Well, I’ve been out of commission for a while, mainly because I’ve been reading a ton of scripts lately, and I just haven’t had time for blogging. I’m back now, and hopefully will be able to carve out some time to do this more consistently. Today’s topic: how story structure and a strong protagonist are …
Category: Character
Howard Beale and Donald Trump: As Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take it Anymore
I tend to stay away from politics in this blog. I prefer this blog to be a source of entertainment and sometimes education, and politics have become so divisive over the past few years that I would prefer not to alienate readers over potentially controversial political positions. However, it is undeniable that cinema is often …
Three Reasons Why it Matters That Han Shot First
Prior to George Lucas saving the Star Wars franchise by effectively firing himself and selling it off to the Disney Empire, much outrage and gnashing of teeth had been happening within the legions of Star Wars fans over the direction in which Lucas had taken it. If, for whatever reason, you’re not familiar with the …
Cameron Crowe and a Character/Story/Theme Addendum
Last week I posted a blog on how Story, Character and Theme represented the Holy Trinity of screenwriting. I received generally positive comments on the post, a couple of which referred to it as a “back to basics” post and crediting me for reminding people about the importance of the foundations of screenwriting. In truth, …
3 Great Examples (and 1 not so good) of Heroes Turning Into Villains
Over the weekend I took the opportunity to watch Red River, a classic Howard Hawks western starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift. I had never seen it before, but it’s been on my list for a while, and it’s on many lists of top westerns. For example, AFI has it listed as the #5 western …
Theme Comes From Character
What is the spine of your screenplay? What are you trying to say? What is the theme of your story? Those are questions that can drive even seasoned professional screenwriters crazy. But they are important questions to be able to answer if you want your screenplay to connect with an audience. I’ve often been surprised …
Two Important Ways the Love Interest Adds Depth to Your Script
In honor of Valentine’s Day, I would like to take a moment to discuss the Love Interest. To many of you, the Love Interest may be nothing more than a dreaded cliche that is to be avoided at all cost. To you the Love Interest is a cheap and lazy way to garner emotion from …
Character: The Key to Your Story
I’m taking a break from the Bond blogs for a moment to talk about character. I recently finished taking a 6-week screenwriting workshop and it was an eye opening experience. I hadn’t taken any kind of screenwriting class in several years, and when the opportunity came up to take this workshop, I jumped at the …
My Favorite Movie Fathers
It’s Father’s Day Weekend. What better way to commemorate that than to give a list of my favorite fathers from cinema. 1) Vito Corleone – The Godfather Vito Corleone is one of the great contradictory characters in cinematic history. He devoted family man who is also a ruthless mobster. He is a loving father who has …
Those Crazy Mothers
I posted this a few years back, and thought I would dust it off this Mothers Day. I was thinking about the many archetypes that mother characters fit in cinema. The character of mother might be the most versatile of all character types as an audience wouldn’t be surprised to see a mother as a …