Everyone has their own revision idiosyncrasies, so we won’t tell you there’s one foolproof revision method that you can teach yourself and use overnight. With that said, there are certain suggestions floating around the industry that may make your life easier. It’s suggested you print out your script, as opposed to reading it on a screen—pry yourself away from the internet and its temptations. Sit down in a quiet place with your screenplay and start reading.

Some writers prefer to pick up a red pen and edit as they read, while others force themselves to sit through an entire reading while only taking mental notes. The latter method is useful in that it allows the writer to build an impression of his script as a whole; if you’re constantly marking it up as you “rediscover” your story, so to speak, you may find yourself losing track of it as a whole: “Oh, I just fixed this, but…oh, now that doesn’t work.”

We suggest a two-pronged approach, utilizing both of these methods. As you go through your screenplay, you’ll see things that don’t sound quite right, don’t look quite right, or don’t make sense. Mark then up, highlight them, or otherwise note to yourself that this part needs work. You’ll already be turning it over in your mind, considering your options as you move through the screenplay.

Move through your script quickly, making your necessary marks. Remember to look for the hallmarks of any good creative work: Does the main character have an arc? Is the plot tight, and does it make sense? Are actions consistent with character motivation? Is the dialogue sharp and realistic? Don’t worry about fixing those things right now, if they need fixing. This is the note-taking process. You’ll dive into the bloody part later.

If you had an outline starting out, then this is the time to go back and revise it, if necessary. Maybe your script turned into something else halfway through, or maybe you feel a certain subplot is better communicated via subtext instead of wisecracks. If you weren’t working from an outline, now may be the time to create one, if only to keep all your revisions on track.

Once this is done, take a break. You’ll need it—the hardest part is still ahead.

Those moviegoers who are aware of revisions probably have some gruesome imagery in mind, probably picturing the sort of final, blood-spattered chopping we occasionally hear screenwriters talking about. There’s a method to the madness that is revising a screenplay, though, and it’s something that every screenwriter must face at one time or another. Revisions can turn a muddled mess into a cohesive, enjoyable film (see the wild evolution between George Lucas’s original Star Wars script and what eventually made it to the big screen; several versions are floating around on the internet).

A completed rough draft usually isn’t a shiny gem. Odds are it’s full of dialogue that needs adjusting, extraneous scenes, verbiage, and possibly characters, and it may take right or left turns into strange territory. That’s to be expected, for the most part; it’s a work in progress, and a screenwriter is often trying to get all his ideas down in script format before jumping into revisions. Those screenwriters who aren’t working from point-by-point outlines may also learn halfway through a screenplay that their onetime chase story has abruptly become a romance set that just happens to have a chase scene in the beginning.

Once the script is done, though, the writer probably has a better idea of what kind of movie or program he wants, and should make some notes about how he wants to proceed. What kind of movie is it—comedy, drama, sci-fi, something in between? What kind of pacing should it have? What kind of tone? Are the characters snarking at each other while they wink at the camera (a la Zombieland), or is this anb extremely serious character study (such as Iris)? A mishmash of slow, meandering scenes jumbled together with frantic chase scenes accompanied by witty dialogue don’t really go well together; a finished script needs to flow and have a cohesive feel.

Stay tuned for more on the revision process.

Movies are roughly two hours of freedom from the outside world. We’re allowed to toss aside our worries and spend time with other people. These people may have familiar problems (issues with their love lives, job problems), or they may be dealing with far more severe matters (zombie apocalypse, saving the planet). Either way, they’re individuals we tend to like, and we want to see them solve their problems…usually within a set timeframe, with an exciting or at least heart-tugging ending, and we usually want to leave smiling.

This leads us to “movie endings,” or those times when everything magically comes together for a character. Against all odds, he’s dashed past airport security to stop his ladylove from getting on the plane, or he’s somehow managed to trigger the detonation sequence on the giant battle station while staging a daring escape. It’s the climax, and if the hero succeeds in his final fight, then everything will start to go right for him.

It’s great entertainment, but how often does that happen in real life?

Probably not much. We may have things go right for us—we may even have a string of incredible good fortune—but rarely does anything come together perfectly, turning out the way we envision it. Things are left undone, words are left unsaid, and yes, you may run to the airport, but her plane has likely already taken off.

You’d think people would get fed up with the string of movie endings, yet we continue to search for them—we all want our specific “Hollywood ending,” when everything goes right for us and we wind up on top. We’re consumed by the idea of big movie endings; pick up any contemporary love story and they’ll discuss their longing for just such a thing. The movie ending has engrained itself into our culture.

In short, the movie ending gives us some hope. A good ending leaves us with the feeling that everything will be all right, that if these characters can work out their problems, then certainly we can, too. It may not be as neat and tidy as the characters’ ending, but we can fumble our way through life, and that revelation is worth the price of admission.

A precious few individuals may be able to sit down at the computer and start banging out words, completing a project in little time and with seemingly little effort. These people are generally referred to as freaks of nature, and should not be looked to when searching for inspiration for your own screenwriting.

So where do the rest of us come up with ideas, and how do we translate them to a screenplay and, eventually, to the screen? Much as we wish it just magically happened, it usually doesn’t work that way.

Everyone’s process is slightly different; some screenwriters take copious notes and write out themes, character motivations, and possible storylines. Others start with an idea and expand it into a summary, then bull their way through the actual writing of the script.

The problem is generating ideas, particularly on a deadline. You call on your brain to start turning, and instead of producing a storyboard, it flashes a blank screen. Not good at all, right? Novelists might call it writer’s block, or a number of other four-letter words we won’t repeat here. So how do you topple it quickly?

If you’ve got the time, change up your usual writing routine. Go outside, pull off your headphones, put aside your book, and just look at the world around you. There’s ideas in spades here, from the married couple arguing to the old man that sits in the same chair in the coffee house day in and day out. Think about his background. Why does he come there every day? Why that chair? Does it have sentimental meaning for him? Is he keeping a promise?

Maybe it’s just habit, but people don’t go to the movies to see habits (unless they’re bad habits, perhaps played out to disastrous conclusions). Let’s go back to the old man. What if he’s waiting to deliver something to someone? Is it a woman who never showed up? A grandchild he’s never met? A spy? Will he be here until the end of time?

What you’re looking for is the germ of an idea, something you can explore. Write down some notes to yourself. Look for characters, scenarios, and themes. Where you go from there depends on your own screenwriting habits, and what sort of movie you have in mind.

Set dressing, according to the hallowed Wikipedia, “includes the furnishings, wallpaper, lighting fixtures, and many of the other objects that will be seen in the film.” In other words, it’s the place where the characters hang out, and it’s often just as important as they are. Just like clothing can disclose bits and pieces of information about characters and their backgrounds, set dressing can reveal the history of a location, who lives (or lived) there, and what might be lurking in its dark corners.

Since just about everyone has seen at least one haunted house movie, we’ll use a haunted house as an example. Set dressing for this sort of location might include broken windows, boarded-up doors, and cobwebs everywhere—mustn’t forget the cobwebs. A grandfather clock leans haphazardly in the corner. Framed black and white pictures of a long-dead family line the mantel. A thin layer of dust covers each piece of furniture, except for the pristine chair pulled up to the lone window that isn’t broken or shuttered. That chair will become the focal point of the movie, and the audience’s eye is drawn to it immediately because it sticks out amongst all the gray, derelict items surrounding it.

Every piece of the aforementioned scenario is set dressing, and is selected based on how it will contribute to the set’s overall feeling. Sci-fi movies of the second half of the 20th century often filled their sets with computer-type devices (computers being highly futuristic and exciting at that point). We’ve now grown used to computers, as well as smartphones, flatscreen TVs, and internet chat; sci-fi movies have compensated by dressing their sets with ever-more exciting technology, like computers implanted in your head, or minimizing computer presence entirely by creating sets of blank walls and no discernable machinery.

Set dressing can present information about the location it takes place in, as well as the characters that inhabit the film. Warm, wood-paneled smoking rooms suggest an opulent bygone era; cereal boxes and fast food packaging lying around a kitchen counter suggest a college student (and not a very tidy one, at that). A food dish in the corner suggests there’s a pet of some sort underfoot, while a food dish with an empty collar and identification tags draped over it indicates that pet is no longer present, which in turn can tell us an awful lot about the character who kept the food dish and the collar.

What will be on your set?

Think about the following outfit: a tank top, shorts, and sneakers. It’s instantly recognizable as casual getup for a good portion of the population, whether it’s on a male or a female. The character is probably in a hot environment, maybe during the summer. He’s either in a casual area, or he just doesn’t care if what he wears clashes with the attire of others. Maybe he’s wearing a hat if he’s outside. The character in the tank top is your basic casual dude, ready to chow down on some pizza or sit down for a video gaming session.

Costumes are among the best indicator of place, time, and character type that a budget filmmaker can utilize. An audience can look at a character’s getup and think, “Businessman” or “Prisoner.” A teenager in a rock band might sport a band t-shirt, chains, and pink hair. The biker stumbles around in a leather jacket and boots, his arms covered in tattoos of spiders and women. The cowboy unfailingly wears chaps and a ten-gallon hat; if he’s carrying a six-shooter, you’re likely watching a Western. The mechanic has her name sewn into a tag on her button-down shirt. Done well, costuming spares the filmmaker the need to drop precious screentime on explanations about a character’s background—we can tell Loretta is a mechanic, just like Gary is clearly a cop.

Costume accoutrements add to your plot in much the same way as dialect and inflection. Splash a little fake blood on a shirt and your character is suddenly a killer, or the victim of an assault. If he’s been on the run, his sneakers might be filthy, the soles separating from the rest of the shoe. Maybe he’s got an old jacket thrown over the shirt. Sparkling, over-the-top jewelry can indicate social status, and a witticism or curse across the front of a t-shirt or hat can display a character’s philosophy. The police officer who continues to wear his uniform long after social order has broken down might indicate a man clinging to his principles—or a villain on a serious power trip.

Next time you sit down to write a script, consider what your characters’ clothing says about them. Mark would be proud.

Pretty elementary, right? Oh, sure, you have the occasional viewer who just wants to see what your digitized Tyrannosaurus Rex looks like up close, but for the most part, people go to the movies because movies tell a story, and stories are about characters. It doesn’t matter if your film is billed as high art or a special effects extravaganza; if the audience doesn’t like the characters and can’t find some way to bond with them, they aren’t going to like your flick.

All stories—whether told through writing or on a big screen—are about people facing problems. These problems may be as simple as winning a kids’ soccer game, or as important as saving the world from an alien invasion. The bottom line is that everyone has issues, but you want your audience to forget about theirs and care about the ones your characters face. That sounds like a pretty tall order, considering the state of the economy and the troubles many people are facing, but remember: your audience is watching your movie because they want to forget. You’re already preaching to the choir—just make it a good sermon.

The men, women, children, animals, aliens, and the occasional insects are what drive a story. The recent surge in exciting and exotic special effects—often accompanied by quick camerawork and creative editing—sometimes come at the cost of a movie’s characters. Development is cast aside in favor of a big explosion, and any background or history is often kept to a bare minimum.

Big studios can get away with this at times, as they still have millions to spend on advertising and creating slick-looking trailers. The budget filmmaker, often working without a giant marketing scheme and with limited resources, often chooses to focus on his “people,” rather than clutter up the screen with more razzle-dazzle.

That’s not to say your characters need to be bastions of love and adoration. Movie protagonists run the gamut, and may feature corrupt cops, drug dealers, vampires, and even the mean kids that you hated in high school. Some of them are more ambiguous than good, and others are outright antiheroes. But they’re the people your audience has come to see, whether they’re based on real individuals or figments of your imagination. Yeah, it’s always nice to be transported to a far-off planet via a high-quality, effects-laden flick, but why stick around if all we have to look at is the vegetation?

Fortunately, we live in an era of rapidly evolving technology, which provides the filmmaker on a budget with tools he might not have been able to access even ten years ago. Filming, editing, and marketing are all made more feasible, thanks to these leaps.

One thing hasn’t changed—the success of any budget depends on doing more with less. In the case of filming, this may mean hiring fewer people; those that you do hire wind up wearing many hats. The screenwriter may also act as director or producer, and actors and crew may be little known or brand new to the business, and thus not able to command a high salary. On some productions, actors double as set designers and prop masters, or vice versa. Everyone participates.

New technologies are making it easier for smaller studios to stretch their dollars. A plethora of software released in the last few years provides the filmmaker on a budget with the ability to create some solid special effects, often at a fraction of the cost they went for in the past. A quality digital camera is an investment that will last for years, provided it’s treated properly, and the newer models can shoot in all types of conditions, often producing genuinely decent sound with the built-in microphone (though you can’t beat an external mike). Once the digital film is transferred to a computer, there are several editing programs available, ranging from the bare-bones freebies to the more expensive—and expansive—suites of software.

Advertising has traditionally taken a big chunk out of a film’s budget—all those posters, billboards, and TV spots cost a lot of money. Social media is the budget filmmaker’s best friend; building a following through Facebook and Twitter, for example, is free and can generate a good amount of free press. A functional website and YouTube channel with frequently updated blogs and videos will stir up even more interest. These tools allow the budget filmmaker to reach the public on a more personal level; instead of a big studio shoving flashy clips down their throats, it’s one or more individuals communicating directly with their intended audience. The audience, in turn, may pass on links if they like what they see, thus developing a following without costing the filmmaker a dime.

Shooting on location in Pioneertown, California, the pilot completed filming in December. Each episode will cover several unique firearms; giving a brief history of each weapon, a test firing, overview, and historical re-enactments of the moment in time when each weapon was used to leave its mark. The series will be directed and hosted by veteran stuntman and video personality Tino Luciano.

Set to air early this year, the producers say the series shows great promise. “For those that want to see some real American history as well as some of the most unique firearms you’ll see anywhere, they should really tune in.” Dan Flud, Executive Producer.

Total Running Time: 30 Minutes Episodes / Season: 24

Host: Tino Luciano – A former member of the law enforcement community, stuntman and training video personality, Mr. Luciano is an expert in firearms. Also a stuntman on the History Channel’s successful series, Wild West Tech, he brings a rough and tumble attitude as well as a vast array of “old west” knowledge to the series.