My book SCREENWRITING THEY CAN'T RESIST is out!

My antidote to the existential despair of trying to write a screenplay with the formulaic tent-pole template espoused by the self-proclaimed screenwriting 'experts' is now out.





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Here's the jacket blurb:

If you want to create screenplays that are derivative, formulaic and forgettable. If you’re looking for another manual that paralyses your creative brain and shows you how to use a tent pole to write your script. If you want to experience the existential despair of trying to fit your story into a rigid structure designed to be universally applied to all scripts, this book isn’t for you.

But if, like the most distinctive and exciting screenwriters today, you want to write bold, innovative, outstanding screenplays which are full of emotional depth, disturb and challenge your audience, and have a real chance of getting developed,
this book will help you.

It offers a radically new and provocative approach for writers who want to discover how to create screenplays that are daring, inventive and wholly original.

Out go the ‘3-Act Structure’ and other rigid structural constraints that lead only to existential despair. Instead, the focus is on orchestrating all the elements of the script around the central imperative of all storytelling, which Kiernan calls Emotional Pull.

There are intensive, practical workouts and unorthodox ideas and inspirations to show how the writer can develop for themselves the most imaginative and powerful ways to shape their unique creative vision and storytelling instincts to create screenplays of originality and solid market potential.

There are URLs to video clips, movie scripts and interviews with great screenwriters as well.

Screenwriting They Can’t Resist: How To Create Screenplays of Originality and Cinematic Power is for writers passionate about the wondrous potential of cinematic storytelling, who want their screenplays to challenge and disturb, excite and exhilarate an audience, and leave them emotionally and mentally stretched.
Screenwriter, script consultant and award-winning playwright Pauline Kiernan is also a distinguished Shakespeare scholar and a visiting screenwriting tutor at the University of Oxford.

The book is available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

SCREENWRITING THEY CAN'T RESIST. How to Create Screenplays of Originality and Cinematic Power. Explode the Rules.  

By Pauline Kiernan. 

Quaere Publishing

Oscar Best Screenplays Here - Read These Oscar Nominated Scripts

Here are the scripts for all the Oscar nominated best original and

best adapted screenplays 

PLEASE NOTE: These scripts are for strictly educational purposes. Please honour this proviso.

Best Original Screenplay

The Fighter 

by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson

Inception 

by Christopher Nolan

The Kids Are All Right 

by Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg

The King's Speech 

by David Seidler

Another Year 

by Mike Leigh

 Best Adapted Screenplay

127 Hours 

by Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy

Toy Story 3 

by Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich

True Grit 

by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Winter's Bone 

by Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini

The Social Network 

by Aaron Sorkin 

My Screenwriting Book is now being printed

I'm now waiting for proof copy of my screenwriting book. It will be published very soon. I'll keep you posted.

My Screenwriting Book - News

My Screenwriting book is to be published in March 2011. That's next month. I've just finished proof reading and can't belive how much I've written. It's so much longer than I originally planned.

And I'm happy to say that it is like no other screenwriting book out there.

I'll keep you posted on the exact publication date.

Oscars - Academy Awards Nominations

Oscars Academy Awards - Who's on the list?
King's Speech has 12
True Grit has 10
Social Network has 8
What do you think of the screenplay nominations?

Original screenplay
Another Year - Mike Leigh
The Fighter - Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (screenplay); Keith Dorrington, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (story)
Inception - Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right - Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg
The King's Speech - David Seidler

Adapted screenplay
127 Hours - Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network - Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 - Michael Arndt (screenplay); John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich (story)
True Grit - Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone - Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini


Best motion picture of the year
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone
Performance by an actor in a leading role
Javier Bardem (Biutiful)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)
Achievement in directing
Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
David O Russell (The Fighter)
Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (True Grit)

Best animated feature film of the year
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3
Best foreign language film of the year
Biutiful (Mexico)
Dogtooth (Greece)
In a Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi) (Algeria)
Art direction
Alice in Wonderland - Robert Stromberg (production design), Karen O'Hara (set decoration)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 - Stuart Craig (production design), Stephenie McMillan (set decoration)
Inception - Guy Hendrix Dyas (production design), Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (set decoration)
The King's Speech - Eve Stewart (production design), Judy Farr (set decoration)
True Grit - Jess Gonchor (production design), Nancy Haigh (set decoration)
Achievement in cinematography
Matthew Libatique (Black Swan)
Wally Pfister (Inception)
Danny Cohen (The King's Speech)
Jeff Cronenweth (The Social Network)
Roger Deakins (True Grit)
Achievement in costume design
Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland)
Antonella Cannarozzi (I Am Love)
Jenny Beavan (The King's Speech)
Sandy Powell (The Tempest)
Mary Zophres (True Grit)
Best documentary feature
Exit through the Gift Shop (Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz)
Gasland (Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic)
Inside Job (Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs)
Restrepo (Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger)
Waste Land (Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley)
Best documentary short subject
Killing in the Name (Nominees to be determined)
Poster Girl (Nominees to be determined)
Strangers No More (Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon)
Sun Come Up (Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger)
The Warriors of Qiugang (Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon)
Achievement in film editing
Andrew Weisblum (Black Swan)
Pamela Martin (The Fighter)
Tariq Anwar (The King's Speech)
Jon Harris (127 Hours)
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter (The Social Network)
Achievement in makeup
Adrien Morot (Barney's Version)
Edouard F Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng (The Way Back)
Rick Baker and Dave Elsey (The Wolfman)
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (original score)
John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon)
Hans Zimmer (Inception)
Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech)
AR Rahman (127 Hours)
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (original song)
Coming Home (from Country Strong, music and lyrics by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey)
I See the Light (from Tangled, music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Glenn Slater)
If I Rise (from 127 Hours, music by AR Rahman, lyrics by Dido and Rollo Armstrong)
We Belong Together (from Toy Story 3, music and lyrics by Randy Newman)
Best animated short film
Day & Night (Teddy Newton)
The Gruffalo (Jakob Schuh and Max Lang)
Let's Pollute (Geefwee Boedoe)
The Lost Thing (Nick Batzias, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann)
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) (Bastien Dubois)
Best live action short film
The Confession (Tanel Toom)
The Crush (Michael Creagh)
God of Love (Luke Matheny)
Na Wewe (Ivan Goldschmidt)
Wish 143 (Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite)
Achievement in sound editing
Inception (Richard King)
Toy Story 3 (Tom Myers and Michael Silvers)
Tron: Legacy (Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague)
True Grit (Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey)
Unstoppable (Mark P Stoeckinger)
Achievement in sound mixing
Inception (Lora Hirschberg, Gary A Rizzo and Ed Novick)
The King's Speech (Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley)
Salt (Jeffrey J Haboush, Greg P Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin)
The Social Network (Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten)
True Grit (Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F Kurland)
Achievement in visual effects
Alice in Wonderland (Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi)
Hereafter (Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell)
Inception (Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb)
Iron Man 2 (Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick)

Original screenplay
Another Year - Mike Leigh
The Fighter - Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (screenplay); Keith Dorrington, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (story)
Inception - Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right - Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg
The King's Speech - David Seidler

Adapted screenplay
127 Hours - Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network - Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 - Michael Arndt (screenplay); John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich (story)
True Grit - Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone - Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini
Original screenplay
Another Year - Mike Leigh
The Fighter - Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (screenplay); Keith Dorrington, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (story)
Inception - Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right - Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg
The King's Speech - David Seidler

Best motion picture of the year
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone
Performance by an actor in a leading role
Javier Bardem (Biutiful)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)
Achievement in directing
Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
David O Russell (The Fighter)
Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (True Grit)

Best animated feature film of the year
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3
Best foreign language film of the year
Biutiful (Mexico)
Dogtooth (Greece)
In a Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi) (Algeria)
Art direction
Alice in Wonderland - Robert Stromberg (production design), Karen O'Hara (set decoration)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 - Stuart Craig (production design), Stephenie McMillan (set decoration)
Inception - Guy Hendrix Dyas (production design), Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (set decoration)
The King's Speech - Eve Stewart (production design), Judy Farr (set decoration)
True Grit - Jess Gonchor (production design), Nancy Haigh (set decoration)
Achievement in cinematography
Matthew Libatique (Black Swan)
Wally Pfister (Inception)
Danny Cohen (The King's Speech)
Jeff Cronenweth (The Social Network)
Roger Deakins (True Grit)
Achievement in costume design
Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland)
Antonella Cannarozzi (I Am Love)
Jenny Beavan (The King's Speech)
Sandy Powell (The Tempest)
Mary Zophres (True Grit)
Best documentary feature
Exit through the Gift Shop (Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz)
Gasland (Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic)
Inside Job (Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs)
Restrepo (Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger)
Waste Land (Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley)
Best documentary short subject
Killing in the Name (Nominees to be determined)
Poster Girl (Nominees to be determined)
Strangers No More (Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon)
Sun Come Up (Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger)
The Warriors of Qiugang (Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon)
Achievement in film editing
Andrew Weisblum (Black Swan)
Pamela Martin (The Fighter)
Tariq Anwar (The King's Speech)
Jon Harris (127 Hours)
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter (The Social Network)
Achievement in makeup
Adrien Morot (Barney's Version)
Edouard F Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng (The Way Back)
Rick Baker and Dave Elsey (The Wolfman)
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (original score)
John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon)
Hans Zimmer (Inception)
Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech)
AR Rahman (127 Hours)
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (original song)
Coming Home (from Country Strong, music and lyrics by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey)
I See the Light (from Tangled, music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Glenn Slater)
If I Rise (from 127 Hours, music by AR Rahman, lyrics by Dido and Rollo Armstrong)
We Belong Together (from Toy Story 3, music and lyrics by Randy Newman)
Best animated short film
Day & Night (Teddy Newton)
The Gruffalo (Jakob Schuh and Max Lang)
Let's Pollute (Geefwee Boedoe)
The Lost Thing (Nick Batzias, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann)
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) (Bastien Dubois)
Best live action short film
The Confession (Tanel Toom)
The Crush (Michael Creagh)
God of Love (Luke Matheny)
Na Wewe (Ivan Goldschmidt)
Wish 143 (Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite)
Achievement in sound editing
Inception (Richard King)
Toy Story 3 (Tom Myers and Michael Silvers)
Tron: Legacy (Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague)
True Grit (Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey)
Unstoppable (Mark P Stoeckinger)
Achievement in sound mixing
Inception (Lora Hirschberg, Gary A Rizzo and Ed Novick)
The King's Speech (Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley)
Salt (Jeffrey J Haboush, Greg P Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin)
The Social Network (Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten)
True Grit (Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F Kurland)
Achievement in visual effects
Alice in Wonderland (Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi)
Hereafter (Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell)
Inception (Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb)
Iron Man 2 (Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick)

Hamlet as a Woman

The BFI are screening a new print of a remarkable film of Hamlet with live piano accompaniment on January 27th.
I studied this 1920 silent film when I was preparing research on the performance history of Hamlet for the third Arden edition of the play. It was a complete revelation.
The main character is a woman who has been brought up as a boy so that the family's dynasty can be maintained in the aftermath of war.

Asta Nielsen, who plays Hamlet, was a role model for Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo, and was one of the leading actors of her generation.

Director Sven Gade’s amazing retelling of the play also offers insights into the European psyche in the wake of Germany's defeat in the First World War.

What I find so extraordinary about Shakespeare's Hamlet is how so many people in so many different parts of the world find emotional and political resonances that speak to their own history and culture.

And that's one of the reasons Hamlet is essential reading for every screenwriter.

There's a terrific short film about a group of musicians accompanying Asta Nielsen's scenes in the film live at the Berlin Festival. Click on the link to watch it:

Shakespeare's Indoor Theatre

When I was Leverhulme Research Fellow at Shakespeare's Globe, I was thrilled to be involved, watching the building take shape, working with the directors and actors on the first productions there. It was an immense sadness to everyone that Sam Wanamaker who worked so hard to realise his dream of recreating the Globe did not live to see the first performances.

He also planned on reconstructing an indoor Jacobean theatre on the site, and when the Globe was built, the shell of the indoor theatre was built, but we knew that this would have to be delayed until there were the resources to develop the space.

So I'm thrilled that now that is going to happen. I can't wait to see The Tempest in the indoor theatre. It was for a theatre space like this that Shakespeare wrote his wonderfully surreal masterpiece.

And that's got me thinking about film adaptations of The Tempest...

Why Every Screenplay Needs Subtext for Everything

A single image can express deep meaning, speak to the story's theme and communicate a character's inner emotions more powerfully and eloquently than words.

This is how subtext works. It's not just for dialogue. I find it really helpful to 'watch' my characters in a situation, and then wait. Wait for them to tell me what to write. It can be speech, of course, but very often I find that one simple image can express what my character is feeling without having to tell the audience.

Nuanced development of a character often means letting your visual storytelling powers take over.

That wonderful scene in La Dolce Vita at the Trevi Fountain - look how eloquent that visual subtext communicates everything we need to understand and most importantly, feel the characters' emotions.

The BAFTAS - The King's Speech has 14 Nominations. True Grit has 8

The BAFTAS 2011 List of Nominations is out.
The King's Speech has a whopping fourteen including Best Original Screenplay, Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Editing.

The Coens' True Grit got zero nominations at the Golden Globes, but they're on the BAFTA list for eight including Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematographer (the Coens' regular, Roger Deakins, Best Actor (Jeff Bridges) and Best Actress (Hailee Steinfeld)

I always find it interesting to compare the current nominees of screen awards with the winners of the previous years.

You can compare this year's BAFTA nominations with the winners from 2010 and 2009
here. Click on BAFTAS on the left hand menu:

http://www.unique-screenwriting.com

What do think of the Screenplay Nominees?

Best original screenplay

Black Swan - Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, John McLaughlin

The Fighter - Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson

Inception - Christopher Nolan

The Kids are All Right - Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg

The King's Speech - David Seidler

Best adapted screenplay

127 Hours - Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Rasmus Heisterberg, Nikolaj Arcel

The Social Network - Aaron Sorkin

Toy Story 3 - Michael Arndt

True Grit - Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

How the Coen Brothers Write Their Scripts

In an interview on the WGA site, Ethan and Joel Coen are uncharacteristically fulsome in their answers about their latest filmTrue Grit and offer some fascinating insights into how they write their scripts.

If anyone has to be convinced of my repeated plea for screenwriters to stop worrying about the '3-Act structure' or building a ready-made template for their story, the Coens have done a very persuasive job for me.

They don't set out with a clear outline and then squeeze everything in. Joel says:
'It’s much more the case that there’s a discussion about what comes next extending a certain way into the script that often gets batted about verbally and then just gets written as opposed to writing it all down with one subset of A, B, C, D, and E, you know? It’s like, "Okay, this will happen, and it will lead to this, and then we don’t know what."'

Ethan agreed: 'That’s true. It’s kinda mushy. We don’t do an outline in terms of mapping out the whole thing but then, on the other hand, we don’t exactly write scene A and then stop and say, "Ok, what’s scene B?"

Joel: Yeah, it might be, "Ok, this will happen and lead to this and this and then we get here, and we’ll figure it out." If we’re writing scene B, we have some clear idea of what scene C might be and a slightly fuzzier idea of what D might be and a vague idea of what the ramifications of that might be – or maybe not. It just kind of falls off into darkness.'

True inspiration for all screenwriters!

Read the full interview with the Coens by Dylan Callaghan at http://www.wga.org/

The King's Speech Ending

**SPOILERS ALERT!**
Was anyone else bothered by the last few shots of The King's Speech?

I found it sentimentalizing and trite. It wasn't necessary to cut from Colin Firth's (Bertie) face to Geoffrey Rush's (Lionel) face twice. And why on earth were we left with Lionel on the screen at the very end? This was Bertie's story.

I have to confess that I have an in-built 'punching the emotion too much' detector when I watch a film. And though Colin Firth himself never struck an inauthentic note, there were moments in the film where the director imposed a sentimentalizing dollop of syrup. These were in such stark contrast to the powerful restraint and emotional truth of Firth's performance that they felt doubly jarring.

But it's that ending which almost ruined the watching experience for me. If only they'd just left us with a close-up of Firth's admirably restrained expression.

Golden Globes - One Day To Go! Here's Full List of Nominations

Tomorrow, Sunday 16 January, we'll know who's won the Golden Globe Awards for 2011.

Who do you think deserves Best Screenplay? The King's Speech and Social Network are hot favourites.
Here's the List:


Screenplay: Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, 127 Hours; Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right; Christopher Nolan, Inception; David Seidler, The King's Speech; Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Drama: Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The King's Speech, The Social Network

Director: Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan; David Fincher, The Social Network; Tom Hooper, The King's Speech; Christopher Nolan, Inception; David O Russell, The Fighter

Musical or Comedy: Alice in Wonderland, Burlesque, The Kids Are All Right, Red, The Tourist

Actor, Drama: Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network; Colin Firth, The King's Speech; James Franco, 127 Hours; Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine; Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter

Actress, Drama: Halle Berry, Frankie and Alice; Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole; Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone; Natalie Portman, Black Swan; Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter; Michael Douglas, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; Andrew Garfield, The Social Network; Jeremy Renner, The Town; Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

Actor, Musical or Comedy: Johnny Depp, Alice in Wonderland; Johnny Depp, The Tourist; Paul Giamatti, Barney's Version; Jake Gyllenhaal, Love and Other Drugs; Kevin Spacey, Casino Jack

Actress, Musical or Comedy: Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right; Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right; Anne Hathaway, Love & Other Drugs; Angelina Jolie, The Tourist; Emma Stone, Easy A

Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter; Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech; Mila Kunis, Black Swan; Amy Adams, The Fighter; Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Foreign Language: Biutiful, The Concert, The Edge, I Am Love, In a Better World

Animated Film: Toy Story 3, The Illusionist, How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, Tangled

Screenplay: Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, 127 Hours; Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right; Christopher Nolan, Inception; David Seidler, The King's Speech; Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Original Score: Alexandre Desplat, The King's Speech; Danny Elfman, Alice in Wonderland; A.R. Rahman, 127 Hours; Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, The Social Network; Hans Zimmer, Inception

Original Song: "Bound to You" (written by Samuel Dixon, Christina Aguilera, Sia Furler), Burlesque; "Coming Home" (written by Bob DiPiero, Tom Douglas, Hillary Lindsey, Troy Verges), Country Strong; "I See the Light" (written by Alan Menken, Glenn Slater), Tangled; "There's a Place for Us" (written by Carrie Underwood, David Hodges, Hillary Lindsey), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me," (written by Diane Warren), Burlesque

The King's Speech Wins Critics' Choice Best Original Screenplay

What do you think of the screenwriters' Critics' Choice Awards? David Seidler has won the Best Original Screenplay for The King's Speech and Aaron Sorkin Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network.

Both screenplays were pretty good, and Colin Firth certainly deserved his win for Best Actor.

Check out the full list here and make up your own predictions for the Oscars.

Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler (The King's Speech)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)


Best Picture: The Social Network

Best Actor: Colin Firth (The King's Speech)

Best Actress: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter)

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

Best Young Actor/Actress: Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)

Best Acting Ensemble: The Fighter

Best Director: David Fincher(The Social Network)

Best Cinematography: Wally Pfister (Inception)


Best Art Direction: Guy Hendrix Dyas (Inception)

Best Visual Effects: Inception

Best Sound: Inception

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Best Action Movie: Inception

Best Comedy: Easy A

Best Picture Made For Television: The Pacific

Best Foreign Language Film: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Best Documentary Feature: Waiting For Superman

Best Song: If I Rise (127 Hours)

Best Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)

The Joel Siegel Award: Matt Damon

The Music+Film Award: Quentin Tarantino

My Screenwriting Book is finished!

I have now completed my screenwriting book on how to write screenplays of originality and cinematic passion. I'll be doing a countdown to publication so please check back on this blog for that.

In the meantime, have a look at my in-depth articles on my Unique Screenwriting website:
http://www.unique-screenwriting.com

Writers' Guild of America Best Screenplay Nominations 2010

Check out the WGA's best original and best adapted screenplay nominations here:
http://tinyurl.com/39s33d4

What do you think of the list? Any screenwriter you think should be on it? Anyone you think shouldn't be on it?

How I Recovered My Screenwriting Voice and Storytelling Instincts

With three producers asking to read one of my screenplays last week, I've been madly rewriting. And what's amazing is that writing my screenwriting books has had the most extraordinary effect on my own writing.

I went back to this script after quite a while away from it and discovered a miracle had occurred. I was approaching the story with a boldness and adventurousness I hadn't had before. I had made a quantum leap in my cinematic powers, in my dialogue, in pace, tension, subtext, exposition - the lot!

But you know what else I discovered? As well as working on this draft  I went right back to a much earlier draft.  And the most staggering revelation hit me.

Most of the stuff from the very early version which I would later cut out was really good. The recent draft didn't have a distinctive voice, mood and tone had become tamed, the pace was needlessly fast or just not right because I was following the '3-act structure' and so on. In short, everything that had made the very early version alive and interesting had evaporated.

I wrote the much earlier draft before I bought all the screenwriting guru books and attended courses and masterclasses. I've always known that following the so-called rules had damaged my screenwriting, but I simply had no idea how catastrophic that damage was.

So, having been on a mission to help writers break away from the rigid templates and useless guidance from the gurus, I now have an even more passionate desire to do everything I can to make sure screenwriters are given the confidence to trust their own voice, be daring, be bold, and resist all attempts by the 'experts' to turn them into timid, bland writers producing scripts that no one will want to buy.

I'm now hoping that my series of screenwriting books that give real hands-on guidance for creating screenplays of originality and cinematic power will have the same  amazing quantum leap effect for my readers.

So here's to exciting, innovative screenwriting!

Trust the Actor

It's one of the hardest things a screenwriter has to avoid and it's something which usually marks out a writer's inexperience:

Punching the line for the actor.

Typically, it looks like this:
                                         CHARACTER
                                                (angrily)


                                          CHARACTER
                                         (head in her hands)


                                         CHARACTER
                                          (looking soulful)


Actors hate this. They're often referred to as 'wrylies' as in:


                                        CHARACTER
                                             (wryly)

If your script is good, there's no need to put these in anyway. But most of all, it shows that the writer lacks confidence in their own ability to express meaning and subtlety of emotion.

Next time you feel tempted to tell the act how to play a line, stop. Imagine the moment or scene as it will play on the screen. The valuable lesson to be learnt is:

Trust the actor.

 




                                               

Yes, Writing is Rewriting, But...

I've gone back to a screenplay after being away from it for a while. And as always I'm struck at how differently I feel about it.

But why should that be unexpected? In the time I've been away from the script, things in my life have changed. I'm not the same person I was when I wrote that earlier draft. The world around me has changed. So it isn't strange that I now come back to it and find how some of it screams No! This is awful, and how some of it tells me, Yes, this is really quite good. Or Yes, that bit's brilliant. Or, the most painful of all: I might as well forget the whole thing and start a new script.

I'm also a writer who talks to my writing. I ask it questions. I'm forever having conversations with my characters. Trying to find out what's going on inside them, why they do what they do, why they feel what they feel.

With this script I've gone back to, I'm cutting back on many scenes because the whole story needs a new and different rhythm. What I hadn't seen before I now see with glaring clarity. And that's the thing I find both maddening and exhilarating about rewriting. It's no good saying to myself 'My didn't I see that before?'

I could not have seen it before because that was then and this is now.

In other words, I've changed. The world's changed. Now the screenplay must change.

Charlie Kaufman Articles

By the way, re: my last post. I've written articles about Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation on my site here:

 http://www.unique-screenwriting.com/adaptation-screenwriting.html

http://www.unique-screenwriting.com/adaptation-screenwriting-2.html

Hollywood Execs Read Aristotle!

Did you know that Hollywood execs assess screenplays using  'exactly' the same criteria found in Aristotle?  Or that Rocky can be analysed following the 'story structure' of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, which the Daddy of Lit.Crit examined to demonstrate 'timeless universal truths' about drama?

And did you know that Aristotle talked about 'the three unities of dramatic action: time, place, and action'?

Neither did I!

Poor Aristotle, and poor us! Crumpling under this veritable barrage of howlingly wrong interpretations of an ancient fragment of literary criticism by a terrific guy who was writing a work-in-progress, always looking out for new ideas, testing out his theories and modifying them as he went along.

To treat his Poetics as a completed and revised treatise of the art and craft of drama is an insult. He wasn't interested in setting the Ten Commandments on How To Write a Play in stone. And, my God, he'd be furious if he could see how perversely his work has been mangled and torn and chewed over (and spat out on poor aspiring screenwriters' scripts).

Let's for once give this man the courtesy and respect of reading what he actually wrote, and put a stop, once and for all, to putting words into his mouth.

The Big One: 
'A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be.
An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessaity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it.

A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it.'

Let's look at the definition of 'middle'. It seems like tautology, but the context shows that the word 'follows' here marks a causal sequence, not a mere temporal sequence. So the 'middle'  unlike the 'beginning' stands in casual relation to what goes before, and unlike the 'end' is causally linked to what follows.

THERE IS NO ATTEMPT TO MARK AT WHICH POINT THE 'MIDDLE' IS TO BE PLACED

What's absolutely crucial about Aristotle's ideas about the unity of tragic action is that it is an organic unity, an inward principle which reveals itself in the form of an outward whole. And what he's stressing is that the incidents of the play must be connected together by an inward and causal bond. Also, he makes a point of  not laying down any precise rules about the length of a play.

Related to this is a brilliant parenthesis in his Simple and Complex Plot section which has been hijacked, uncredited, by many unoriginal minds as if they're thought it up all by themselves!

'(There is a crucial difference between one thing happening merely after something else, and the same thing happening because of it)'


 There's a whole lot more I could add, but haven't got time now. But for now I'll just go back to those quotes I gave at the start.

1. I don't know how any criteria of assessment can be 'exactly' the same as those used by Aristotle on Greek Tragedies when there are quite a few times when his remarks are at complete variance to what the plays are actually like. And anyway, which criteria are these guys using? Much of Aristotle's work has been so profoundly misinterpreted by others, most people go by 'interpretations' (usually wrong ones) written later.

This is a whole new topic - maybe I'll get back to this one.

2. No, Aristotle never talked about 'Unity of Place'. Like so many Renaissance scholars and writers, the Italian theorist Lodovico Castelvetro wildly misunderstood the ancient philosopher's words, and made up 'The Three Unities' (of time, place and action). Unfortunately, everyone assumed this was a prescriptive from Aristotle himself.


I 'm definitely coming back to Hollywood and Aristotle in another blog.