Listen when you're writing secondary female characters and need them to have more depth.

Chas & Stu are joined by Bamboo Killer (aka Emily Blake) - one of the co-hosts of the Chicks Who Script podcast. They take a critical look at secondary female characters in mainstream movies through the lens of the oft-cited Bechdel test and the new, less-cited, Trinity Syndrome. The Trinity Syndrome berates movies for creating a "Strong Female Character With Nothing To Do" (like Trinity in the Matrix sequels) and raises a list of questions for filmmakers to ask themselves about their (female) characters.

Chas, Stu & Emily take these questions and use them to analyse the use of female characters in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL, EDGE OF TOMORROW, DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES and HOW TO TRAIN YOU DRAGON 2. They also cover the awesomeness of the awesomeness that is Rose Tyler (Doctor Who), Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games), and Kira Nerys (Deep Space Nine).

Funnily enough, turns out writing better female characters is really about writing better characters... who happen to be female.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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Thanks to our Patrons, especially Khrob, Theis, Sandra, Jesse, Randy, Paulo, Thomas, Jennifer, Malay, Alexandre and Lily.

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FILMS

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More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2015/dz-20/

Listen when you're writing a protagonist who does terrible things but you need the audience to keep watching.

Stu and Chas revisit a topic from a year ago: how do screenwriters make unlikeable characters compelling? This time, we turn our focus to dramas and analyse how AMERICAN HISTORY X, YOUNG ADULT, NIGHTCRAWLER all make their asshole protagonists compelling to watch. We expand our original list of five writer's tools to include a few more for your tool belt.

In response to our audience survey, we also introduce our first episode of backmatter.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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FILMS

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More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2015/dz-19/

Listen to understand how one of the world's highest-grossing directors structures story, makes great villians, controls information flow, and makes visual decisions on the page

Of course there are. How could there not be? After all, Michael Bay is the 3rd highest grossing director at the worldwide box office... of all time. Behind, y'know, Spielberg and stuff. How could a man of such credentials not know story? Or, so argues this week's guest: the author of MICHAEL F-ING BAY: THE UNHERALDED GENIUS IN MICHAEL BAY'S FILMS... [drumroll]... the Bitter Script Reader!

For those unfamiliar with the Bitter Script Reader and his puppet avatar, he is one of the internet's greatest free resources for emerging screenwriters. A man who shares his experiences of being a Hollywood gatekeeper for nothing because he's "sick of reading bad scripts".

Together, Stu, Chas and Bitter come through with their long-threatened episode to see what - if anything - screenwriters can learn from analysing the work of one of the most successful filmmakers all time, Michael Bay. We look at THE ROCK, THE ISLAND, and PAIN & GAIN, and cover writing great villains, controlling the flow of information to the audience (via car chases, of course) and creating visual decisions on the page.

So sit back and relax while Stu, Chas and the Bitter Script Reader learn how you can f@*k the page and not just the frame.

Oh, and if you have 7 seconds to spare, click here to go to our 2-question Draft Zero listener survey!

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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FILMS

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EPISODES IN THE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT SERIES

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More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2015/dz-18/

Listen when you're deciding between shorts, features, and web content--and need to know which format actually builds a sustainable creative practice.

It's our Holiday Special! In this episode (recorded December 2014), Chas and Stu break all the rules. No homework. No pages. No empirical analysis. They reluctantly but boldly reflect over the first year of Draft Zero and how it has influenced their 'careers' (such as they are). They also engage in a heated debate on whether a short film, a micro-budget feature or web-based content is the best way to go in terms of pushing a filmmaking career forward.

As the 2014 "season" comes to a close, Chas and Stu hold two polls for the listeners:

Click here to go to our 2-question / 7-second Draft Zero listener survey!

May 2015 be great for all our listeners and may Chas and Stu finally open a door to find a gold-plated ensuite.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2015/dz-17/

Listen if you want your screenplay to feel cinematic before a director ever reads it.

Chas and Stu are joined by Khrob Edmonds - an award-winning filmmaker - to discuss manipulation of time...

... on the page!

Cinema is a time-based art, and one of the primary tools in film editing is manipulation of time. A closer look at sequences in the scripts of PULP FICTION, THE BOURNE IDENTITY, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, WOMAN IN BLACK, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, UP, WHIPLASH, and THE UNTOUCHABLES reveals how master screenwriters use the same time-controlling techniques on the page. The closer a writer can recreate cinema's use of time on the page, the more of an "I'm watching a movie" feeling you can generate for the reader. Or, as Chas puts it, writing like you'd edit. We discuss use of white space, super-present tense, decompression & compression, Soviet Montage Theory, the Kuleshov effect and just a tiny amount of grammar.

NB: Stu refers to '-ing' words as 'present participles', John August (cited below) refers to 'present progressive'. Turns out there's a subtle difference between the two! Grammar esoterica FTW. See: What Is the Difference between Present Participle and Present Progressive -> http://grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/f/progpartdiff.htm.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on ...

Listen when your opening pages feel like exposition dumps (which is bad, okay?)

In our most epic/longest episode yet, Chas and Stu tackle world building in films. Specifically, how the rules make something a world and not just a setting. Starting with world-centric genres like sci-fi and fantasy, we also cover horror, crime drama and - er - "other". We discuss a variety of techniques for setting up the rules of the world, including cold opens, voiceover, title cards and outsider characters! We've limited ourselves to the opening 3-5 pages... mostly... because (so the theory goes) they're the pages that teach the audience how to read/watch your story/film.

Like with the character introductions episode, we cover a lot of scripts. In no particular order... [deep breath]... THE MATRIX, THE MATRIX RELOADED, MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, INCEPTION, GRAVITY, MINORITY REPORT, MOON, LOOPER, ELYSIUM, JURASSIC PARK, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE, MADAGASCAR, FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, PAN'S LABYRINTH, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, NIGHT WATCH, VAN HELSING, THE ONE I LOVE, 28 WEEKS LATER, WORLD WAR Z, DAWN OF THE DEAD, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, ZOMBIELAND, WOMAN IN BLACK, BRICK, ANIMAL KINGDOM, DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE, THE UNTOUCHABLES, GOODFELLAS, SHORT TERM 12, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, MOONRISE KINGDOM, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, and FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL.

Damn that was a lot! And we've probably missed some, too. So have a listen and please let us know!

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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FILMS

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SHOT ZERO DEEP DIVES

LINKS

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More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2014/dz-15/

Listen to understand how writers can craft more compelling material for actors (and how they approach scripts)

In this episode, Chas and Stu are joined by a very special guest, SARAH SNOOK - star of Succession, Predestination, Jessabelle, and Oddball, amongst many others - to discuss ACTING and it's relationship with WRITING.

We focus our analysis on two scenes from AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, a screenplay that started life as a Pulitzer Prize winning play, and whose writer - Tracy Letts - is a successful actor in his own right. But, as usual, we ice-skate between a whole range of topics, including what attracts actors to a script, writing realistic characters, how actors analyse scenes, character spines & objectives, and the importance of hugs.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

LIKE THIS EPISODE?

Thanks to our Patrons, especially Khrob, Theis, Sandra, Jesse, Randy, Paulo, Thomas, Jennifer, Malay, Alexandre and Lily.

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FILMS

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LINKS

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More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2014/dz-14/

Listen to steal Tarantino's technique for planting details that detonate as payoffs three scenes later.

Chapter 1: Of Milk and Men

Tarantino is widely heralded as one of the great writer/directors. Yet new writers are advised to avoid emulating Tarantino because his voice is so strong. Only Tarantino can get away with being Tarantino. Or so the theory goes.

But if Tarantino is that good, why shouldn't we look under the hood and analyse his screenwriting? You don't have to want to emulate his voice to want to understand why his craft is so good.

Chapter 2: The Bloodied Purpose

To that bloodied end, Chas and Stu look at three scripts from distinct phases of QT's career: TRUE ROMANCE, KILL BILL (Volume 1), and INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Stu and Chas break down QT's use of structure, detail and - in particular - dramatic irony in an attempt to understand how Tarantino's films are just that good.

Chapter 3: Epilogue, or, Links To Things We Talk About

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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FILMS

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RELATED EPISODES

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More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2014/dz-13/

Listen if you're navigating multiple creative disciplines and wondering how to build a sustainable career across them.

Well, half of us is... Chas (sans Stu) is joined by a very special guest - Natasha Pincus. As a screenwriter, Tash's feature CLIVE was on the 2012 Black List. As a director, her music video for Goyte's Someone I Used To Know was nominated for an MTV Music Video Award. And at the time of this recording, her debut feature as a screenwriter FELL was weeks away from opening night.

In other words, Tash has great experience behind the keyboard, behind the camera, and - as it turns out - in front of the camera. Experience that she is only happy to share with Chas as they discuss career, craft and process.

Stu wasn't around to bring up STAR WARS but he feels that linking to The Star Wars I Used To Know parody video will suffice.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

LIKE THIS EPISODE?

Thanks to our Patrons, especially Khrob, Theis, Sandra, Jesse, Randy, Paulo, Thomas, Jennifer, Malay, Alexandre and Lily.

———

FILMS

LINKS

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More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2014/dz-12/

Listen to discover why the MacGuffin's emotional weight--not its function--determines whether your audience cares enough to follow the entire adventure.

Stu and Chas are joined by a special guest - Scriptmag contributor Brad Johnson - to discuss how the choice of the MacGuffin can impact on the quality of an action/adventure film. To test this thesis, our heroes compare the auspicious originals of two iconic franchise with their, um, less-than-auspicious 4th instalments (in other words we compare RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK with KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL and THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL with ON STRANGER TIDES) as well as look at two recent & original entries into the genre, namely NATIONAL TREASURE and PRINCE OF PERSIA.

Our heroes uncover how key the relationship between the protagonist and the MacGuffin is and how this can impact on writing in any genre, not just action/adventure. Suprisingly, Brad brings up STAR WARS before Stu does...

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

LIKE THIS EPISODE?

Thanks to our Patrons, especially Khrob, Theis, Sandra, Jesse, Randy, Paulo, Thomas, Jennifer, Malay, Alexandre and Lily.

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CHAPTERS

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More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2014/dz-11/