This is a comprehensive guide to writing the first draft of a feature length screenplay. While it focuses on the college semester (16 Weeks), it is also completely appropriate for anyone attempting to write a screenplay within a timeline. The text breaks down different approaches to designing a screenplay by providing pragmatic guidelines enhancing your ability to use creativity rather than focusing on rules. It highlights the skills necessary to execute compelling visual language to achieve good story, plot, dialog, dynamic characters, and help you put it all together. Think of this as a companion tool as you write. The language is simplified and yet academic, theoretically sound and yet pragmatic. It also offers additional insight into the history of screenwriting, the re-write process, and the specific skill sets needed for adaptation. This book is easy to understand and provides accounts for context from the author as a professional screenwriter, as well as anecdotes from other professionals (David Mickey Evans - The Sand Lot, and Vince McKewin - Fly Away Home, and Jeb Stuart - Die Hard, The Fugitive, Dana Coen - JAG, NCIS, and Anthony Tambakis - Warrior, Suicide Squad 2).

The Clangers memorably spoke in a language played on swannee whistles. No one expected them to have scripts. But they did. Within an ancient barn nestled in the heart of the Kent countryside, Smallfilms founders Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin created one of the most beloved BBC children's series of the twentieth century: Clangers. Clangers: The Complete Scripts 1969-1974 is the ultimate compendium of scripts from the original two series of the show in one lavishly illustrated volume. These previously unseen scripts sit alongside original writing from Daniel Postgate - son of the original creator Oliver Postgate - exploring the inspiration for and lasting cultural impact of the show, new and historical photographs, Peter's original illustrations, Oliver's handwritten musical notations and more. The joyful revelation that the Clangers' often colourful words were scripted in English brings an exciting new dimension to the Smallfilms legacy.

Made in 1959, North by Northwest is one of Alfred Hitchcock's most beloved thrillers, an enticing cocktail of suspense, comedy, eroticism, and danger. Cary Grant is a suave but stiff-necked executive who finds himself mistaken for a United States intelligence agent and, as a result, is forced into a series of life-threatening encounters with the villainous James Mason. Grant's consolation is that he also becomes involved with the elegant female spy played by Eva Marie Saint. But the game of international intrigue is played for high stakes—and in high style: in the film's classic sequences, Grant is chased across cornfields by a crop-dusting plane and, later, forced to climb the slopes of Mount Rushmore's National Memorial to escape his pursuers.

The screenplay is the work of one of the most versatile and successful American screenwriters, Ernest Lehman, who begins this volume an Introduction that fully explores the process of collaborating with Hitchcock on the film. Also the author of the screenplays for such diverse films as Sweet Smell of Success and The Sound of Music, Lehman managed in this work to combine witty wordplay and thoughtful suspense in such a way that North by Northwest stands as the epitome of Hitchcock's elegant and entertaining thrillers.