http://screenstorysuccess.com from Lindsey Hughes Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:23:07 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en CLASH OF THE TITANS asks the question, can you do a sword and sandals Greek myths movie and it not be corny.  The answer is no.  Now when it comes to corny movies, there is good and bad corn.  The CLASH remake is somewhere in the middle.  The CG animation ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=178 I really wanted to like this movie.  Young love is always romantic.  You can’t get a better romantic obstacle than being in love with a vampire.  He’s dead and he wants to eat you.  And the conflict between vampires and werewolves is cool.  I only read the first book of ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=171 In action scripts a common mistake I see beginning writers make is writing wall to wall action and nothing else.  Cool fights and car chases will fall flat if there is no emotion behind them.  The audience’s response will be so what, if they don’t care about the characters.  Action ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=167 COUPLES RETREAT is a romantic comedy about four couples – two are having martial troubles, one guy is newly divorced and dating a woman too young for him, and one couple is solid.  Making this concept into a romantic comedy is problematic because a story about couples considering divorce isn’t ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=162 Your movie is being released.  You’re in the clear from criticism, right.  Wrong.  Not only do you have to contend with the “official” critics of old media magazines and newspapers, every yahoo with a blog or a website (including this yahoo) is going to feel free to sound off about ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=159 In my last post I discussed the importance of being flexible and cheerful when getting story notes.  I want to talk a little more about the importance of attitude.  I’m not saying agree with everything; I’m saying listen intently and respectfully.  The people you’re working with need to feel like ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=156 I’m sure you’ve heard many times, filmmaking is a collaborative art.  It takes lots of people to make a movie, and most of them offer their opinions along the way.    Screenwriters get criticism constantly through the development process, into production, and once the movie is released.  In a series of ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=153 WHIP IT is about a young woman in a small Texas town who risks disappointing her beauty pageant-obsessed mom when she finds her calling skating at the roller derby.  The roller derby is an original setting for a coming of age story, yet this movie was not very engaging.  Why ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=150 Often I read a script and I can tell that the writer had what he thought was a cool idea, but he didn’t think it through.  An idea is not a movie.  A movie needs characters, conflict, emotion, and theme.  If you haven’t thought all of these aspects through and ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=147 A person’s life is so unwieldy, often it is easier to write about specific events or time periods rather than try to tell the story of their entire life.  Two good places to start are the beginning and the end.  In the beginning we get to see who our subject ... http://screenstorysuccess.com/?p=143