Screenwriting

At this point, it is the darkest hour scenes, the times when the protagonist is pushed against the wall, waiting for the final strike, and what is going through their minds? it is fine to have a sidekick or partner to talk to, but if they are alone, you just have to be there as that character and ask them what they are doing. it may be that they are just standing there with a stupid look on their face.

I love to watch comedies -- but I don't think I could write a comedy script! But for what i do write, I try to sprinkle in some humor. I think it helps to break things up, especially for deep screenplays like dramas.

Verbalizing mental thoughts. I have a short story with the protagonist alone, and I need to express his emotional thoughts and mental turmoil in dialogue as he deals with doubt and feeling abandoned. ??

I think tightening scenes has always been my biggest challenge. My first drafts tend to include everything I’m thinking in the moment. During revisions, I’ve learned that scenes become much stronger when I ask myself, “What absolutely needs to stay?” Trimming dialogue, getting into the scene later, leaving earlier, and trusting the audience to connect the dots has made a huge difference. It’s still something I work on, but every rewrite teaches me to be a little more ruthless

Definitely endings, we all want the dramatic ending that shocks the reader and keeps the story relevant. The Crying Game ending is a good example.

I was in the biz back in the 90's and was working for a very successful screenwriter who had written some of Hollywood's biggest comedies. I was the Director of Operations for the company. Life happens, I had my first child on the way, and I wanted to focus on my little family and stepped away from the biz. I did keep in touch with everyone. Fast forward to 2021 I decided to produce and jump back in with both feet and now have a handful of projects in various stages of development. I pushed past the fear of feeling "too old" (just turned 60) and reconnected with some people and also made a ton of new connections as well. I didn't want to say to myself "I shoulda, coulda woulda" if I didn't follow my passion and dream of filmmaking. These past 5 years have been amazing, and I wouldn't trade it for the world!! Go for it Aaron!

Ralph is right. I'm 62, but my family is depressingly long lived. I'm probably still going to be here in 15 years, and I don't want to be doing "I shoulda, coulda woulda", which Is why I am in this.

'depressingly long lived'.... there is no way that descriptor will NOT find itself in something I write going forward haha. Thanks Brendan Kelly !!

Aaron, I came to this after a long run as a senior executive, so I will just say the corporate decades are not a liability, they are your material. You have sat in real rooms and watched how power and money and fear actually move people, which is exactly what most scripts only pretend to understand. Craft you can learn on a normal timeline. That lived authority you already have and no film school hands it out. What part of those twenty years keeps showing up in the stories you want to tell?

Age, any age, cannot dim the skill, craft, or desire to turn thought to action by typing on the keyboard.

Open the pod bay doors HAL.

I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave.

I can tell you that I have. It is a commitment of time and money, but doable.

You have to write your trailer/teaser - and be ready to toss it as many shots are simply not going to come together. The guardrails refuse to render many violence-adjacent scenes. .

You have to use a tool like 11 labs to create the dialogue.

You have to learn how to prompt individual shots in Higgfield or similar.

You have to learn how to cut it all together with a tool like reaper..

The Legend of Dragonfield.

A wannabe influencer measures her worth in followers until her family inherits a legendary English castle. When the occultist-billionaire next door kidnaps her brother for an ancient blood ritual, she must swap her selfie stick for a sword to save him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvu2wNhqEdAand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsgYNus8m44

https://legendofdragonfield.com/

DM me w/any questions

Philipp Mayr it’s a waste of time

I can only write 2h a day anyway, so I'll still have plenty of time for things like ai production. Besides, out of 1,000 written scripts, only one ever gets produced. AI video is still better than not making it at all.

Not me, but I want to try making a trailer

I build AI systems in my day job, so let me offer a middle read between the two poles here. The tools are good enough now to sell a mood, a tone, a look, but not a scene that holds character. So treat the output as proof of atmosphere, not proof of story. A sixty second teaser that sells the feeling of your world can earn you a read even with rough frames. Rendering your actual pages is where the seams show and it starts working against you. What are you hoping the clip proves, the vibe or the plot? That answer tells you how far to take it.

Hey Alex, this is Suzanne from the Stage 32 team. I just wanted to let you know I moved your post from Acting to Screenwriting, as it fits much better there. Let me know if you have any questions, and all the best to you!

Hey Alex, this "standalone but centered" format is an interesting challenge. It's rare to see a single protagonist anchor different environments and cultures episode-to-episode without the narrative feeling disjointed.

If you're focusing on "choice and consequence" over exposition, then I believe the weight of the series relies almost entirely on the internal motives and logic of that one character. For this to be internationally scalable, that character’s manifesto has to be the constant that makes sense of the changing variables.

I'd be curious to know: how do you intend to sustain tension in the audience when the elements change so frequently? This is truly intriguing, the vision is bold, but I believe the structure will need to be bulletproof for a system like this to work long-term.

Thanks, Akshat — that’s a sharp observation.

The tension isn’t coming from external continuity, but from the consistency of Alex’s internal logic.

Each episode is a closed system, but Alex operates under a fixed set of principles — almost like a personal code. That code creates continuity, even when environments, cultures, and conflicts change.

So the audience doesn’t follow the plot — they follow how far he’s willing to go each time.

That’s where the tension lives.

That’s exactly why I’m treating Alex as the constant — almost like a system rather than just a character.

Curious — from your perspective, what would you consider “bulletproof” for this kind of structure long-term?

Alex Mutnyi What I would consider "bulletproof" for this? Whatever adds and sustains tension, I think would be solid enough to call this bulletproof. Other than this, I believe this is enough meta and theoretical discussion, the rest I really wouldn't be able to specifically point out unless we talked about the plots and characters (other than Alex; and I'm sorry to intrude but perhaps is the name taken as an inspiration from your own?) together. How are your recent projects coming about in terms of retaining their own bulletproof nature, Alex?

Looks intruiging. But I don't know what a "lahar" is, and it kind of trips me up. Maybe you should just go with mud. Everybody knows what that is!

Fair point. “Mud” undersells the danger, but I can describe it more clearly as a catastrophic volcanic mudflow—a fast-moving surge of water, rock, and debris capable of sweeping away cars and homes.

is there a way of encapsulating "ashfall, collapsing terrain, and a catastrophic lahar” in a way that communicates the relentless danger, without tripping readers?

i remember in one of those volcano movies back in the day, they referred to a "pyroclastic flow” – not saying this will solve your problem, but it may be something readers are more familiar with

That’s a good point. I’m looking for a phrase that keeps the escalation clear without making the reader stop on the terminology. I may simplify it to “a chain of catastrophic volcanic disasters” or “an eruption that turns the mountain into a collapsing death trap.”

So excited for this lab!!

Me too! Excited to dig into everything!

Starting soon!

The first class was extremely informative. Can't wait for class two!

Your logline requires the reader to know Danish history around WWII, which not many people do. I think you should go with James Fleming's approach, above. Good Luck!

I really like James' logline approach and it is very snappy. As a bit of a WW2 afficionado, the concept of a Danish wine merchant caught my eye in a way that Danish resistance fighter does not. But I suppose you gotta go with a version that catches a finaciers' eye. Good luck !!

Darrell, if you are interested in WW2 history, I highly recommend, 'Hitler's Savage Canary' written by David Lampe. It opens with Field-Marshal Bernard Montgomery praising Denmark for the country's role in helping to defeat Hitler. One fact that surprised me was when all the Danish tugboat captains snuck their boats out of the Harbor so that the German soldiers being sent in on large carriers from Norway to fight in the Ardennes could not enter. Stopping those reinforcements helped to turn the tide in that fight.

Thank you Lori Jones. I will have to check it out. Probably my fave book on WW2 is Erik Larson's The Splendid And The Vile. It is utterly fascinating and such a compelling look at Churchill on a more personal level. In The Garden Of The Beasts (also by Lason) is excellent as well.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

Brendan Kelly, it gets more insane than that. He only started uploading a year ago. Each script was probably only a few pages long.

The script is more than a story, it’s also a practical working document that is intended for use by multiple departments when making your film. The reason for its formatting is to make it as user friendly as possible. Making them the same format means that early assessments on screentime, pacing etc can be made more easily. Not formatting a script properly makes it look less professional.

Ewan Dunbar is so right! A script is not just a story. It informs not just the actors and the director and cinematographers, but also wardrobe, set design, special effects, stunts, props, location scouts, casting directors, etc. It needs to be a professional, working document that is delivered on time and in a professional format that people can use.

One time I had an intern at one of the major agencies refuse to carry a script to an agent because there was missing punctuation in one sentence. Is anal-retentive hyphenated?

Philip Sedgwick That sounds like A) someone who you may have inadvertently offended, or B) someone who has "5x" amount of things to do and "X" amount of time to get them done in. The intern probably gets asked to do that several hundred times a day, and most likely there is a rule against them doing that anyway. As you guessed, it wasn't about the punctuation.