Hollywood Advice

Sand Castle

The New Site is Here

It’s been a lot of work but we're finally putting the finishing touches on the new website. There are a few things that need smoothing out, and I'm still working on some of the pages, so please bear with me as we get this finished. Feel free to let me know if you see anything that should be fixed. There are a number of reasons I’m excited about the site, the first being that I finally have my own domain name, rachellegardner.com. Easy to remember! And the other most exciting thing is that we will finally—FINALLY!—have threaded comments, meaning you'll be able to respond directly to someone else’s comment, and they can respond directly to yours. I’ve wanted this for so long—I think it’s going to make the blog so much more fun!
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What Have YOU Learned from Hollywood?

We’ve spent this week going over a few Hollywood truisms that can help writers. So now it’s your turn. As a writer, what have you learned from watching movies and television? Share your best tips… and have a great weekend! © 2011 Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent
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The Talent Here is Ridiculous

Advice from Hollywood, part 4 Since it’s Hollywood Week, it’s only fitting that we have a lesson from American Idol’s Hollywood auditions. Just last night, Idol’s field was down to 61 performers and by the end of the show it was going to be cut to 24. The contestants’ biggest worry wasn’t their own performance…
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Action is Character

Advice from Hollywood, part 3 In real life, it’s not what a person says that shows us who they are. It’s what they do. The content of a person’s character is revealed in action and behavior. Who a person says they are, or thinks they are, doesn’t necessarily reflect their true character. In screenwriting, the…
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It Doesn’t Have to Be Great Art for People to Like It

Advice from Hollywood, part 2 Here’s another little tidbit from my former Hollywood life. I used to be a part-time “reader” meaning I read screenplays and wrote “coverage” for the production company to help them make decisions about which scripts to pursue. You have to audition to become a reader for a production company, and I was looking…
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Nobody Knows Anything

Advice from Hollywood, part 1 Back in the early ‘90s I was an L.A. girl working in television and writing screenplays on the side. Every single Saturday morning our screenwriting group would meet at my home (50 feet off the beach—it was a rough life) and critique our weekly ten pages in excruciating detail. We took…
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