Search the Products Store
Search the Book Store
clog dancing Book Store Index
Privacy Policy
Copyright Notice
Home
|
|
Crafty Screenwriting: Writing Movies That Get Made |
Author: Alex Epstein
Published: 2002-10-08 |
List price: $16.00
Our price: $10.88
|
Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: January 07th, 2009 07:13:29 PM
|
|
|
Customer comments on this selection.
 Read this book first
All of the real-world (how to get your script in front of the people who can buy it) advice is in this book. I've read 'em all and this is the best.
 The helping hand to concentrate on script writing.
This is the started you need to boost your confidence. Lots of tips and websites too.
Good rewriting overview
Just another spec monkey here in L.A. working on a few scripts. But I think the previous review by mobuli gets this wrong.
Last month I tore apart a script and was trying to figure out how to put it back together properly. Like many a writer I found myself in need of specific techniques. Didn't need anymore discussion about mythic structure or formatting or act breaks or character, etc. All that stuff is valuable and good, but I was really in desperate need of good solid methods for laying out my action more clearly, threading action down a page. Using ..., -- and descriptions like
ME
pulling my hair out.
And did you know I could not find one screenwriting book currently in print that deals with just that sort of thing? It wasn't until I picked up Crafty Screenwriting and got to page 99 that I had found what I needed. Bought it before I got to page 100. For 31 pages, this book gave what I used as a rewrite tutorial to help me put my script together in the manner God intended. It was so useful that I demanded that every member of my screenwriting group march out immediately and buy it themselves.
When Substance Matters
For any writer out there it isn't a mystery how many screenwriting, writing and writing for the screen books exist in the world today (please note my redundancy had a point).
Reading one book is usually like reading them all. The same message, means and delivery - mechanical, trite and simplistically frustrating as we all know writing isn't easy - on the page is only 1/5 of the battle.
4/5 of the battle comes once the screenplay has been written and for those of us who don't have a dad, uncle, aunt, sister, cousin or best friend "since we were three" in Hollywood our perceptions on that ratio may be less than what we would like to admit.
It is refreshing then to find a book that not only covers that 4/5, but does it in a way that allows the reader not to be overwhelmed by clearly such overwhelming odds and circumstances. Crafty Screenwriting is actually an exterior title, because the book goes much deeper than that to explore the world of screenwriting, on the page, off, before, during and after the process. What exists, what doesn't, what to do, what not, how to do it, how not, etc ...
Anyone looking to read a book simply about how to write a screenplay, look elsewhere - you aren't ready for this level yet. If you're looking for knowledge on how to write a screenplay, how to get an agent, what to say in Hollywood, the moves you should be making and how to seal the deal - then you've found the 5/5 right here.
Anything but mechanical, nothing but informative and here's how you should feel after:
INT. HOUSE, COMPUTER ROOM - AFTERNOON
Bob, an unemployed writer, closes the book Crafty Screenwriting and places it to his left, while sitting in front of his computer.
The cursor from his screenwriting software blinks on the blank screen in front of him - BEAT, BEAT, BEAT.
Bob begins to type.
BOB (v.o.)
"Now I'm finally ready."
My bible
Of course we all have different ways to write. Some of the techniques from this book will not work the same way for everyone. But this book is a great source of dos, don'ts and gotchas of the process of getting a movie made.
This is money well spent.
And not that much anyway, which is even better!
|
|
Our clog dancing book picks:
|
|
Search the clog dancing Products Store
LCS Amazon Store 2.5 © 2009
|