Do you have an idea that you think would make a great movie, TV show or webisode, but have no idea how to write a screenplay?  It is not uncommon for people to have a screenplay idea, but have no clue where to start.

Like many other skills in life, learning to write a solid screenplay takes a good amount of research, practice and repetition. The following are some things that you can do to help yourself learn:

·         Read screenplays

·         Understand the format of a screenplay

·         Watch television shows and movies

·         Study some of the most successful screenplay writers

·         Come up with an idea for a screenplay

·         Develop screenplay ideas through outlines and storyboards

Paul Schrader, who has written some of the most recognizable films of the last 40 years, did not see his first movie until the age of 17. Raised in a strict Calvinist household, Schrader has said about his higher education, “Other college kids had to vandalize government buildings. All we had to do to rebel was go to movies.”

Paul Schrader was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on July 22, 1946. When he was seventeen, he was able to sneak away from home and has said in an interview that The Absent-Minded Professor was the first film he saw; while it did not impress him, Wild in the Country, which he saw some time later, did make an impact. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Calvin College, with a minor in Theology. He went on to attend UCLA Film School, receiving a recommendation from Pauline Kael, a renowned film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine among other publications. Schrader earned his Master of Arts in Film Studies and became a film critic, writing for the Los Angeles Free Press, and later Cinema magazine. Schrader quickly established a name for himself as a critic with an intellectual approach to film, rather than an emotional approach; a trait that he ascribes to having no adolescent movie experiences.

In 1974, Schrader and his brother Leonard co-wrote The Yakuza, a film set in the world of the eponymous Japanese crime syndicate. The script was the subject of an unprecedented bidding war, eventually selling for the unheard-of sum of $325,000; more than any other screenplay up to that time. Although the film failed commercially, it brought Schrader to the forefront, and to the attention to several Hollywood directors. He wrote the screenplay of Obsession for Brian De Palma in 1975, and shortly afterwards the screenplay for the Martin Scorsese classic Taxi Driver. Schrader has said about the screenplay, “At the time I wrote it, I was in a rather low and bad place. I had broken with Pauline [film critic Pauline Kael], I had broken with my wife, I had broken with the woman I left my wife for, I had broken with the American Film Institute and I was in debt.” Scorsese would turn to Schrader for more screenplays, notably Raging Bull in 1980, The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988, and Bringing Out the Dead in 1999. Schrader also wrote such well-known films as American Gigolo, which he also directed. He has directed a total of 17 feature films, in addition to writing; the majority of his films have been immensely successful and many of his films are viewed as classics.

A recurring theme in Schrader’s films is the protagonist on a self-destructive path, or taking actions which are counter-productive—either deliberately or unconsciously. The finale frequently bears a redemptive element, generally preceded by a painful sacrifice. Schrader has said of his characters, “What fascinates me are people who want to be one thing but who behave in a way contradictory to that. Who might say, ‘I want to be happy, but I keep doing things that make me unhappy.’” Although many of the films Schrader has written and directed are based on real-life biographies, he has confessed to having problems with the genre of biographical films, due to the way in which actual events are altered. He has tried to prevent this by imposing structures and stylization instead, in his own films.

While Schrader has not won an Academy Award of his own, many of the actors in films he has written and directed have been nominated for the Oscar. He has been nominated multiple times for the Golden Globe Awards. Schrader has won the Franklin J. Schaffner Award from the American Film Institute, and he headed the International Jury of the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival, and in 2011 became a jury member for the Filmaka short film contest.

New Show Studios is a company designed specifically for everyday people with ideas for screens big and small (TV shows, movies, webisodes).  The company has all the resources under one roof to develop your screenplay idea into a concept package and present it to an entertainment company through its exclusive licensing agent, SFM Entertainment.  SFM Entertainment has over 40 years of experience in the entertainment industry. 

Don’t be the person kicking yourself because you sat on your idea only to see it in theaters or on television one day, because someone else had a similar idea.  New Show Studios can help you take action and pursue your screenplay idea.

Remember that even with the best presentation materials new entertainment development is high risk and there is very little likelihood that your idea will be successfully licensed or result in profit to you.

Do you have an idea that you think would make a great movie, TV show or webisode, but have no idea how to write a screenplay?  It is not uncommon for people to have a screenplay idea, but have no clue where to start.

Like many other skills in life, learning to write a solid screenplay takes a good amount of research, practice and repetition. The following are some things that you can do to help yourself learn:

·         Read screenplays

·         Understand the format of a screenplay

·         Watch television shows and movies

·         Study some of the most successful screenplay writers

·         Come up with an idea for a screenplay

·         Develop screenplay ideas through outlines and storyboards

While Neil Simon is generally recognized more as a playwright, he also has a prolific list of screenplays and television scripts to his name, as well as several credits as a producer. Simon has written over thirty plays and has nearly the same number of film screenplays. He has received more Oscar and Tony nominations than any other writer, and has been active in the entertainment industry from 1950.

Neil Simon was born in the Bronx, New York in 1927 and grew up in Manhattan during the Great Depression. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School when he was sixteen, and went on to join the Army Air Force Reserve at New York University. He began writing as a sports editor and attended the University of Denver while stationed at Lowry Air Force Base from 1945 to 1946. He briefly worked as a mailroom clerk in the Warner Brothers offices in Manhattan, a job he would leave to work with his brother Danny Simon in writing radio and television scripts. He helped write for the radio series the Robert Q. Lewis Show, which led to other writing jobs. Eventually they were hired by Sid Caesar to work on the popular comedy television series Your Show of Shows, for which Simon earned two Emmy Award nominations.

Simon’s first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, debuted in 1961. It went on to run for 678 performances and marked a turning point in his career. Simon would go on to write eight more plays by 1970, and frequently had two or more plays running at the same time. During 1966, in fact, Simon had four shows running in Broadway theatres at the same time: Sweet Charity, The Star-Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple, and Barefoot in the Park. Beginning in the late 1960s and early 70s, Simon began writing screenplays, initially as adaptations of his Broadway productions, but later working on original screenplays as well, including 1976’s Murder by Death and 1983’s Max Dugan Returns. Simon has also continued to work in television, writing adaptations for the TV version of The Odd Couple and multiple television movies, as well as individual episodes of other shows.

Neil Simon’s characters are typically likeable and easy for the audience to identify with; a trademark of his work has always been the incorporation of autobiographical and personal elements into his stories. The majority of Simon’s plays and screenplays are set in New York; within that urban setting, Simon has explored themes ranging from marital conflict, sibling rivalry, infidelity, bereavement, and fear of aging. The humor of Simon’s works typically lies in the ordinary, imperfect and unheroic characters he portrays. As one critic has noted, “Simon is simply interested in showing human beings as they are—with their foibles, eccentricities, and absurdities.” Another of Simon’s strengths is his flair in dialogue for rapid-fire jokes and wisecracks, with a form that presents serious topics in such a way that audiences can laugh at them.

Most of Simon’s work has received somewhat mixed reviews, with critics admiring his comedy skills but with other critics pointing out flaws in his dramatic structure, stating that he relies too heavily on gags and one-liners. However, beginning in 1991, when Simon won the Pulitzer Prize for drama with Lost in Yonkers, that critics began to regard Simon’s work in a more uniformly positive light. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Simon has been nominated for several Academy Awards, and has won several Golden Globe Awards for best screenplay, as well as winning Emmy Awards, and being nominated by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for various screenplays. He has earned two Honorary Doctorate degrees, one from Hofstra University and another from Williams College. He also has a Broadway theatre named for him, and is an honorary member of the board of trustees.

New Show Studios is a company designed specifically for everyday people with ideas for screens big and small (TV shows, movies, webisodes).  The company has all the resources under one roof to develop your screenplay idea into a concept package and present it to an entertainment company through its exclusive licensing agent, SFM Entertainment.  SFM Entertainment has over 40 years of experience in the entertainment industry. 

Don’t be the person kicking yourself because you sat on your idea only to see it in theaters or on television one day, because someone else had a similar idea.  New Show Studios can help you take action and pursue your screenplay idea.

Remember that even with the best presentation materials new entertainment development is high risk and there is very little likelihood that your idea will be successfully licensed or result in profit to you.

Each year, there are two Academy Awards given out for screenplays.  One is for the best adapted screenplay, which is a screenplay that interprets another source (a novel, short story, a play, a television show or sometimes even another film).  The other is for the best original screenplay, which is a screenplay that is not based upon previously published material.  It starts as just a screenplay idea in the writer’s mind, and is developed from there.

Learning to write your own original screenplay takes a good amount of research, practice and repetition.  Watching movies and studying successful screenplays and writers are some things that you can do to help yourself learn.  The following are some of the best original screenplay ideas of the 1940s that are worth checking out.

In 1947, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer won the Academy Award for the Best Original Screenplay.  The film was written by Sidney Sheldon and starred Cary Grant, Shirley Temple, and Myrna Loy in a comedy surrounding a seventeen-year-old girl named Susan Turner and her crush on a sophisticated bachelor, Richard Nugent, who gives a lecture about art at her high school. Richard is persuaded to use subterfuge to try and shake the young girl off, eventually falling in love with her older sister Margaret, while Susan happily returns to her high school sweetheart. The film was later adapted to radio in a production starring Cary Grant and Shirley Temple which aired in June of 1949, and was also dramatized as a half-hour radio play with the same cast as the film. Notably, some of the dialogue from the film was slightly modified and used by David Bowie in the song “Magic Dance” from Labyrinth. The line beginning “You remind me of the babe,” is the part in question, with the original, from The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer first using “You remind me of the man,” and following with much the same formula. The patter was also used by the Atomic Fireballs in their biggest hit, “Man With the Hex.”

The film was critically acclaimed in its time, with The New York Times calling it “most agreeable,” and remains a classic today, available in multiple formats for home viewing. 

Another original screenplay to win an Academy Award in the 1940s was Woman of the Year, a 1942 film starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. The film follows Tess Harding, an accomplished and well-educated daughter of a diplomat who works as a political affairs columnist. She falls in love with Sam Craig, an average Joe sports writer after a feud between their columns, and the two eventually marry. As they adjust to married life together, Tess is coerced to take on the care of a Greek refugee child, Chris; initially, Sam is unconvinced about taking on an orphan, but he warms to the child. Tess earns the “Woman of the Year” award, and Sam, concerned about leaving Chris alone, decides to stay home with the boy. After Tess leaves, disappointed that Sam will not be with her, he takes Chris back to the refugee home and walks out on the marriage. Tess learns of it only after she has returned from the ceremony to change for photographers; she attempts to reclaim Chris, but he refuses. The next day, she receives an invitation to her father’s home. Since Sam is covering a championship boxing match, he tells her he cannot go. Tess arrives alone, only to find out that her father and her aunt are to be married that night. Their story inspires Tess to attempt reconciliation, and she sneaks into his new home and attempts to prepare breakfast, failing miserably due to her inability to cook. She proclaims a new intention of being nothing more than his wife; Sam tells her that this is the first time he is disappointed in her, because she is going to extremes. The two reconcile when Tess agrees to find the middle ground between being Tess Harding and “little Mrs. Craig.”

Woman of the Year was the first of nine films Katharine Hepburn made with Spencer Tracy; they met for the first time on the shoot. It was during the shoot for the film that Hepburn and Tracy became romantically involved, a relationship that lasted until Tracy’s death in the 1960s. The film was originally shot with a different ending, but it proved unpopular at test screenings.  In 1981, the movie was successfully adapted into a Broadway musical of the same name, and it has been honored by the American Film Institute on two of their top 100 lists.

Do you have a screenplay idea that you think would make a great movie or TV show? If you would like to take action and pursue your screenplay idea, New Show Studios can help.

New Show Studios is a company that’s designed specifically for everyday people with ideas for screens big and small.  It has all the resources under one roof to develop your screenplay idea into a concept package and present it to an entertainment company through its exclusive licensing agent, SFM Entertainment.  SFM Entertainment has over 40 years of experience in the entertainment industry. 

Remember that even with the best presentation materials new entertainment development is high risk and there is very little likelihood that your idea will be successfully licensed or result in profit to you.

A screenplay, also called a script, is a written work by screenwriters for a film or television show. Learning how to write a solid screenplay takes a good amount of research, practice and repetition.  Watching movies and television shows and studying successful screenplays and writers are some things that you can do to help yourself learn.  Listed below are two of the best screenplays to come out in 2005 that are worth checking out.

In 2005, Brokeback Mountain won the Academy Award for the Best Adapted Screenplay. The film courted controversy for its depiction of a homosexual relationship, and among the film’s fans, for being “snubbed” in the Academy Awards category of Best Picture. The story follows Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, who are hired by Joe Aguirre to herd his sheep through the summer. After a night of heavy drinking, Jack makes a pass at Ennis, who is initially apprehensive but eventually succumbs. He informs Jack that it was a one-time incident; however, they develop an intense romantic relationship. After learning their summer together is to be shortened, they get into a fight, with each ending up bloodied. Ennis marries his longtime fiancée and Jack eventually meets and marries a rodeo rider named Lureen Newsome. After four years, Jack visits Ennis, and Ennis’s wife witnesses the two kissing passionately. The marriages of both men deteriorate as they meet for infrequent fishing trips. Ennis divorces his wife, and after refusing Jack’s offer to live together, Jack gets involved in increasingly dangerous trysts. At the end of a fishing trip, Ennis tries to push back their next meeting, and the two fight again. Sometime later, a postcard Ennis sends to Jack is returned “Deceased.” Ennis offers to scatter Jack’s ashes on Brokeback Mountain, but Jack’s family declines. Jack’s mother allows Ennis to keep two shirts which Jack had taken, the shirts both men were wearing when they fought.

In addition to the Academy Awards, Brokeback Mountain earned the BAFTA awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, and was also honored in the Golden Globes awards for Best Screenplay and Best Motion Picture. The film earned over $178 million at box offices and received widespread critical acclaim.

That same year, Crash won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. This film won the Best Picture award at the Academy Awards, attracting controversy from those who preferred Brokeback Mountain to win. The script interweaves the stories of several characters over a course of two days in Los Angeles, showing the unwitting way their lives impact each other: a black detective who is estranged from his mother and his younger brother, who is a criminal and a gang associate; the white District Attorney and his pampered wife, a racist white police officer and his younger partner, an African American Hollywood director and his wife, a Persian immigrant and his daughter, and a Hispanic locksmith. The film is noteworthy in that its portrayal shows the fact that many of these victims of racism are capable of being racist themselves in different context. The complicated plot ends with the Persian man being saved from his attempt to kill the Hispanic locksmith by the fact that his daughter, with whom he had been fighting before, chose blank bullets for his gun; a gang member sets a group of illegal Asian immigrants who were victims of human trafficking free, and the detective discovering his brother has been killed over a misunderstanding. The complex plot and ensemble cast, mixing well-known actors with veritably unknown talent, was released in 2004 in some countries, though not until 2005 in the United States.

Crash earned the BAFTA award for Best Original Screenplay, and earned over $98 million at the box office, several times over its $7 million budget. The film received generally positive views, although many critics took exception to its portrayal of racial issues.

Do you have a screenplay idea that you think would make a great movie or TV show? New Show Studios can help you take action and pursue your screenplay idea. It is a company based in Pittsburgh that’s designed specifically for everyday people with ideas for screens big and small.  New Show Studios has all the resources under one roof to develop your screenplay idea into a concept package and present it to an entertainment company through its exclusive licensing agent, SFM Entertainment.  SFM Entertainment has over 40 years of experience in the entertainment industry. 

Remember that even with the best presentation materials new entertainment development is high risk and there is very little likelihood that your idea will be successfully licensed or result in profit to you.