Things I learned at this year’s Austin Film Festival:
- Read Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot’s website, Wordplay, cover-to-cover, as it were.
- Just like a film has a three-act-structure, so too does every act and every scene. Setup, turn, and completion that drives the action forward.
- What makes the chase scene interesting is how the hero overcomes the obstacle in his path – what changes along the way?
- Get a manager.
- Always be working. Don’t ever stop writing. If you’re the guy that churns out three or four screenplays a year, your agent loves you.
- Screenplays are really boring when read out loud.
- I came to this year’s AFF knowing a small handful of people. Through each of those people, I met two or three more. The lesson: keep coming, and you’ll double your circle every year.
- Danny Boyle is frickin’ amazing. If you haven’t seen Shallow Grave, go watch it.
- Make your movie cool. Always look for what can be done differently. How can we write this chase scene in a way that no one’s ever done a chase scene before?
- If you want to do a screen adaptation for a project that’s been “in development” forever, find the themes and the genre elements that turn you on in the source material, and write a different script with those in mind.
- A screenwriter’s job is to keep rewriting his (or someone else’s) script until everyone involved is okay with it. If you don’t look at your job from this perspective, you’ll only get pissed off because you keep having to change something that you already knew was really good to begin with.
- Don’t be creepy, annoying, or overeager.
- They’ll read the first five pages. If you haven’t captured them by then, they won’t keep reading.
- Apparently, Robert McKee sucks. This was news to me – I love his book. But a lot of people don’t, and they say it results in formulaic films.
I’m sure there’s more. Check back for more details.
