Scriptnotes #403: How to Write a Movie[1], where screenwriter Craig Mazin (Chernobyl, The Hangover 2/3) meticulously lays out one approach to crafting a screenplay around thesis and antithesis. (TLDR: put your characters through agony.)
It’s the most impactful episode this year because I’ve been keeping these ideas in mind lately whenever I’ve watched a movie, and it has really given me a different way to understand what’s going on.
Scriptnotes in general is a good one for anyone wanting to get a better understanding of movies, television, and storytelling. Bonus points because John August builds modern tools for screenwriters including apps for reading and writing screenplays (Weekend Read & Highland), a new markup and file format (https://fountain.io), and they even designed a new version of the Courier font (Courier Prime). Lots of interesting crossover between the world of making movies and the world of software development and startups.
It’s the most impactful episode this year because I’ve been keeping these ideas in mind lately whenever I’ve watched a movie, and it has really given me a different way to understand what’s going on.
1: The episode itself requires a premium subscription by now, but the transcript is still free to read: https://johnaugust.com/2019/scriptnotes-ep-403-how-to-write-...