Child of tip – Development
Please don’t ever have a character say “We’ve got company” to announce the arrival of monsters, bad guys, or other undesirables. You can do better. Likewise, “Bingo!” should probably never be used outside of the actual bingo parlor context.
(more…)If you’ve got scene cards, but you haven’t written the script yet, please number the scene cards.
(more…)Make every character a character that an actor can read and respond with “Man, this would be so awesome to play!”
(more…)The same technique that will help you write a script will help you complete a movie: bum glue.
(more…)You can’t just eject the warp core and hope a matter/antimatter explosion will produce a shock wave that let’s you surf out of the event horizon. That’s stupid. Find a more down-to-Earth solution to problems for your story.
(more…)When writing a script, keep track of each character, and always try to know what they’re doing at any given point in the narrative, even if we never see it in the script or in the movie. Doing this helps keep the timing right, and the rhythm of the movie benefits from it.
(more…)Anyone who thinks animation has to be hyper-realistic in order to be emotionally connective never cried watching Bambi. Conversely, the more realistic an animation is, unless it is indistinguishable from real life, the creepier it is, even if it’s supposed to be happy. At best, you can achieve a creepy sort of happy. Usually, that becomes a “fail.”
(more…)It’s probably the case that someone else has done it before, but don’t let that worry you. No one’s done it quite like you plan to, and for each story out there, there are a million variations.
(more…)Make sure the story makes sense and the script makes sense before you start. Cause and effect should make sense. Motivations should be pretty clear. What happens at different times and places should be obvious. The script is the blueprint, and everybody uses it. Where it’s weak, everything else is weak.
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