Writing for the Cut: Shaping Your Script for Cinema

Editing is what makes a movie a movie. Consulting with master film editors including Walter Murch, Juliette Welfling, Eddie Hamilton, and Anne V. Coates (whose insights and wisdom anchor the book), author Greg Loftin engagingly, smartly details the storytelling nuances and tricks screenwriters can learn from their film-editor peers. Cutting-room veterans have long maintained that visual juxtaposition fuels film storytelling. Over-lapped images spark fresh ideas in the minds of viewers, encouraging them to become active partners in your storytelling and discover your story for themselves. In later chapters, Writing for the Cut shows how we can bring our stories closer to the screen by writing not only with text, but with images and sounds. The screenwriter is taken deep into the edit suite to learn the secrets of the sizzle reel.

Greg Loftin is a screenwriter. He wrote and directed his first feature film in 2007, the award-winning urban western Saxon. He is also course leader of the very first undergraduate program in film editing and postproduction in the UK. His world-class program of master classes has attracted visiting mas-ter editors such as Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather), Paul Machliss (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver), Tom Rolf (Taxi Driver, Heat), Mick Audsley (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Murder on the Orient Express), and Lisa Gunning (Nowhere Boy, Seven Psychopaths). Writing for the Cut is the result of a practice-based PhD that the University of Exeter awarded Loftin in 2016.