It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for – today we announce the winners of the WriteMovies Spring 2021 Screenwriting Contest! This is the last major contest we’ll be running this year, so it’s extra exciting for us to see which entries emerge as the winners that we’ll be working to develop and pitch to industry.
Sanjay Dutt – Infamous Bollywood Actor
As more of us get the chance to discover Indian films on streaming services, WriteMovies’ Director Ian Kennedy explores these often lavish films to ask whether Hollywood should take Bollywood more seriously. He discusses the appeals of Bollywood films for English-language audiences, and asks whether Bollywood should take ITSELF more seriously to break through to the rest of the world now that PARASITE has shown that non-English-language films can triumph!
To mark the death of an era-defining director, WriteMovies’ LOST GENERATION blog reviews the enduring influence of THE GOONIES and Richard Donner – the director behind SUPERMAN, LETHAL WEAPON and THE OMEN among other famous movies. Our young writer and analyst, Jake Morgan, shares his memories of Richard Donner’s movies and explores what they have to say to today’s young people. (more…)
Worldbuilding is a key component of genre fiction, and with the new WriteMovies Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award now open, a lot of you will now be hard at work creating new worlds! But how do you do it successfully? Here are what we see as the first principles of great worldbuilding.
Writing is a skill like any other. Having a talent for it is a good start, but “practice” makes perfect and is what separates the professionals from everyone else. Luckily, there’s a simple tactic you can use to make sure this happens: writing every day.
One of the most important skills for a writer is getting the opening of your script right – and part of that is setting the tone. A great premise can be ruined if its presented in the wrong way, and this often happens if the screenplay doesn’t set the tone correctly. So what even is “tone”, and how do you get it right?
“One man’s life touches so many others, when he’s not there it leaves an awfully big hole.” IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is a perennial festive rewatch for a lot of families in the holiday season, and after the events of 2020, its themes have become even more relevant than ever. Jake Morgan discusses why that is – and what screenwriters can learn about writing Christmas movies…