Pulling The TV Storyline TIGHT! Secrets of Creating Fabulous Television Storyline
Storyline! It’s a ROPE around the audience’s neck PULLING them into the screen! Bored with a cinematic story? Chances are the rope around your neck is pretty SLACK. This Storyline lecture is one of a trio of new lectures on TV – a trio that also includes BEATS and STRUCTURE. You can take these three classes in any order. Together they will give you a fuller grasp of how to craft your TV story for today’s amazingly innovative, always changing cine platforms. Storyline in TV is even more important than it is in movies – because there are usually many more storylines in TV! (And there are more and more every year. The standard number of TV storylines used to be three. Now, in great shows like Sneaky Pete or Snowfall? There can be eight or nine – even more! TV has become as elaborate and lengthy as the Russian novel in its prime – and like the Russian novel it features many many characters – that means many many storylines. (The ropes that pull the characters through the entire episodes.) But how to invent, forge, burnish and make more original these storylines? Well, first you gotta understand what they are and how they work. Storylines are the ‘strings of pearls’ that form the white hot burning core of TV narrative – the big ropes and organizers of the narrative. And there are more storylines in TV stories than ever! Up to ten in a single episode of a show like Sneaky Pete, or The Deuce. How do you create, manage, and power up storylines? Let Peter show you how to do just that, using the tools of storyline that great TV storytellers like Vince Gilligan, David Chase, and David Simon use. It is the storyline’s power that drive modern, original TV storytelling. Here is how they work. This course consists of 5 video lectures. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.Creating the BEATING HEART of your TV Story – Secrets of Building the GREAT TV BEAT
TV stories consist of a series of BEATS – lightning bolt flashes that form 28 dramatic moments in your hour script – (16 in your half hour.) Think of EACH beat as a lightning bolt – the hidden HEART of why your audience watches! Each Beat has a hidden structure that you MUST master to make your TV story SING. EACH Beat is a beautiful FIGHT with special choreography, with a winner and a loser – a story in itself that has a beginning, middle and end. A ROLLERCOASTER for your audience that leaves them breathless (if you do it right.) This class is about showing you the secret hidden rythym of a BEAT – the flurry of punches that leaves an audience breathless (and one winner raising his arms and a loser on the canvas!) and the good news is, once you learn how one works, you’ll use the same tricks every time. (And there ARE tricks.) Peter shows you the hidden universal structure of a this critical building block – the four crescendoes inside it (and how the greatest TV writers reverse, pivot and use surprise, good news/bad news, ticking clocks, and raising stakes in each Beat). The pro television writer knows that to keep his audience excited, he’s got to GRAB them in EVERY Beat – it’s the deep molecular structure of ALL great TV. But how? A BEAT is a separate story INSIDE your big story – a CHAIN of little stories that become a pearl necklace that makes the episode! Peter Russell, who sold two TV pilots in 2018, shows you precisely how the geniuses in today’s TV story Bill Dubuque (Ozark), Jenji Kohan (Orange Is The New Black, Glow) Nic Pizzaloto (True Detective), Noah Hawley (Fargo), Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy) do just that. Peter goes further in this class – he also lays out the advanced tools of the ‘split beat’ and the ‘disappearing climax beat’ – just like such sophisticated masters like David Simon (The Deuce), and Dave Andron (Snowfall) do. Here are the tools that innovators in TV use in 2018 to advance the art of television storytelling. If you don’t know how to build a BEAT, your TV story will not work. You can have great characters, storyline and structure, but you will not KEEP your audience watching the screen! No good beats? …The Secrets of the TV Limited (Mini-Series) & Anthology Stories: PART ONE – Beginnings
Whether it’s Ryan Murphy’s Assassination of Gianni Versace, The People vs. OJ Simpson, Nic Pizzalatto’s True Detective, Noah Hawley’s Fargo or Feud, a big trend in TV now is the limited series or ‘closed end’ anthology show. Let Peter Russell (who sold a mini-series in 2017) show you the patterns and tools he’s learned that helped him create a successful mini. You’ll learn how to think about your characters, how to create the vivid and original world, the keys to powering your storylines, and the fundamental secret that both keeps your audience interested over the entire course of the story – and also organizes your story crescendos (there are four) for you! Peter shows you examples of how the greatest writers in this genre do what they do – so that you can do it, too. This isn’t just academic ‘analysis’ – Peter has used these tools himself to create sellable TV. This lecture comes in three parts, which are each purchased separately. PART ONE – Beginnings (this purchase) PART TWO – Middles (purchased separately) PART THREE – Endings (purchased separately) This purchase is for PART ONE – Beginnings. This purchase consists of 1 video and 1 embedded PDF. Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Secrets of the TV Mini-Series & Anthology Stories: PART TWO – Middles
Whether it’s Ryan Murphy’s Assassination of Gianni Versace, The People vs. OJ Simpson, Nic Pizzalatto’s True Detective, Noah Hawley’s Fargo or Feud, a big trend in TV now is the limited series or ‘closed end’ anthology show. Let Peter Russell (who sold a mini-series in 2017) show you the patterns and tools he’s learned that helped him create a successful mini. You’ll learn how to think about your characters, how to create the vivid and original world, the keys to powering your storylines, and the fundamental secret that both keeps your audience interested over the entire course of the story – and also organizes your story crescendos (there are four) for you! Peter shows you examples of how the greatest writers in this genre do what they do — so that you can do it, too. This isn’t just academic ‘analysis’ – Peter has used these tools himself to create sellable TV. This lecture comes in three parts, which are each purchased separately. PART ONE – Beginnings (purchased separately) PART TWO – Middles (this purchase) PART THREE – Endings (purchased separately) This purchase is for PART TWO – Middles. This purchase consists of 2 videos and 1 embedded PDF. Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Secrets of the TV Mini-Series & Anthology Stories: PART THREE – Endings
Whether it’s Ryan Murphy’s Assassination of Gianni Versace, The People vs. OJ Simpson, Nic Pizzalatto’s True Detective, Noah Hawley’s Fargo or Feud, a big trend in TV now is the limited series or ‘closed end’ anthology show. Let Peter Russell (who sold a mini-series in 2017) show you the patterns and tools he’s learned that helped him create a successful mini. You’ll learn how to think about your characters, how to create the vivid and original world, the keys to powering your storylines, and the fundamental secret that both keeps your audience interested over the entire course of the story – and also organizes your story crescendos (there are four) for you! Peter shows you examples of how the greatest writers in this genre do what they do — so that you can do it, too. This isn’t just academic ‘analysis’ – Peter has used these tools himself to create sellable TV. This lecture comes in three parts, which are each purchased separately. PART ONE – Beginnings (purchased separately) PART TWO – Middles (purchased separately) PART THREE – Endings (this purchase) This purchase is for PART THREE – Endings. This purchase consists of 10 videos and 1 embedded PDF. Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.How to Master the 20 Beats of All Film Story
Did you know that almost all great Hollywood movies share the exact same structure? Learn what it is – the 20 BEATS OF GREAT HOLLYWOOD MOVIE STORY – in this groundbreaking lecture by Peter Russell. Peter shows you the hidden design behind nearly all film story that makes for a hit, and offers you a template that can help you shape your own film. Whether you’re writing a love story or an action thriller, these secret patterns remain the same. Use this lecture as a kind of CAT scan of your own story – and as a way to improve it. The precise A and B storylines – they way they interweave, the crescendo points of the acts, and the way the theme of the story is posed through the main character’s journeys – it’s all here in this comprehensive study of the 20 BEATS OF GREAT HOLLYWOOD MOVIE STORY. This course consists of 4 videos. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Hidden Patterns of Romantic Comedy
Romantic comedies are the ‘champagne genre’ – amazingly fun romps about love – stories which, as Peter Russell shows you, contain deep, vivid secrets and story patterns – patterns that you use to make your romantic comedy sing and succeed. If you adore the witty writing and fabulous laughs that go into this most optimistic and romantic of forms, then this lecture is for you. You’ll see how deceit rules the first part of your story (and how the jarring truth rules the second). He gives you the deep characters that help the heroine (or hero) win, and the ones that drag the protagonist down, and what every romantic comedy needs at its center to really make a smash story. You’ll learn why opposites really do attract (but how they must then both change in a particular way), how dialogue rules this genre (the last genre where that’s really true) and how to avoid cliches and still find happy endings (it’s all about learning to tell the one embarrassing truth you’d never want anyone to know). You’ll also learn the enduring tricks from the biggest hit rom coms in cinematic history – from Tootsie, Jerry Maguire, and The Proposal, to television stories like Apatow’s Love, Dunham’s Girls, and Jacobsen/Glazer’s wonderful Broad City. This course consists of 4 video lectures. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Foundations of Story and Screenwriting
The perfect class to learn the fundamentals of screenwriting, storytelling, creating characters, story structure, storyline, tension, suspense and much more. Learn the eight tools that are all a creator needs to tell a great story in ANY genre. You get eight tools in this lecture: BMOC Logline The Rhythm of Four Acts Hero’s Journey Theme Impact Characters Core Wounds The ‘Boxing Ring’ Movies used in this class: Pulp Fiction, Dead Poet’s Society, and Star Wars. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Secrets of Writing for Television
If you want to write brilliant, breakthrough material, write for television. From Orange is the New Black to Girls to Modern Family, television writing is where the most entertaining, evocative and surprising stories are being told. Where do you start? How do you polish what you’ve got? Learn from the best. Peter Russell, award-winning UCLA Extension instructor of the year and co-founder of How Movies Works, takes you through the plot structures of the major TV genres: Sitcom, Episodic and Serial storylines. In this class, you’ll see the breakdowns of shows like How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, and Raising Hope. We also show you how creators Vince Gilligan and Aaron Sorkin create tension in TV DRAMA. We’ll show you BEAT BY BEAT how Breaking Bad and Newsroom work.You’ll learn about writing great characters, writing vivid action and how to build relationships between characters that the audience cares about. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Secret Patterns of Writing Dramas
If you want to write a movie – a personal, social, psychological, or political drama – this class is for you. Learn the tricks and techniques of writing a film that captures real-life drama from an emotional, character-driven perspective. You’ll learn: What exactly is a “THEME” and how to write a thematic story. How to write emotionally-driven characters who change. How to write character-driven action. The most important beats in a drama. The tricks to making audience’s feel the stakes of your drama. What to think about when you adapt a novel, play or story from another medium. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Secret Patterns of Writing Mystery Thriller Screenplays
This most complicated of genres is also one of the most wonderfully fun, and challenging, to write.Every great mystery thriller has three different plots, and most feature a hero who has a very particular emotional change (that helps them solve the mystery). We show you how Shapeshifters rule in this genre, how to weave all three plots (and when and where to place them), and give you thorough patterns that will guide you all along your journey. This is a genre where you’ll NEED a roadmap to help you! Movies used in this class: Salt, LA Confidential, Chinatown, Training Day. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.Creating the 3 Main Storylines in Your One Hour TV Drama / Dramedy / Comedy
So many times when we begin to work with a writer on their TV pilot, they lack a fundamental knowledge of just how to structure the plot lines in their story. In this guide, we show you how your one hour TV Drama / Dramedy / Comedy pilot should weave its main storylines. (There are usually three.) If you aren’t sure you want to get our full TV Lecture, this quick guide will show you the heart of how to structure your hour long drama (it works on hour long dramedy and comedy, too!) Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.How to Write and Make Award-Winning Short Films
Short films are the calling cards of the film industry. You can make them for as little or as much as your budget can allow – but first you need a great concept, a tight story, a character or two the audience wants to follow (note: we didn’t say “like”). If you get it right, a short film can propel you into a feature, a TV show or a great partnership with a producer. You can travel to Toronto, Sundance, and Cannes with priority access passes. You can get meetings and be known as the next hot talent. That’s IF you get it right. We WANT YOU TO GET IT RIGHT! Peter Russell, a long-time judge at the HollyShorts Film Festival, is taking HMW’s expertise as sought-after story developers and script doctors and applying our wisdom to the short film. He will show you several short films and breakdown the conventions of each. Breakdown the “long” short and the “short” short. How to have character arcs. How to create surprise. How to get the most drama out of a simple idea. You will understand how to write one, how to make one and how to break out of the pack by shining your brilliance in the RIGHT WAY. If you have made a short film or if you want to make one – this is the class you’ve been waiting for. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Secret Patterns of Writing Thrillers and Horror Movies
Audiences LOVE a good scare. Whether you are writing a full-length feature or a short – or even a webisode – learning the tricks and techniques to create these emotions will make your job so much easier. This 3-hour lecture will go over: What do you NOT see, and when do you NOT see it? Types of characters that make you squirm. How to create tension when nothing is happening. Much much more! To get the most out of this class see: Se7en, Paranormal Activities, Saw, The Exorcist. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Secrets of Adventure Romance
Whether you are writing the next Avatar, Titanic, Twilight, Last of the Mohicans, or The Matrix, you’ll want to understand the hidden patterns beneath each of these stories – the elements are always the same. You’ll learn how danger accompanies the romance at particular points in the story, how rescue features, and why the core wounds of the lovers must be tied not to sex, but to a simple plot device that always exhilarates the audience. The tools that master adventure romance creators have used for decades and are still used in every single adrom made. Movies used in class: Titanic, Twilight, Last of the Mohicans, Avatar and more. This course consist of 3 videos. Course material availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase. The Secrets of Love Stories
Love stories are among the best selling films of all time: Gone With the Wind, The Way We Were, The Notebook, Moulin Rouge, Amour, Carol, The Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind, Call Me By Your Name – all feature Love. Even those without big adventure score big with audiences.This workshop, designed for beginning and intermediate writers, will go over: How does an audience know a couple is in love? The proven story patterns of romance movies. The tools of suspense and tension. How to create a hero your audience will care about. How to write characters who change and grow. The most common mistakes made when writing storylines. How to write a second act that will keep the audience guessing – even though we know the lovers will come together! Movies used in class: The Notebook, Once, Lost In Translation, and more. This course consist of 3 videos. Course material availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Secret Patterns of Writing Action Screenplays
Action films are a perennial favorite for audiences around the world. More than ever you need techniques that will surprise the audience and keep them engaged — whether they are in India or Indiana. You’ll learn: The proven story patterns of Action Movies The tools of suspense and tension How to create a hero your audience will care about How to write characters who change and grow The most common mistakes made when writing villains How to write a second act that will keep the audience guessing Movies used in class: Pulp Fiction, Dark Knight, Training Day, 300, Fast and Furious, and Unstoppable. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase. The Secrets to Writing ‘True Detective, Season One’
True Detective, Season One, is one of the masterpieces of modern television – and a celebration of the new ‘dark TV hero’ that has become so much a part of this new golden age of TV. We break down how the entire series works in a scene-by-scene analysis that unlocks Nic Pizzolatto’s genius. How do you create a pair of dark protagonists and how does this particular form of TV (the ‘closed end’ series) offer a set of explosive tools that no other TV genre can? You’ll learn how a story’s ‘moral argument’ can act like gasoline on the audience’s interest (it sounds preachy till you see it in action) and we will analyze just how two men’s core wounds propel them forward. We lay out the BMOC of the entire ‘story arc’ for the season, and how this form we developed for movies works so beautifully in the closed end TV genre. You’ll see how this story uses the deep tools of the mystery thriller, genre, which means it has three different plots – you’ll learn what they are and how they work – and you’ll also be privy to the deepest secret of what makes a mystery thriller truly great (most mystery thrillers don’t have this secret.) Are you writing for the new TV market? Come see how a masterwork – and the first breakout hit for a relative TV novice – became one of the icons of the television canon. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.The Secret Patterns of Science Fiction & Fantasy Screenplays
These two genres are two sides of one vivid, colorful story form – in one, science gets you into a problem and gets you out, in the other it’s all about faith and magic. Both feature astonishing worlds – and how you create that world is half the battle! We show you how to ‘world build’ in both genres, give you the ‘weed and speed’ both audiences love (each is different), and, crucially, give you the six characters that the greatest fantasists employ to push their hero forward (they are specific to fantasy, and don’t change!). We also show you how the amazing Tool of ‘sequencing’ works to tell 12 mini-stories inside one of the greatest sci fi movies ever (JJ Abrams is the master of this, and we show you this in his fantastic, first Star Trek). Movies used in this class: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Wizard of Oz, Star Trek (JJ Abrams), Blade Runner, and Gattaca. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase. Secrets of Tarantino: A Master Class in Action Drama
Django Unchained is a master work from Tarantino, and we break down just how it works in this scene by scene analysis. If you’re writing an action buddy western, or a buddy picture of almost any sort you’ll gain big insights into the engines of this best-selling genre. Action is the hottest genre selling in Hollywood today, and it will never go out of style, but the methods and hooks are changing, and Django shows you how. You’ll learn the heart of the buddy dynamic that causes both partners to grow in very particular ways – a classic pattern that you can use in your own story. Tarantino also gives the audience an innovative mentor here – one who changes right along with the hero. Remember the classic tools of suspense in our action lecture? Django gives you scenes with four ‘cross ticking clocks’ – and we stop the action to show you just how Tarantino does it like a boss. There’s nothing like watching a master in action and seeing just how he creates his magic – behind the smoke and mirrors. Sharpen your game and bring originality to your own action movie with this superb breakdown of an incredible movie. Course Material Availability: 12 months access from your date of purchase.How to become a Top Hollywood script reader, AND break into the business!
Learning how to assess a script makes you a FAR better screenwriter. This class is a fantastic primer in how to create great Hollywood story. It furnishes you a ‘calling card’ of 3-Script Reports that can help you audition for your first job as a script reader! Simply start the course & work according to YOUR schedule. This is a Self-learning exercise process. No need to turn in assignments each week! In this online version, you’ll get all Pete’s lectures, along with his handpicked scripts for you to read and analyze, as well as a full ‘audition’ package of script reports you can use when you apply for a job as a Hollywood script reader. In this Eleven-Week Course, you learn how to write ‘COVERAGE’ – a report on scripts that every production company uses to determine whether or not to buy a project. As a script reader, you are the gatekeeper – and it’s often the first job a new hire at a company does. This is the ‘secret’ way in for folks who lack professional or family connections into this very difficult to enter business. COURSE OUTLINE: WEEK ONE – How Cinematic Story Works – And How To Write Script ‘Coverage’ – Using Real Studio Examples Watch SICARIO, INTERSTELLAR, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, SNEAKY PETE (pilot) and GAME OF THRONES (pilot). WEEK TWO – Finding The Fundamental Hidden Form of Cinematic Story – And Turning It Into A Coverage Synopsis Watch SHAME, read three excellent Hollywood script coverages from Peter’s private stash. Week Two Assignment: Turn in your first coverage synopsis (To yourself!) Remember: This is a Self-learning exercise process so there is no need to turn in assignments each week, but simply self-regulate and answer the questions which will teach you to become accustomed to the critical reader analysis process. WEEK THREE – Learning How To Write Great Comments WEEK FOUR – Welcome to TV story! How to write the coverage that shows you understand the secret forms of TV story. END RESULT: Three audition piece coverages that give you an impressive ‘package’ to seek work. Insiders know that one of the best ways to garner a production company job is to show you know great film and TV story, & can write the ‘COVERAGE’ that forms the backbone of a company’s production. This course consists of Video lectures. PDF downloads. Weekly assignments Course Material Availability: 12 …
