by John | Nov 17, 2017 | Highlights, Our Winners, Updates, WriteMovies News
David made the top 3 of our Summer 2017 Writing Contest with a well-written, funny, and tense action-comedy. A real CHARMER. For coming in third David receives a year of free script development, guaranteed pitching from industry and exclusive prizes from InkTip.
Here’s a little background on David:
I retired to Northern California from Massachusetts several years ago and took up writing screenplays – not golf. I’m a “gen Boomer” devotee of 1930s to 1950s movies that feature dialogue, romance, and humor. I naturally tend to write contemporary takes in those genres that might appeal to younger audiences as well as all age groups.
My writing education has been limited to basic composition at college, a creative writing class with a Tufts University professor and a beginner’s screenwriting course at Santa Rosa Junior College. CHARMER is my first “completed” script.
An here’s his logline for CHARMER:
A burned-out middle-aged accountant and a young daredevil woman put their polar opposite lifestyles aside when they team up on dangerous hostage-rescue mission.
You can head over to follow in David’s footsteps in our latest contest…
by John | Sep 1, 2017 | Industry News, Updates
Summer Box-Office flopbusters – Notice the trends of Summer flops to avoid the same pitfalls.
A Summer to forget for Hollywood… the worst grossing Summer in the last ten years, but just why has this happened?
The content has been there. WONDER WOMAN, SPIDERMAN: HOMECOMING, BABY DRIVER, THE DARK TOWER, DUNKIRK, WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES. Of course, they’re different in quality and appeal, but these belong to some big franchises and film companies. But, this Summer has not been so hot.
It’s hard to remember many other films beyond these. If I asked you to name 15 films released since the start of June you’d probably struggle – hell, we’d struggle!
One of the issues is the ease which moviegoers can check a review and decide on whether it’s worth going to see and spend their hard-earned cash on. It takes less than 30 seconds to open up the IMDB app on my phone to check the Dunkirk rating (8.4/10, not bad, Nolan). And this is no doubt how a lot of people are choosing to see films now.
And so many of those low scoring films will just be forgotten. Remember how the BAYWATCH movie was released this Summer, or PIRATES 5 at the end of May? No, me neither. It seems that Hollywood films are becoming more polarizing each year – we’re losing middle ground and average, yet enjoyable, rom-coms and now receiving either complete trash or filmmaking brilliance. We think that script development professionals deserve a bigger voice in the studios’ choice of projects and scriptwriting – and our founder Alex is compiling the research that’ll prove it, we’ve already had a look!
The lack of comedy seems apparent this Summer. Summer action films are always likely going to be a hit, but there’s very little engaging or original comedies or rom-coms out there. Which is just sad for the Summer. Now, we have to settle for things like THE EMOJI MOVIE… We used to get much better quality and ideas…
Maybe this represents a need for better and more original comedies, but there’s also a sign that Winter is becoming the time to release films. The Oscar bait is usually released around Autumn and Winter time, plus the STAR WARS franchise (and before it THE HOBBIT trilogy) was released around Christmas to increase revenue… and it worked.
It’s worth looking more deeply into what films have flopped and why. Try and spot any trends that occur in the failures and do your best to avoid them.
Read more on Hollywood’s horrible Summer here; https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-11/hollywood-s-summer-from-hell
You can also see what sort of scripts are selling recently with Script Pipeline: https://scriptpipeline.com/category/script-sales
Exclusive to WriteMovies – To syndicate this content for your own publication, contact ian (at) writemovies dot-com.
© WriteMovies 2017
by WriteMovies | Sep 9, 2016 | Highlights, Ian Kennedy, Writing Insights
Writers need to feel this connection to these characters too – it is only through your characters that audiences can connect with your story and theme.
“Writers need to feel this connection to these characters too – it is only through your characters that audiences can connect with your story and theme.” – The follow up article to “Insights: Character Driven Storytelling” by Ian Kennedy, WriteMovies Director of World Wide Development. (more…)
by WriteMovies | Aug 30, 2016 | Highlights, Ian Kennedy, Writing Insights
Writing Insights: Character Driven Storytelling – your characters, your protagonists, your antagonists, are the ones who need to drive your story (more…)
by John | Aug 30, 2016 | Trainees and Interns, Trainees' Examples
“Bourne’s identity is not important to him anymore. His initial goal is not accomplished as we still don’t really know who he is, generating potential for a sequel.” – Extracts from a script report by our trainee Adam Yee, based on a reading of THE BOURNE IDENTITY found online at on The Daily Script website: CLICK HERE to read the script.
(more…)
by WriteMovies | Mar 19, 2016 | Ian Kennedy, Writing Insights
By Ian Kennedy, WriteMovies Director of World Wide Development: Genre is so often key to convincing producers, and audiences, to take an interest in your story. Yet at the same time, I hear lots of writers and viewers complaining about formulaic, predictable, derivative stories that lack originality and interest precisely because of their adherence to a genre. So why does genre matter so much, for better and worse? (more…)
by WriteMovies | Mar 13, 2016 | Trainees' Examples
“John’s strong unique blend of humor and arrogance makes him an unusual yet memorable action hero…” Extracts from a script report by our trainee Daniela Piper-Vegh, based on a reading of the script DIE HARD: CLICK HERE to read the script. (more…)
