Next week’s Go Into The Story Script Read and Analysis: “Ex Machina”

Beginning Monday, January 4, our next movie script read and analysis will be Ex Machina, written by Alex Garland.

Our daily schedule:

Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways

You may download a PDF of the script here.

Available tomorrow, the Scene-By-Scene Breakdown for Ex Machina provided Nick Norman-Butler.

With the influx of over 40 movie scripts from 2015 recently made available to the public including notable ones such as Inside Out, Steve Jobs, Straight Outta Compton, Trainwreck, and The Hateful Eight, I am soliciting volunteers to read one of these stellar scripts and do a scene-by-scene breakdown to be used as the foundation of our bi-weekly script read series next year.

There are also nearly 150 movie scripts from the last 5 years which we have yet to feature in this series, so those are fair game as well.

Beyond your name being noted here, my thanks, and some creative juju, hopefully you will learn something about story structure and develop another skill set which is super helpful in learning and practicing the craft.

The latest volunteers:

12 Years a Slave — Georgevine Moss
Beasts of No Nation — Jacob Holmes-Brown
Bridge of Spies — Scott Guinn
Carol — Jillienne Bee
Celeste and Jesse Forever — Ryan Canty
Diary of a Teenage Girl — Cynthia
Ex Machina — Nick Norman-Butler
Frozen — Doc Kane
Inside Out — Katha
Legend — Olivia
Leviathan — Piotr Ryczko
Locke — Megaen Kelly
Macbeth — Trung
Man Up — Kristy Brooks
Monsters University — Liz Correal
Mud — Kevin
Nightcrawler — DJ Summitt
Pawn Sacrifice — Michael Waters
Steve Jobs — Angie Soliman
Straight Outta Compton — Timm Higgins
The End of the Tour — Steve F
The Iron Lady — Leslie
The Way Way Back — The Deuce
Trainwreck — Joni B
Wreck It Ralph — Kenny Crowe

Italics: People who have already emailed me their breakdowns. If you have volunteered and have yet to send me yours, please do at your earliest convenience.

To read examples of scene-by-scene breakdowns, go here.

To access the entire Go Into The Story Script Read and Analysis Series, go here.

Circling back to where we started, reading scripts is hugely important. Analyzing them even more so. If you want to work in Hollywood as a writer, you need to develop your critical analytical skills. This is one way to do that.

So seize this opportunity and join in the conversation! Make it a commitment to read more scripts in 2016!