THE DIALOGUE SERIES is a series of DVD interviews of famous screenwriters, focusing on their craft, instead of the usual war stories, hosted by New Line Cinema's former president, Mike de Luca. I checked out his interview with Sheldon Turner, recently nominated for the Oscar for UP IN THE AIR. Among the tidbits:

Sheldon Turner writes out every scene in prose before writing it in script format; that gives him a better feel for what's happening the scene.

He wrote a dozen screenplays before he sent any of them out.

He thinks you should never write more than two lines of action before skipping a line. Otherwise the eye just blips over the rest of the text.

He says directors often tell him they knew by page 12 they were going to do a project.

He finds that successful stars know how the audience wants to see them; if you can write to that, you're ahead of the game. In other words they generally do not want to play against type.

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