lot of times, I ask my friends for help. I'd be like, Which of these do you like the most? So if you can see in this email, I wrote a script like seven years ago, six, seven years ago, called Robbery Sisters. And I emailed all my friends. I mean, all my writer friends. I emailed like 30 of my friends, and I said, please help me choose a logline. All you have to do is respond with a number of the logline you like best. So they read all these log lines, and then they would just respond back, and they'd be like, Hey, dude, I think number one is the best, blah, blah, blah. Um, three and five. See you Sunday. Number eight. You know, so you just email your friends and then ask them. And then from doing this, you'll see, like, as they reply back and make sure they just reply to you. Don't make people reply all, then it's gonna be a huge hassle. But just tell them, Hey, just reply to me. Which number do you like best? And that way, you can see, you know, if everyone's emailing number three over and over, then you know, Okay, number three is the best. Usually usually from emailing a bunch of people with different log lines, usually one stands out is the most, and that's the one I'll use. So that's what I do with this screenplay. I've done this for several screenplays, and it's super helpful. And it also, like, gets your screenplay out in the universe because you're sending your friends a logline. So sometimes they ask about it, how to go, and it makes it pushes you to also get it out there more, you know, sell it and try to get it to producers. So I recommend, definitely, if you're stuck on logline, feel free to write, like, I don't know, five to ten of them, and then email a bunch of your friends and ask your friends which ones you like the most. You can also do this in the community tab inside the Screen learning Success Club and have other writers in the club vote for their favorite. This video is a segment from a live group meeting we had inside the Screen earning Success Club. If you want to learn how to write, finish, and get your scripts produced, join the club. You can find the Screen learning Success Club on the community based platform school at skl.com. This next part covers what happens to your logline after your movie is produced. And I'll use abridged versions of movie trailers for movies I've written. When you rent a movie and you have a logline to send a producer so they can buy it. Then when the movie gets made, a lot of times the platforms that are on will change them. So for example, this is the logline for a movie I wrote with two of my friends, two rival siblings and their partners battle on a war of weddings were the first to say, I do inherits the family house. We are gathered here today. Doing. Let's just get to your work parts. Are you sure you don't want me to take as long as possible so you know you're making the right decision? I'm standing right here. Well, I'll let your father explain. Well, boys, if you're seeing this, one of you is getting married? Congratulations, Chas or or Milton. Sucks your mother and I have agreed that the first of you to get married, we are gifting you to your childhood home. Congratulations, Jess. No, no. I got the best mom and dead Dad. I have nowhere to live. Sucks. Oh, my God, Kate. This is going to be your new house. What is this? You don't like it. You should have come to the bidding. I couldn't have come to one bidding, and this is what you picked out for me. I want to marry. I want to Mary Melton. And we both left the house. Desperately. Just what do you think you're trying to pull on my wedding day? Are you man? Look, everyone. I'd like to re invite you to the front yard. Everyone, I'd like to re invite you back to the backyard. I love a good old fashioned marriage, Yo. Tao. Chef Chess who we all know does not deserve to be where he's standing today. So that was a long line. Um, of a movie that my friends and I wrote. And then other platforms like Amazon, for example, changed it. I do not like the way Amazon changed it. But sometimes TB also changes it too and actually like the way Tobi does it way more than Amazon. But this was like Amazon's version of the logline. When a deceased father wills the family house to the first son, married, rival siblings, weddings ignite chaos. Sabotage, syrup wars and petty revenge fuel a wild race to the altar. That logline, to me, is just way too chunky for love at first spite. And this is not even like they say syrup wars. There's like one maple syrup balloon in the whole movie. Up noti. Oh They don't need to say syrup wars. I don't know why. It's more wedding wars, but I don't know. They like Syrup wars, apparently. So I'll show you another example. I made another movie in 2020 during the pandemic. My friends and I made it all over Zoom. It's called Christmas acation. It's a Christmas movie, but it's all over Zoom, 'cause no one could leave their house. You did tell them that we can't come home for Christmas this year, right? Not exactly. It's Christmas Eve. Why didn't you two tell me you're not going back home for Christmas? There's got to be a way that we can be together without actually being together. We should throw Dad a Zoom Christmas party. Ah, plus with our last name being Gloom gardi, it'll be a Gloom gardi Zoom party. What's a's a huh? What? Is this my favorite lesbian niece? This is your favorite straight niece. I don't have one of those. I have three Christmas conditions if you want me to go to this party. Party? Will there be a keg? Do you have a keg at home? No. H times three. Stop beating around the wreath and tell me. Time for my favorite Zoom game pants or no pants where everyone wins. And the logline I came up with that was, when a family can't be together on Christmas, they bring their dysfunctional family Christmas online. So that was my original logline. It's on streaming and all these services. So Toby actually changed it, and I actually like Toby's logline better than my own logline. So this is Toby's version. It's a young woman throws a Christmas Zoom party with her extended family, proving that fun holiday chaos doesn't have to happen in person. I actually like that logline. It's actually kind of sweet. Yeah, it's funny and I think they get it. So yeah, sometimes streaming services will change your logline and either make it better or they can make it worse, too. I've seen it both ways with my movies. So yeah, that's another example. So let's go over query letters really quick. To learn more about writing screenplays and also how to sell them and be successful at Screenwriting, join us inside the Screenwriting Success Club. It's a community for totally new and pro screenwriters, where we have group meetings just like this. You also get access to screenwriting courses and interviews from Blockbuster screenwriters and TV show runners and a whole lot more. You can find the Screenwriting Success club on the community based platform school at sk.com.