We’ve all heard it before – your short film is a calling card for your work in your industry. A highlight reel of your best work. Many of us come out of school having made one, or on our way to making one. We often pour our hearts, hopes, souls, and paychecks into their creation. But are they good?

Today we will be analyzing the very first step of making a film: Crafting the script. Below are five major things that help shape a good script into a great script.

*Note: Rules are meant to be broken. There will always be films that make it big that transgress the general rules. But it is also true that the elements below will be found in more successful films than not.

1. EFFICIENCY

Bow down before this God. Your film must be efficient. What does that mean? The baseline definition follows ”…

by Kierston Drier

Anyone here a professional or aspiring-to-be professional writer? Regardless of your level of success, professional writer is likely working contract or freelance. An aspiring writer is likely writing on weekends in order to polish their work and get it noticed. Sound familiar? What do both of these people have in common? Both of them are probably writing in their down time- one to hone their skills and one to stay sharp.

Here are five common problems of the weekend writer, and 5 ways to fix them.

PROBLEM: Motivation.

Whether you just finished your last paid script or you’ve spent the last two
years at a 9-5 job, motivation (or lack thereof) affects us all. You may be too tired to write, you may have a hard time thinking of new ideas. You may just have low moral thinking about how difficult the industry can be.

SOLUTION: Remember…

We’ve all been there, haven’t we?

You’ve finally made it to that big party/event/social and you desperately need to/want to talk to people for any number of reasons. It may be to get yourself noticed, spread an idea of yours, talk up a new accomplishment, gather opinions or simply make friends. It’s a difficult thing, and as easy as it looks in the world of television, it can be really hard to turn your brain thoughts into mouth words.

I am by no means a conversation expert– I certainly have stuffed my foot into my mouth on a handful of occasions. I have also been on the awkward end of a terribly sentence when the whole room shuts up at once and suddenly everyone important hears the Alphagetti Vs. Zoodles debate you were slightly drunkenly having with your neighbour. It’s okay. It happens.

But I can say that, on just as…

Jesus that was exhausting, wasn’t it? But YOU MADE IT.

It’s not as easy as it sounds!

• You went to the Event/ Party/ Industry Night
• You talked to People
• You grabbed contact information

But now what? How do you bridge the gap between casual meeting and business contact? The last part can be the most tenuous, but also the most rewarding!

This secondary phase contact depends greatly on several factors

• The context in which you met
• The context in which you exchanged information
• The difference in your professional status’s
• Contextual Needs

Context in which you met:

• Did you meet at a Party? A wrap party? A swanky professional conference?
• Did you talk professionally or about only topics directly related to your work or the field in general, or, was your meeting more relaxed and talked about a variety of topics?

Context of exchanging your information:

• Did you exchange your…