Hollywood Falls in Love Off Set

by Madelle Morgan

Do you love movies, particularly romantic comedies? They're such a rich story-telling medium. But off the film sets, the people making those movies have their own lives and love stories.

Gossip magazines and entertainment news shows highlight the Hollywood celebrity culture, the glamour, the awards. Supporting the high profile people we hear about in the entertainment media are hardworking craftspersons who pour creativity and passion into creating on-screen magic. 

The public sees the glitter, not the grit.

In my upcoming series Hollywood in Muskoka, the hero and/or heroine has a career in the film industry. I've been spending way too much time researching their jobs - director, screenwriter, producer, agent, cinematographer, actor, etc.

But I've come to realize that, while the screenwriter establishes the foundation story, the director holds the vision for its realization on screen, and actors' performances make or break a film, a quality film crew is essential to the creation of a product people will love and watch over and over and over again. 

What Do You Want to Do On Set describes a few of these behind-the-scenes roles. Which job would you choose for a career?

See the original of the decision flow chart below at Filmsourcing. 

Image Credit: Filmsourcing

In the first book in my series, Caught on Camera, the plot revolves around a wedding in Muskoka, Canada's premiere vacation destination. The wedding party includes a film lawyer, a producer, a stunt double, an ingénue actress, an agent and an aspiring cinematographer. The groom is the star of a blockbuster superhero franchise who decided to hold his wedding in Muskoka to escape the paparazzi. 

I planned that each groomsman and bridesmaid will have his or her own story in subsequent books. Then a security guard, a personal assistant, and a makeup artist emerged from the background, waved at me, and insisted on finding love too!

Filmmaking Starts with a Screenplay

In addition to learning about filmmaking in general, I've intensively studied the elements of a good script. Authors, have you dreamed of seeing your story up on the big screen? By understanding the elements required in a visual and auditory storytelling medium, you'll ensure they're in your novel. Hint: every word of dialogue, every action, every expression on a character's face has to count. Your words must convey information on several levels.

Learn about the process of writing a script in FutureLearn's FREE online course. The Introduction to Screenwriting course starts February 29, 2016. I've taken several of these UK-based courses and enjoyed every one. The time commitment is as little as an hour a week for three to six weeks, depending on the content.

Writing a Romantic Comedy

Need an idea for a RomCom screenplay? Or a laugh? Filmsource used well-known movie plots to create a Romantic Comedy Generator for Valentine's Day. It's hilarious!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Madelle

Bio: 

Madelle's debut romantic suspense, DiamondHunter, was turned into an action/adventure screenplay by screenwriter Marie Lilly. The novel is available in ebook format on Amazon and Kobo for $0.99 USD and £0.99 GBP.

Madelle tweets and posts about Hollywood, film-making, the settings for her stories, and, of course, writing. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to her blog at MadelleMorgan.com .

All I Really Need To Know...

Hi everyone!
I am YA author B. A. Binns. Can you believe it's July already? I'm back again to discuss lessons I learned from my fourth of July trip to the movies. I hope you will join the discussion.

I have long loved the book, All I really need to know to know I learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. It was nice to know I pretty much new everything really necessary to get along in the world. Then I saw The Heat over the fourth of July, and got an adult-based refresher course.

The Heat was so much more fun than Thelma and Louise, the movie I had thought of as the ultimate female buddy story, until now. This was funny and thoughtful, all about bonding and sisterhood, proving that X-chromosomes can be lethal cop and hysterically funny. The movie showed me tons about human nature, girl-power, and the way people hide their inner pains.

Can you tell that I enjoyed myself?

In many ways the story was predictable, but it was still surprising, satisfying, and left me with the hint of a future inter-racial romance for one of the women. The Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy are superb together. I felt the chemistry, both in their initial hostility and in their growing friendship. The writing helped, the screenwriters (Lee Eisenberg and Katie Dippold)  let us get to know them as two misunderstood women who are dedicated to their job, both wanting to improve the world, and both hiding inner pain from that world.

The backstory comes out slowly, waiting until the audience wants to know what made these two women the way they are. So we root for the woman whose mother throws insults at her because she arrested her own brother. And we care about the outwardly competent orphan with no family to care about her accomplishments. Then we watch them both change and grow, and make foolish mistakes. Like an episode of Wife Swap, the two walk into their relationship thumbing their noses at each other’s lifestyles and choices, and walk out recognizing the value of change and compromise.

The Heat gave me a refresher course in those early values, and handed me few new ones:

• No matter how much pain you are in, it can always get worse.
• Do not dangle people in midair. Especially not drug dealers too stupid to answer your questions before your strength runs out
• Never look down on a woman who maintains an arsenal (including a rocket launcher) in her refrigerator.
• Everyone looks good in a uniform.
• Never let anyone cut off your pants when you are wearing Spanks.
• Drinking really can cause you to wake up next to an absolute, total stranger.
• Be careful about jumping to conclusions and looking only at the obvious suspect.
• Being supremely competent at your job is not always enough, not even when you terrorize your boss.
• In the end, family, friendship and love trump career.
• No matter how much pain you are in, always be ready for the possibility of something better.

I write young adult (YA). I hope I am a good enough author to give lessons like these to my readers in the middle of the action, adventure, and romance.

Have you read any good books or seen any good movies lately? Learned any good lessons? Please comment and share.

Books to Movies

As an author, I think it would be thrilling to receive that phone call, the one where your agent or editor rings to say, ‘they’re interested in optioning the rights for movie or TV.’

Selling option rights to your book is a great way to make extra money and perhaps even make a name for yourself.

One of the publishers I write for has their own film/TV divisions. They shop every book through Hollywood and beyond. So far, in their first 18 months, they have sold the option rights to at least five romance books. I think that is so exciting!

It’s also changed how I plot a book. What could I do to this story to make it more TV or movie friendly? What makes a story transferable onto TV or the big screen? I actually plot using Michael Hauge's Six Act Story Structure (from his book Writing Screenplays That Sell).

What’s quite exciting is that the TV/Movie industry isn’t interested in my authors 'voice' or how well the book is written, they only care about the STORY!

Michael Hauge states that there are five reasons why a book spikes the interest of the screenwriting world. You don’t even need to have a best-selling book.  Selling book 'options' sometimes happens before the book even hits the shelf, so the movie world has no idea if it’s a best seller. One does not preclude the other. But they must have:

1.  An empathetic HERO – a protagonist (male, female or android) with whom we identify from the very beginning of the story.

2.  A clear, visible OUTER MOTIVATION that hero is desperate to achieve by the end of the story. Whether it’s to stop a killer, win a competition, rob a bank or win the love of her destiny, this goal must create a finish line that the hero is struggling to cross from the end of the first act (the 25% mark) until the climax of the film. This is NOT some inner feeling or state of being (success, acceptance, self worth), but rather a goal that creates a clear, consistent image for anyone who hears it.

(I thoroughly recommend Michael’s Six Act Story Structure for plotting out a novel – click here to buy his book)

3.  Monumental, seemingly insurmountable CONFLICT. If the hero’s goal doesn’t seem impossible, and doesn’t force the hero to put everything on the line, the story won’t elicit sufficient emotion to get people to line up or tune in to see the movie.

4.  SIMPLICITY. Movie stories can easily be expressed in a single sentence. Long, convoluted, multi character stories are almost impossible to advertise.

5.  FAMILIARITY. Audiences prefer genre films that follow a consistent set of rules and promise a predictable emotional experience. The individual details of the plot and characters should be original, but movies that are hard to categorize are also hard to sell.

None of the above should be missing from your romance story either.  It should be easy for us to develop

stories that suit both book, and other mediums like TV or movies.  Luckily for us, we don’t need to be screenwriters; we can simply ‘option’ our work. However, if you are one of those hands on people then write the book and the screenplay.

For me? I’m quite happy to write my books and let someone else write the screenplay. I’d rather move on and write the next best seller – tee hee.

I think we can learn a lot from fabulous film screenwriters like Michael Hauge. They have to grab an audience’s attention and keep them sitting still and spellbound for 2-3 hours. They have to immerse us in the story's world. We also need to do this. That’s what will make a reader buy our next book and our next book and our next book…

I'm excitedly waiting for the call...