The 'I' Page
The “I” Page: There’s nothing worse than a plethora of “I” pages, that is, pages that are top to bottom dialogue. When this happens, the page literally looks like an “I” because dialogue is margined to fill a narrower column. This creates a lot of white space on the right and left of the page, but it also screams amateur. A screenplay is a visual story, not just a stage play. If you want to write characters that talk, talk, talk their way through a scene, you should be writing for the stage, not the movies.
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Character Roots: Armchair Psychology
Screenwriting
Script Tips
Years ago I was in therapy, whining through misdirected diatribes of what happened yesterday, the day before, or last week. This went on for months – me coming in with a new story, a new conflict, a new situation – but I was getting nowhere. Finally, my therapist roared: "I can't help you if you won't listen!" He must have known I was ready, because this time I actually heard his wisdom. And what he went on to explain was The Tree Analogy. If the tree represents the totality of a person's life experience, we often tend to only see the leaves, which are the immediate…
Five Plot Point Breakdowns
District 9 (2009)
Screenplay
Five Plot Point Breakdowns
Screenplay Genre: Sci-Fi / Drama / Action Movie Time: 112 minutes 1. INCITING INCIDENT Wikus (Sharlto Copley), an executive of the private military company MNU, has been delegated the task of relocating the aliens from District 9 by fooling them into signing an illegal eviction notice. While probing the shack of one of the aliens, Christopher Johnson (Jason Cope), he finds a container that sprays black alien liquid in his face. (00:23:09)
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