I just got home from tonight’s well-attended meeting starring the ovo-lacto Michael Hauge. After playing the opening clips from Brokeback Mountain and Wedding Crashers, he covered a lot of ground regarding openings, developing your hero, how to ask a question properly, and common mistakes that screenwriters make, including improper formatting and WAY too much dialogue.
By the way, I offered up some pages from my brand-new script (concept tested in the BSBS workshop), which will have some key mistakes in it, so you guys better have some examples of how I screwed up. Consider it payback for those of you whose scripts I’ve ripped with a red pen.
My favorite Hauge gems of the night were, "Nobody likes to be grabbed, they want to be seduced in the first ten pages" and "When anyone in the industry reads your screenplay, they are doing it under duress."
I’m pretty exhausted, but pleased that we now have 97 active NWSG members. NINETY-SEVEN. Go out and recruit three friends! Thanks to Diane for gatekeeping, Deb and Judy for bringing refreshments, Wally for getting Hauge up here, and Betty and Mark for being good company/good sports. If I forgot anyone, forgive me.
Saturday’s workshop will have 46 attendees, with a tentative schedule as follows:
- Overall Structure
– Character arc and transformation
– Love stories
– Lunch break
- Pitching
– Exercises: Loglines
– Trash Mark and Aadip’s scripts
– Coach Pitches / Q&A
