Let's talk favorite movies and why. I want to make a list for coaching purposes.
I just got off a call that was supposed to be coaching me on how to make great YouTube content, but the call was way too vague and sales-y for my taste. And reminded me of what I DON'T want to be doing here.
This call was basically "Make great content" and you eventually, somehow the algorithm will reward you!
But no examples of great content were provided and I found the whole thing fairly useless. Then when the presenter told us we'd need 10 MILLION watch hours on YouTube shorts to be able to monetize, it was apparent they had no real idea what they were talking about.
The whole thing made me feel this: If you're going to preach how to do something, SHOW ME SPECIFICALLY how you did it yourself. And SHOW ME SPECIFIC examples of how other people did it.
Period.
I have plenty of movies I wrote that I'm happy to give examples from in future sessions. How characters were set up, why the audience tied into them emotionally, and the thought process I and my partner used to do that.
I want to have kind of a MUST KNOW library of movies to teach from here. I refer to Signs and Toy Story 2 often, because they are masterfully crafted, but I want us to have a community list of movies we are pretty much all familiar with ... and then I will search out the ones I can find scripts for, so we can see SPECIFICALLY what the writers did in creating the characters and scenes we love.
This will be part of the classroom/community/coaching philosophy going forward. If you want to be involved and grow as a writer, you'll abolutely need to show up and do the work required - including knowing specific movies and reading the scripts! If you want to be a writer, this should be FUN homework and will really allow us to grow as a community going forward since we'll have a common film language.
With that in mind, what are 5 movies you absolutely love and why. I'll create a master list of films and scripts and coaching sessions built around these! So, let's hear it!
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David Stem
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Let's talk favorite movies and why. I want to make a list for coaching purposes.
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