Ten Masters of Cinema on Screenwriting and Filmmaking

Knowledge is power. Experience is currency. And the pursuit of both in the screenwriting world is necessary.

Screenwriters learn most from both their failures and their successes, which is as it should be, however, our minds work in mysterious ways.

Positive thoughts can create positive results, just as negative thoughts can create negative results. In partnership with that, listening to the words of those that have gained much knowledge and experience in the very medium and platform that screenwriters strive to succeed in can help screenwriters as they hone their writing and struggle to persevere through the business aspects of making their dreams come true as well.

In the past, ScreenCraft collected the Top 10 TED Talks on Storytelling and Filmmaking. Here we have a new collection of essential videos to watch and learn from, featuring ten of the screenwriting, filmmaking, and storytelling masters of our time as they offer inspiration, anecdotes, advice, and so much more.

Take the time to watch and ingest them. Your mind will keep what you need, leave the rest, and you'll surely see a benefit in your own writing down the road as well.

So we present to you, your masters...

Nora Ephron

William Goldman (along with other groundbreaking screenwriters)

Charlie Kaufman

Quentin Tarantino (Interviewed by Robert Rodriguez)

Steven Spielberg

J.J. Abrams

Paul Thomas Anderson

Aaron Sorkin

Alfred Hitchcock

Billy Wilder

Bonus: Andrew Stanton

Screenwriters and filmmakers alike can benefit from those that came before them, no different than how these ten masters of cinema learned from their own mentors, idols, and heroes.

The beauty of cinema is that it is and always has been such an organic storytelling medium and art form as ideas, concepts, genres, and styles are ever evolving based off of what has come before, accompanied by the contemporary discoveries that have and will come to be.

Screenwriters can recycle what they've learned from those that came before them and then create a hybrid of that shared knowledge and experience with what is inside them as storytellers, and possibly, hopeful future masters of cinema.

Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries Blackout, starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner. Follow Ken on Twitter @KenMovies

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