Final Draft Blog

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Take 5: How ‘Wednesday’ creates a world around the Addams Family daughter

January 17, 2023

For the past 85 years, The Addams Family has been a part of the American life. Originally a single panel cartoon created by Charles Addams, this creepy and kooky family was turned into a TV series in 1964 which ran for 64 episodes followed by a movie...

5 Tips For Handling Exposition in Your Screenplay

January 10, 2023

One of the trickiest and biggest challenges for a screenwriter is how to best handle exposition. What is exposition exactly? It’s the insertion of expository information into a narrative; this information can be about the characters’ past or current ...

How the showrunner of Lopez vs Lopez turned real life into a sitcom

January 5, 2023

Creating a sitcom based on real-life situations is nothing new. Ray Ramono created Everybody Loves Raymond based on his standup which reflected his real family. Even back in the 1950s I Love Lucy had echoes of Lucy and Desi’s life.

5 Tips To Staying in Screenwriting Shape

December 22, 2022

It’s not always easy to stay inspired and maintain a creative mindset on a regular basis. Many times screenwriters feel burnt out or spent after an extended period of writing. They’ll stare at an empty page and not feel the same excitement they initi...

The Bricks of Breaking In: Julie Sagalowsky Diaz On Finding Your Voice

December 9, 2022

Julie Sagalowsky Diaz (Surfside Girls, The Shannara Chronicles) always found herself interested in performing as she did a lot of choir and musical theater in her youth. She recalls, “That was kind of my avenue into television, film and the arts at l...

What ‘The Santa Clause’ franchise can teach us about story

November 21, 2022

Over the course of the last 28 years, Tim Allen has donned the red suit and appeared on the big and small screen as Santa Claus in the Disney IP The Santa Clause. Built on the premise that a corporate toy executive is legally bound to become Santa, t...

Rising Through the Ranks: Laura Mannino is pitch perfect

November 16, 2022

ATX TV Festival’s season 11 pitch competition runner-up Laura Mannino is still riding high after her experience pitching her comedy Bodice Rippers to a panel of studio and network execs during the live competition.

The Bricks of Breaking In: Writer Ray Utarnachitt On Finding Your Own Path

November 15, 2022

A passion for writing can spark itself in so many different ways. For Ray Utarnachitt (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow), it was making kung fu movies with his brother and cousins in junior high that lit his passion for writing. Inspired by his first family-...

Staffing the writer's room with 'Let the Right One In' showrunner and EP Andrew Hinderaker

November 11, 2022

How far would you go to protect your child? Would you lie? Cheat? Steal? How about kill? These are the questions behind Amazon Prime’s latest horror drama, Let the Right One In. LTROI follows the story of Mark Kane (Demián Bichir) and his forever you...