We’ve all seen it; that soap opera that’s been running a little too long. You can imagine the writers sitting around a whiteboard with the characters’ names – and desperation in their eyes. Then they jump the shark. by Cherie Lee “OK so Sarah has hooked up [...]...

When I’m not lying by the pool, enjoying the Hollywood lifestyle in sunny Sydney, I make a living teaching and consulting to screenwriters and aspiring filmmakers. Yet occasionally I am being asked to help out for free, in return for a credit or a profit share. Let [...]...

I can’t believe I had not posted this video yet. I love it, have used it in some of my classes and I think it is brilliantly written and executed. It is also plain fun. If you liked this, check out more videos about screenwriting or filmmaking. [...]...

It’s Australia Day and I have been working on my favorite project for the moment: the feature screenplay for LONG TAN, the feature based on the eponymous Vietnam battle from 1966. For the occasion I wanted to share something special with you. This week Sam Worthington mentioned [...]...

Kiwis get film. Even apart from PJ’s blockbuster machine at Weta, they’ve had a good decade, with Whale Rider, The World’s Fastest Indian and more recently, Boy, a film by Taika Waikiki, inspired by his short Two Cars, One Night. by Dave Trendall (structure breakdown) and Karel [...]...

Outside of the system, there is very little room for any writing career in China. But in the US or even the less Bible thumping worlds of Europe, the big bucks go to the conformists, the purveyors of nothing in-particular, while the more nuanced, the critical, the [...]...

If you have tried financing a genre film or get development funding for your script in Australia over the past ten years, chances are at some point you were rejected by the gatekeepers on the basis of plausibility. Some people simply don’t understand how film works. If [...]...