The ISA Podcast

"The Conjuring 2" is a fun ride and a frightfully good sequel. 

In a summer when most sequels have been utter letdowns, it's nice that "The Conjuring 2" delivers. Not only is it a worthy sequel to its 2013 predecessor, but it's one of the better horror films this year. The casebook of real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren has many stories worth telling on the big screen and this sharp sequel should bode well for the franchise and its many chapters to come.

This outing concerns the famous Edenfield poltergeist case from 1977. The Warrens were called in to help determine what was haunting a single mom and her four children in the working class borough of London. This movie is scary from its first moment to its last because it's based on a real story, and the director, cast and crew are committed to making a genre film a cut above the rest. Some of the nuances of the actual story are given short-shrift by the script here, but overall the screenwriters play fair and have fun with the frights. "The Conjuring 2" will have you on the edge of your seat, and you'll be thankful for it.

"Love & Friendship" expertly adapts Austen with panache and political punch.

It's not easy adapting most classic literature to the big screen, let alone an epistolary novel, one that is told through letters. But then again, writer/director Whit Stillman is an expert at comedies of manners ("Metropolitan", "The Last Days of Disco") and he knows how to capture the same themes that Jane Austen wrote about in Lady Susan. Thus, his take, now called "Love & Friendship" not only has the year's cleverest screenplay adaptation, it also is one of 2016's very best films.

A tony cast, headed by Stillman vets Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny, all play the serpentine story to the hilt. Beckinsale, in an award-worthy performance, essays Susan, the wily widow out to secure her standing in a patriarchal society. Every element of the film is top drawer, from its script, direction, and cast, to its sumptuous sets and costumes. The film only cost $4 million to make but it looks like five times that amount. And while "Love & Friendship" may be a period piece, it couldn't be more timely this election year with its scathing takedown of class, sexism, and politics.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Craft. It's an interesting episode since I'm technically going beyond my initial plan for this podcast. When I first launched this thing, I had the idea to talk about the 12 sequences in a screenplay, but it's kind of grown into something a little bigger...so now I have the fun yet unenviable task of coming up with brand new material every week that isn't directly related to sequence writing. The last 14 episodes have been a lot of fun to record and post, and now we're treading through some foreign waters in a way. It should be interesting, and I'm just as curious as you are as to what the hell I'm going to talk about. I have, though, come up with something - a topic that I've noticed many of our ISA members have found curious and intriguing in its own right; adapting a screenplay into a book.

If you haven’t watched an episode of Fox’s animated series, Bob’s Burgers, then by listening to this interview, you’ll quite quickly get a taste of how funny the show is (and please take my word for it, it’s hilarious). Writing duo as well story editors and supervising producers on Bob’s Burgers, Steven Davis and Kelvin Yu, jumped on the line with me today to talk about, well, everything from the word “mush”, to blanket statements, and naked men in LA stage plays. I’m not making this up. But we also hit upon some eye opening perspectives where voice is concerned. I’ve been talking about voice quite a bit in my podcasts lately, and I love what Steven and Kelvin had to say about it.

For those of you who listen to these podcasts on a regular basis, have probably noticed that some of the questions I ask my guests are the same – and beyond just the last question of “worst advice” that I usually end the conversations with – but more importantly, you’ll see how different each answer can be. Why do I ask the same questions, and why I do like that the answers are so different? Because there isn’t one road or one route that you can take to find success in this business. Whether you’re an actor, writer, or director, or anything else right now – even a cat who likes mushing blankets – if you want to become something or achieve a goal of any kind, you have to find your own route. You have to establish your own voice. And you just have to keep writing (and you’ll find out why I’m giggling after saying that).

I had a blast with this interview, and I can’t wait to get caught up on all of the Bob’s Burgers fun. Enjoy, everyone, and as always, thanks for listening.

Ever wonder what your pets do while you’re away? Brian Lynch and Illumination Entertainment did, so they wrote a movie about what might (or might not, as far as you now) happen when you leave your pets at home alone. Brian is the writer on the upcoming, July 8 release of the Illumination project, The Secret Life of Pets, and in this interview we talked about everything from the right kind of fame, to how weird it is to see your own lines of dialogue on a t-shirt.

It’s a dream interview for geeks of all ages, myself included, and the ISA thanks Brian for taking the time out to join me on Curious About Screenwriting. His discussion on writing for animation compared to live action is a fantastic teachable moment, and his advice on how to go about launching your own comic book series inspiring to say the least.

"What's your story about?" Do you completely dread this question..? A top-notch Logline can help! It's a content creator's most important asset - invaluable for query letters, for keeping focused on what makes a story unique and for having the perfect elevator pitch ready to go. Authors and screenwriters alike can use this amazing tool to hone their outlines, treatments, synopses', books, screenplays and pitches. Learn the secret to crafting this vitally important selling sentence.

This is a recording of a live teleconference from June 2016.

"...Because here's the thing, you should be writing superhero movies, especially if you're a serious writer. We need more serious writers writing superhero movies, because these are the movies that everybody in the world sees. These are movies that shape our beliefs about the world.

Think about how The Dark Knight was used to make people think about the Patriot Act and terrorism. Think about how Avatar was used to take an American audience and put them in the shoes of the Iraqi people at the height of the Iraq War. These movies, even though they are often silly, are extremely powerful. They change the way that we view the world. They change our belief systems.

And it's a shame with Captain America because with everything that works in this script, they really had an opportunity to go for it thematically. They had actually two opportunities. Because there are actually two different questions that the movie is asking..."

So, it's pretty sad when a wish doesn't get granted, right? It was not easy for me to force myself not to dive deep into the entire wishing process and how it works - at least not all at once. During my development of the story, I wrote out tons of explanations as to what the full process of wishing actually is - from inception to granting - and the important elements that are in play in order to keep a wish not only alive, but alive long enough to allow for it to be granted. It was just too boring and a bit like reading an instructional manual when I was all done with the brainstorming and explanation, so I just lightly peppered in little bits of it throughout the book. You'll learn more in upcoming chapters in more of a slow reveal, but if you don't want to wait, I have a tab on the WishKeeper's website called "Anatomy of a Wish" and you can see a lot of what my explanation and instructional manual, so called, included. I also break down each wish with some cool artwork and background.

But you just listened to two chapters that are good examples of how exposition can be blended with character development.

We’ve come down to it. We’ve marched forward through 11 sequences of a script, alongside some fun Sidenotes about TV writing, Voice, and Motivation, and now we’ve come to it. The final sequence. The resolution. The climax. The victory. The statement of theme. All five of those points are critical to discuss, breakdown, and hopefully explain well enough so that you understand their individual and separate meanings. Everything we’ve talked about prior to this episode has built momentum, pacing, stakes, and theme, in order to deliver it all at the end of your story. So let’s just do a quick recap so that we stay on point, and we’re reminded of why we’re going through these episodes in the first place.

Main character stage of life, the set-up event, and the secondary character’s introduction make up your first act. So much happens in those three sequences, and so much rides on how well you can prepare your audience for the adventure ahead. The relationship between the secondary helper and the hero, meeting the new world, obstacles, and additional stress on the hero’s emotional flaw, make up sequences 4 and 5. Those two sequences are presenting ongoing obstacles that both help and hinder your hero as he or she progresses toward your sixth sequence, the mid-point. The mid-point delivers some form of a complication, twist, consummation between the hero and the secondary character, so that the emotional flaw is revealed, tested, and therefore the adventure is set off in a new or different direction. It may even present a brand new goal – either physically, or emotionally – for your main character. Sequences 7 and 8 are now consisting of a slight downward spiral, either quick and obvious, or subtle with a potentially fake or false “victory”. The honeymoon period, so called, that is really just setting up both the Hero and the audience for epic failure. The rival or the villain is winning during sequences 7 and 8, and of course, by the time we hit sequence 9 and the hero’s low point, it seems as though all is lost. The hero has been dealt the worst possible hand, and he folds. There is usually some form of an estrangement between the hero and the secondary character and, again, all seems lost. In sequences 10 and 11, your hero reverts back to his emotional flaw (for instance, if a symptom of his flaw was that he was an alcoholic before, he now starts drinking again), but something happens that gives him a new hope. The secondary character may come back and pick him up by the boot straps, forcing him to rally and head toward his ultimate goal – both physically and emotionally – in order to claim his prize or at least attempt to.

That now leads us to…sequence 12, and what I said earlier, the resolution, the climax, the correction of the emotional flaw and the statement of theme.

It's a facet of the industry that nearly all writers either don't know anything about, or simply ignore because it just isn't something that comes to mind at the script stage of development. It is, however, essential for any writer "slash" filmmaker who intends to produce and/or direct their own feature length project to consider.

Barry Freeman is a unique consultant in that he has over ten years experience working on the ratings board with the Motion Pictures Association of America, or the MPAA as we all call it and know it by. In this interview we dive in to how he supports writers and filmmakers, what he specifically does for them...