Final Draft Blog

All the tips, tricks and information you need to inspire your writing!
Read interviews with the pros, catch up with industry news, and listen to Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast by Final Draft.

The Fast Five: Netflix and NBC Make Strategic Gambles, While ‘Lizzie McGuire’ Halts Production at Disney+

March 2, 2020

It's an interesting Fast Five this week. One streamer goes out of its way to launch a word-of-mouth hit just as another cancels one of its most anticipated shows. In other news, audiences will be able to deduce a character’s motives by the phone they...

5 Ways to Use Theme to Transcend Your Knottiest Story Problems

February 28, 2020

Author and screenwriter Steven Pressfield in his short book, “What Is Your Story About? The Centrality of Theme in the Creative Process”, relates a tale of an agent reading five hundred screenplays over the course of a year and not finding a single w...

The State Of Television Part 3: The Rise Of Streamers And The Opening For Niche Programming

February 27, 2020

House of Cards gets all the credit for building the streaming world we all live in by being the first original show on a streaming network. Too bad that's a filthy lie. Not only was House of Cards not the first, it wasn’t even the first on Netflix. A...

Five Takeaways From Hulu's 'High Fidelity'

February 26, 2020

Your weekly break-down of a popular movie or television episode to see what a screenwriter—or any writer, for that matter—can take away from what’s on screen: what worked, what didn’t, and how you can use what’s popular to craft better stories.

Write On with Screenwriting Career Coach Lee Jessup

February 25, 2020

Screenwriting career coach and guru Lee Jessup gives us a crash course on the spec market in the feature and television space, how to achieve authenticity as a writer, and much more. Lee Jessup is also a veteran sponsor of The Big Break Screenwriting...

The Weekend Movie Takeaway: ‘Sonic’ Held Top Spot At The Box Office Despite ‘The Call of the Wild’

February 24, 2020

Two CGI animals tussled for the number one position on the box office charts over the weekend, with the blue one eventually coming out on top.

The Fast Five: The Paley Center Shutters Its Doors While Paramount’s ‘Sonic’ Gamble Pays Off

February 24, 2020

This week, we pour one out for all the introverts who love to sit in cubicles and watch old TV shows that were almost lost to time as The Paley Center has shut down its Beverly Hills museum. On the other hand, we have Pablo Escobar’s pet hippos to lo...

First Award This! Ceremony Shines Light on Independent Filmmakers

February 21, 2020

For independent filmmakers like 37-year-old Jared Cohn, making movies is life. Cohn doesn’t do it for praise and recognition; he creates films to tell stories, motivate change and to inspire others.

The State Of Television Part 2: Everybody Wants To Be A Madman

February 20, 2020

When John Landgraf originally said there was too much television, Netflix was only two years into offering original programming. His main focus was the rise in basic cable originals. Every network wanted the prestige that came with a successful premi...