Writing the Short Film, Second Edition (Paperback)

by Patricia Cooper (Author), Ken Dancyger (Author) "Anyone who has ever been confronted by a small child's searching gaze or seen an infant gulp down its surroundings with its eyes (Where am..." (more)
Key Phrases: dips her spoon, master scene format, short screenplay, New York, Miss Peach, Little Red Riding Hood (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"...for the more technically minded this weighty tome is invaluable." - Black Filmmaker

"It is a tough call to sell the script of a short film to a film production company, and your script needs to be outstanding both in concept and execution. If you are a scriptwriter who aims to tackle this tough brief, then here is the book to help you." - Writing Magazine --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Book Description
One of the few screenwriting books on the challenging short-form genre --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press; 2 edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0240803698
• ISBN-13: 978-0240803692
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,083,612 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Uggh..., July 25, 2006

By	C. Blum - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Writing the Short Film, Third Edition (Paperback)

Is it too much to ask for a book on writing to be well written?

Writing the Short Flim was tedious. Reading the book was like trying to run underwater. The writers talked and talked and talked yet managed to say little if anything at all. The end result if feeling as if your brain had been smashed out of your skull with a hollow, plastic baseball bat.

There were some helpful insights, however they are few and far between. In fact, it came down to one useful bit of information per 20 pages. 20 pages of tedious, headache inducing rambling for one sentence of useful information.

There are many other writing books that are much more helpful: Syn and Syntax. Story by Robert McKee. Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias. Writing Short Scripts by William H. Phillips. And David Mamet's Three Uses of the Knife.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not the helpful text you'd hoped for, January 17, 2006

By	aspiring screenwriter (Ohio) - See all my reviews

As a graduate film student, I found this book to be very unhelpful. The elements you would expect from a screenwriting textbook (clear discussion of basic structure, character development, etc.) are missing or hidden in clumsily-worded chapters.

There is little overall stucture to the book as a whole, and each chapter itself is a frustrating read. Even the directions for the exercises are unclear. It is an uninformative, confusing waste of time that will leave you no wiser about what makes a good short screenplay.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overlooked Gem, July 29, 2007

By	Gregory Strong - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writing the Short Film, Third Edition (Paperback)

I had to write a note because the 2 previous reviewers were rather unfair. I've been reading the 2nd ed though and there may be some difference. I've certainly read my share of film books and numerous plays, how-to-write plays, and screen play writing books (Syd Field, Micheal Tierno, Michael Stracynski, etc.) I'm looking at them on my shelf at present.

First of all, this book is NOT about writing Hollywood screenplays, the cover tells you that. Instead, it makes a number of good suggestions for other resources and in writing a short play I found it very useful because of these references and its short descriptions of the mockumentary and various approaches to conceptualizing visual stories.

I also teach a filmmaking course for ESL students and this was a very useful book. It is not a how-to-nuts-and-bolts book however and I suppose this is why the other two reviewers slammed it.

All I can say is look through a book carefully before you buy it.

Greg