How To Write a Perfect Scene

How To Write a Perfect Scene....

Ah, the elusive perfect scene. Great movies are filled with them. Many movies only have a few of them. What does it take to write the perfect scene? I'm not claiming to be an expert on it, but here are a few suggestions I've learn over the years as a screenwriter.

A perfect scene contains the following elements: Setting, Character, Action and Dialogue. If you can manage to covey all four in each of your scenes, you are on your way to writing the perfect scene and becoming an accomplished screenwriter.

The Hero

Every scene in your story should be about the hero. It should help the reader identify with the character and define what his role is in the story. Everyone else in the scene is there to support the hero, complicate his life or reveal something that moves the story forward. If the supporting characters in the scene don't accomplish one of those three things, then maybe they don't belong in the scene.

What Do You Want?

In the overall story, the hero is on a quest. He wants something and the story chronicles that search. A scene is a mini story within the whole and every character in the scene needs to want something. Also, each character's desires need to be in conflict with what everyone else desires. But, since our characters are there to support the hero, then those desires must in some way be connected to the goal of the hero.

I Didn't See That Coming

Create anticipation and leave them hanging at the end of the scene. Keep them interested and wanting more. Likewise, make your audience feel smart. Create puzzles for them to solve and give them information that the characters aren't aware of. Pace your scene to add momentum to the overall structure of the story. With each scene the conflict should increase as you race towards the final outcome, the final hurtle, the final mountain to be climbed before the hero gets or doesn't get what he wants.

 Action/ Movement

In many scenes, characters move around and interact with other characters in the scene. How and why they move should be consistent with the character and add to the scene. If there is a purpose behind moving character X from point A to point B, then by all means let him move, but otherwise, leave him be. Also characters movements and actions should be consistent with their background, job description, personality, age, etc. Move them according to who they are.

What Did He Say?

The way a character speaks and what he says should be consistent with who he is. Dialogue should sound natural and unforced. This can be accomplished by using contractions, and omitting names between characters who know each other. Vary sentence length and cut off your character's words. Reveal the subtext of the scene through dialogue. Don't use dialogue to explain what is going on in a scene. Show don't tell, show don't tell, show don't tell, we can't be reminded of that enough. Show don't tell.

Each scene is a story in itself with a beginning, a middle and an end. Each scene contributes to the overall structure of the story. A great scene will reveal character, conflict, move the story forward and leave them wanting more at the end.

Syd Field goes even more in-depth into what makes a perfect scene in his book, Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. Every writer should have this one and if you don't, get it now.

Is Your Writing Bland? Here's 3 ways to add some spice to the pages

You want to make your stories interesting. Interesting stories have interesting characters. So how do you create an interesting character? Make sure they surprise your readers. Have them do the unexpected. In other words, add a little spice to the soup. Here are three ways to add flavor that make your readers' mouths water.

Have your character tell a little white lie.

Miss Goody Two Shoes is most interesting when she takes on a bit of the dark side. Think about it. We like our characters to have some morals, but not too many. They need to be human too. Have the blonde housewife lie about where she grew up, and then watch how that lie expands and takes on a life of its own.

Give the villain a heart

Who can deny that the man who steals from his neighbors isn't Mr. Wonderful? But what if the reader discovers that he's stealing jewelry to pay for his wife's chemotherapy? Now that's dramatic. In fact, it's heart wrenching. That's spice.

Make sure that the sweet grandmother or grandfather ain't so sweet

The facade of the elderly is so convincing. Play with your readers' expectations. I love it when a grandmotherly type roars down the road in a red convertible. (I witnessed this just the other day.) Or perhaps that sweet old man at the grocery store curses like a sailor when pushed the wrong way. And what is it that pushes him? Take pen in hand and explore it.

The idea here is to reverse your readers expectations. Look at your characters motivations. Find places where they may have an interesting flaw. Use any element of their personality that surprises you, makes you laugh. Remember: if you find your characters interesting, so will your readers. Life is interesting, fun, and unpredictable; your characters should be too.

How to Copyright a Screenplay or Script

How To: Copyright a Screenplay

When you are beginning the process of producing a film one of the key elements you are going to need is a script. You can either find a script that has already been written or write your own. However you decide to go about doing this it is important to register the work with the United States copyright office before going into production on the project. This guarantees that once the film is produced no one can come back and claim you produced a work that they had written. The United States copyright is a must before going into production on any project no matter how small. The copyright is a form of protection for both you and anyone else involved in the project.

The first step is to put together a package including either a form TX or short form TX, a check for $30 made out to the “Register of Copyrights” and a non-returnable copy of the materials that are being registered. The form TX and short form TX can be obtained at the copyright offices website at http://www.copyright.gov under the literary works tab.

Finally address the package to…

Library of Congress
Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C.20559-6000

As soon as the copyright office receives your package and confirms that it has been received in proper order your copyright is considered to be in effect. You will receive written confirmation in the mail shortly thereafter.

It is also of paramount importance to register your screenplay with the WGA. It can be done online and does not cost a lot of money at all. Simply go to: http://www.wgawregistry.org/webrss and follow the instructions. A lot of management companies won’t take screenplays that have not been registered with the WGA.

Copyright protection is the legal right granted to the creator of creative work to be the exclusive party who can exploit that work. What this means is that if an author, playwright, musician, composer, filmmaker, or distributor registers their work with the copyright office they are the only person who has the right to exploit their work for profit or for distribution. Copyright protection has been instituted to protect the creators of these types of works which are generally referred to as intellectual property. These laws do not cover the creator of a work if they have been hired by another individual or party specifically to create a work. This is what is known as a work made for hire, in which case the person who hired the creator will retain the copyright.

If you are trying to register any type of literary work you should follow the copyright process as explained here. Literary works can generally be described as any manuscript, book, poetry, written text or any computer program or database.

How to Copyright a Script or Screenplay

How to Copyright a Script or Screenplay

Can Social Media Change the Way Talent and Screenplays are Discovered and Sold in Hollywood

Can Social Media Change the Way Talent and Screenplays are Discovered and Sold in Hollywood

Getting your screenplay to producers and production companies

Getting your screenplay to production companies is actually a lot easier than most people think. It’s really as simple as getting the production companies address, email, phone number, or fax number and pitching your script idea to them. Most of the time you’re going to be politely turned down or dismissed out of hand but once in a while you will get through and someone will agree to read your screenplay. Please keep this in mind: rejection is going to be the overwhelming result (98% of the time in some cases – this is normal!) of what I’m about to tell you so please prepare for it and do not get discouraged by it.

Many new writers feel helpless because they don’t know where or how to submit their script. I know for myself I never had the motivation to write anything until I had some idea about who to send my script to. Sometimes beginning writer’s think getting an agent is the answer but getting an agent to read your script is often more difficult than getting a production company to read your script. Even if you get an agent it probably won’t be one who has a lot of power so you still might want to try and submit your script directly to production companies, too. Dont forget the power of creating a presence on Facebook.


Now you should have several solid scripts and you should have written a nice query letter to pitch them. If you don’t have both of these things don’t start submitting your script. Submitting before you’re ready will be a waste of your time as well as anyone reading your query letters so don’t do it until you’re ready. People will remember you so make sure you are ready to make a good first impression.
All you need to do now is prepare a list of production companies.

To be clear (in case you skipped my other articles), you’re submitting a query and a short synopsis to these production companies which will hopefully result in them requesting the full script from you. Never send the full script first. There’s really no point in blasting out thousands of scripts when most of the time the company won’t want to read it anyway.

Luckily The Hollywood Creative Directory (HCD) publishes a frequently updated list of virtually every production company in Los Angeles and New York, usually with address information, email addresses, phone numbers and fax numbers so all you need to do is purchase a copy and start submitting. You can purchase the HCD at Amazon by clicking here.

Online you can buy a one week trial membership fairly cheaply – and during that week you should be able to go through every company and copy and paste the information into a spreadsheet for later use. You can also buy a hard copy from Amazon by clicking here if you prefer to own it. Keep in mind it does change quite a bit so if you do buy it you’ll want to buy a new copy at least once a year so that you’re always using the correct information when submitting.

You need to get all the companies’ information into an excel spreadsheet so that you can easily and quickly send out mass mailings. If this means keying it in by hand, that’s what you’ll need to do. If this means getting your friends to help you, that’s what you should do. There are a lot of companies in the HCD so this is going to take a little while. You can also buy a digital version of the HCD which will allow you to copy and paste it into an excel spreadsheet much quicker – however the digital version costs over $300. If your time is very valuable this is a good way to do it although certainly not the cheapest.

In the HCD it will typically list a few credits that each company has recently produced. I’ve read on other blogs and how-to books about looking through this and trying to find “good matches” for your material but I highly recommend NOT wasting your time with this. When I’ve submitted to companies I’ve never found any real correlation between a companies’ credits and what they were willing to read. In fact, I’ve worked for companies listed in the HCD and I’ve asked the heads of development about this and they usually all say that they’re interested in good material and don’t usually care too much about genre.
Once you have all this information in an excel spreadsheet you can actually use it 2 or 3 different times over the course of the next year or so it’s a good investment in time.

Over the years I’ve had the best luck in terms of response rates when I sent a letter through regular mail to a production company. Typically I can get a “we’ll read your script” response from letters about 5% to 10% of the time. While this method is very costly (one stamp per letter plus envelopes and paper) it does seem to produce the best results. Once you have all the contact information in an Excel spreadsheet you can actually use MS Word’s Mail Merge function to pump out all the letters with the proper heading and address on it. Tip: while it may be very time consuming hand write the addresses on all the envelopes when you send them out (get friends to help). I’ve seen a nice jump in the response rate with handwritten names and addresses on the envelopes. I think this is because printed labels, while easy, look more like junk mail and may get discarded before even being read.

After letters through regular mail, I’ve found that faxing a query letter to a company usually results in about a 5% positive response. This is probably the way to go. Using a service like FlatRateFax.com you can send out a fax to all the companies in your database in seconds and for relatively little, too. Again, once you have your letter written you can upload your Word doc and your Excel spreadsheet of addresses to FlatRateFax.com and they will merge the documents and send out the faxes to all the fax numbers in your spreadsheet. It takes a little bit of time setting up the files properly, but once you’ve done it you can blast out query letters in next to no time and for a pretty reasonable price, too.

I have never tried cold calling production companies mainly because I’m not a good salesman. I have had friends try this method and it is by far the most effective. If you can stomach it you should try it. Pick out a few smaller production companies and call them. Pitch your idea and try and get them to agree to read your script. Keep careful notes so if someone is friendly and receptive to your ideas you can call them back after you’ve sent the script to try and get any notes they’re willing to offer.

As you can tell from the different methods I recommend you’re going to get turned down a lot – in fact the vast majority of the time. Do not let rejection slow you down. Not even a little. I don’t. Any success I’ve had optioning and selling scripts is a direct result of me plowing forward even in the face of mountains of rejection letters.

I would recommend starting out with 100 letters through regular mail to gauge the effectiveness of your query letter and synopsis. Once you start to get close to 5% of your queries getting a “yes” response then you can step it up and start to do mass fax blasts. By only doing 100 letters at a time you won’t be alienating lots of producers with half backed ideas. If you can’t get roughly (i.e. at least 3) “yes” responses out of 100 letters you’re not ready for a massive campaign. You’ll need to take a long hard look at your query letter and synopsis and rewrite them. Try again with another 100 letters and measure results again. Rewrite and try again. And just keep trying until you’re getting some producers to read your scripts. That's what we tell clients at Greenstein-Shannon Management

One word of warning: The ideas I’ve purposed above should not be used if they violate any local or state laws which they very well might since these emails and faxes may be considered SPAM. Most areas have laws forbidding SPAM and by sending unsolicited material to a company you may very well be spamming them. I’ve never had any problems; however, you should consult with a lawyer if you have any questions about the laws in your area.

How to Sell a Screenplay

How to Sell Your Screenplay

Since the title of my blog is “Selling Your Screenplay,” and I want that to be the focus of my blog, I figured an obvious first post was to write a simple guide to getting your screenplay sold.
Keep in mind that this blog is not an exhaustive list of ways to get your script sold. It’s just a few ways that I’ve tried and had good luck with. Always be on the lookout for other ways to get your script sold and realize that some of the things I’ve done may not work for you. Hopefully if you see exactly what I’ve done and how I did it you will be able learn from it and apply it to your own situation.
To sell a script the first thing you need to do is write a great screenplay. I know this sounds obvious, but really, it’s got to be great to get noticed.
I would guess that for most of us to write a “great” screenplay you’re probably going to write a half dozen (or more) not-so-great ones. I read once that Platoon was Oliver Stone’s 11th screenplay – but the first one that actually got him any recognition. So don’t be ashamed about being a novice, everyone is at one time or another, just keep writing, and with each script you’ll get better and hopefully you’ll eventually start churning out scripts that are up to industry standards. Just because your first one (or first ten) are terrible doesn’t mean you’re not capable of writing a great screenplay, it just means you’ve haven’t acquired the skill yet.
Once you’ve written a great script write two more so that you have at least three solid screenplays ready to go. It’s very common for a producer or director to read one of your scripts and think it is well written but not quite right for them – that’s when you’ll want to pitch them one of your other “great” scripts.
Don’t be too eager to start sending out your first few scripts if they’re truly not up to industry standards – and if you haven’t written at least half dozen scripts or more they most likely are NOT!
There are lots of books on how to write a good script. Ream them. I personally recommend Screenplay by Syd Field and The Art Of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri for starters.
You can learn more about Field’s Screenplay by checking out my post Syd Field’s Screenplay
So how do you know if your script is up to industry standards? You’ll never know for sure. But as a screenwriter you should be interacting with other screenwriters, reading their scripts, and reading scripts from produced screenwriters. So by the time you’ve written a few solid scripts you should have some idea about where you stand compared to industry standards. If you’re not doing any of these things your script probably isn’t ready and neither are you – so start reading other people’s scripts while you’re working on your writing.
Make sure you protect your work by getting a copyright on it or sending it to the WGA for registration. Check out my post How do you protect your work? Screenplay copyrights and WGA registration to learn how to protect yourself and your script.
Okay… so now you’ve written several great scripts and gotten them all copyrighted. Now what?
You’ve got to get your script to someone who can turn it into a movie. While this may seem obvious (and easier said than done) it’s all you have to do.
Who do you know that could turn your script into a movie?
Perhaps you have enough money to produce the movie yourself. I’ve done this and it allows a lot of creative control over the final product.
Or perhaps you have a rich relative or friend who might be willing to invest in your project.
In this day and age you can produce a feature film for very little money and if you’re looking to get your first project off the ground this is going to be the easiest way to do it so seriously consider it.
But if you’re goal is to simply sell your script then you’ve got to find a producer who will raise the money and make your movie. While this is very difficult this is precisely what most screenwriters are looking to do.
Many novice writers assume they need an agent to help them sell their script. While a good agent can help I recommend going straight to the produces themselves. In my experience when you have no credits finding an agent that can really help you is actually harder then finding a producer who will make your movie so you’re better off spending your time trying to find a producer than an agent. Check out my post How do you get an agent for your screenplay? (And why you don’t need one!) to learn more about finding an agent.
Many of the trade publications (The Hollywood reporter, Daily variety, Backstage West) will often have ads in them placed by producers or directors seeking screenplays. Over the last few years I’ve noticed that there are fewer and fewer of these sorts of ads in the trades as they have moved to Craig’s List. Read my post about submitting to Craig’s List. While you do have to be very careful, it is a great resource for writers, especially beginning writers. I recently optioned a script to a producer I met on Craig’s List so it can be done.
I actually began my screenwriter career by submitting to Reader’s Digest Writer’s Market. They have a section for screenwriters and have filtered the list a bit so that most of the listed production companies will read scripts by unproduced writers.
The Hollywood Creative Directory (HCD) is a comprehensive list of every single production company in the United States with addresses, phone and fax numbers, and sometimes email addresses. While this isn’t an easy road I have optioned screenplays through unsolicited submissions this way. It’s going to require a lot of letter writing, faxing, emailing, and phone calls, but if you do it on a large enough scale you will eventually get some of these companies to read your material and hopefully option it from you. There’s well over 2000 companies listed so you have plenty of places to submit.
No matter who you submit to you’re going to need to write a good query letter and synopsis for your script. A query letter introduces yourself to the producer. You want to list any writing credits you have and a logline (one-sentence synopsis of your script) about your script in about half a page. Then you’ll also include a 1 page synopsis about the script you mentioned in the query.

How to Write a Spec Script or Screenplay

All movies start with screenplays. Many of those screenplays start as spec scripts. A spec script is a screenplay written with the speculation that a production company will make the script into a movie or a management company has a production company lined up. In many cases the spec script itself doesn't sell, but the quality of the writing can lead an agent or producers to offer the script's author a writing job on another screenplay. Here's how to write a spec script that could result in a movie deal for you.

1. Step 1

   Write a treatment or outline your script first. The outline doesn't have to be detailed. Numbered steps touching on all the major plot points will do. Having the story laid out before you begin makes it easier to focus on the details. Many writers outline with index cards because they can be easily rearranged to accommodate the story as the script develops.

2. Step 2

   Focus on telling the story. You should never include scene numbering or shot calls or any other type of breakdown information in a spec script. Those elements are reserved for a shooting script. A spec script should never stray from the story or try to describe how to film the story.

3. Step 3

   Format a spec script as you would format any type of movie script. Scene headings, action, and dialogue are the key elements to focus on. Write only what you can see and hear. Write action elements in present tense, as it takes place. You can't see what a character is thinking or what they feel, so you have to find a way to show it on the screen. Always focus on visual elements.

4. Step 4

   Use proper script format. Dedicated screenplay software handles the repetitive formatting for you, allowing you to focus on writing. Movie Magic Screenwriter and Final Draft are the leading screenplay programs on the market. You can also use Celtx, which is free, or one of the online screenwriting sites that offer the same power and versatility of stand-alone screenwriting software.

5. Step 5

   Bind your screenplay between two pieces of cover stock in white, blue or black.Use a three-hole punch and three 1-1/4 inch brads. Do not write anything on the cover. Include the title of the script and all contact information on the cover page of the screenplay itself. Send to a management company or production.

For questions or comments call Eric Greenstein 323.898.5350 or TalentCreative@gmail.com

SCRIPT AND SCREENPLAY EXAMPLES

SCRIPT, WRITING AND SCREENPLAY EXAMPLES

Here are a few examples of good (and maybe not so good) writing that has sold and been made into feature films. Take a peak and contrast and compare to your own writing and if you feel you have a product that can sell. Call Eric Greenstein at 323-898-5350. Our management company will get the job done.

SCRIPT AND SCREENPLAY EXAMPLES (click to view)

Above the Law

Apocalypse Now

Bad Boys

Blade

Deer Hunter

Die Hard

Gladiator

Postman, The

Rush Hour