NEW FEATURE!!!
Jill Nutshells . . . Seven Psychopaths

As The Screenplay Workshop alumni know, I’m always applying my “Screenplay In A Nutshell” method to movies I see. So I thought I’d share the Nutshell to a recent film in this newsletter. One of the best films of 2012, I thought, was Seven Psychopaths, which was completely overlooked by audiences and critics. Read the complete Nutshell below …

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Here’s our Late Summer workshop info:

SCREENWRITING FUNDAMENTALS
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News & Etcetera

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Alumna Dana Cowden‘s script Not as Advertised won First Place at the Fade In Awards and will be featured in the September issue of Fade In magazine!

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Jill Nutshells . . . Seven Psychopaths(continued)

Don’t let the “psychopaths” in the title scare you off. The movie does contain violence, but it is deliberately over-the-top. The film is actually a smart commentary on Hollywood’s use of gratuitous violence and other screenwriting crutches. And the main character, Marty, an Irish screenwriter in Hollywood struggling to write his next script (played by Colin Farrell), bares more than a passing resemblance to Seven Psychopaths‘s actual Writer/Director Martin McDonagh. It’s a clever, often hysterically funny film with lots of surprises and an excellent, star-studded cast which includes some of my favorite actors (Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, and Tom Waits).

SPOILERS BELOW – If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it and try to Nutshell it yourself first.

For those of you who have seen it, here’s the Nutshell:

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (2012)

MC: Marty

WANT:
to find psychopaths for his script

EVENT:
A mob boss’s crew busts in on Marty when they are looking for the boss’s kidnapped dog and the “Jack of Diamonds” serial killer (26 min)

CATCH:
He’s found his psychopaths but now they are after him

FLAW:
He thinks he needs violence (for his script to work)

HELL:
He realizes his best friend Billy is the serial killer & he wishes he’d never gone looking for psychopaths

CHOICE:
to save the mob boss’s life

FINAL STEP:
He plays the tape Hans (Walken) left, hears the story about the pacifist monk, & is able to finally finish his script

LEARNS:
Violence isn’t the answer