Screenwriting Quotes
The best sayings about Screenwriting that you can share on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and other social networks!
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I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your feet.
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It's kind of liberating to be able to bring your own ideas to things, but it's also a lot of pressure, it's like screenwriting on your feet.
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The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.
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What makes screenplays difficult are the things that require the most discipline and care and are just not seen by most people. I'm talking about movement - screenwriting is related to math and music, and if you zig here, you know you have to zag there. It's like the descriptions for a piece of music - you go fast or slow or with feeling. It's the same.
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All screenwriting books are bullshit, all. Watch movies, read screenplays. Let them be your guide.
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When you're writing a script you have the option to embellish on life or switch the order of events or make it generally more cinematic. I would stick too closely to my own experience and not necessarily think about the fact that it needs to have an event happen. Realising that I could channel my own experience into a story that was slightly more cinematic was a very important moment for me - allowing myself to accept that the kind of screenwriting I'm doing is a work of fiction.
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Few literary depictions of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake match the intensity and visceral power of those in Flacco's gripping first novel. The author's screenwriting talent shines in this story of the earth's destructive power and humanity's moral depravity. The emerging maniacal personality, revealed in increasingly gruesome and venomous detail, rivals the Ripper.Dickens meets Hannibal Lecter. Brace yourself.
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The road to hell is paved with adverbs.
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I'm from the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of screenwriting. I just like to preserve what works and ignore what doesn't work.
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Screenwriting is definitely the majority of my time, but I do still act when stuff comes up. I do a few jobs a year.People ask me that all the time about written something for yourself to star in, and it's strange. I just approach it as two separate careers.
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I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I've never taken a course and I've never read a book about it!
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[Screenwriting] is no more complicated than old French torture chambers, I think. It's about as simple as that.
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I first came to cinema as a passionate filmgoer, when I was a child. Then, when I was a very young man, I became a film critic precisely because of my knowledge of cinema. I did better than others because of this. Then I moved on to screenwriting. I wrote a film with Sergio Leone, 'Once Upon a Time in the West.' And then I moved to directing.
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In fiction, I have a residual guilt when I focus on story over language or mood or whatever - the more "literary" things. In screenwriting, I don't have that guilt because story is the only thing. Character, dialogue, everything else - they feed into and drive story.
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The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.
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Screenwriting you don't necessarily have to do the job of the costume designer and the prop master and the set designer. It's more just about finding the visuals and finding these characters through dialogue.
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To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script.
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Novelists who get shitty about screenwriting invariably can't do it, or they can't hack it in the world of what's really, in truth, very bold and very public enterprise.
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I think I have always sort of cultivated a flowery writing style. I've always sort of over - written in every genre that I've attempted. I went to college and took a couple of writing classes and I remember my teachers were always incredibly encouraging. But it was inevitable to get the criticism: "Take it down a notch!" But the nice thing about screenwriting is that you don't really have to.
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I usually write very few stage directions. I think a lot of that is a waste of time. The art of screenwriting is in its terseness, saying a lot with a little. I have no patience when I read a script where the writer describes this guy and what he's wearing and his glasses and his hair.
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Scripts are what matter. If you get the foundations right and then you get the right ingredients on top, you stand a shot... but if you get those foundations wrong, then you absolutely don't stand a shot. It's very rare-almost never-that a good film gets made from a bad screenplay.
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You know, my problem with most screenwriting is it is a blueprint. It's like they're afraid to write the damn thing. And I'm a writer. That's what I do. I want it to be written. I want it to work on the page first and foremost. So when I'm writing the script, I'm not thinking about the viewer watching the movie. I'm thinking about the reader reading the script.
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The old days of screenwriting, and myths about screenwriting, are maybe over. It's a literary form, if you can wake up to it.
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It's possible for me to make a bad movie out of a good script, but I can't make a good movie from a bad script.
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And how deeply do I let business considerations affect [screenwriting] choices that might otherwise be more or less esthetic? . . . Do I choose the upbeat rather than the downer ending because I know it will score better at the preview? Can the idea be sold in a single sentence? Can it compete with space aliens and tornadoes and missions impossible?
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The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.
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Who is writing these screenwriting books? Not actually writing for the studios in Hollywood. These are people that have one or a half of a credit on maybe one movie, or none. So they're all theoretical.
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You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.
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Screenwriting is not an artform, it is a punishment from God.
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Audiences are harder to please if you're just giving them effects, but they're easy to please if it's a good story.
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Top Authors
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Kaley Cuoco Actress -
Kate Bosworth Actress -
Kamerion Wimbley American football linebacker -
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Katsuki Sekida Author
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Kathleen Madigan Comedian -
Katie Leung Film actress -
Justin Lin Film director -
K. R. Narayanan Former President of India -
June Goodfield Historian -
Kacey Musgraves Musical Artist -
Karen Magnussen Olympic athlete -
Kathleen Battle Opera singer -
Justine Kurland Photographer
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Karl A. Menninger Psychiatrist -
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Keith Senior Rugby player -
Karen Hantze Susman Tennis player -
Kate Pierson Vocalist -
Kate DiCamillo Writer -
Kate Seredy Writer
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