I have read through this book several times now. It is a good, concise guide to the elements of screenplay writing. Apparently the book was adapted from an older text on the craft and elements of stage play writing and was updated by a professor upon his learning that the original was no longer available as a resource for his writing classes.

One thing I really like about this book is the great examples it incorporates from the screenplays of well known movies. The writers go through and analyze movies such as Citizen Kane, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Thelma & Louise, Diner, and others. Along with these, the final analysis is from the 1948 Hamlet directed by Laurence Olivier, thus crossing over into the area of the stage as well. It's a nice closing to the book.

While I've been through the book several times, and surely will go through it several more, this time I decided to try something a little different. After reading through the first half of the book, I decided to watch each movie analyzed before reading the analysis. This took a little time, and I did not watch the movies in any particular order (though I did end on Hamlet and plan to follow up by reading the play), but it really helped drive home the points made in the analyses because the movies were very fresh in my mind.

This is one I would highly recommend to anyone interested in screenwriting. ( )