Grow A Screenplay The Natural Way, Second Edition [Paperback]

George Perez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 12, 2002

This book describes the method for writing a motion picture screenplay directly from a short story.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

George Perez is a stage and film actor. The plays he has appeared in include The Rivals, Rehearsal or Murder, The Man in the Bowler Hat, and Annie; his films include, Counting Days, Night or Nixes, Uniforms, Terminal Entry. He was a Drama Major at Cal State L.A. and attended the Academy of Dramatic Art in Hollywood, CA. He has written short stories, essays, plays and poems. His essay Going Back, about his visit to Cuba in 1996, was published in the Bellingham Herald. When George decided to write a screenplay, he picked up a couple of scrip-formatting manuals and studied them carefully. He soon realized that these books, while excellent sources for structuring and laying out a screenplay, really do very little as far as how to write a screenplay goes. So he decided to write his own book on screenwriting. Since George has worked as a Spanish Interpreter/Translator for the past ten years, he became fascinated with the thought of translating, that is, of transforming a short story into a screenplay. George lives in Bellingham, Washington. He is also a artist and illustrator. As a child, he would draw animals and things using the colored pencils his mother gave him. Twice he has participated in the Bellingham Chalk Art Festival and both times his work has appeared in the front page of the Bellingham Herald. He has many other ideas for screenplays and he dreams of someday seeing his stories on the big screen.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

How wonderful it would be to write a motion picture screenplay, to have it become a great feature film, a blockbuster, the next Star Wars, or some totally different kind of film. Wow, that would be something!

Do you want to write a movie? Do you think you have a good idea that you KNOW could be made into a great movie...if only you could get the darn thing written down--from beginning to end?

If you do want to write a screenplay, you've probably already picked up a book on how to format your script. That book tells you where to put a character's name, where to set the tab stops on your typewriter or word processor; it even tells you the difference between Direction and Dialogue in a screenplay. Maybe you've already purchased one of those scriptwriting programs for your computer.

No doubt you've learned from those formatting books that you need a Hero/Heroine, perhaps in the role of Underdog, Lost Soul, Universal Human, Idol; that you need Connection, Plot, Structure, a Dramatic Center and Theme, Positive and Negative Space.

So you have your idea, and your format book and/or software. Now what? How do you write the script?

And perhaps you also came across a little book that tells you how to write your movie in three weeks. Now you think you're getting some place! Why you've discovered that a movie is written in three Acts; that Act I is from page 1 to about page 30, Act II is from pages 30 to 90, and Act III from pages 90 to 120; that the movie starts on page 1; on page 30 an event will occur that lands the hero or heroine into hot water. In Act II is where she/he encounters all kinds of obstacles and all hell breaks loose! In Act III, the resolution of the film begins.

Well whoopee! By now you are probably really frustrated. This is exactly the situation I ran into when I tried to write my own screenplay. I went looking for ways to help me realize my dream, but there was nothing that I could really use. Short of spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars attending a script-writing school or workshop, I just could not find any materials that would take me, step by step, through the creation, development, and completion of a motion picture screenplay.

Then inspiration hit me! I thought, Why don't I take a story, one I have already written, and simply go through it, sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph. Basically, it would be a matter of adapting the story to the format of a screenplay. I gathered my several books on the subject of screenplay formats, and set about the task. I was amazed at how simple it was to go from story to screenplay, once I understood how a screenplay was constructed.

Happily, a couple of months later, I had completed my first motion picture screenplay! All I did was take a short story and format it to the guidelines gathered from those script-formatting manuals. In the process, I became a scriptwriter.

Now I want to share with you what I think is the very best and easiest method for someone, with little to no script-writing experience, to take a story--any story--and turn it into a screenplay.

You want to write a movie? This is how you do it!

The prerequisite for growing your screenplay the natural way is that you have a story. It doesn't have to be a long story. A ten to fifteen page short story will do quite nicely. And it doesn't even have to be your own story. There are plenty of stories already written that you could use.

Remember though, that you'll need permission from the author or publisher if you want to use someone else's story as the basis for your screenplay. This is why I recommend that you write your own.

Do you have a story? Well, let's get going.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing; 2 volumes edition (November 12, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1553694945
• ISBN-13: 978-1553694946
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,485,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent how-to book!, January 29, 2003

By 

Esther B Schrader (Vancouver, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grow A Screenplay The Natural Way, Second Edition (Paperback)

Writing a screenplay appeals to me as a writer of novels and short stories. Anyone who has read the more technical books on how to write screenplays -- and glazed over -- will appreciate the clarity and simplicity with which George Perez has presented his concept. He will teach you to turn a short story into a screenplay in easy steps. And why not? Look what Spielberg did with a Richard Matheson short story -- it became the movie "Duel" with Dennis Weaver. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to get off to a good start writing screenplays.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Write a screenplay....the fast and easy way!, January 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Grow A Screenplay The Natural Way, Second Edition (Paperback)

I found this book to be highly educational and easy to follow. The author did an excellent job on the screenplay featured as an example in the book. The plot kept my attention and cleverly gave several examples of direction. This book makes screenwriting seem like a natural progression from a simple short story. I also appreciated the fact that the book itself is the size of a script and has not been shrunk down to a regular trade paperback size. This fact also helps to make the experience more authentic and captures the imagination. This book is also a great method of self-education for someone not wishing to spend astronomical fees for classes and workshops. The price of the book is low and affordable for the struggling writer. I find the theories behind the book to be inventive and facinating.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a good screen writing book, November 1, 2002

By 

Jeffrey L. Armbruster (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Grow A Screenplay The Natural Way, Second Edition (Paperback)

Save your money. Essence of the book: write your screenplay as a short story, before you write the screenplay. OK. I've saved you the price of this book, If you put CUT TO and POV, and other direction/camera instructions in your script today, no Hollywood script reader will ever read past the first page.