Script Writing
Create engaging Characters Using These 4 Steps
When you’re making a film, one of the most important things is to create engaging characters that hold our attention for the entire runtime. I know that creating characters is not as easy as it sounds. If you are stuck on character creation and don’t know how to continue, or even if you have an idea in mind but you don’t know where to start, this article is for you. I will give you 4...
How to make the audience root for the bad guys (A new theory using psychology)
Ever wondered how film/ TV writers and directors manage to make us fall in love and root for the bad guys? In this post we will present 8 scriptwriting and directing techniques that are used to make the audience like immoral protagonist. These 8 techniques are inspired by a psychology theory called Moral Disengagement. So, we will be driving a new film theory from a psychology theory! We will be...
9 Ways to Make the Audience Love your Protagonist: Creating Relatable Characters
A significant factor that can make the audience love or hate a movie/series/ or story is the characters. Your viewers should love and relate to the characters to care about the story. So the main thing to plan is creating relatable characters! In this post, we will be giving 9 screenplay writing tricks you can use to make your characters more relatable to the audience. We say relatable, NOT...
Dan Harmon Story Circle: Create a Better Movie
In this post, we will be discussing a new narrative structure: Dan Harmon story circle structure. There are many narrative structures or formulas that tell us how events should be spread out in a movie. In AVfilmschool we have already talked about the three-act structure, Blake Snyder’s beat sheet, and the 5 plot points structure. Dan Harmon Story Circle Structure This structure...
The 5 major plot points of a Screenplay
We all know that movies can be mostly divided into 3 acts. In this post, we will show how movie scripts can be actually divided into 5 major plot points. When learning the basics of screenplay structure, writers generally talk about stories having 3 acts. That is a beginning, middle and end with a turning point at the end of act 1 and act 2. Although it's important to understand how these two...
Save The Cat Beat Sheet (the 15 beats explained)
Almost all movies have a similar narrative structure. They follow what's called the Save The Cat beat sheet template. This post will discuss the beats in a script and the Save The Cat structure. This narrative structure is also known as the Blake Snyder 15 beat sheet. Blake Snyder is the author who wrote about this script formula in his book: Save The Cat. So how can we use this structure to...
Screenplay Writing Software: All Questions about “Final Draft” Answered!
Writing a screenplay that meets the format standards may be quite confusing for new script writers and even experienced writers may not want to spend their attention on following technical formatting changes when they are writing a script. There are many softwares that take care of the screenplay format with additional features that vary from one software to another. The main and most popular...
How To Format a Screenplay (a Step by Step Guide)
Screenplay formatting may make new scriptwriters anxious because they may not be familiar with the rules of script format. But if you want a professional-looking script you should know how to format your screenplay. Actually, this is the easiest part. There are plenty of softwares that do the formatting for you, but it is very helpful to be familiar with basic screenplay formatting rules before...
The Three Act Structure
The three act structure in movie screenplays is a model the helps scriptwriters organize the film. Basically, this structure is the beginning, middle, and end. So, Act 1 is the set up of the story. Act 2 is the confrontation. Act 3 is the Resolution. Of course, not all movies follow this structure completely. In this post, we will explain the 3 act structure film and give examples from movies to...
Film Narrative
What is a Narrative film? Simply put, a narrative film is a movie that tells a story. So any form of film that follows a chain of events is narrative. Many people think that only fiction movies are narrative. But documentaries and movies that tell a real story can also be considered narrative films as long as there is a beginning point that develops throughout the events and leads to a sort of...
What Can you do to Un-block Writer’s block?
When we are writing a screenplay, a book, an online blog… we all reach that point that we just don’t know how to continue. We have no idea about what to write next, or we have too many ideas and don’t know where to start. We just sit in front of our screen trying to squeeze our minds to find the words. We fail. We stress out. The ideas become even vaguer and we start thinking about the time you...