Screenwriting
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First Draft: Remember These Three Key Differences Between Short and Feature Scripts
In partnership with Creative Screenwriting and ScreenCraft, “First Draft” is a series on everything to do with screenwriting. A short script can’t just be a... -
First Draft: Your Characters Lack Uniqueness? Use These Seven Ways to Give Them Fresh Voices
In partnership with Creative Screenwriting and ScreenCraft, “First Draft” is a series on everything to do with screenwriting. As a former studio script reader, I’ve... -
First Draft: Craft Top-Notch Cinematic Scares With These 101 Terrifying Horror Story Prompts
In partnership with Creative Screenwriting and ScreenCraft, “First Draft” is a series on everything to do with screenwriting. Welcome to the story den of horror,... -
The Killer Idea: Learn to Turn a Stimulating Premise Into a Dynamic Script from My Friend Dahmer’s Marc Meyers
On some level, writing a script is just a collage of all the relevant life experience and movies that your original idea... -
A Screenwriter’s Guide to Getting (and Keeping) an Agent: An Interview with David Boxerbaum of Paradigm
Many new screenwriters think about getting an agent as soon as—or even before—they’ve finished their first scripts. For most people, this makes... -
Fighting Sex Slavery: Siddharth Kara Discusses the Impact of the Ripped from the Headlines Film Trafficked
Highlighting the global nature of sexual slavery, university professor turned screenwriter, Siddharth Kara, synthesized years of research and investigation into Trafficked, a... -
Eyes Open, Ears Open, Travel Everywhere: Learn From Martin McDonagh’s Screenwriting Philosophy
Martin McDonagh, the playwright-turned-director of new feature Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (as well as 2008’s In Bruges and 2012’s Seven Psychopaths)... -
“You’re Holding Up a Mirror, and the Reflection is Ugly”: Chucky Creator Don Mancini on Horror Screenwriting
Being provocative comes with the territory if you’re working within the horror genre. If you’re doing the job right you have to... -
Smile More: The Sound Director on the Strength and Complexity of her "Bitchy" Protagonist
Every woman has been told to smile. By strangers. By lovers. By friends. Society has come to expect the mask of pleasant... -
Hollywood’s Four Classic Narrative Types, Part I: When the Bad Guys Win
Cinematic stories give lessons on human thought and behavior. This is their most basic social purpose. The story places a certain type...
Summer 2018
Spring 2018
25th Anniversary
Guide 2018
Summer 2017
Year in MovieMaker
Inside the Issue: Acting
Sydney on the Map: To Land Breakout Roles, Sydney Sweeney Draws Her Own Maps of the Characters She Inhabits
A reverent initiate of a patriarchal regime; a disturbed young psychiatric hospital ward; a sexually questioning teen with a flair for the dramatic; a mysterious denizen...Inside the Issue: Directing
Think Like A Photographer: Generation Wealth’s Lauren Greenfield Shares How Still Techniques Make Better Movies
The biggest change I experienced when I went from making pictures to making films was the sense of an arc—of creating a story over time, and...Inside the Issue: How To
How They Did It: Casting Unknowns Was Key to Finding the Laughs and Lived-In Feel of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade
Before I directed my first film, Eighth Grade, I had heard that 90 percent of directing is casting. I’m sure there are other directors who weigh...1