Reading Screenplays To Learn How to Write Screenplays!
lisa lavigne
Social Media Manager for The Script Mentor; "Ghostwriter to the Stars"; Executive Director of the Academy Awards, and more.
Screenwriting Myth Debunked- "You can learn all you need to know about how to WRITE a screenplay by simply READING them- hundreds of them!"
?One of the more celebrated platitudes disguised as “screenwriting advice” is the suggestion to “read all of the scripts you can, and learn what TO do and what NOT to do!”
?I am not aware of a single script ever written that tells you HOW or HOW NOT to write a spec screenplay. The fact that a particular screenplay was successful, in and of itself, means nothing in the final analysis. There are just too many elements that go into creating a successful screenplay – including luck – that, to limit it to one rule or even a series of rules is folly.
?Undoubtedly, a fellow screenwriter who believes he or she knows more than the rest of us, or one of those dangerously self-proclaimed “gurus” will suggest something along the lines of the following:?
“You want to learn how to write a screenplay? Read 'Chinatown' until your eyes bleed! THAT’S how you write a screenplay!”
??“You write comedy? Read ‘The Hangover’. That’s the direction comedy is going these days.”
?“So you think you write horror? Better be like the 'Saw' franchise. Better yet, make it a found footage horror. They’re hot right now!”
You’ve all been told the screenplays – Casablanca, The Godfather, Annie Hall, Network…the list goes on and on. Then, the untrained, uneducated, unlearned spec screenwriter takes all the little tricks and traits that make those screenplays among the best ever written, and writes their masterpiece.
?How could they go wrong?
?How about by including the actor cue, “INTENSE BEAT”. Not only include it, but…here it comes, now…
…putting it in the SCENE DESCRIPTION!
?And, because you saw it in a Woody Allen script, why not include;
CAMERA RAMP TO CLOSE UP OF MAN’S CROTCH?
It worked for him, why not me? How about three full pages of script dedicated to the credit roll and subsequent background graphics, not to mention a song list and YouTube links of suggested dance numbers?
领英推荐
Sounds ridiculous? Silly?
I saw it all- just a few weeks ago.
The point is, friends, that the large majority of the scripts you’ll read from produced movies, written by extremely talented, professional, working screenwriters ARE, in fact, scripts of PRODUCED MOVIES, written by extremely talented, professional, WORKING screenwriters. If you’re reading this blog, this probably doesn’t define YOU- at least, not where you are today. That’s just a fact, Jack; not an insult.
?Those scripts are largely final shooting scripts and do not at all resemble the format and appearance of a spec screenplay written by an as-of-yet undiscovered writer- or shouldn't.
Learn the format rules as they apply to the spec screenplay. Read all the produced screenplays you want- of your favorite movies, or from your favorite screenwriter. I do. I just don’t use them as examples of how my script should look or how it should be written.
?If you do, you’re shooting yourself in the foot even before you get on the dance floor!
?Just don’t read them to learn how to write.
WRITER'S BIO:?Geno Scala, known professionally as?"The Script Mentor"?as well as the?"Ghostwriter to the Stars", was the former?Executive Director of the?2000 Academy Awards, and held a similar position with The Grammys, The Blockbuster Video Awards, The Soul Train Awards and The Saturn Awards. He is highly skilled at adaptations; converting novels into screenplays; having written over 47 of them to date. He currently mentors over five hundred lifetime Script Mentor members and is frequently requested by producers for writing assignments.
His screenplays?"Black Easter",?"Assassins 33 A.D."?and?"The Tombs", can be found on Amazon Prime and Tubi. You can network with Geno through?Lisa Lavigne- his social media manager- or through Facebook at The Script Mentor page and the?Shark-Eating Man Productions page.
Geno also invites you to?subscribe to his YouTube channel?at: