30 Days of Screenplays: Week 1 Scripts
On May 15th, I asked for 30 volunteers, each of whom would read a movie script, then write a guest post as part of a new 30 Days of Screenplays challenge. Not surprisingly, the GITS community responded in resounding fashion and less than 20 hours later, we had our 30 guest columnists. Here they are and the scripts they will be reading and analyzing for our collective benefit:
A Serious Man — Jon Raymond
American Hustle — Daveo
Amour — John Hörnschemeyer
Argo — Oleguer Homs Vilà
Before Midnight — CollCostello
Beginners — zeldahallman
Dallas Buyers Club — Claudia Blanton
Flight — Luther Floyd
Fruitvale Station — Dunstan Wallace
Gravity — Sarah Grimes
Greenberg — Sabina Giado
Hanna — Stephan
Jane Eyre — Femme Mal
Looper — Dan Mulhall
Monsters University — The Quiet Act
Moonrise Kingdom — Maxine
Mud — Rob Grundel
Nebraska — Greg Scharpf
Prisoners — Chris Brennan
Short Term 12 — kellisays
Spring Breakers — Dakota Proctor
The American — Michael Egan
The Artist — April
The Kids Are All Right — rumblefish
The Queen — pgronk
The Social Network — Jason Park
The Spectacular Now — Stuart Schrader
The Way Way Back — Roger Market
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy — Pedro Santos
Wreck-It Ralph — ctw31
So we are set: On Sunday, June 1, we begin a month-long sojourn through 30 scripts of notable movies from the last 5 years. And you are cordially invited to participate! Here is the schedule for Week 1:
Sunday, June 1: The Way Way Back
Monday, June 2: Prisoners
Tuesday, June 3: Jane Eyre
Wednesday, June 4: Spring Breakers
Thursday, June 5: Dallas Buyers Club
Friday, June 6: A Serious Man
Saturday, June 7: Amour
If you click on each of the links above, you will download a free and legal PDF version of the screenplay, posted by movie studios and production companies, so you know they are official drafts.
A reminder why you should be reading scripts:
First, reading scripts is an essential part of learning the craft. In my experience, this is the one aspect of my mantra — Read Scripts. Watch Movies. Write Pages. — that aspiring writers most often neglect. 30 Days of Screenplays is a blast across writers’ bow, hopefully compelling people to jump-start reading scripts as an active and ongoing part of their learning process.
Second, while a writer may benefit from reading an individual script, there is something special about taking in a bunch of scripts in a compressed time frame, a sort of Gestalt understanding. You start to intuit things like pace, scene construction, transitions, style and so on, knowledge you can carry with you as feel your way through your own writing process.
There you have it: June is 30 Days of Screenplays. Read the script for each day, come here to read the analysis from our guest columnists, and join in the conversation.
Even if you can only read some of the scripts, some is better than zero.
Please spread the word and let’s make this a big learning opportunity for all of us!
And thanks in advance to all of our volunteer guest columnists! Please get your analysis to me via email ASAP!
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