Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
How does a spec script differ from a shooting script? What kind of fasteners should one use to bind a script? How did the term MOS come to mean without sound? You'll find the answers to these pressing questions and much more in David Trottier's eminently usable Screenwriter's Bible. The avuncular Trottier--a writer-producer, script consultant, and seminar leader--has written a friendly guide through the Hollywood morass. He touts it as six books in one: it's "a screenwriting primer, a screenwriting workbook, a formatting guide, a spec writing guide, a sales and marketing guide, [and] a resource guide."
Much of Trottier's advice is common sense: "Don't write anything that cannot appear on the screen"; to keep casting options open, don't make your physical descriptions too specific; "don't say Ron Howard is looking at the project if he is not." But there are things to know about Hollywood that are, well, quirkier. Don't write the title of your script on the front cover or side binding; present action sequences using the "stacking action" style; in query letters and scripts alike, avoid "big blocks of black ink." Trottier's guidance--from character development and revision to queries and pitches--is invaluable. Getting in the door can seem impossible, but it's not, necessarily. "If you write a script that features a character who has a clear and specific goal," says Trottier, "where there is strong opposition to that goal leading to a crisis and an emotionally satisfying ending, your script will automatically find itself in the upper five percent."
(By the way, MOS is said to have "originated with German director Eric von Stroheim, who would tell his crew, 'Ve'll shoot dis mid out sound'"). --Jane Steinberg
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
A beginner's dream
Customer Rating:
Thank you for this book. Your encouragement is felt on every page. Far beyond the basic how-to's, this book is a must-have for anyone who has a screenplay idea come wandering into their mind.
This book reminds me of the rules formed by the conventions of Europe to preserve certain standards during the classicism period. For example, no handkerchiefs were permitted on stage, or a woman of nobility was not to allow a defamed man into her room. The rules were arbitrary and they were loosely based on Aristotle's Poetics. Corneille had rejected the rules to produce one of the greatest plays. The play is El Cid.
The Screenwriter's bible is pedantic. Avoid it at all costs. If you want to create great stories, read the great playwrights, Schiller, Corneille, Sophocles, study literature. Garbage presented in a professional manner is still garbage. Learn how to write a great story and the story shall sell itself.
Great Book
Customer Rating:
I got the book a few weeks late, and I could not find any record on Amazon about my purchase. But, the book arrived well packaged and in very good shape. And it was a decent price.
This book has everything!
Customer Rating:
This book covers everything you want to know about screenwriting. It is written in simple language and if you follow the steps and checkpoints carefully, you will end up with a well written script. Read this book first!
Outstanding screenwriting book
Customer Rating:
Excellent book about screenwriting- everything was covered in detail; the organization of the book made it easy to read
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