By Donald L. Vasicek In order to write sell and get your screenplays produced in Hollywood you need to write openings that Hollywood utilizes to attract audiences. When you watch movies produced by studios and mainstream production companies and producers what you usually see in the opening is movement. This could be movement across a body of water with the POV of the camera aimed at a skyline of a city or someone walking someone running a moving vehicle etc. Images of movement help pull the audience into the movie in order to get them into the movie like they’re really in the movie to make them feel like they’re part of what is going on in the movie. Openings also include a metaphor that defines what the main theme of the movie is going to be introduces the main character defines the character’s main problem to solve in the movie of his/her goal and the setting. And this should all be accomplished on page one of the screenplay. The opening of my produced screenplay Born to Win shows a butterfly fluttering away from a headstone. A boy cleans the headstone. He weeps. He rubs the headstone with a cloth beyond that of cleaning it. The movement is the butterfly moving away. It shows the defining theme of the movie which is letting go. The main character the boy is holding onto his dead mother. The setting of scene a cemetery exacerbates the theme of letting go. This movement also shows the metaphor for the movie of letting go. The boy must let go before he can move on with his life regarding his mother’s untimely death and he does it by driving his mother’s race car in a race to win $25 000 for an operation to save his Gramps’ life. In the end it’s either let go of his Gramps or continuing his fatal flaw of holding onto to something that he should no longer hold onto. When you write screenplays that you want to sell and get produced study openings of movies that Hollywood produces. You will see that the most successful of these movies (box office DVD and rental sales Internet streaming etc.) contain elements which include movement metaphor defining theme main character and setting. Craft these elements into your screenplays and you’re off to a great start with writing screenplays that you sell and get produced. Author’s Credits Donald L. Vasicek studied producing directing and line producing at the Hollywood Film Institute under the acclaimed Dov Simen’s and at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. He studied screenwriting at The Complete Screenplay with Sally Merlin (White Squall). He has taught mentored and is a script consultant for over 400 writers directors producers actors and production companies and has also acted in 20th Century Fox’s Die Hard With a Vengeance NBC’s Mystery of Flight 1501 ABC’s Father Dowling starring Thomas Bosley and Red-Handed Production’s Summer Reunion. These activities have resulted in Don’s involvement in more than 100 movies during the past 23 years from major studios to independent films including MGM’s $56 million Warriors of Virtue Paramount Classics Racing Lucifer and American Pictures The Lost Heart among others. Vasicek has also has written and published over 500 books short stories and articles. His books include How To Write Sell and Get Your Screenplays Produced and The Write Focus. Donald L. Vasicek Olympus Films+ LLC Writing/Filmmaking/Consulting http://www.donvasicek.com
