I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday to buy Jenga (because I’m such a huge fan of games marketed to six year old children), and in a classic case of getting distracted I bought a book. That book was Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundation of Screenwriting, and in a beautiful display of not studying for my history test I immediately began to read it. Field is considered an authority on screenwriting, and his students include Anna Hamilton Phelan (Mask), Randi Mayem Singer (Mrs. Doubtfire), and Kevin Williamson (Scream, Scream 2, and Scream 3).

In his book, Field makes it shockingly easy to understand how screenplays work. It isn’t cluttered with jargon or vague notions. Instead, it breaks screenwriting into its time-proven form: Beginning, Middle, and End (not necessarily in that order) with the addition of two plot points that work as transitions.

[SPOILER ALERT] The next portion of this blog discusses the movie Chaos Theory. It’s not exactly well-known, but it is streaming on Netflix and I encourage everyone to watch it. I would recommend against watching the trailer because I feel the trailer gives too much of the story away, and it is much more enjoyable to go into the film blind. I will however give you the description that Netflix offers: Continue Reading