Oscar award season has started. The ‘for your consideration’ adverts have started to appear. That means the ‘glut of award hopefuls to be released in the next six weeks’ and ‘end of the cinematic year’ articles can be written.

Go on over to Hollywood Reporter to read an interview with six writers who may be nominated for an Oscar. When asked about discipline, Andrew Stanton, writer of “WALL-E” said:

My mantra is: Be wrong as fast as you can. Because I have to have the liberty to know it doesn’t have to work so that I’ll just keep moving.

I hope they get around to talking to some below the line people.

In a podcast from Creative Screenwriting on The Illusionist, the producers talk about becoming successful as screenwriters before they made The Illusionist. Brian Koppelman and David Levien got their big break with the script of Rounders, the Ed Norton poker movie. It was directed by John Dahl. He told them something interesting: “You can never take back something you’ve said to an actor” – if writers are to be allowed on set, they have to be very careful in talking to actors. Any insights you give them will haunt them until the film is finished. A tentative suggestion of a formative experience for a character may become the only possible way the actor will look at that person’s childhood.

Writers can go on set if they don’t spend their time defending what they wrote. They need to be there to collaborate to make the film better. They get the access they want by not wanting to be the centre of the film making. There’s more during the last five minutes of the podcast on iTunes.

There are some interesting recent podcasts there featuring the writers of The Dark Knight, Juno, Wanted, Choke and Synecdoche, NY.

I regularly listen to Pilar Alessandra’s weekly screenwriting podcast (iTunes, FeedBurner) as part of her ‘On the Page’ script consultation and screenwriting education business.

Many writers know that screenwriting is rewriting, and almost each week Pilar suggests a ten minute exercise that you can do to improve the current draft of your script. Here are three examples:

Create character rules. What does your character always do in his or her public life, personal life or private life? Apply those rules to situations to create unique scenes. Or, break a rule later on, to show character development and change.

So does your protagonist do in the company of strangers, with loved ones or alone? They might continually swear – or never curse at all. That can tell us a lot about a person. The point when they break those rules tells us more. These rules illustrate change in your character. Do the same for all your major characters – especially your antagonist.

To find the perspective and arc of another character in the script, ask what that character’s movie is. Do a “what if” log-line from that character’s point of view.

Every character’s logline should make sense from their point of view. If you come up with a antagonist logline, your script will be stronger.

In scene direction, re-describe characters using “essence statements.”
– “The kind of woman you’d leave your wife for.”
– “He never met a jelly donut he didn’t like.”
– “Blink and you’ll miss her.”
All of these statements are more descriptive than a simple laundry list of physical attributes.

These statements are much more useful for directors, casting agents and actors.

These are just three of over 40 exercises broadcast over the last 14 months. The podcast is a lot more than this. Most weeks you’ll hear from interesting guests of all kinds: producers, agents, managers, directors, lawyers and development executives as well as writers. The show is also a fun listen.

There are a lot of episodes already up, so it’s time to start catching up.