Jump right in.

There’s something about the beginning of a year, it’s not just a date. The seasons have changed. No matter where you live you feel it in the air. An exciting time, possibilities, potential, surprises yet to unfold. A fun ride to look forward to. After all if you can’t enjoy what you’re doing it’s time to consider doing something else, right? So if you’re here, I have to assume you’re a writer, or want to be one, or be a better one, and that you enjoy writing. 

Everyone can write, we’ve been doing it since our abc’s but this thing called screenwriting has us intrigued. Stories told in pictures go back to cave paintings. Now we tell them in films. So today I invite you to jump right in…

By that I mean, into - visual writing - a whole other mind set. All the basic elements of the craft of screenwriting, whether it’s character or dialogue or the setting of time and place or anything else, in writing for film we approach it all differently. Different that is from writing a novel or a short story, a trade article, a book report or an essay. And in my experience, the best way to make the shift out of the passive narrative prose style, to visual writing, is to become comfortable calling the CUTs and the Shots. Yes, I know you’ve heard that is a no no. But I’m saying, call the CUTs and call the Shots. On the page. Into the script. You’re always told that that is the purview of the director. And yes it is. Eventually.

So let me elaborate. I teach calling the CUTs and the Shots from the third session on because, learning to write with that awareness right from the start, is what will transform you from being a straight narrative prose writer, into a screenwriter. The difference being, getting comfortable with the reality that the CAMERA IS ALWAYS present. It sounds simple. But it’s not. (Be aware that once you have built a solid visual writing muscle, you won’t be writing in the CUTs or the Shots all the time: only when you need to as an integral part of your storytelling.)

For most people visual writing is disorienting. It sets your head in a spin for a while and some take longer with the switch than others. It is just a different way of looking at things and when you get it you begin to see things, as they happen, as they happen, (that’s not a typo) as you simultaneously, simultaneously, yes simultaneously, translate all that you see and hear in your head, into words, on to the page. When you make that shift I guarantee you will have a whole lot of fun. A bit like ice skating. You have to get used to the feeling that you have a long skinny blade between you and the ground but are in fact standing upright, and miraculously on slippery ice no less! A direct dial to visual writing. To writing for film. 

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Thank you all and see you next time!