Look for those moments that are cinematic in your story and don't focus on making your characters relatable, but make them real; and finally, write personal stories that you care about. Those three thoughts shared by Academy Award winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (MILK, J. EDGAR) stuck with me after watching this excellent seven minute video once again by the  Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences' in their new "Academy Originals" initiative. We last showed you Mike White's creative process which was funny and somewhat instructional. Here Dustin Black is engaging, poignant, and revealing with his creative process.

"A film is an impression of what happened," not what happened. I remember Sam Peckinpah telling an interviewer once that he's not so much concerned about what really happened between the Persians and the Greeks, but what Homer's impression of it was. This is wise advice for a writer doing any type of historical fiction -- which is what Black has excelled at. I'm not sure you could write every script as structured and formatted as he systematically does, but his process is fascinating. And there is indeed no one right way to write as we know.

So enjoy this video it's worth your time dear screenwriter!

Photo credit: www.huffingtonpost.com