Performances always seem to work better when an actor has their own bearing as a human being. To be someone else, it helps to know who you are and this is also true of screenwriting. The art form requires an
Screenwriting Tools: #4 A Coffee Cup
Screenwriting Tools: #3 Digital Voice Recorder
Composers will sometimes come up with a tune in the middle of the park or on a rumbling train. Unable to grab a pen and paper, far from a recording device… simply humming the melody until you create a memory
Screenwriting Tools #2 Forest App
It’s 2020, a time Back to the Future envisaged we’d be using hoverboards! The technology is still getting there when it comes to a commercial hover-anything with a number of remote control toys leading the way, but let’s not get
Screenwriting Tools: #1 Speech Recognition Software
People often equate the idea of screenwriting with romantic elements such as scribbling in a coffee shop or plonking away on a typewriter. While this dreamy disposition can work for some, these are antiquated ways of getting notes and ideas
Binge-watch with Spling this Heritage Day
Spling loves movies so much that he’s devised ‘Bingeing with Spling’ a watch party event series. The movie critic and self-appointed host of these watch party evenings describes them as a “movie night festival”. Having hosted a number of in-cinema
Pure Documentary v. Pure Fiction
Have you ever noticed how someone’s often credited with having written a documentary? Documentaries by their very nature are meant to be documents. We expect films documenting something to come with a level of objectivity in order to be taken
Let Music Inspire Your Writing – Rage Against the Machine
I’m listening to one of my favourite bands from the ’90s as I type this… Spending my teenage years in that decade, I was connected to alternative music and stumbled upon Rage Against the Machine. An influential band of the
Never Tell the Audience What They Already Know…
Never say never. There are definitely exceptions. For instance, in comedy sometimes deliberately doing this can be very effective. Although this usually creates a self-awareness and opens a door that can’t be closed. Breaking the fourth wall to poke fun
David J. Ferreira on ‘Evade’
David J. Ferreira is a go-getting film-maker whose drive, determination and passion spurred his faith-based short film, Evade. Having started as a church community project, the short film snowballed as friends and industry professionals came onboard… turning it into a
Hanneke Schutte on ‘Meerkat Maantuig’
South African writer-director Hanneke Schutte started her film career with the SAFTA-winning short film, Superhero. From there she went on to direct Willem Dafoe as part of her Jameson First Shot short film, Saving Norman. Her penchant for quirky comedy