Script-of-the-week: Little Miss Sunshine

by Michael Arndt (110 pages)

Won a 2007 Oscar for best writing of an original screenplay

Points of interest:

• Natural Dialogue: Strong dialogue
• Pacing: story moves at a purposeful pace with a clear goal
• Screen Visibility: High
• Formating: Standard
• Character Development: Rich and vibrant but natural
• Story Development: High

script-of-the-week: Lost in Translation

by Sophia Coppola

Winner of Best original screenplay Oscar for 2004

Pages: N/A

Points of interest:

• Natural dialogue: some of the movie dialogue is not written in the script
• Pacing: Slow but natural
• Visibility: high - easy to create visual of the written word
• Formatting: Casual - Rules are not followed exactly but the format is affective
• Character development: Quick and fulfilling
• Story development: even though the story moves slowly it's development moves forward at a steady pace

I would recommend this script for dramatic writers with a flare for comedy in the same vein as the Coen brothers and Alexander Payne.