BlueCat Writers Blog

There are tons of books, videos, blogs, and podcasts that will tell you what the screenwriting rules are. We have quite a number on this very website. Here are five popular suggestions that might be more helpful if you ignore them! Hook the Reader in the First 10...

Studio vs Independent Financing - Knowing What's Best for Your Project Onto the Next Hurdle Your screenplay has been written, re-written, and polished up more times than you can count. You have a hot commodity on your hands that shows great promise as a feature film....

Successful screenwriters can live anywhere. There's not even a debate over this. I understand people have many opinions on why you should live in Los Angeles, and how it can help you reach your professional goals as a screenwriter if you do live in Hollywood. After...

Reaching New Heights On Tuesday, June 19th, BlueCat held its inaugural Short Film Festival at the Landmark Theatre in Los Angeles, California. A total of 10 short films were selected to screen from a competitive pool of 594 submissions. "We've been a screenplay...

BlueCat would like to congratulate alumni Beanie Barnes on her script being selected for the 2018 New York Television Festival (NYTVF) Scripts Competition! The pilot, White-Shoe U, previously won Beanie the 2017 BlueCat Pilot Award.    Beanie's NYTVF Selection...

Writing goals never include the day you can quit writing. The idea that any one person knows when another writer should quit is completely incorrect and reckless. I believed after I began teaching and I read the work of my students that some students might not be able...

The aspiring screenwriter understands how we should behave when we meet people in a business environment. Treating producers, managers, lawyers, cast, and crew with respect and grace goes a long way to advancing your career. But what is the successful character of...

There is a significant debate over whether to write for television or write movies instead. We are in a new golden age of television -- peak TV. And we can all agree movies are not in a classic period of cinema.  Many writers have gravitated to writing for television,...

Have you ever received feedback on your script that included the suggestion to "raise the stakes"? It's a common note----raising the stakes. Do you know what it means? At first glance, we would think the reader is telling us to make what's at stake for your characters...

Writer's block is not a mysterious condition that a wizard creates for writers. It's not a magic spell with no way out. Getting stuck as a writer, be it in the first draft or 10th, can be very difficult to face for writers, but the solutions to your problems are not...

How often do we hear, “There’s nothing new under the sun” or “Hollywood is just plain out of new ideas”? And yet, how often do we find ourselves, as movie-goers (more specifically, writers that happen to be movie-goers), pleasantly surprised when the movie we’ve just...

Nothing makes an action-adventure film pop quite like a well-timed joke. Whether it’s John McClane quipping while crawling through air vents or a killer robot from the future learning how to smile, a properly placed joke helps add dimensions to an action story and...

Short filmmakers run into a number of challenges when they start off to make a short film. Some are hesitant to get started because they've never made a short film before, even if they've written a feature script or a television pilot. How is making a short film...

Query letter. The very sound of those two words sends many a writer spiraling into an ocean of sad panic. Like no matter what you write it's not going to sound right and why try anyway? Do query letters work? There are a lot of people that will tell you that...

Receiving feedback on your script is often frightening. Waiting to hear what someone thinks can be awful in and of itself. Why did you even give it to this person? What a stupid idea. Why are they taking so long? It must be awful. Why did I want to receive feedback on...

Screenwriting Reddit AMA with Gordy Hoffman Gordy Hoffman, Founder and Judge of the BlueCat Screenplay Competition, dropped by the Screenwriting subreddit for an AMA on all things screenwriting. Below are some of the highlights from the discussion. The full Reddit AMA...

In this episode of The Dave Bullis Podcast, Gordy Hoffman, Founder and Judge of BlueCat, elaborates on what it is like to be an educator in the screenwriting world. Gordy, who has taught screenwriting classes at USC & UCLA, in addition to offering his own courses,...

The stories we love begin with characters we love. Audiences seek stories that provide meaning to the emotional struggles of life. This identification begins with people living life, with all its challenges. Why do people pay money to sit in a dark room to watch...

Paul Thomas Anderson, one of America’s greatest living filmmakers, recently made rounds on social media to promote his new film Phantom Thread, starring Daniel Day-Lewis in his final screen performance, Lesley Manville, and Vicky Krieps. He participated in an AMA on...

Making Movies is Hard-Screenplay Competitions and Written Analysis In this episode of Making Movies is Hard, Gordy Hoffman, Founder and Judge of BlueCat, discusses how a screenplay competition works and how it can launch careers. Gordy says BlueCat has grown into its...