Do as Mamet says...

In Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman memorably writes "nobody knows anything". And generally speaking, he has a point. Everybody claims to have the answer, and really... none of us really know a damn thing.

Except David Mamet.

But rather than present us with an answer, Mamet poses three questions. In his book, BAMBI VS. GODZILLA, Mamet sagely states that every screenwriter, in every screenplay, needs to answer these three questions.

-WHO WANTS WHAT FROM WHOM?
-WHAT HAPPENS IF THEY DON'T GET IT
-WHY NOW?

Tacked directly in front of my computer, I'm looking at it right now, is a piece of paper with these questions written upon it.

I read them every day.

AFI's BASICS OF SCREENWRITING

The AFI is the American Film Institute, and as they say on the front page of their website, they are "a national institute providing leadership in screen education and the recognition and celebration of excellence in the art of film, television and digital media."

They're not quite a college or university, but act as a educational environment for filmmakers. And they know quite a bit about screenwriting.

Fathom.com has published some of the AFI's screenwriting material on their site and it's well worth your time. It's good reading. And good learning.

Click here to visit the AFI's screenwriting seminar on "The Basics of Screenwriting".

Stephen J. Cannell

Say what you will about Cannell, yeah... he's the guy who wrote The A-Team and Silk Stalkings... but he's also the guy who wrote The Rockford Files and Wiseguy. The guy's a prolific, successful scriptwriter and he's more that qualified to host a seminar on screenwriting.

And lucky for us, the folks over at writerswrite.com have transcribed and posted many of the materials Cannell used in his lecture. There's lots of good stuff in here, and I recommend you put it on your reading list.

WITHOUTABOX

If you've never heard of withoutabox.com, you're missing out on a very interesting social community with lots of potential opportunities for you. As an active filmmaker, an unproduced screenwriter or somebody just looking for answers to questions they fear others will see as stupid, withoutabox is a vital source of information.

I began using it a couple of years ago with my first 'real' film, MAGDALENA'S BRAIN. Withoutabox was then, and still is now, an excellent source of film festival information, allowing filmmakers to target certain fests based on a specificity of genre, audience, region... you name it. You made a movie about a one armed lesbian assassin? Withoutabox will point you to the Sarasota Falls Annual One Armed Lesbian Assassin Film Festival.

Check out the site, register, and spend some time exploring.

THE NEED FOR STRUCTURE

Structure is ridiculously important in the art and craft of screenwriting. This blog will try to reinforce this message again and again.

When I teach, I always read this essay to the class. It's written by Josh Becker, a screenwriter and sometimes director who lives on the periphery of the Hollywood system. His credits appear somewhat questionable for him to state the things he states in this essay (some of which I take exception to, most most of which I heartily agree with), but the guy is a produced, professional writer/director and really DOES know what he's talking about.

Read the essay. I find a little bit of inspiration each time I do.

Good writing = good reading

I'm a huge proponent of writing to be read. All good writing, whether it be poetry, prose or boardgame instructions serves a purpose. And that purpose begins with a reader reading.

Check out this essay written by the Mystery Man. It's a nice piece on what makes good screenplays good.

Cole/Haag

My first screenwriting book was called, "The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats: The Screenplay" written by Judith H. Haag and Hillis R. Cole. I bought it while writing my first screenplay, an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It's a bad script. But then, so are most scripts churned out by 17 year olds. The one thing it's not, however, is poorly formatted. In fact, it's formatted pretty nicely. I still have it, the original pages, printed out character by character from my old Brother word processor. I still have the Cole/Haag book, too.

With software progams taking care of so many of the intricacies of the form -- pagination, spacing, margin width -- the old book isn't as vital as it used to be. But I'd argue even a little vital is still vital. If you don't own the book, Amazon.com presently has 75 used copies starting at $2.80.

If you want to be a screenwriter, it's simply a reference book you must have on your shelf.

read. Read. READ!

The old axiom, 'a writer writes' could not be any truer (though, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how old the axiom actually is. I know it's at least 21 years because that's when Billy Crystal said it to Danny Devito in THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN).

But an even truer axiom is (or should be) 'a writer reads'. You always have time to read. Always. And if you want to be a screenwriter, you need to be reading screenplays. Have you ever read CHINATOWN? PULP FICTION? BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID? BUTCH, you'll have to pay for (go here to do it, it's worth it), but the other two? Those you can for free.

All you have to do is go here, to SIMPLY SCRIPTS. You'll find hundreds of scripts in a variety of formats. Scan through the titles, right click and 'save as', print and read.

Then repeat.