Cut to the Chase. Scriptwriting for Beginners

Book excerpt: So many people watch films and yet so few know how to write a film well. Film writing is a very specific art form. Over the past twenty-something years Janet van Eeden made every mistake in the book and eventually turned to the experts. Using advice from screenwriting experts such as Robert McKee and Christopher Vogler, among many others, Janet van Eeden developed an effective approach to scriptwriting. Cut to the Chase breaks down the essentials of writing for film. Janet van Eeden shares her experience of writing feature films and short films, as well as her many years of lecturing, in this book. This user-friendly manual unlocks the world of scriptwriting for students. It includes a step-by-step writing programme, setting specific tasks after each chapter, so that the reader can build up their own film script. The reader is guided towards writing a well thought-out first draft script written to internationally acceptable standards.