Final Draft Blog

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Meera Menon on Breaking Zombie Genre Rules in ‘Didn't Die’

February 12, 2025

As screenwriters, we probably all have some variation of this dream—to make a film, and get accepted into a prestigious festival like Sundance or SXSW, and stand on the stage afterward to face an applauding crowd. It’s a great dream. But how do you c...

Filmmaker Cooper Raiff Talks "Bumping" in Screenwriting

February 3, 2025

If there’s one writer/director whose work I’ve been consistently excited by and whose name at festivals promises a project both heartbreakingly raw and funny, it’s Cooper Raiff. He was a SXSW breakout in 2020 with college comedy Shithouse, which snag...

How Sundance’s ‘Rabbit Trap’ Screenplay Took Shape

January 31, 2025

For his feature debut and Sundance premiere Rabbit Trap, writer/director Bryn Chainey took what might seem like an unconventional path to develop the period horror story. After drafting two unproduced features with the goal of trying to fit industry ...

Read The 2024 Oscar-Nominated Scripts

January 26, 2024

Every great screenwriter knows the importance of taking the time to read screenplays. It takes a lot of focus and numerous rewrites to create a well-constructed screenplay that can be considered a work of literature. The ink on the page is the thing ...

From Detroit to Park City – A Filmmaker Heads to Sundance for the Second Time

February 6, 2023

When Qasim Basir reflects upon the time a few years when he watched some of his old movies, his faces brightens up. He recalls the innocence of being in his twenties and roaming around Detroit shooting movies.

Character Breakdown: ‘Living’ Explores How a Terminal Man Finds the Meaning of His Life

February 3, 2023

What would it take for you to change your life? It’s often the basis for a plot for film and TV shows: a protagonist receives grim news about their health and becomes determined to alter how they live their life. Impending death = motivation. Living,...

Davinci International Film Festival hosts first live event in two years

September 20, 2022

After an inconsistent two years, fall film festivals are back in full swing, including the DaVinci International Film Festival (DIFF). Established in 2017, founder and CEO Chadwick Pelletier says it’s the birth child of nearly three decades of entert...

Women's Weekend Film Challenge co-founders on creating opportunity

June 15, 2022

Does making an original film from start to finish over a weekend sound exciting to you? If so then you might want to check out the Women’s Weekend Film Challenge.

How ‘88’ writer-director updates the political conspiracy thriller

June 15, 2022

One of the great things about being a writer is the ability to fall in love with a concept for a story, and then create it. For writer/director Eromose, it was his fascination with political conspiracy thrillers and curiosity about how Super PACs (po...