How can I develop my plot before writing the screenplay?

Stu and Chas are joined by fan-favourite, Stephen Cleary, to NOT look at what makes great screenplays work -- but what makes great "short documents" work. We draw on Stephen Cleary's wealth of experience in developing work with writers, as a producer, as a script editor and as a former head of development.

This recording turned especially epic and so we have divided it into three parts that can be listened to in any order.

Part I explores the short documents and tools you can use to develop your story’s PLOT before going to script, including the Premise, the Logline, various synopses, character documents, and - of course - the dreaded Treatment… But also looks at development tools that aren’t written like: script reads, mini-shoots and animatics.

Stay tuned for Part II which delves into documents that develop your story’s theme and then Part III where we look at how to write short documents differently when your objective isn’t story development but rather selling your idea/project.

RUNNING ORDER

00:00:00 - Intro
00:13:32 - The writing gym
00:19:32 - Animatics & Script Readings
00:28:08 - Telling your story out loud
00:31:07 - Why Treatments suck
00:36:49 - The Premise
00:44:43 - Exploring WRITTEN short docs
01:04:29 - What about non-hero's journey?
01:14:36 - Using short docs to keep going
01:21:04 - Back to the Premise
01:24:37 - Moving from Premise to Logline
01:25:33 - Stay tuned for Part 2!

Many thanks to all our patrons but particularly to Theis, Jack, Chris, Khrob, Sandra, and Matteo. They’re good humans.

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364: Sandy Nairne at the Oldie Literary Lunch