This is one of the most powerful monologues ever put on film. It is from Jaws, Quint’s character played by Robert Shaw delivers “The Indianapolis Speech.” Watch. Listen. Learn. We will be studying it hard in Dialogue Writing.
Categories: Actors, Classes, Clips, Dialogue Writing, Film, Screenwriting, The Academy of Film Writing, Writing
Want to know how to get a $375 class for a hundred bucks? Then this deal is for you. Read on – IF YOU BUY 3 DIGITAL COPIES OF MY BOOK FOR THE HIGHLY REASONABLE PRICE OF $9.99 each, I WILL GIVE YOU A FREE SIGNED HARD COPY when the book hits print in 2013 — all postage paid in the US. [Non-US peeps, sorry, I cannot predict roving Read More ...
Holiday month classes tend to be pretty small, January classes tend to be pretty full, that is when the U students are hitting the classes again. I would suggest, if you want to get on January classes, you register now. January Classes: The Art of the Pitch Visual Writing The Sex Scene Register
Yez. There are open seats in Non-Static Writing. Travesty! But this is lucky for you, you can still register and grab one of those seats between now and Tuesday. Need a reason why? Three of my workshoppers have won Nicholl Fellowships. Oh. And so did I. Class starts Tuesday. :::register:::
Categories: Classes, Craft, Film, Max Adams, Non-Static Writing, The Academy of Film Writing, Writing
Syd Field came up with the 30/60/30 model years ago and being the only guy to come up with a description of structure, his structure concept stuck. It was in all the books. It was in all the lectures. It’s used pretty regularly in film circles to this day to estimate where in the course of a script a story event is happening. For example, if a studio Read More ...
Categories: Articles, Blogs, Classes, Craft, Film, Max Adams, Structural Writing, The Academy of Film Writing, Workshops, Writing
Artificial action occurs when there is action described in scene description — which creates the illusion action is happening in a script — but it’s not real action. This includes “looking.” Which is just eyes in a character’s head being pointed in some direction and maybe then pointing in another, without a character moving from a stationary position. Or can just be scene description attempting to create an emotion Read More ...
Categories: Articles, Blogs, Classes, Film, Max Adams, Non-Static Writing, Screenwriting, The Academy of Film Writing, Workshops, Writing
I had this sick twisted bastard of a yoga instructor tonight. I swear this guy used to reign over the Fifth Circle of Hell but he was too rough on people so they cast him out and he ended up at my yoga studio. He didn’t just make us do terrible hard things, he made jokes while he was doing it and laughed because he knew how hard the Read More ...
There is this great moment in The Last Boy Scout. This car’s trunk is wired up with explosives and these two guys have to leap over a freeway embankment to escape the exploding car. And they make it, whew! Except — The blowing up car is blown over the side of the freeway embankment and they have to run for their lives from the spiraling churning burning blown up Read More ...
Categories: Articles, Classes, Film, High Concept Writing, Max Adams, The Academy of Film Writing, Writers, Writers, Writing
So here is how this is going to go down. [It always goes down like this.] I have these two online classes opening September 18th. One is The Art of the Pitch. That’s about learning how to pitch a story so you don’t soil yourself in front of a crowd of spectators. The other is High Concept Writing. That’s how to work on a story concept so it isn’t Read More ...
CONVERSATIONS WITH STUDENTS: [names have been changed to protect the innocent, that would be my students, or not, to not protect the non-innocent, that would be me.] MAX: Each story is like getting thrown into a room with a blindfold on and trying to find a door out. STUDENT A: Yes. MAX: You might make it through one on innate intuition and luck. MAX: But the next one? And Read More ...
What do Philip Roth, Steven King, Haruki Murakami and Jonathan Franzen share in common? They’ve all been nominated for Literary Review’s Bad Sex In Fiction Award. When you write a sex scene, you want readers’ pulses to jump – and not because they are laughing so hard they are about to pee themselves. Or as “dude” commenting on Nerve.com put it, “I actually bookmarked the page so I could Read More ...
Categories: Classes, Film, The Academy of Film Writing, The Sex Scene
Syd Field came up with the 30/60/30 model years ago and being the only guy to come up with a description of structure, his structure concept stuck. It was in all the books. It was in all the lectures. It’s used pretty regularly in film circles to this day to estimate where in the course of a script a story event is happening. For example, if a studio Read More ...
Categories: Craft, Screenwriting, Structural Writing, The Academy of Film Writing, Writing