This video is brought to you by Videoblocks
[Cinecom's intro music]
Hey everybody! I'm Eric and welcome to cinecom.net
and this is Creative Tuesday!
-Eric! This is my show!
And look how good my hair looks!
It looks really good, what?
-So, as you guys now, a while back we ran a little competition
where we asked you guys to submit an idea for a short film.
We got tons of submissions, and eventually chose to work together with Eric.
-That's me!
Over the last month Jordy and I have been working together
to take the initial idea and turn it into an actual concept.
Especially Eric! He came with tons of great ideas and insights
to further develop the story,
which we unfortunately can't share with the world yet, because...
...that would spoil the film when it's going to be released.
-Jordy's being very humble, those guys have got an incredible amount of ideas
and they've been fantastic to work with.
Although I can't share the secrets from our short,
I can tell you my 7 tips to make you be a better writer.
Tip number 1.
Get bored. In this tech-heavy world it's easy to get entertained all of the time
so when you sit down to write you find you have nothing to write about.
That's because you have to allow your imagination and your mind to wander.
Writer Mark Twain once said that when he was finished with a story
he wouldn't think of the next story, but rather he would go out and see the world.
He would allow his creative glass to fill up.
Go to a park, lay on the ground, stare at some clouds,
Do anything and everything you have to do to allow your imagination to just wander.
Step 2: fantasize.
Great, now that you're bored let's start tapping into your imagination.
I'm guessing that you're not a superhero,
or you're not an international spy, or an intergalactic astronaut.
But, what if you were?
One of the fun things about having an imagination is using it.
So, chances are you've seen a lot of movies about superheroes or spies or astronauts,
so take those scenarios and put yourself inside of them.
How would they be different? how would you react?
What would you do?
Tip 3:
watch people together.
Relationships are a huge part of storytelling.
Like, take the complicated relationship of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
Luke hates Vader for killing Obi-wan Kenobi, but...
...when Luke finds out that Darth Vader is his dad... (spoiler!)
then he's confused, he doesn't know how to feel.
Relationships are a very important part of storytelling,
and chances are you're really good at recognize them.
Go to a city area and a park and watch people together,
look at the way they interact.
Can you tell the difference between two family members and two strangers?
Can you tell when two people are arguing but they're not talking about it?
Your character should have relationships as deep and as rich as the ones that you do,
and they will inform your story.
Tip number 4: take notes.
A lot of times you'll have little ideas that don't add up to a whole story.
Make sure you write them down and keep them all together.
American screenwriter Shane Black suggests that you write down all of your little ideas
on scraps of paper and then put them in a shoebox, under your bed or in the closet.
After six months take out the notes and spread them on a table.
You'll start to see where some of the ideas connect together.
Eventually your little idea is gonna adhere together to make one full story.
Wait! hold on, Eric. I want to take a brief moment to thank Videoblocks,
our channel sponsor.
Videoblocks is a huge library that we almost use on a daily base,
and we can find all kinds of video assets in there, After Effects templates,
video effects, stock clips and so much more.
And the cool thing is that you only have to pay a single price per year
and that allows you to download unlimited files from their growing library.
To find out more, and to also check out our clip...
...that we've been submitting to the library,
you can click the first link in the description below.
Okay Eric, you can continue now. Great tips, by the way.
Tip number 5: write a little every day.
If you believe that a person sits down and can write a great novel,
story or play on their first attempt,
I'm sorry to inform you: that is not the case.
My good friend in Playwright, Regan Payne, says:
"you have to write three or four pieces of sh#*t, before you can even get to the good stuff."
I happen to think she's right.
Writing is like a muscle: the more you work it out, the stronger it will become.
If you want to be a better writer, you have to write every day,
a page, a sentence, a paragraph, anything,
and you will absolutely see that a little bit of work goes in a long way
in improving your level of writing.
Number 6: you're not a genius and that's okay.
Many people will write one story, read it,
and then decide they'll never make it as writer because they didn't manage to write the next Hamlet.
Don't hold yourself to such high standards.
Constructive self-criticism is useful, but beating yourself up
for not being the greatest writer of all time is just destructive.
Calling yourself names or comparing your work to other writers does not help you
and will only result in you writing less.
Write the stories you write.
Yes, try and improve, but go easy on yourself.
If you're discouraged that your last story didn't work out the way you'd hoped,
then I have good news for you: you can always write another one.
Step 7: share your work.
I saved the scariest one for last, I mean writing is one thing,
but actually showing your work to somebody else, that can be downright terrifying.
I recommend finding somebody that cares about you and your feelings
and sharing your work with them.
I think that you'll be really surprised at how supportive most people are.
Once you've written a couple of things, actually get together a writers group.
Most public libraries offer free meeting rooms,
and thanks to social media and the Internet, finding other writers in your area
is easier than ever.
Start an email chain and meet once a month, whether you have something to share or not.
-Thank you so much Eric for sharing your experience. Now...
...I also would like to share some tools that could really help to start writing a short film.
The first one is a Chrome app called Amazon Storywriter,
it's a free app that helps you to write a scenario in the correct format.
It's a very simple word processor, which is why I love this so much.
You can basically choose between several types of writing, such as your scene heading,
an action, a character name, a dialogue, etc.
The next tool is a blog post in which Michael Hauge
explains the structure of a screenplay very well.
A script needs to have a structure in order to interest the audience.
And after you've read this article, you should get a better understanding of how things work.
And finally is a website that I also referred to in my previous video,
and it's the Periodic Table for Storytelling.
A lot of the elements within a story are written out
to help you further develop that.
For instance, there happens a conflict between two characters.
Here it's explained how a good conflict is written,
together with several examples.
And this periodic table is for me the most important tool.
It can take a simple idea or a flat story to a much greater dynamic...
...or depth when going through the elements that you need,
and implementing them into your story.
Now, it's been absolutely amazing to work together with Eric so far
and I'm really looking forward to those production days,
so, let’s get back to work, because there are a ton of things that we have to prepare!
-Jordy!
Aren't you forgetting something?
Jordy?
-Oh yeah, that's right, thanks for watching, guys!
-Big thanks to Matt Wyatt, the people at Sibling and Daughters and Sons
for allowing me to use their incredible space,
and as always,
Stay Creative!
Jordy?
Suddenly so cold in here!♩
♫ On my own, pretending you're beside me... ♫
Jordy!
bring me back a sandwich!
Is he drunk? Yeah.