Write and Sell the HOT Script

I got back from Cannes at the end of May where I was strongarmed by producer after producer asking where the great screenplays are. They all think that getting the money is relatively easy. I get asked over and over again by agents and producers: Where are the great screenplays?

The truth is, there are thousands of screenplays in circulation, but few hit the marks producers require to get the funding to make the movie.

It could be that what you have been taught is wrong. That you haven't been shown how a commercially viable script needs to be planned point-by-point and written.

When I speak of a 'commercially viable' script, I am not talking about the big Hollywood block-busters. I am talking about films which get made and find an audience. And part of the weekend deals with finding an audience.

Here's The Good News!

I have read and evaluated over 2,500 screenplays - four of which got made: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels being one of them. Most scripts I have read didn't get made not because the idea was poor. They didn't get made because the execution of the idea was clumsy.

This weekend class will show you how to hone your idea and plan your story BEFORE you actually write it.

Right Idea for the Right Script

Writing a story for the screen is about making a series of strong and tactful decisions using what you have learned (through trial and error) and through your own talent.

It's also about learning how to focus on your strengths and honing them. This weekend class gives tip after tip, technique after technique that you can use in your writing. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but immediately.

I have learned this personally: from the three published books and the novel I have written, from the hundreds of screenwriters I have worked with over the 20 years that I have worked at Raindance, and from the dozens of shorts and features I have seen leap from the script to the screen.

Getting your idea from your head to a sheet of paper means a journey of just 45 cm.

Approach the journey in the right way, and you will arrive safely. Start this journey unprepared and you will end up wandering and confused, your idea locked inside you, those eighteen inches, 45cm may as well be a million miles.

Discover the insider trade secrets that are designed to keep outsiders from breaking into the industry. Find out shortcuts to success, and how to map out a hugely rewarding career, learning from the success and failure of others. Learn how to maximise your personal resources in order to create an image and mystique about yourself and your work. Discover proven techniques that enable you to master the page and show it who's boss. Learn how to guide your idea down the page. A hot script is the quickest way into the film industry.

Christopher Nolan (The Following), Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs), Jane Campion (The Piano), John Hodge & Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave) and Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi) are some of the writer/directors who launched their careers with their first script.

Over 10,000 film makers have now taken Write and Sell the Hot Script.

Day One: The Screenwriting Process

Do you want to write a movie but don't know where to start? Elliot Grove leads you through the bewildering array of story structure and genre theories. Learn how to formulate a realistic plan to write the type of screenplay sought by film script buyers.

• Create interesting, memorable characters
• Devise characters that grow in your script and outlive the movie
• Conflict and tension in a story
• Building great dialogue
• The essential building blocks of a script
• Story structure paradigms
• Setting the social stage to develop dynamic stories

You don't get paid for writing a screenplay. You only get paid when you sell it. This is the money day, when you learn how to write what sells, and how to sell what you write.

• Playing the Movie Game and winning as a screenwriter
• Simple, logical and effective marketing
• How professionals market scripts
• Getting producers to read your script
• How to get good coverage.
• Query letters
• The three ways scripts are bought and sold
• How much money can you earn from the sale of your script
• The Ten Thousand Monkeys Theory for writers explained
• Getting an agent
• Realistic career paths