T here’s a scene in Train Dreams where a man walks into a clearing and shoots someone dead. It happens in a single wide shot. No dramatic camera push, no close-up on the gun, no slow-motion. I’ve been thinking about the scene a lot (and the film as a whole, plenty to immerse yourself in); it taught me something about storytelling structure I want to unpack. Train Dreams is a film on Netflix, adapted from Denis Johnson’s novella, starring Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier, a ra

I’ve recommended two scripts in my entire reading career. Two. Out of thousands of scripts I read for Working Title Films, Pathé, UK Film Council, Tiger Aspect, Miramax, and assorted others when I was an active industry reader betwixt 2000-2010. The pay was £35 for a three-page report, £50 if they wanted it longer. Ten scripts per week, sometimes with books thrown in. One-week turnaround, sometimes overnight. Here’s what I was looking for, and the process I developed over a f

Writers sometimes sigh wearily when questioned ‘why’ by execs. It’s become a bit of a cliché or a frustrated punchline. But that...

When I was 20, recovering from a physical and depressive collapse (culminating in an extremely under-active thyroid), I spent most of my...

Writing is rewriting. According to Ernest Hemingway, it’s the only kind of writing. I’ve been doing a lot of rewriting recently but it’s...

I’m writing a romcom at the moment. It’s a genre I’ve never written in before, so I’m enjoying the fresh challenge. I’ve directed a few...