Adapting a book or a play into a film or TV show can be an exciting opportunity for filmmakers and producers. However, before the cameras start rolling, the first step is to secure exclusive rights to the source material through an option agreement. Optioning a book or an article involves negotiating with the author or the publisher...

If you're a writer or director looking for material, you can use the public domain to your advantage. One of the deepest sources of public-domain ideas, look no further than fairy tales. People love them, recognize them, and you can use them to your advantage to put your spin on stories. Fairy tales were told and retold through generations,...

Welcome to the Hollywood glossary of terms! Hollywood is one of the most influential and well-known entertainment industries in the world, and with that comes a unique set of terms and phrases. This glossary is designed to provide an extensive and comprehensive list of terminology used in the film and television industries, from pre-production...

Cinematography is the backbone of cinema. In a visual medium, you need the best person controlling the camera, working in collaboration with the writer and director to translate the words on the page to images on the screen. So how can you learn to be that person? Through meticulous study, trial, and error of course! Whether you're learning...

Perhaps you've gotten to a part in your screenplay where you have a ton of scenes or action happening at once. You hate writing a dozen sluglines and you feel like you're wasting page space just writing back and forth. Enter the intercut, a useful tool to handle simultaneous action in any screenplay. Let's walk through how to intercut scenes...

Lately, I have fallen into a rabbithole of watching Turner Classic Movies on HBO Max and have been getting into a lot of classic Hollywood cinema. There is something simple yet moving about these classic films that either end with a happy ending—or death. Classic Hollywood cinema, or the Golden Age of Hollywood, is a vague term that describes...