Western's MFA Screenwriting Blog

This GPCW blog is a special entry about our Screenplaying podcast that we host alongside the Crested Butte Film Festival. In this episode, two actors, including our own GPCW Screenwriting performance coach (yes, we have a performance coach for our pitching finals), take a deep dive into the actor's process and how it dovetails with effective scene writing. From Shakespeare to the multiverse, the way actors approach your screenwriting is very useful information to have in your toolkit...

Many of the most common mistakes found in screenplays are also easy to rectify. So if you are working on a screenplay of your own, make sure that you do not fall into one of these traps. 1) The Compulsive “We See-er” We see an eyeball staring directly at us. The Issue: Let us not forget that a screenplay is a blueprint for a motion picture. Hence, the fact that “we see” everything you are describing is rather a given, is it not? The Fix: Do a document search for “we see,” and delete...

By James Napoli. Flashbacks Nothing provokes a more knee-jerk “don’t do it” reaction from screenwriters than the decision to include one or more flashbacks in one’s screenplay. We can, of course, understand this compulsion to remain linear, and the gut instinct that to tell the story from beginning to end is the only pure way to make narrative cinema work. It’s probably – largely – true, especially when one thinks about the criminally overused technique of whiting out to flashbacks in...

By James Napoli As the head of our Screenwriting MFA at Western, I thought it would be interesting to post some articles on screencraft for your review. I hope you find them helpful! I had an interesting experience while binge-watching the first two seasons of the beautifully acted and tonally flawless British television series Broadchurch. In an attempt to keep this article spoiler-free, I will simply say that the program, which concerns itself with the murder of a child in a small town...