The recent Bob Dylan biopic provides a good example of how you can shape historical events into a […]
Category Archive: Screenwriting focus
One of the challenges of writing the historical film is that the story is… well historical. This raises […]
When it comes to a fact-based film, placing the narrative into its historical context is as important as […]
The screenplay for the James Mangold-directed racing film Ford v Ferrari (aka Le Mans ’66) is a great […]
Who says exposition is boring and hard to weave into a script? In The Trial of the Chicago […]
In this series, we break down the research process to help screenwriters bring their fact-based stories to life. […]
In the first part of the series, we offered an overview of researching the fact-based screenplay. We now […]
So far, we’ve looked at the importance of research and at identifying relevant sources. Before we get stuck […]
So far in the series, we’ve outlined the basics of research and finding sources. Now, we delve into […]
We conclude our two-part look at historical research by offering some advice on how to make the most […]
In this article, we move on from passive historical research to look at more proactive ‘on the ground’ […]
In the final part of the series, we move away from conducting research to discussing the process of […]
A clearly defined midpoint can help to propel your story through the long Act Two, raising the stakes […]
When is the flashback more than just a flashback? When it’s the B-story! The use of structural flashback […]
The second part of our analysis focuses on the opening to Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi’s sprawling Las […]
In this analysis, we take a closer look at how Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi’s Las Vegas-set crime […]
We’ve all seen films that have an agenda woven through the narrative. When done well, these ‘social issues’ […]
We’ve chosen a scene from Serpico that highlights how an alternative point-of-view and protagonist weakness can be incorporated into the […]
Voice-over is an often criticised screenwriting tool, but Milk highlights how it can be effectively employed to enhance a biopic […]
Having more than one protagonist can be problematic, but it can also offer rich opportunities to develop several […]
In the investigative biopic narrative, it is the protagonist and her development that drive the story… Even though […]
This dramatization of the investigation into the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation programme provides a good example of […]
The first 10 pages of any screenplay are important, as they set the scene, introduce the main characters […]
The fictionalised account of the birth of social media platform Facebook provides an opportunity to look at how […]
The fictionalised account of Brian Clough’s turbulent and short-lived time as manager of Leeds United soccer club provides […]
Henry Fonda is wrongly accused of armed robbery in this interesting fact-based entry in the filmography of the […]
In this analysis, we break down the first 30 pages of Spotlight, which tells the story of how […]
Clint Eastwood directs and takes the lead role in this tale of a fun-loving elderly man who falls […]
In this analysis, we break down the story structure of the first act of this 1950s-set tale of […]
One of the main issues of interest when discussing the fact-based film is the extent to which the […]
In this analysis, we break down the narrative structure of Moneyball, the Oscar-nominated story of how a baseball […]
This series of articles takes a film based on real-life events and analyses the opening section, following the […]
The historical film is a tricky beast to tame. However, the filmmakers approach the story, there’ll always be […]
The final article in the series on the screenwriter’s role explores a few issues around the idea of […]
Studying successful screenplays and films is a key part of learning how to write them yourself! In this […]
The Killing Fields is an Oscar-winning fictionalisation of the experiences of two journalists working in war-torn 1970s Cambodia… Director: Roland Joffé […]
The second article in our short series on the screenwriter’s role, looks at how employing journalistic skills can […]
The first article in our short series on screenwriter’s roles, looks at how the function of the ‘history film’ […]
Reds tells of John Reed, an American journalist and radical who chronicled the 1917 Russian Revolution. Director: Warren Beatty […]
We don’t go to the movies for a history lesson. So, why should makers of the fact-based film […]
In the nearly 30 years since its release, Goodfellas has been much parodied, discussed and downright adored. So, to accompany […]
In the second part of our article, we take a look at researching a screenplay based on a […]
The first part of our article on adapting history for the screen looks at some things to think […]
If you’re grappling with writing a fact-based film, a good exercise is to pick a classic film that […]
When adapting from any type of source material, it is accepted, and indeed required, practice to compress events, […]
While it’s been a few years since American Sniper hit the big screen and the headlines, the film offers a […]
Transforming a true-life, or fact-based, tale into a screen story is problematic for many reasons, both practical and […]