After 17 LondonSWFs and a dozen features as a director, here are the 7 notes I now give every script before it leaves my desk.
1. Grab the reader from the first sentence. 2. The protagonist or antagonist is not in the first scene. 3. Characters sound the same. Read it out loud and you’ll hear it. 4. Use fewer words. 5. Know thine genre and align passionately with it. 6. Write audaciously, write what only you could write. 7. All your hard work pays off with a deeply satisfying and inevitable, yet surprising end.
Save this for your next pass. None of these are clever. All of them are what changes a draft. If you want to hear this kind of thinking from people who do it for a living: londonscreenwritersfestival.com
Bonus point: Killer title. Mysterious, evocative and aligned with genre expectations.
Filmmaker, Author and Festival founder. Currently directing splinter unit on Mission: Impossible 8 and Exec Producing Apple Original show title TBC.
