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PODCAST

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast

Chas Fisher and Stuart Willis

Two emerging screenwriters – Chas Fisher and Stuart Willis – try to work out what makes great screenplays work. Discovering what it takes by analysing what successful writers put on the page.

tv & film performing arts

All Episodes

01:48:34

DZ-26: Horror and Collaboration- Wolf Creek 2

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/10/31

How does a screenwriter collaborate with a director on an existing property? In this halloween special, Chas (sans Stu) is joined by a very special guest... Aaron Sterns the co-writer of WOLF CREEK 2 -- the big budget sequel to the infamous WOLF CREEK, also directed by Greg McLean. Chas and Aaron talk horror, anti-horror, collaboration, novels and how a screenwriter works within an existing franchise. In backmatter, Stu & Chas talk about their experiences and methods for collaborating with other

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01:40:28

DZ-25: Coincidences, Contrivances & Giant Eagles

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/09/15

How do screenwriters get away with using coincidences in their stories? Remember that time in THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS when Bruce suddenly - magically - returned to Gotham, and you were like "WTF?!" Well, it turns out that many of the best films have moments that are just as coincidental or contrived (or a flock of Giant Eagles) and yet get away with it. Does Pixar's "rule" that it is 'cheating to use coincidences to get your characters out of trouble', always apply? In exploring how to get the

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02:05:37

DZ-24: Forging story rules in TV pilots

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/08/03

Are your story rules in your pilot strong enough to play out over the life of your show? Stu and Chas move away from the world of features and dive into the Pilot Episodes of some (New) Golden Age Television: THE SHIELD, THE WIRE, BREAKING BAD, and MAD MEN. And we sneak in some discussion about ANGEL, THE SOPRANOS and GAME OF THRONES. Our spiritual guide on this tele-vision quest is Wallflower (aka Grant Nebel), writer at The Solute and formerly of The Dissolve and the AV Club. Together,

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01:46:00

DZ-23: LIVE - Starting A Career In Film And Television

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/07/06

Are you a filmmaker but not sure how to start your career? Draft Zero was invited to moderate a panel as part of the 2015 St Kilda Film Festival. In our very first live episode, we are joined by TV Writer Mithila Gupta (Winners and Losers), Director Corrie Chen (Reg Makes Contact) and Producer/Executive Simon de Bruyn (Acquisitions Executive, XYZ Films and Producer) to talk about 'breaking in', how it has changed, the different approaches, opportunities and challenges. They share their tips on

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01:40:23

DZ-22: Romantic Comedy, Actually

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/06/11

How can studying RomCom clichés teach us to subvert them? With Stu busy working on Hollywood blockbusters, Chas is joined by Alli Parker (script department on Aussie TV series and former co-ordinator of European #scriptchat) to unpick successful romcoms to see if they can illuminate a path for writers working in this struggling genre. Cheap to produce and potentially highly lucrative, Chas and Alli look at romcom's conventions to see what it may take to reinvigorate this genre. To that end, they

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01:40:58

DZ-21: Scene Transitions and the Hook

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/05/07

How can scene transitions do more than just move from one location to another? Stu and Chas look at one of the basic building blocks of a script: scene transitions. Transitions don't just move you from one scene to another in a slick way, they can help you compress time, enhance thematic connections, unify different story threads, orient (or disorient) your reader... and just make your script feel more like a movie. To help us see how scenes connect & collide in interesting ways, we take a close

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01:18:04

DZ-20: Writing Strong Secondary Characters -...

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/04/02

How can the Trinity Syndrome help you write better secondary characters? Chas & Stu are joined by Bamboo Killer (aka Emily Blake) - one of the co-hosts of the Chicks Who Script podcast. They take a critical look at secondary female characters in mainstream movies through the lens of the oft-cited Bechdel test and the new, less-cited, Trinity Syndrome. The Trinity Syndrome berates movies for creating a "Strong Female Character With Nothing To Do" (like Trinity in the Matrix sequels) and raises a list

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01:59:39

DZ-19: Car-Crash Characters

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/03/02

How do you make unlikeable characters compelling to watch... in drama? Stu and Chas revisit a topic from a year ago: how do screenwriters make unlikeable characters compelling? This time, we turn our focus to dramas and analyse how AMERICAN HISTORY X, YOUNG ADULT, NIGHTCRAWLER all make their a**hole protagonists compelling to watch. We expand our original list of five writer's tools to include a few more for your tool belt. In response to our audience survey, we also introduce our first episode of

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01:07:04

DZ-18: Michael Bay - F*ing the Frame and P*ing the Page

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/01/22

Are there screenwriting lessons to be taken from analysing the work of Michael f-ing Bay? Of course there are. How could there not be? After all, Michael Bay is the 3rd highest grossing director at the worldwide box office... of all time. Behind, y'know, Spielberg and stuff. How could a man of such credentials not know story? Or, so argues this week's guest: the author of MICHAEL F-ING BAY: THE UNHERALDED GENIUS IN MICHAEL BAY'S FILMS... [drumroll]... the Bitter Script Reader! For those unfamiliar

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01:14:30

DZ-17: Where's my gold-plated ensuite?

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2015/01/06

When you're an emerging filmmaker, what are different ways to tackle a "career"? It's our Holiday Special! In this episode (recorded December 2014), Chas and Stu break all the rules. No homework. No pages. No empirical analysis. They reluctantly but boldly reflect over the first year of Draft Zero and how it has influenced their 'careers' (such as they are). They also engage in a heated debate on whether a short film, a micro-budget feature or web-based content is the best way to go in terms of

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01:49:27

DZ-16: Masters of Time and Whitespace

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2014/12/16

Does manipulating time on the page make your script feel more cinematic? Chas and Stu are joined by Khrob Edmonds - an award-winning filmmaker and founder of TangoEDIT - to discuss manipulation of time... ... on the page! Cinema is a time-based art, and one of the primary tools in film editing is manipulation of time. A closer look at sequences in the scripts of PULP FICTION, THE BOURNE IDENTITY, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, WOMAN IN BLACK, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, UP, WHIPLASH, and THE UNTOUCHABLES

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02:00:14

DZ-15: World Building Rules, Okay?

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2014/11/04

How does setting up rules help you build a world? In our most epic/longest episode yet, Chas and Stu tackle world building in films. Specifically, how the rules make something a world and not just a setting. Starting with world-centric genres like sci-fi and fantasy, we also cover horror, crime drama and - er - "other". We discuss a variety of techniques for setting up the rules of the world, including cold opens, voiceover, title cards and outsider characters! We've limited ourselves to the opening

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01:16:38

DZ-14: Writing For Actors with Succession's Sarah Snook

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2014/10/22

How can we make our screenwriting more appealing to Actors? In this episode, Chas and Stu are joined by a very special guest, SARAH SNOOK - star of Succession, Predestination, Jessabelle, and Oddball, amongst many others - to discuss ACTING and it's relationship with WRITING. We focus our analysis on two scenes from AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, a screenplay that started life as a Pulitzer Prize winning play, and whose writer - Tracy Letts - is a successful actor in his own right. But, as usual, we

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01:25:13

DZ-13: True That - Tips from Tarantino

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2014/10/05

What is it about Tarantino's writing that elevates his work? Chapter 1: Of Milk and Men Tarantino is widely heralded as one of the great writer/directors. Yet new writers are advised to avoid emulating Tarantino because his voice is so strong. Only Tarantino can get away with being Tarantino. Or so the theory goes. But if Tarantino is that good, why shouldn't we look under the hood and analyse his screenwriting? You don't have to want to emulate his voice to want to understand why his craft is

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01:01:59

DZ-12: Craft, Career and Coffins

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2014/09/16

It's the The Podcast You Used To Know…. After a short hiatus, DRAFT ZERO is back! Well, half of us is... Chas (sans Stu) is joined by a very special guest - Natasha Pincus. As a screenwriter, Tash's feature CLIVE was on the 2012 Black List. As a director, her music video for Goyte's Someone I Used To Know was nominated for an MTV Music Video Award. And at the time of this recording, her debut feature as a screenwriter FELL was weeks away from opening night. In other words, Tash has great experience

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01:49:07

DZ-11: Adventure for the MacGuffin!

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2014/07/31

Is the MacGuffin truly interchangable, and how does it impact on your character writing? Stu and Chas are joined by a special guest - Scriptmag contributor Brad Johnson - to discuss how the choice of the MacGuffin can impact on the quality of an action/adventure film. To test this thesis, our heroes compare the auspicious originals of two iconic franchise with their, um, less-than-auspicious 4th instalments (in other words we compare RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK with KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL and

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01:19:58

DZ-10: Midpoint Reversals and The Ride

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2014/07/08

How can the middle of your film pivot so much that it pulls the rug out of your audience? Stu and Chas embark on the first of a series of explorations into the dreaded Second Act. Their first stop is midpoint reversals or shifts, a plot point bang in the middle of ACT II that changes the protagonist's goal, raises the stakes and potentially leaves your audience leaning forward and asking "How the hell is this going to end?". To get to the bottom of what makes a good midpoint shift (and whether your

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01:22:52

DZ-09: Characterising Introductions

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast ·

2014/06/23

Can the introduction of a character be so good that the character doesn't need describing? Stu and Chas argue about different techniques for introducing characters and whether character descriptions are even necessary. This is important for writers, as we only have words to compensate for the whole range of cinematic expression. And so Chas and Stu explore techniques like introducing characters through action, having other people discuss the character first, ensuring the introduction represents the

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118 results

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