The form asks your position, how many students you plan on having in your class, and how you plan on using the book in a classroom setting.

‘26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers‘ is an ideal workbook for a film or drama class. If you are an instructor who wants to incorporate the book into your classroom, please apply for a donation. We will even feature the resulting films on the 26 Screenplays when your class concludes.

Part of the art of filmmaking is film funding. You may have the greatest idea for a movie ever, but no one will pay you to make it unless you can convince them you are worth the investment. What makes it more difficult is that the creative mind and the business mind seem to speak in completely different languages.

The secret is the elevator pitch. The elevator pitch is the idea that you are stuck on an elevator with a potential source of funds. You have a brief period of time to convince that person that he or she should fund your project. And this is where being a filmmaker works for you more than being a business person. Filmmakers know how drama works. Filmmakers know how to hook an audience and take them for a wild ride. Filmmakers know how to keep people interested.

So practice your elevator pitch. You never know when it might come in handy.

No. They are not.

Story is plot, and storytelling is script, and no, plot and script aren’t the same thing, either.

Story is what is being told, but storytelling is the way that it is told. An example I use for this is the film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. For those of you who haven’t seen this film – the story is about a man who is paralyzed by a stroke. He can only communicate through the blinking of his eye, and by blinking his eye, he writes his autobiography.

That is the story. The storytelling comes from the fact that first quarter of the movie is told from the man’s point of view. The screen is hazy and fixed; when the man blinks or closes his eyes, the screen goes dark. Many of the opening scenes involve doctors and nurses peering out of the camera at the audience. This unusual and innovative way of presenting the information gets the audience emotionally involved with the inner life of the main character. He is disoriented and confused, just like the audience.

The choice to tell the story this way shows the strength of the storytelling.

As a filmmaker is it important not only to think about the story, but also the storytelling. How are you going to engage your audience and get them hooked into your story? Great filmmakers have a distinctive style and way of telling a story. Even if the filmmaker is doing a remake of another film, the storytelling style is so distinctive that the film will be interesting.

If you are in the North Texas area and are interested in screenwriting and film production, feel free to attend a monthly meeting and/or a monthly scene reading workshop where actors read pages of script. Many of the scripts in the book 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers went through the DSA’s scene reading process.

There is also a Dallas Screenwriters Association Facebook group that I manage, so you can join and say hi.

Don’t forget that there is also a 26 Screenplays Facebook group as well. If for whatever reason the blog is not active, these other areas probably are. Thanks!

Creative Commons offers a Catalyst grant, and we have applied for it. To see our application page, go here. You will see what 26 Screenplays has planned for the upcoming year as well as how this project aligns with the larger goal of Creative Commons.

If you believe in the Creative Commons initiative and would like to contribute towards future grants, I strongly encourage you to make a donation. The easiest way to donate is to go here and contribute until your heart is content.

We will certainly keep everyone posted, and if we get the grant, you will see a lot more activity here and on the website.

Read the review here, or just scroll down.

Completely unbiased 5-star review from the author.

Many authors review their own books, but they do it in a sneaky way so you can’t really tell the author is writing the review. Not in this case. I am openly acknowledging that I wrote this book and that this book merits five starts because, to put it bluntly, this book changed my life. It could potentially change yours as well.
This book contains 26 short film project scripts released under the Creative Commons Attribution license. All you have to do is put the appropriate credits on your film, and your obligation to the copyright holders is complete. If you make money off your film, you pay no licensing fee. If you expand one of these scripts into a feature film, more power to you. If somehow you are able to take one of these script ideas and manage to turn it into a reality television show, then, by golly, you deserve everything you get.
The 26 short film project scripts are classified as follows:
-Monologue 1
-Monologue 2
-Dialogue 1
-Dialogue 2
-The Public Service Announcement (PSA)
-Pseudo-Documentary Style 1
-Pseudo-Documentary Style 2
-Showcasing Two Actors
-The Meet Cute Scene
-The Silent Film
-The Dining Scene
-The Car Chase
-The Bank Robbery
-The Montage
-The Party Scene
-The Long Single Take
-The Meta Film
-Showcase an Actor
-Showcase an Actress
-Science Fiction Short
-Animated Short
-The Dramatic Short
-The Therapy Short
-The Horror Short
-The Satirical Short
-The High-Concept Short
Each of these projects have cast lists and setting lists. They also have ideas for customizing the script or tweaking it to match your resources. Some scripts even have storyboards to help you visualize the movie.
This is a great book for someone who wants to try experimenting with film making or for a professional who wants to expand his or her portfolio. It is well worth it.

A MacGuffin is a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock, meaning the object of the film that everyone is pursuing. Sometimes the object can be a big pile of money and sometimes the object can be an abstract concept. For example, in North by Northwest, the villain makes his trade in “secrets.”

These fake trailers use the same format and information that is in the book, giving everyone a free sample.

This MacGuffin fake trailer (and all the fake trailers, for that matter) are also available on Docstock and Scribd.

With that in mind, you can now download the table of contents and the introductory material here.

If you have been downloading the fake trailer scripts (here and here) you will notice that some of the material looks familiar. That is the point, to get yourself familiar with the book and its contents. Hope you enjoy the free downloads.