Archive for April, 2006
Between the Step Outline and the Pages
I outline. I didn’t use to outline but I outline now. Prior to screenwriting, writing was how I explored and discovered. Scripts would wander and meander through long soliloquies and meditations with complete disregard for structure and form. A first draft would take a year or two to complete. I let the artistic expression dictate [...]
Posted: April 20th, 2006 under The Craft.
Comments: none
The Godfather and The Godfather: Part III
I’m taking Film Structure at UCLA with Professor Howard Suber. Our assignment was to watch The Godfather and The Godfather: Part III, compare them and write in 800-900 words why Part III was less successful than Part I. Below is the essay I turned in.
The story of The Godfather (G-I) is about Michael Corleone’s rise [...]
Posted: April 19th, 2006 under Analysis.
Comments: none
The Dirty Little Secret of Screenwriting Books
Books about screenwriting don’t teach you how to write. What they do is analyze successful movies and reveal recurring patterns while offering tips for economy and clarity.
The best advice I ever got about writing was from my ninth grade English teacher Richard de Rosa who said, “The only way to learn how to write is [...]
Posted: April 7th, 2006 under The Craft.
Comments: 1
The Rhetoric of Sean Hannity
I was flipping through the news channels and heard Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes interviewing Dan Dewalt, a Selectman in the Vermont legislature who voted to pass a resolution to use an obscure procedural rule to impeach the President. Mr. Colmes let him state his position and then Mr. Hannity joined the conversation.
Well, it wasn’t [...]
Posted: April 7th, 2006 under Commentary.
Comments: none