DZ-14: Writing For Actors with Succession’s Sarah Snook

In this episode, Chas and Stu are joined by a very special guest, SARAH SNOOK – star of Predestination, Jessabelle, and Oddball, amongst many others – to discuss ACTING and it’s relationship with WRITING. We focus our analysis on two scenes from AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, a screenplay that started life as a Pulitzer Prize winning play, and whose writer – Tracy Letts – is a successful actor in his own right. But, as usual, we ice-skate between a whole range of topics,  including what attracts actors to a script, writing realistic characters, how actors analyse scenes, character spines & objectives, and the importance of hugs.

DZ-02: Do the Screenplay Gurus score big at the Box Office?

INT. EPISODE 2 – MORNING Do the biggest original films of 2013 follow more archetypal – or formulaic – structures? After analysing awards-nominated screenplays, Stu and Chas turn to the original screenplays that struck it biggest at the box office in 2013: GRAVITY and FROZEN. Do bigger films stick more closely to the archetypal story […]

DZ-01: Do Screenplay Gurus win you Oscars?

INT. EPISODE 1 – NIGHT Do Oscar-Nominated screenwriters follow the structural formulas prescribed by the ‘gurus’ and books? Stu and Chas analyse two screenplays nominated for Academy Awards in 2014 – PHILOMENA and DALLAS BUYERS CLUB – to see whether they follow the structural theories espoused by Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler. LINKS: […]