Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast

Listen if your want your dialogue to individualizes characters, reveal characterization, and shift status! Chas & Stu are joined once again by the renowned script developer and producer, Stephen Cleary. In the first part of our series on writing better dialogue (there will be more!), we take a close look at how dialogue serves character: individuating characters, revealing characterisation, sh...

Listen to learn how catharsis, world-building, mid-points, and status transactions elevate great writing In this episode Stu and Chas return to their first ever episode by tackling two Oscar-nominated screenplays. But this time - instead of exploring the rigid structures laid down by gurus - they use it as an opportunity to explore what they've learned in the last three years and apply them to the...

Listen to discover how fight scenes can be great inspiration for writing any kind of showdown (verbal or otherwise) In exploring how to write good fight scenes, Stu and Chas compare how writers structure memorable showdowns - both verbal and physical. Fights vs arguments. Swords vs insults. Lightsabres vs passive aggressive subtext. To do this, they analyse the showdowns in EASTERN PROMISES, ROB R...

Listen if you're writing a contained thriller, drama, or any story limited to a single location Contained Thrillers seem to be a genre that never goes out of fashion. But being contained is not just limited to thrillers. It's a way of telling stories on a lower budget, regardless of genre. So - while allegedly easier to make / get made - limiting a story to a single location also limits the tools...

Listen if you're considering entering a screenplay competition and want to hear from writers and industry professionals about whether it's a worthwhile investment! After being repeatedly asked by listeners for thoughts on screenplay competitions, Stu and Chas go full back matter for this special episode. They tackle the question - do comps just feeding the hope machine or are they a valid investme...

Listen if you're co-writing and need to figure out where your voice ends and your collaborator's begins. 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 wor...

Listen when you need to know which coincidences earn trust and which ones feel like cheating. 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" th...

Listen if you wanna know great television pilots establish the dramatic, literary, and cinematic rules that sustain their entire run. 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 guid...

Listen if you're an emerging filmmaker looking to break into the industry 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 abo...

Listen if you're writing a romcom and want to understand what makes this gentre tick. 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 hi...

Listen to understand how transitions compress time, enhance thematic connections, unify story threads, and orient your reader * 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 disorie...

Listen when you're writing secondary female characters and need them to have more depth. 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 berat...

Listen when you're writing a protagonist who does terrible things but you need the audience to keep watching. 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 asshole protagonists compelling to watch. We expand our original lis...

Listen to understand how one of the world's highest-grossing directors structures story, makes great villians, controls information flow, and makes visual decisions on the page 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 n...

Listen when you're deciding between shorts, features, and web content--and need to know which format actually builds a sustainable creative practice. 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...

Listen if you want your screenplay to feel cinematic before a director ever reads it. Chas and Stu are joined by Khrob Edmonds - an award-winning filmmaker - 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 U...

Listen when your opening pages feel like exposition dumps (which is bad, okay?) 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 u...

Listen to understand how writers can craft more compelling material for actors (and how they approach scripts) 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 screenp...

Listen to steal Tarantino's technique for planting details that detonate as payoffs three scenes later. 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 shoul...

Listen if you're navigating multiple creative disciplines and wondering how to build a sustainable career across them. 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 t...

Listen to discover why the MacGuffin's emotional weight--not its function--determines whether your audience cares enough to follow the entire adventure. 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...

Listen when your second act sags and you need a structural jolt to accelerate audience engagement. 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...

Listen if you want your character introductions to pop! 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 d...

Listen to make your character relatinships more dynamic. Stu and Chas explore an idea they both came across studying theatre: status and by extension (or juxtaposition) power. Is a story where a character changes status or experiences loss (or gains) in power more compelling? In order to explore this source of drama, Stu and Chas limit themselves to scenes where the status or power of a character...

Listen to learn how impactful rewriting can be. Stu and Chas look at AMERICAN BULLSHIT (the 2010 Black List spec script by Eric Warren Singer) and the film it became… AMERICAN HUSTLE (co-written and directed by David O'Russell), which garnered 10 Oscar nominations in 2014. With both Singer and O'Russell credited on HUSTLE, Stu and Chas explore what O'Russell changed and what stayed the same from B...