Customer Reviews:
Explotation Goodness.......2007-09-14
This book is an excellent companion piece to the two movies that were part of the in theater double feature collectively known as Grindhouse.
The book treats us to plenty of pictures of not just the lovely ladies, of which there are many, but of everything from the movie. Included is the script for Planet Terror along with plenty of commentary about the filmaking process and the support network of both Robert and Quentin.
Unlike other film related books this one is not a fluff piece, there is a lot of material between the covers and this book is definately worth reading more than once.
Awesome.......2007-08-24
It's everything I expected and more! Loads of pictures and information. Even QT's AMI playlist. I love it XD
What a Ride.......2007-06-27
Talking about the movie, the girl riding on the hood of the challenger was quite a stunt and I have to admit that it was original and very edgy.
The girls in this movie were well cast and Cherry is hot.I can't wait to buy the DVD, hurry up and release it!
Not sleazy at all.......2007-05-25
Great transaction! No SLEAZY here! The book is great. The shipping was super fast. Thanks a whole bunch!
Grindhouse: The Sleaze-filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature.......2007-05-18
fantastic book with interviews, heaps of behind the scenes info and photos, screenplay for Planet terror and the trailers a very comprehensive book for any movie lover
Book Description
This ultimate insider's guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz Veteran who's proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat!
Customer Reviews:
re-name the book.......2007-10-03
The book should've been named "How to take the joy out of screenwriting."
Although Blake Snyder is at the top of the screenwriting industry (he has had two spec scripts that have been made into movies), it is fortunate that he wasn't born during the Renaissance and wound up teaching artists how to precisely paint.
Perhaps everything he states in the book may be the absolute gospel in Hollywood (ala Syd Field/Robert McKee at al), but Blake Snyder believes all screenplays must be severely structured:
- The script must have precisely 40 scenes for some unknown reason
- the theme of the script must be made by page 5
- the catalyst (a life-changing event) must occur precisely on page 12
- the hero finally making the decision to act must be on page 25 (end of act one)
- the B story of a script must begin around page 30
- there must be an identifiable midpoint (exactly on page 55 of a 110-page script) where the hero peaks or the world collapses all around the hero or vice-a-versa
- the hero's "All is lost" scene must be on page 75
- and so on.
True, he reveals previously unknown industry secrets such as all scripts must have a terrific logline, a great title, a likeable hero (thus the title of the book), and must have conflict.
On the plus side, the book is certainly well organized and extremely well written. Is it worth shelling out 3 bucks on E-bay? Check your public library.
Ignore the Haters; they didn't get it.......2007-10-03
If you think this book is just for family-film-oriented writers, you missed the big picture. Blake Snyder has hit the ball way, way, way, WAY out of the park with this one. Take the analytical tools he provides and unleash them on any mainstream movie from any genre from JAWS and SAW to E.T. and BACK TO THE FUTURE. I guarantee that the ones that follow his structure most closely are the ones that not only struck a chord with viewers, but laughed all the way to the bank.
Want to write a nice indy flick that you and your twenty closest friends can watch in someone's basement? Ignore Blake Snyder. Want to write a loud, crash-and-bang, content-missing movie people will forget in five years except to laugh? Ignore Blake Snyder. Want a movie you won't be able to pitch in five HOURS, let alone the five minutes you'll really have? Ignore Blake Snyder.
But if you want to write/direct/produce a film that satisfies on every level from the superficial to the sublime, then this is the book for you.
I never had a single offer on my work until I followed his advice.
SAVE THE CAT. Live it. Love it. Learn from it. Buy extra copies, 'cause if you're smart, you'll wear out the first one.
simple good advice and nothing more.......2007-09-30
This book contains alot of good advice for screenplay writing. however, the book is really aimed towards making "family films". all the movies he references are family films, and sometimes his own. It is a good book to get yourself in the right mindset for writing a screenplay but you can't rely on it to much or you might find yourself writing really dumb kids movies like "Blank Check". The process he gives you is very formulaic and his approach is more toward making money. but overall good read and good information. and who knows, maybe if you follow his advice to the point you could sell a screenplay to Spielberg for a million dollars too!
Friends close, Enemies closer.......2007-09-29
This IS a book about writing incredibly formulaic screenplays period. For my likes and dislikes, I would refer to Blake's movie ideas as groaners. That said, I find this book to be INCREDIBLY HELPFUL, amazing, on laying out that Hollywood 'movie' formula. It's great for creating structure. I'm not expecting this book to make me a more intersting storyteller. But I've worked with a number of hugely successful film producers / directors, and for the most part, they comletely rely on formula. Now, it's YOUR job to make that intersting. It's your job to know HOW breaking that formula makes your idea work better. It's all really valuable information. Do other books cover this same subject? Probably. But since I don't want to waste too much of my time reading screenplay books, I found this one to give me exactly what I needed. And I'll make it interesting.
Fun Learning.......2007-09-13
The kind of book I wanted to read and write at the same time. Fun, very informative, inspiring and helpful. I've already ordered some as a gift for other writer-friends.
Book Description
For almost twenty-five years, aspiring screenwriters have turned to guru Syd Field for clear and insightful step-by-step guidelines on the art and craft of writing screenplays. Now, with a totally new, up-to-date perspective on today's film industry, Syd Field again proves why he is revered as a master - and why SCREENPLAY remains the bible of the film industry. From inception through completion, from opening scene to finished script, here is a sourcebook designed to help today's aspiring screenwriters turn their ideas into scripts that will sell and succeed on the screen tomorrow.
Customer Reviews:
The Bible.......2007-09-29
If it didn't restate the same elements over and over I think this book would be about thirty pages long, but that aside it really is a fantastic resource. Something has to be said for those teachers who explain things in such a way that you believe you knew it all along (even though you didn't). I believe this is a must for not only screenwriters, but filmmakers in general. The basics can only make us stronger.
Hollywood of the 80s.......2007-08-17
I liked this book. Coupled with Syd Field's Screenwriter's Workbook, I managed to write a first draft of a screenplay. I've never been able to complete a play or screenplay before reading these books! This book gives you the background of screenplays and writing, plus his theory of what makes a good Hollywood screenplay. The workbook gives you a step by step process of writing one.
One drawback is that this book was written in the 80's. Sometimes it sounds so dated. The other drawback is it only explains one type of screenplay, the standard Hollywood 3-act narrative.
Overall, this book was a great help in writing a readable well structured screenplay.
As good as a screenwriters bible.......2007-07-15
If you are looking for a text on formats, this is not the book.
Fields presents a thinking man's guide to screen writing. He writes in an honest style that presents thoughtful ways to compose a screenplay based on experience and knowledge.
He talks about several concepts making up a screenplay and what and why the elements of it are. He teaches the value of preparation and research prior to putting pencil to paper. The defining and detailed examination of the three act paradigm of a screenplay are defined and re-examined throughout the book, adding up to a good grasp of the concept.
Used as a textbook in my class, it was extremely useful and helpful to us beginning students.
Mixed Feelings.......2007-07-12
To sum up my opinion of the book in a short sentence: it's not the most amazing book ever, but I don't regret having read it. The good side of it is that the three act structure and all sound like a good plan to start working on a script. It does help a tonload to be able to cover so much ground in such a short time and with such big lines. I won't deny that. The card system is quite nice too, but you don't need 300 pages to learn that.
The thing that struck me the most was how redundant Field could get. Seriously, there are entire blocks of sentences that you will read over and over again. At first I thought that sounded really bad... I mean, if you're a famous script-writer and all, your writing should reflect that. So I was confused. Then, and I don't know if that saves it or not, I figured that the repetition was perhaps not so bad, since it kept hammering the same basic things in your mind, and since that helps to remember. It's a bit like a class, I guess.
I'm not saying that Field can't write, however, I think he merely opted for a personal style, oral if you want, and I don't think it's any fair to criticise too much on this aspect as other critics did. He's not writing a novel, he's writing about screenplay and he's talking to you.
I didn't buy this because I wanted to write a movie, I was curious about the script as a form of writing. Now I feel secure enough to consider writing a whole movie even though I never intended to, and that's pretty cool, I have to admit.
On the flip side, I have my doubts about Syd Field. Now, maybe I'm a dumb person, but I wasn't able to find a single movie written by him. And he doesn't mention any of his own scripts! He mentions those of others, oh yes, that he does, but I can't recall him mentioning one of his own personal scripts. (My bad and apologies if he did and I didn't see or forgot.)
Syd Field hated "Pulp Fiction" when he first saw it. That's bad. I mean, if you can't see right off that "Pulp Fiction" is a great movie, moreover, as a specialist of films, then I worry. I saw it years ago when I was a teen and it struck me as special even though I was no film specialist. So I don't know. It seems that Field eventually liked it when he was able to put it in his 3 act structure, by dividing the stories as units onto themselves. Fine, but do you need that to enjoy a movie or think it's great? No. In fact, if you are rendered unable to enjoy a movie because of that, then it majorly worries me.
As to the 3-act theory itself, I think it's a great tool to use for structure and for the writing of a movie, but I wouldn't base everything on it more than that. See, I think anything has a beginning, middle, and end, and that you can find those 3 things anywhere. It's too vague to be really meaningful, although it can be useful. I see it as something like construction lines in drawing: you use them, but then you erase them. And I think that's also how Field sees it; he doesn't think of his "paradigm" as impossibly rigid.
Other thing that worried me about Field is that he claims to write biographies for his characters that encompass their parents, grandparents, and, yes, past lives. Alright, that can always give you cool ideas that you'd not think of if it hadn't been for the character's past life as a fisherman in Antarctica, but that sounds far-fetched.
There are other things in Field's style that antagonised me from the beginning. Cliché zen analogies and such didn't do much to make like the text, and repeating the same things without backing them up doesn't convince more.
Also, and maybe I'm dumb, but I would have started the book with the form of script-writing. That's the first thing you look at when you consider writing a script! That's what I bought the book for, originally. Very little of the book is consecrated to that, and it's among the final chapters.
So what's the result of my reading this book? Well, I feel like I could start working on an actual movie script right now, and that alone isn't so bad, but I don't know that another book couldn't have done the same. The read itself wasn't too bad, although the redundancy can get seriously annoying. I also felt like the chapters weren't properly delimited, like you'd talk of a topic in this chapter and 4 chapters further, you find yourself reading about the same thing again.
I would recommend that to anyone who's interesting in scrip-writing, but be careful. It does give you a good basis for working up the spine of a script, and that's what the book was written for, so even though I gave it only 3 stars, I'd still recommend it (for lack of a better, since I never read anything else on script-writing).
Repetitious and Ramblings.......2007-05-28
I bought this book on a recomendation and appeared to be the best on the shelf. Syd Field has a very irritating writing style that is filled with convoluted ramblings and repeats himself quite often. There is a difference between driving a point home and repeating yourself and Syd appears to have used the copy/paste method as every page or so he states the same thing over and over and over again using the same wording. At first it seemed like he was just trying to drive a point home but after reading about 30 pages and having read the same sentance about 40 times it just got frustrating.
With that said, there is some great information in this book but you have to fight through it. The great information may be worth it in the end but really, he needs an editor/publisher that will stand up and tell him that it needs to be fixed.
This really can be a great book and is packed with useful info - but I have docked the rating because you have to force read and deal with near constant repetition.
Customer Reviews:
Great learning tool.......2007-08-24
A great lesson! I bought this book to refresh my memory of screenplay style as I begin to prepare writing my own. Tarantino is known for his dialogue between characters and that is why I purchased this. It was a good read and did not disappoint. I took away from it several lessons on screenplay style.
Do not be swayed by the Tarantino haters out there. If you want to learn style he is one of the best today. There are many that throw around the terms "boycott", "overrated", etc. I am still fascinated by the number of people that go out of their way to drag down Tarantino's work yet they still see his movies. You would think by now that they would have learned to just not watch them. In reality these people are just jealous of the success he has had. Tarantino very often is referencing other movies that he watched while growing up. He is usually not doing anything original but is instead giving a film history lesson giving us glimpses of the movies of the past.
Follow your own path. Make your own decisions and do not listen to the haters.
Sweet screenplay!!!.......2007-07-07
If you like Tarantino, you'll like the Screenplay he has written for Death Proof. Simple as that. Plus, it helps young screenwriters to know what to look for and what to do when attempting to write a screenplay of their own.
A great screenplay to a great film........2007-05-29
Wow. Tarantino does it again, and is still at the top of his game. Quentin took a break from his smooth dialogue in both Kill Bill films. But he returns and scores gold once again. I recommend this to anyone interested in Quentin Trantino.
"The woods are lovely dark and deep...".......2007-04-18
This is an amazing piece of screenplay literature to own! I am a music major and after reading this and viewing Grindhouse several times I am seriously considering changing my major to film. This is an amazing addition to your library as it weaves you in and out of action, horror and sex; the "100% Death Proof" Tarantino way.
Book Description
In April 1970, during the glory days of the Apollo space program, NASA sent Navy Captain Jim Lovell and two other astronauts on America's fifth mission to the moon. Only fifty-five hours into the flight of Apollo 13, disaster struck: a mysterious explosion rocked the ship, and soon its oxygen and power began draining away. Commander Lovell and his crew watched in alarm as the cockpit grew darker, the air grew thinner, and the instruments winked out one by one. The full story of the moon shot that almost ended in catastrophe has never been told, but now Lovell and coauthor Jeffrey Kluger bring it to vivd life. What begins as a smooth flight is transformed into a hair-raising voyage from the moment Lovell calls out, "Houston, we've got a problem." Minutes after the explosion, the astronauts are forced to abandon the main ship for the lunar module, a tiny craft designed to keep two men alive for just two days. But there are three men aboard, and they are four days from home. As the hours tick away, the narrative shifts from the crippled spacecraft to Mission Control, from engineers searching desperately for solutions to Lovell's wife and children praying for his safe return. The entire nation watches as one crisis after another is met and overcome. By the time the ship splashes down in the Pacific, we understand why the heroic effort to rescue Lovell and his crew is considered by many to be NASA's finest hour. This riveting book puts the reader right in the spacecraft during one of the worst disasters in the history of space exploration. Written with all the color and drama of the best fiction, Lost Moon is the true story of a thrilling adventure and an astonishing triumph over nearly impossible odds. It was a major Oscar(R)-nominated motion picture directed by Ron Howard and starred Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon.
Customer Reviews:
Remarkable narrative account.......2007-01-21
This book was the basis for the movie Apollo 13. America had become complacent about our space shots by this time, which is something I still do not understand. But that may be because I worked so long at the Kennedy Space Center and always knew and still understand how dangerous each and every launch is. Apollo 13 was to have been the fifth mission to the moon. But two days into the trip, on April 13, 1970, the oxygen tank exploded in the command module, placing the three astronauts in grave danger. Lovell describes those terrifying days as astronauts, contractors, and Mission Controlled struggled to bring Apollo 13 safely back to earth. If you want to read what really happened by someone who was there...this is the book for you.
Amazing!.......2006-12-31
This well written book is a great time line of what really happened. I also enjoy the movie and this book fills in the gaps that were not covered in the movie. Also gives detailed accounts of nearly everyone involved in this mission.
Good General and Technical Detail About a Near-Disaster in Space.......2006-11-15
As someone who has been fascinated with space flight since childhood, and who well remembers the real Apollo 13 from his teenage years, I found this book a fascinating reminder of history. However, this book is about much more than the aborted flight of Apollo 13. It includes historical flashbacks that involved astronaut James Lovell. One chapter describes Lovell's teenage years as he launched homemade rockets. Another summarizes the early years of space exploration in the wake of Sputnik 1. Still another describes the selection of Lovell as an astronaut in late 1962. There is also a chapter on the Apollo 1 fire. Some of Lovell's closest friends perished in that needless tragedy. There is a fine description of the historical flight of Apollo 8, that Christmas lunar orbit in 1968. It included a reading from the Book of Genesis.
Now on to Apollo 13. In preparations for potential in-space emergencies, no one had imagined the simultaneous loss of both main oxygen tanks and all three fuel cells. This left the Odyssey itself with only a few hours of remaining oxygen, water, and electricity. Lovell and Kluge note that mission rules forbid a lunar landing if only one fuel cell becomes inoperable, even if nothing else is wrong. But the "Can the moon landing be saved?" quickly gave way to "Can the astronaut's lives be saved?"
The initial belief was that a meteoroid must have hit the ship. This later was discounted when the blown-open side of the service module became visible shortly after being jettisoned prior to re-entry. Clearly, the explosion must have originated from within the service module itself. Later investigation pointed to a confluence of factors, none decisive in and of themselves, that had combined to precipitate the near-tragedy. To begin with, the wrong-power fuses were being used within the oxygen tanks. When overloaded, they simply melted, allowing the overload of electricity to pass through. During assembly, the oxygen tank had been dropped, damaging an exit tube. During launch-pad exercises, the liquid oxygen was drained past the damaged exit tube by applying extra heat and driving the oxygen out another way. The sensor was not designed to warn of overheating above 80 F. Meanwhile, this procedure had unknowingly raised the temperatures to impossible levels, burning the insulation off much of the wire inside the oxygen tank. The first two times the stirring fan was turned on in space, there was no problem. But the third time, a spark must have flown and ignited the damaged insulation in the pure-oxygen environment, causing the explosion. The explosion itself damaged a tube connected to the second oxygen tank, thus draining it.
The book provides good detail about the dangers and challenges associated with the abort procedure itself. The decision was made not to attempt to fire the service module engine in order to reverse the flight direction in a deep-space abort, if only because the damaged service module might be unable to take the strain of the engine's thrust. The first critical burn of the lunar module's descent engine, done some six hours after the explosion and designed to change the hybrid trajectory back into a free-return trajectory, would have caused the Apollo 13 to crash into the far side of the moon if done incorrectly. Without the burn, however, Apollo 13 would be stuck in a 40,000 by 240,000 mile elliptical orbit around Earth. Thoughts were entertained about jettisoning the useless service module and using the lunar module's descent engine to accelerate the ship considerably--returning it from the vicinity of the moon to Earth in only some 36 hours. But this was not done out of fear that exposure of the command module's heat shield to the temperature extremes of space might damage it.
Everything on the ship had to be powered down--a strategy that worked, just barely. The severe cold aboard the ship, a secondary consequence of the powering down of all nonessential equipment, is described. The astronauts had a frosty breath. Some got urinary infections. They had a hard time getting comfortable enough to sleep.
The astronauts were slowly being poisoned by their own carbon dioxide. This was solved by the jury-rigging of the lithium hydroxide "scrubbers" of the command module to get them to fit into the circulation system of the lunar module. Just before re-entry, there were the challenges of successfully reviving the systems aboard the command module, and jettisoning both the service and lunar modules in a completely unconventional manner.
Add in my five stars please.......2005-12-05
If you're into the space program and what happened during this era, then I can't think of one reason why this shouldn't be in your library. It's one of my all-time favorite books.
An outstanding account, with one qualification.......2005-08-07
Jim Lovell's dreams of landing on the moon were literally blown away in April 1970, when an oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13's service module exploded less than a day away from lunar orbit, forcing the crew to limp home under perilous circumstances. More than two decades after surviving that mission, Lovell (with his co-author Jeffrey Kluger) has written an excellent account of that ill-fated moon flight.
LOST MOON is one of the best of the Apollo books I've read, especially one concerning a single mission. This is also one of the best books about the work of mission control, who were the key figures behind the successful return of the crew. It is as complete a description of this mission as we are ever likely to see. The attention to detail is on a very high level, and the amount of transcripted dialogue is plentiful, well presented, and from a myriad of sources. There are a number of slightly testy exchanges between Lovell's crew and mission control, highlighting the tension of the situation in an honest and unapologetic manner. The examination of exactly how the accident happened, as told in the epilogue, is covered exceptionally well.
An aspect of the book that bothered me was the decision to use a third-person narrative throughout (which is defended unconvincingly in the author's notes). I had never before read any autobiographical account in which the central figure is treated in the third person. Basically, I was looking forward to reading Lovell's descriptions of events using his own voice and experience, and that didn't quite happen. To read Lovell -- one of the most engaging personalities of all the early astronauts -- diminished by such an impersonal, veiled perspective was disappointing. It adds nothing to the writing, and ultimately I felt it was a disservice to the book, though a minor one. If the authors had their doubts about mixing third-person and first-person perspectives successfully, they could have taken some cues from Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, who wrote two books in that style and who is regarded as perhaps the best writer among the former astronauts.
Despite its compromises in narrative style, LOST MOON (or APOLLO 13, depending on the format) is an outstanding biographical account of the failed 1970 moon flight. It is potentially a five-star book if the writing had been appropriately personal when it counted the most.
Amazon.com
How Not to Write a Screenplay is an invaluable addition to any aspiring screenwriter's shelf--and you'd best make the shelf within arm's reach of the computer. Author Dean Martin Flinn, an experienced script reader, details the common rookie mistakes that drive script readers crazy. Flinn makes no pretense of being able to teach anyone how to write the next Great American Film--or for that matter the next Stupid Summer Blockbuster. Instead he offers information that will help keep the novice screenwriter's opus from being immediately tossed on the trash pile (arguably a more valuable service). As Flinn says in his introduction, if you follow the advice in this book, "you may not write a particularly good screenplay, but you won't write a bad one." Flinn offers practical advice on formatting, such as the proper form for a slugline and where to set your margins, and more general rules of thumb on giving the actors room to interpret their roles and avoiding dictating camera angles to the director (who will ignore them anyway). The second half of the book deals with content, also in a remarkably pragmatic way--structure, pacing, plot resolution, and dialogue that really stink are all handily dealt with. Flinn illustrates almost all his points with excerpts from screenplays both good and bad (names have been changed to protect the guilty), giving the reader concrete examples of the difference between poorly and well-structured scenes. Not sucking is an unusual goal for a screenwriting manual, but any script reader will agree it is a noble one. --Ali Davis
Book Description
Finally, what may be the last screenwriting book a writer will ever need to buy!
Customer Reviews:
Almost Worthless.......2007-05-13
There are at least two valuable books on screenplay writing - this is not one of them. Once a writer has read David Trottier's "Screenwriter's Bible" and Robert McKee's "Story", it is obvious that "How Not to Write a Screenplay" is full of obvious points and platitudes that are almost worthless. Most of this book is excerpts from screenplays that blatenly seem to be there so the book has more pages. Don't waste money your money on Flinn's book.
Read this one - but not first........2007-03-12
I have several "How to" books on screenplay writing. If you do too, then you need this one. It tells you what you are doing wrong. I promise many more than one "Oop!" moment from this entertaining and easy to read work.
Entertaining overview of the things most new screenwriters do wrong.......2006-08-29
Flinn has a sense of humor. That is the first thing one notices while reading his book, and that's the one thing that makes it stand out.
"How NOT to Write a Screenplay" is a witty and entertaining tool for learning the DOs and DON'Ts of the screenwriting craft. Packed full of examples drawn from real and make-believe scripts, it can be a definite help to a writer new to the industry. Anyone who has ever read another of the many available books on script formatting will find his commentary amusing. For example:
"Don't use (CONTINUED) at the top and bottom of each page. You're wasting four lines. Anyone reading your screenplay who doesn't know he's supposed to turn the page is a numskull."
Or his comments regarding music suggestions:
"Leave the music track alone: 'THIS SHOULD BE AN UPBEAT SCENE WITH A GOOD MUSIC TRACK.' (Darn. The studio really wanted to use a bad music track.)"
The second half of the book, covering content and story development, provides similar information to that of books by more well-known authors such as Linda Seger or Syd Field, but offers that information encapsulated in smaller sections that make everything quite easy to relate to...sections such as "Suspense", "Believability", "Twists" and "Whammies".
While the book doesn't teach you how to write the perfect screenplay, it does cover many of the practical details. Its strength isn't in storycraft but rather in addressing all the little details screenwriters tend to forget or abuse. Though some of the information is repetitive, there are plenty of examples and excerpts from screenplays -- some good, most bad, and some you may even recognize. Flinn's advice coupled with the many examples can help you avoid the pitfalls so many screenwriters encounter.
Excellent workbook.......2006-08-07
So happy I purchased this before starting my screenplay so I didn't have to do endless edits.
As a reader of many bad screenplays Mr. Flinn certainly knows the pitfalls that will keep a screenplay from even being finished. excellent workbook.
Barbara Gilmer
Okay, Okay.......2006-08-05
This is a book that could have been a long article, or two. But those article would have been interesting. I found the book getting very repetitive in the last half, when we started getting the same material over and over again. But the notions is good: that you need short scenes, with a whammy.
Average customer rating:
- Good information
- Good to read, you will not waste time.
- A smooth, decent guide
- Same ol' song and dance
- good book. too much information in one book.
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Screenwriting for Dummies
Laura Schellhardt
Manufacturer: For Dummies
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ASIN: 0764554867 |
Book Description
Includes all the essentials for writing a screenplay, from crafting dialogue to marketing a script
Packed with easy-to-understand guidelines and writing projects, Screenwriting For Dummies makes film writing accessible to novices and helps more experienced writers improve their scripts. This engaging guide walks readers through the essential elements of every good screenplay, from character development, to creating a story, to writing compelling dialogue, to adopting a screenplay from a different source. It also includes all the specific formatting details that go into writing a visual screenplay from scripting character introductions, to writing the camera into the script, to creating a cinematic collage. In addition, Screenwriting For Dummies covers the important task of selling a screenplay, including tips for getting a spec script into the proper marketing format, protecting intellectual property rights, and securing an agent.
Customer Reviews:
Good information.......2007-10-02
This book is full of helpful information in screenwriting. It is easy to understand and a go to if you get stuck in the middle of writing. I recommend this to all screenwriters.
Good to read, you will not waste time........2007-08-28
This was my second book about screenwriting. thats mean I had a good background of screenwriting when i decided to buy and read it.
For starters this is an excellent book to know every detail. some informations repeated in other chapters but u can skip if u understood them.
Too detailed and direct too! just as the title said.
the most thing i liked in this book is the "Formatting a Screenply". the book well organized and that is why i gave this book 4 stars. if its organized why some informations repeated in other chapters?
if this is the style of for dummies series, you can ignore my words about repeating.
A smooth, decent guide.......2007-07-22
If you're just starting out, this is a decent guide. There are other books which cover the basics like The Bare Bones Book of Screenwriting that are more simple, clear and precise. Overall Screenwriting for Dummies does its job.
Same ol' song and dance.......2007-04-10
A friend of mine bought this book and shouldn't have. Laura Schellhardt isn't a seasoned pro at screenwriting, she is a TEACHER. Not a good one at that.
Yes, the book is informative, but it doesn't say anything different that any other book does, other than the Screenwriter's Bible by David Trottier. Trottier is a professional writer with numerous credits under his belt. So my advice is to "Schell" out an extra dollar so you can buy the Screenwriter's Bible and just leave Screenwriting for Dummies alone.
good book. too much information in one book........2006-06-01
I bought it 1 month ago and I haven't finished it yet. it's more of a reference book. I refer to it quite a bit. her writing has flow and easy to understand. I personally don't like "dummies" series but this one is good.
I wish she had a CD with it for search and indexing. this book has lots of information, I orginally planned to finish it in a week and I am still reading it.
I haven't bought it for actually writing a script but for a project I am working on.
probably the best I've seen so for.
cheers
Book Description
With the average payment for a screenplay over $100,000, every writer knows that screenwriting is where the money is. In this guide, successful screenwriter and teacher Cynthia Whitcomb shares her extensive knowledge on writing for the screen. This book will teach you her proven techniques, including how to:
• test an idea for its commercial potential
• plan a compelling script
• write great openings and endings
• create characters that grow and evolve
• revise and hone your script to attract Hollywood agents and producers
Includes lists of the best movies to study—and why!
Cynthia Whitcomb has sold more than 70 feature-length screenplays, 25 of which have been filmed. She has made millions of dollars for her work, and her scripts have won and been nominated for many awards, including the Emmy Award, Cable Ace Award, Edgar Allan Poe Award, Humanitas Award, and Writers Guild of America Awards. Her students have also gone on to write successful box-office hits. She has taught screenwriting for many years, including seven at the acclaimed UCLA Film School.
Whitcomb's commercial success and teaching experience make this an essential resource for anyone who wants to write winning scripts for Hollywood.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Book!.......2007-04-04
I'm writing my first screenplay and found this book to be invaluable. Worth its weight in gold.
The best!.......2007-03-14
I've read other screenplay books, watched videos and this book is the best! Not just telling you what to do but with real world suggestions. She rewrites movie endings for you so you can see how a good movie could have been a great movie. She shows you mediocre dialogue and rewrites it so it's great movie dialogue.
It's a great book for novelists too. Creating crisp believable dialogue, creating conflicted characters, pacing. It's all here.
She is direct and like a great movie, gets to the real issues fast.
Read it Thrice.......2006-10-08
"A Brief History of Time" for scriptwriters.
Compressing novel-length stories into an interesting 90-120 minutes, is a big part of the art.
Whitcomb puts a huge quantity of important information into very few pages.
She writes with simple words in short sentences, yet the content is astonishingly information rich.
And spot on.
A rare talent seen only in the very gifted.
There are books on scriptwriting that run to 500+ pages that are quite good. J. Michael Straczynski's works come immediately to mind.
However you can re-read this book 5 times in fewer minutes than it takes to read any of those longer books once. With repetition, you'll surely retain much more of what you read.
Recommended. Highly.
Finally, somebody who knows what they're talking about!.......2006-07-04
Whenever I am about to buy a 'how to write' book, I first look at the bio to see what the writer has actually done. Just about every 'how-to' is written by a 'haven't-done-much.' Cynthia Whitcomb's professional experience is far and away the most.
Not to say other books don't have sound advice, but I sensed a depth here that was lacking elsewhere. I attribute that to her experience.
BTW, I'm a published prose writer, and I recommend this book for prose writers, since a lot of what she says translates over to the written page. It wouldn't hurt novelists to structure plots and develop scenes with as much craft and skill as screenwriters do.
Writer's Guide to Writing Your Screenplay.......2006-03-06
As an old writer who is new to the field of screemwriting, I have found the industry full of mystery when attempting to write a screenplay. Cynthia's book takes away a lot of the confusion and worry by succinctly explaining terms, giving multiple clear-cut examples, and laying out the entire process so that rookies can learn the basics, and experienced writers can get a quick review from an entertaining source. I am sincerely hoping Cynthia plans to write a similar book in the future with regards to publishing hints!
Average customer rating:
- Getting Even = Hilarious
- Woody Allen. Chess By Mail. need i say more? also, mafia
- Getting Even
- Bad taste, boring stupidity with an occasional funny line
- As funny as as dated as the early Woody Allen comedies
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Getting Even
Woody Allen
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Without Feathers
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ASIN: 0394726405
Release Date: 1978-08-12 |
Amazon.com
After three decades of prodigious film work (and some unfortunate tabloid adventures as well), it's easy to forget that Woody Allen began his career as one heck of a great comedy writer. Getting Even, a collection of his late '60s magazine pieces, offers a look into Allen's bag of shtick, back when it was new. From the supposed memoirs of Hitler's barber: "Then, in January of 1945, a plot by several generals to shave Hitler's moustache in his sleep failed when von Stauffenberg, in the darkness of Hitler's bedroom, shaved off one of the Führer's eyebrows instead..."
Even though the idea of writing jokes about old Adolf--or addled rabbis, or Maatjes herring--isn't nearly as fresh as it used to be, Getting Even still delivers plenty of laughs. At his best, Woody can achieve a level of transcendent craziness that no other writer can match. If you're looking for a book to dip into at random, or a gift for someone who's seen Sleeper 13 times, Getting Even is a dead lock.
Book Description
The classic, with 316,000 copies sold to date.
Customer Reviews:
Getting Even = Hilarious.......2007-08-14
Getting Even, by Woody Allen, is the comedic genious at his ludicrous best. The reparte between the two chess playing opponents, via e-mail, is worth the price of the book alone. Very funny.
A 5 star delight.
Woody Allen. Chess By Mail. need i say more? also, mafia.......2006-08-20
accounting [of the office supplies] ~
these two ALONE are worth the price of admission, especially used in the z shops...
i can STILL laugh over the Gossage-Vardebedian papers [the chess by mail] 30+ years after i first bought this for a friend in the hospital [i wasn't thinking ~ he'd had a hernia operation... and couldn't get past the first line]
timelessly funny ~
Getting Even.......2006-01-04
If your a fan of Allen's work than you'll enjoy this book. Otherwise you may not like it. If you're not familiar with his work than I highly recommend his prose for their witty, bizzare, and humorus content.
In, "The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers," you'll find humor in the trials and tribulations of chess, via letter writing.
In, "Mr. Big," I question if the beautiful existentialist really killed God. Yeah, she probably did. (GOD that's too bad.)
awkward, funny, weird, smart, read...
Bad taste, boring stupidity with an occasional funny line.......2005-12-04
I had hoped upon rereading this work to cancel the original impression I had of many of these pieces when I read them some years ago in 'The New Yorker'. Unfortunately, my taste seems not to have changed and I found most of these pieces stupid, and in bad taste.
Allen can write the occasional very funny line but much of this is low- level predictable parody.
As funny as as dated as the early Woody Allen comedies.......2005-10-19
Getting Even is one of three early collections of Woody Allen's short humorous articles. The others are Without Feathers and Side Effects. Many of the pieces in Getting Even appeared in magazines, mostly The New Yorker, but also Playboy, and Evergreen Review. While others first appeared in this anthology. In total, there are 17 articles in the collection. Considering that they were written over 35 years ago, there are some references that do not come across well today. Yet as a group they are still quite funny.
The Metterling Lists is a piece of satirical literary criticism of
The Collected Laundry Lists of Hans Metterling Vol. 1, a supposedly scholarly work of 437 pages that analyzes the first six laundry lists. Fortunately Mr. Allen only takes seven pages to mock this fictional piece of scholarship.
A Look At Organized Crime provides a very brief history of organized crime in America including the murder of Kid Lipsky by Albert (The Logical Positivist) Corillo who locked Lipsky in a closet and "sucked all the air out through a straw." It also provides a description of a Mafia initiation ceremony and ends with some tips on fighting mobsters.
The Schmeed Memoirs are represented as the recollections of Hitler's barber. Yet they can't be taken too seriously because he claims he didn't know Hitler was a Nazi and thought he worked for the phone company. There is a funny where Hitler fears that Chruchill will grow sideburns before he can. It is humorous to view World War II from the perspective of Hitler's hair.
My Philosophy consists of the Critique of Pure Dread, the Eschatological Dialectics As a Means of Coping with Shingles, and The Cosmos on Five Dollars a Day. It ends with two Parables and a short list of Aphorisms.
Yes, But Can The Steam Engine Do This? provides a humorous take on the scientific research saga with a history of the Earl of Sandwich's research into developing the sandwich. Starting with his birth in 1718, the tale is filled with bread experiments, research into cold cuts and cheeses, and years of failures followed by his final success and lasting fame.
Death Knocks is a short play in which an inexperienced angel of death, who comes to claim Nat Ackerman's soul, is lured into a losing game of gin rummy and returns empty-handed.
Spring Bulletin is Woody Allen's satirical take on college course descriptions. It includes a course called Introduction to God which is described as "Confrontation with the Creator of the universe through informal lectures and field trips."
The next piece, a guide to the interpretation of Hassidic tales, includes tales like the following and Mr. Allen's interpretations of them.
A man journeyed to Chelm to seek the advice of Rabbi Ben Kaddish.
"Rabbi " the man asked, "where can I find peace?"
The Hassid surveyed him and said, "Quick, look behind you!"
The man turned around, and Rabbi Ben Kaddish smashed him in the back of the head with a candlestick. "Is that peaceful enough for you?" he chuckled.
There are six other tales and their interpretations in this piece.
The Gossage-Varbedian Papers tells the sad story of a chess game played at a distance via letters. The correspondence starts out with a missive from Gossage stating that one of his letters must have gotten lost in the mail since his chess board is set up differently than Verbedian's. The insults and the confusion worsen as the letters go back and forth. A must for any chess fan.
Notes From The Overfed, Mr. Allen claims, was inspired by reading Dostoyevski and a Weight Watchers magazine on an airplane trip. In it an Atheist is converted when he decides that, if God is everywhere, He must be in food. Then consuming everything in sight, he achieves sanctity and obesity through compulsive eating.
A Twenties Memory mocks the name-dropping memoirs of the post-war lost generation. Filled with references to Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Earnest Hemingway, Alice B. Toklas, and many others, a non-entity tries to gain fame by the shared light of his famous contemporaries.
In
Count Dracula the famous vampire wakes up early due to confusion caused by a solar eclipse, and visits the baker and his wife for what he thinks is an evening snack with disastrous consequences.
In
A Little Louder, Please a true afficionato of the arts confesses his one failing - an inability to understand the gestures of mimes.
Conversations With Helmholtz consists of notes taken by the student of a famous elderly psychoanalyst of their conversations together. Senility has certainly gotten the better of the older man, but his reputation and fame keep the younger man from realizing this with humorous results.
Viva Vargas is subtitled Excepts From The Diary of A Revolutionary, and reveals much of the same humor that the author later used in the movie Bananas.
The Discovery And Use of The Fake Ink Blot provides a humorous social history of a device used in practical jokes.
The last story in the volume,
Mr. Big, is my favorite. It is narrated by a Philip Marlowesque detective who is hired by a lovely woman claiming to be a Vassar student. She wants him to find a missing person, God. The mixture of Raymond Chandler's format with the existential search for the meaning of life is extremely funny even after the passage of many years.
All in all, if you like the early Woody Allen movies, you will love this book - even though some of the material is no longer as fresh.
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Son of Frankenstein : Universal Filmscripts Series Classic Horror Films Volume 3 (Autographed Edition)
Manufacturer: Magicimage Filmbooks
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Books:
- Groundhog Day (BFI Modern Classics)
- Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
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- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- Hit and Run Trading: The Short-Term Stock Traders' Bible, Updated
- How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make
- How To Become a Power Agent in Real Estate : A Top Industry Trainer Explains How to Double Your Income in 12 Months
- If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor
- Introducing Character Animation with Blender
- Killer Instinct
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