Scene Secrets

by William C. Martell

12 New Ways To Create New Scenes... Transitions... and much, much more! Great screenplays are made of great scenes, memorable scenes. Who can forget Cary Grant being chased through the cornfield by that crop duster? Or Gene Kelly singing in the rain? Or Indiana Jones facing that huge swordsman in the marketplace... and shooting him? Director Howard Hawks (“The Big Sleep”, “Bringing Up Baby”, “Rio Bravo”) famously said, “A film needs three great scenes and no bad ones”. But how do you create those great scenes? This Blue Book will help you tune up those tired scenes! We’ll look at what a scene is and how many you will need. The difference between scenes and sluglines. How long should your scenes be, and what is *too long*? We will put your scenes on trial for their lives! Using examples like “Jaws” we’ll look at beats within a scene. Scene DNA. What is driving your scene? Creating set pieces and high concept scenes. We will even talk to a famous director about creating memorable scenes. But that’s not all! There are 12 ways to create new scenes. How to create unexpected scenes. Use dramatic tension to supercharge your scenes with excitement. Using plants and payoffs in scenes. Taking your scenes to the limit. Plus transitions and buttons and the all important “flow”... and more! Over 65,000 words!

Genres: Writing

201 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 20, 2014

About the author

William C. Martell has written nineteen produced films, including three HBO World Premiere movies: the Tom Clancy style techno-thriller STEEL SHARKS (filmed with full U.S. Navy cooperation) with Gary Busey, Billy Dee Williams, and Billy Warlock, the submarine thriller CRASH DIVE! starring Frederic Forrest, Catherine Bell, Chris Titus, and Michael Dudikoff (also with Navy cooperation), and the sci-fi actioner GRID RUNNERS starring Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Michael Dorn and Athena Massey (all three produced by Ashok Amritraj, producer of the Bruce Willis Comedy BANDITS and the Steve Martin - Queen Latifah comedy BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE.)

His two Showtime Films include BLACK THUNDER, about a stolen stealth fighter plane, starring Michael Dudikoff and Richard Norton and a sci-fi film (both produced by Andrew Stevens, producer of Jack Nicholson's THE PLEDGE and the Bruce Willis-Matthew Perry film THE WHOLE 9 YARDS and its sequel). He has written a couple of CineMax Premieres like action-thriller TREACHEROUS which stars Tia Carrere, C. Thomas Howell, and Adam Baldwin (from 20th Century Fox), the martial arts vampire flick NIGHT HUNTER and military action flick THE BASE (starring Mark Dacascos), plus a USA Network thriller.

His noir thriller HARD EVIDENCE (starring Gregory Harrison and Joan Severance - from Warner Bros.) was "video pick of the week" in over two dozen newspapers, was a Blockbuster featured new release, and beat the Julia Roberts film "Something To Talk About" in video rentals when both debuted the same week.

He is the West Coast Editor of Scr(i)pt Magazine (the largest circulation screenwriting magazine in the world) where he has written the "Independents" screenwriting column for over a decade, a contributor to Writer's Digest Magazine and a past columnist for The Hollywood Scriptwriter Magazine. He was Entertainment News Editor for Dean (INDEPENDENCE DAY) Devlin's Eon Magazine, wrote the Screenwriting 101 column for the Independent Film Channel Magazine, and was the only non-nominated screenwriter mentioned on "Siskel & Ebert's If We Picked The Winners" Oscar show in 1997. He is a frequent contributor to Ebert's Movie Answer Man syndicated column and Ebert's annual Year In Film books. He was on the jury of the Raindance Film Festival (London) in 2001 (with director Mike Figgis and actress Saffron Burrows) and again in 2004 (with actor Lennie James and director Edgar Wright) and just returned from 2009 "jury duty".

Reviews

[Nitin Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and gives actionable tips

Transitions is a great chapter ending a good book that gives you enough examples and exercises. It also covers different ways to make scenes different and how to add tension and which PoVs to use in different scenes

[Glenn Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Needs More Script Excerpts

There is a lot of good information for intermediate screenwriters. This is true for this volume and for the series.

There is also a lot of repetition, especially in this volume. It shares a lot of content with the Blue Book on action scenes. There is also a lot of self-promotion.

The book has extended analysis. That's good. What I would have liked to see was more script example for solving problems. In other words, don't just gesture at "Deliverance." Provide a relevant excerpt.

[Mary Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reads like a page-turner, even though it's non-fiction. I learned much.