Write Your Screenplay Podcast

"...The process of writing a screenplay is different from writing a play in many essential ways. The first is the difference in the use of action. For screenwriters, action is the primary tool of structure. But for playwrights, the primary tool is dialogue. Don’t get me wrong. As a playwright, you need to visualize to some degree what is happening on the stage in order to really create your dialogue, in order to create the piece. But you don’t have to communicate that to anybody else. People don’t need to see your play in their mind like they do when reading a screenplay; they need to hear it, and they need to see the big elements. You get to rely on the director, because plays have this thing called rehearsals. It is crazy that rehearsals, for the most part, don’t exist in filmmaking. Even though some of the really great film directors do rehearse-- for example Francis Ford Coppola had a history of bringing the cast up to his estate to rehearse-- most film directors don’t rehearse at all. That’s for a ver

"...If you’ve been following my podcast, you know that I’ve been talking for some time about the desperate need for some smart people to start writing superhero movies. Action movies and superhero movies are the mythologies of our time-- millions of people see them, and as much as we might like to dismiss them as pure entertainment, the truth is, they irrevocably shape our view of the world, our children’s view of the world, the stories we tell ourselves about how to be our best selves, how to solve our problems, and what it means to be a hero. In this way, all action movies are political. Which is why it’s so darn nice to see a movie like Wonder Woman kicking ass at the box office..."

"...As Dan O’Bannon has noted in interviews, the idea that actually spawned the original Alien, was the horror of rape and forced pregnancy-- a horror that so many women have gone through in their real world lives, but that few men could viscerally understand. So instead of going after women in an exploitative way, as so many horror movies have done, he wanted instead to go after the men-- to make that horror visceral to men, in a way that would make them, “Cross their legs” and feel what that is like. And you can see that the entire structure of the Alien franchise, from the structure of each individual script, to the horrifying visuals, to the rules of the universe, down all the way to the production design, the way the alien creatures burst from the chests (and later, in Alien: Covenant from the backs) of impregnated males, every single decision grows from that one simple idea. The deeply personal why that the writer is actually writing it..."

"...hidden underneath this little character driven drama is actually an adaptation of three different stories. The first is the true life story of Chuck Wepner, a down and out fighter who went 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali and was the inspiration for Rocky. At the same time, it is also an adaptation of the Rocky film. It is a reimagining of Rocky-- stripped all of Sylvester Stallone’s American dream sugar coating. And at the same time, it’s also an adaptation of a third film: an old movie from 1962 called Requiem for a Heavyweight. So here we have this unassuming character driven independent feeling little film, that looks like just a simple biopic, but under the surface, there is actually something very complicated going on...

"...If you listened to my podcast on Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 1, you know that I’m a huge fan of James Gunn’s writing. Not just for the brilliant execution of pretty much every moment of his scripts, but also for his overarching use of Theme to give real emotional resonance to these goofy action sci-fi comedies. So, it’s interesting to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 to see James Gunn both succeeding and struggling in the places he’s most strong…"

"...as anyone who’s written comedy professionally can tell you, comedy is not about making the audience laugh. Comedy is about looking inside of yourself and making yourself laugh. Looking inside of yourself and laughing at the things that have hurt you: turning pain into laughter. Or, to quote How To Be a Latin Lover, turning sadness into Salsa... "

As Colossal illustrates so powerfully, our job as screenwriters is actually very simple: to look inside of ourselves and find the emotions, the characters, the questions that live there. To look inside of ourselves, find the things that are true, and then externalize the internal. To take the things that live under the surface for us, and put them up on the screen where everyone can see them. Sometimes that means our job is to look at our own monsters. And sometimes that means our job is to claw past the monsters that we believe ourselves to be to find the beauty that lives under the surface…”

Learn how to know if your screenplay rewrite is finished and how to deal with conflicting feedback and coverage notes about your script with Jacob Krueger.

Lear how to pitch your screenplay or TV show and advanced pitching techniques for Screenwriters, TV Writers, Web Series Writers, Novelists and Playwrights.

...Recently, we’re starting to see a shift with original movies like Get Out, La La Land, Manchester By The Sea, Moonlight and Arrival not only winning awards, but also hugely exceeding box office expectations. We’re also starting to see a trickle up effect, as companies like Amazon and Netflix have started entering the feature film market-- reinvigorating both writers and producers for the potential of a renaissance in feature films that can mirror the one in TV. Which is why Beauty and the Beast’s success scared the crap out of so many big budget writers and producers, especially on the cusp of what seemed like a potential tipping point in the Hollywood model.

Horror movies are obviously about fear. But the best horror movies are not just about scaring the audience. They’re about scaring yourself. About scaring your characters. They’re about reaching into those unexplored corners of yourself left over from childhood traumas, bad life experiences, emotional and physical wounds, paranoias and nightmares that you know you should be over emotionally-- but somehow just aren’t. They’re about taking the childlike fears -- the nonsensical monsters under the bed-- we “know” we should dismiss -- the fears just too bizarre, too unlikely to be real-- and asking ourselves “what if they were?” Allowing our worst nightmares to come to life on the page, and in that way to come to peace-- not with the reality which we depict these stories-- but with the real life experiences-- the metaphors-- that spawned them.

One of the truly interesting things about Inception is that its structure is actually based upon the principles of hypnosis. In fact, the organizing principles of the dream within a dream within a dream structure of the film almost perfectly mirror the classical hypnosis training you’d receive during a basic hypnosis certification class. Why is this important to you as a writer? Because as writers we all need organizing principles around which to structure our character’s journey…

This week we’ll be looking at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Which is about as far as we can go from last installment’s Oscar Winner Manchester By The Sea. Rogue One is a silly joyride of a script, built with half-drawn characters, nonsensical plot twists, and a hundred other flaws. And yet, while clearly feeling a bit trifling in scope compared to the other Star Wars films, it nevertheless delivers in a big way what its audience is seeking. What’s also particularly interesting about Rogue One for screenwriters is the way it dives into a moment that is literally just a blip on the radar in Star Wars: Episode 4, and discovers there an entire backstory, worthy of a film itself. The ability to dive deep into any moment and find drama is one of the most exciting things about screenwriting (and one of the most important skills you can develop as a screenwriter). It means that truly anything-- even just a little question like “how did they find those Death Star plans anyway?” can become a movie, if you’re wil

Whenever your character has a really strong backstory, one of the questions you need to ask yourself is: Does the movie take place then or does the movie take place now? Is this a movie about the present or a movie about the past? Or is it truly about both? As  Manchester By The Sea demonstrates, flashbacks work best when the most interesting part of the story takes place in the story between the past and the present. When two powerful stories are in dialogue with each other. And they work least the most interesting part of story is the stuff that’s happening in the past, or when the flashbacks exist to explain things to the audience, rather than to allow the character to wrestle with them himself. But the most exciting thing about Manchester by the Sea is not just its use of flashbacks, but the unusual structure in which those flashbacks occur. A structure in which rather than changing over the course of the story, the main character refuses to change..."

This week, Jake takes a look at the new movie musical La La Land.

NOT La La Land by Jacob Krueger Studio

Jacob Krueger finishes the 2017 Screenwriting Challenge with a special writing exercise!

The Second Check-In for the Jacob Krueger Studio 2017 Screenwriting Challenge! Jacob talks about the Writer's fear, and how to overcome it!

The First Check In for the 2017 Screenwriting Challenge! This week, Jacob Krueger has some inspiration and advice for our Challenge participants!

This week Jake has a special podcast featuring Jessica Hinds, and a New Year's Challenge!