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This Scene...from Christmas Vacation: A Script Versus Movie Comparison

Happy Holidays! Happy Christmas! Happy everything because I’m sharing a scene from one of my favorite Christmas movies, CHRISTMAS VACATION. I wouldn’t say this is my favorite scene from the film, but I chose it because I wanted to look at the difference between what ended up on screen and what is on the page itself.So yeah! I’m ...
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Ed Herro & Brian Donovan Make Mayhem, Murder & Maple Syrup In “The Sticky"

  • Staff Writer
  • .December 18, 2024
A story about a maple syrup heist may seem the stuff of wacky pulp fiction, but a notable heist did actually happen in Canada. It inspired a TV series from comedy writers Ed Herro and Brian Donovan (American Housewife) appropriately titled The Sticky. It stars Margot Martindale as Ruth Landry who gets herself into a sticky situa...
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A Quick Look At Developing the Most Important Element of Your 2nd Act

Today I want to focus on developing the strength of your unique moment. What does that mean, exactly, “unique moment”? And how is your unique moment connected to the 2nd Act as a whole? It's something I stress over and over; delivering your "recurring moment." Burn that term into your brain! "Recurring moment." I've used it befo...
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ISA Top Reads - Winter 2024

We are thrilled to announce the Winter 2024 list of ISA Top Reads! These writers' projects have been evaluated by multiple ISA readers, advancing through several rounds in the Writing Gig consideration process, contest, and fellowship submissions. Their loglines stood out from the crowd, catching the eyes of our team. After bein...
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Mike Schur Sends Ted Danson on Undercover Mission in “A Man on the Inside"

  • Staff Writer
  • .December 13, 2024
A Man On The Inside started as a 2020 documentary film by Maite Alberdi called The Mole Agent. It was an exposé of elder citizens’ abuses in nursing homes. Now a comedy television series starring Ted Danson as Charles, the amateur sleuth, his daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) seeking connection after the death of her mother ...
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Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 2)

VoiceoverDespite being overused and used to shortcut actual writing voiceovers can be a powerful tool used properly. I ask my students to not use these, to work harder to get across their ideas, and invariably someone will bring up Casino or Goodfellows and my argument goes right out the window.I will say that these movies are b...
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Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 1)

Exposition is the beating heart of any story be it script, novel, song, article or poem. Building to a solid ending requires layering and delivering information in specific ways to make that ending work.But exposition isn’t just telling the audience something. It involves many aspects of a script – or any story for that matter. ...
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Wicked: An Adaptation Of An Adaptation Of An Adaptation

  • Staff Writer
  • .December 6, 2024
Victor Fleming and King Vidor made movie history when they made the timeless, inventive and fantastical The Wizard Of Oz in 1939. The spinoff film Wicked, based on the book series The Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire and a musical book by Winnie Holzman, was adapted into a hugely successful broadway musical in 2000, and is still ...
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A Look Inside the Christmas Movie

Because the holidays are upon us, I thought it would be fun to look at one of my favorite genres - The Christmas movie.I will start off by saying this: I do not agree that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. If you would like to stop reading right now because this tears a hole in your dark Christmas heart and makes you want to pull y...
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ISA Staff Picks: December 2024

These screenplays and their writers were selected by ISA staff members as standouts in their genres and formats for the month of December, 2024. They are being submitted to agents, managers, producers and production companies actively looking for writers to rep or projects to produce.  Staff Picks:HEAVY by Colette LeGault (Featu...
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"Red One" Writer Chris Morgan Rescues Kidnapped Santa in Yuletide Actioner

  • Staff Writer
  • .December 2, 2024
Thanksgiving is just around the corner. You know what that means? Christmas isn’t too far behind. So make sure you’re on Santa’s “nice list” to join the Christmas cheer.But Santa has been kidnapped and must return to the North Pole in order to deliver gifts to millions of children and save Christmas. This is the story of Christm...
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How Your Story's Theme Can Help You Develop Your Project

I think that we ignore the process of theme development in our projects mainly because we’ve never really been told how to define what theme really is, or how it can inform more than just meaning and sentiment.I gave this note to one of my writers this week (with regard to her thematic statement): “…I think there is a lot to say...
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Writing Effective Found Family Films: Part 2

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series "Found Family."It’s A DisasterNothing forces people to form a family faster than a disaster – a plane crash, shipwreck, or a natural disaster such as an earthquake, tidal wave, or tornado. Yellowjackets tells the story of a girls soccer team whose plane crashes in the wilderness during a f...
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Writing Effective Found Family Films: Part 1

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series "Found Family."Found Family films are not new, but you may not have explicitly heard the term before. It simply means a film featuring groups of people who are not genetically or legally related and joined by circumstances to try and accomplish a common story goal by the end. These movies ...
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What Is A Story Hook?

Let’s get back to some very basic elements of story, since the past few chapters have been a little head-spinning, deep, and oddly esoteric. Whether you’re writing a pilot, a feature, an epic fantasy novel or a small YA series with some juicy romance, or even if you’re sitting around a campfire enjoying the last few days of warm...
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Goals: Driving the Narrative

  • James "Doc" Mason
  • .November 18, 2024
As with every story element described in this series, the goal relates directly back to the idea of conflict. To reiterate, in its most basic form, conflict is when someone wants something and another person doesn’t want them to have it.More specifically, narrative conflict is typically when one character proactively pursues a g...
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11 Writing Quotes You Should Take Notice Of (Part 2)

This entry is part 2 of 2 in a series on Writing Quotes.6) A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order. ~ Jean-Luc GodardNon-linear storytelling is a difficult technique to pull off and it varies greatly. From Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol which starts at an event and the rolls f...
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I Hate to Break It to You, But Your Logline Isn't Working

(Be like Hermione…study, read, practice, be smart.)I am going to vent a little bit in today’s post, but it’s because you all need to hear it. I’ll hold myself back as much as I can. Please remember that I am coming to you with love and positive intention here, I swear.Your logline sucks.OK, so maybe I didn’t hold myself back. I ...
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11 Writing Quotes You Should Take Notice Of (Part 1)

This entry is part 1 of 2 in a series on Writing Quotes.By the time any writer becomes successful, they’ve typically gathered a war chest worth of things not to do. If one is doing it right, you’re writing, reading, listening, and learning a ton of how to and not to write.Let’s see what lessons successful writers have learned.1)...
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So You Finished a Draft... Now What?

RewritingIt’s something we all need to deal with, and there is no getting around it. Rewriting, rewriting, rewriting. In the last post, I talked about writer’s block and, well, how and why writer’s block is pretty much a whole bunch of bullshit, and to again quote Terry Pratchett, “something invented by people in California who ...

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