Thanks for taking the time to make this, it helped a lot! Knowing what to add in order to portray the overall feel of your screenplay is a tough one. Cheers dude. Good luck everyone.
Great video, and thanks for the tips Nate! My one-pagers are similar in structure but typically involve more (redundant) info, which means they end up being 2-3 pages "one-pagers," so this was a great way to focus them.
I wouldn't really query with one. In a professional sense, one-pagers tend to be used once you've already got some sort of connection with someone. It might be the kind of thing you send to a director you've recently met or to an executive after a general meeting, for instance. It's nice to be able to say, "I've got a one-pager for that if you'd like to take a look," because it's a super low commitment for the other person as opposed to actually reading a script, which means they're more likely to actually read it. For someone who hasn't yet developed those professional connections, the immediate utility of a one-pager -- in addition to having it ready if the need arises -- is that it can be a really helpful tool in terms of actually crafting your story.
Huh. Never heard of a one-pager before. Kind of in-between a logline and synopsis. Great one-pager for Die Hard, although that kind of movie lends itself to the trailer on the page treatment. How would you approach doing one for something not so high concept like Aether?
In all honesty, I'd approach it in a very similar way. One of the ones I did last fall was for something that was in a similar space. And once again, I found it really useful for bridging the gap between writing a logline and writing the treatment. At the end of the day, although there are many different ways to approach writing a movie, they're all going to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
As always, very helpful. One question: nothing on Act 3? I've written a few with Act 3 in two sentences and it seems more useful, but the formatting is limited because the space is limited. Any thoughts on the rationale to include or exclude Act 3?
Oh, there are lots of ways to do this and including a couple lines about Act 3 is certainly a valid approach. To me, a one-pager is about hooking someone into reading the entire script, so if I can show them what's awesome about it without giving away what happens at the end, my gut says that improves my chances of hooking them. But that definitely doesn't mean it's the only way to do it.
@@NGDwrites Thanks a lot for taking the time on this. That's interesting because in the video you had suggest that the one pager was about realizing three (or possibly four) benefits: 1. It causes the story to come together in a way that it hadn't before. 2. It allow you to see the movie 3. Sent it to a producer who loved it and said he was in At least two of those three things appear to suggest that it should include Act 3--the story coming together seems like it would require having a view on Act 3, and seeing the movie also seems to suggest that you want to see the ending, not just Acts 1&2. A fourth benefit is described to be: 4. that it provides a natural step between the logline and the outline which, again, would seem to be a better step if it included Act 3. I can't imagine this step without Act 3. Even the 3rd benefit of engaging a producer would seem to be improved with some part of Act 3 represented--here I'm assuming that Act 3 reveals something that a reader didn't anticipate or hadn't expected or that it gets to something compelling and fresh that a reader would want to know about. I can't imagine that a reader would ever say, "you had me right up until Act 3 and then I kind of lost interest." In fact I imagine that the reader would be of the opposite mind: Great Act 2, but OMG! that ending totally killed! For me the trade of with Act 3 is running out of real estate. I think I'd need legal paper to get all three Acts on a single page, particularly with the formatting you shared (which I like a lot). Alternately, I'm just going to have to become a better writer. Thanks again! p.s. loving the first page challenge.
Thanks for taking the time to make this, it helped a lot! Knowing what to add in order to portray the overall feel of your screenplay is a tough one. Cheers dude. Good luck everyone.
Really glad to hear you found it helpful!
Great video, and thanks for the tips Nate! My one-pagers are similar in structure but typically involve more (redundant) info, which means they end up being 2-3 pages "one-pagers," so this was a great way to focus them.
Glad you found it useful, man. Hope you're doing well!
Very informative. I'm a big fan of outlining and this is a great step between a logline and the first treatment!
So glad you found it useful!
Thank you Nathan. This was very helpful.
Happy to hear it!
This was incredibly useful. But can this work with a query? Or do producers want it after a query (they request the one pager).
I wouldn't really query with one. In a professional sense, one-pagers tend to be used once you've already got some sort of connection with someone. It might be the kind of thing you send to a director you've recently met or to an executive after a general meeting, for instance. It's nice to be able to say, "I've got a one-pager for that if you'd like to take a look," because it's a super low commitment for the other person as opposed to actually reading a script, which means they're more likely to actually read it.
For someone who hasn't yet developed those professional connections, the immediate utility of a one-pager -- in addition to having it ready if the need arises -- is that it can be a really helpful tool in terms of actually crafting your story.
Huh. Never heard of a one-pager before. Kind of in-between a logline and synopsis. Great one-pager for Die Hard, although that kind of movie lends itself to the trailer on the page treatment. How would you approach doing one for something not so high concept like Aether?
In all honesty, I'd approach it in a very similar way. One of the ones I did last fall was for something that was in a similar space. And once again, I found it really useful for bridging the gap between writing a logline and writing the treatment. At the end of the day, although there are many different ways to approach writing a movie, they're all going to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
As always, very helpful. One question: nothing on Act 3? I've written a few with Act 3 in two sentences and it seems more useful, but the formatting is limited because the space is limited. Any thoughts on the rationale to include or exclude Act 3?
Oh, there are lots of ways to do this and including a couple lines about Act 3 is certainly a valid approach. To me, a one-pager is about hooking someone into reading the entire script, so if I can show them what's awesome about it without giving away what happens at the end, my gut says that improves my chances of hooking them. But that definitely doesn't mean it's the only way to do it.
@@NGDwrites
Thanks a lot for taking the time on this.
That's interesting because in the video you had suggest that the one pager was about realizing three (or possibly four) benefits:
1. It causes the story to come together in a way that it hadn't before.
2. It allow you to see the movie
3. Sent it to a producer who loved it and said he was in
At least two of those three things appear to suggest that it should include Act 3--the story coming together seems like it would require having a view on Act 3, and seeing the movie also seems to suggest that you want to see the ending, not just Acts 1&2.
A fourth benefit is described to be:
4. that it provides a natural step between the logline and the outline which, again, would seem to be a better step if it included Act 3. I can't imagine this step without Act 3.
Even the 3rd benefit of engaging a producer would seem to be improved with some part of Act 3 represented--here I'm assuming that Act 3 reveals something that a reader didn't anticipate or hadn't expected or that it gets to something compelling and fresh that a reader would want to know about. I can't imagine that a reader would ever say, "you had me right up until Act 3 and then I kind of lost interest." In fact I imagine that the reader would be of the opposite mind: Great Act 2, but OMG! that ending totally killed!
For me the trade of with Act 3 is running out of real estate. I think I'd need legal paper to get all three Acts on a single page, particularly with the formatting you shared (which I like a lot). Alternately, I'm just going to have to become a better writer.
Thanks again! p.s. loving the first page challenge.
I enjoyed this. I can’t find the download link. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it! The link is right in the description below the video.
Great video.
Thanks, dude!
Not bad. Not bad.