7 Mistakes Rookie Screenwriters Make

I taught myself how to read and analyse screenplays when I started out running this film festival, Between 1992 and 2003 I read and wrote critiques on over 2,500 screenplays including Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and 51st State.

Only a handful of these 2,500 screenplays ever got made. Of the remaining scripts, they most likely will never get made, and not because they were a bad idea for a screenplay. I never once found a bad idea for a screenplay reading 2,500 scripts. did find poor execution of the ideas time and time again.

I'm no expert. All I have is a body of experience working with rookie writers. Here is a crib sheet of the basic mistakes debut screenwriters make.

Read 7 Mistakes Rookie Screenwriters Make

Film Publicity's 3 New Rules

Online distribution, VOD, day/date screening, transmedia and of course the threat of piracy are all part of the new film PR frontier.

The Raindance website is currently undergoing a revamp and I am revisiting our marketing and PR strategy. The author and marketeer Jeff Bullas highlighted several key factors in his excellent blog. A survey of nearly 2,000 companies rated the optimised press release as the most effective way to release news. Optimizing press releases for news search engines is now called "SEO-PR".

This is where it is all starting to happen. The new PR tools that relate to marketing in general pretty much all pertain to a successful film launch.

Read: The 3 New Tools Of Film PR