About the Book:

Most textbooks and courses acknowledge that film is first and foremost a visual medium, but few offer any advice on how to write a screenplay that fully exploits the visual potential of the story.

A fully realized screenplay reveals itself primarily through images, making use of what author Bill Boyle calls The Visual Mindscape of the Screenplay. This allows the reader or viewer to discover elements of the story rather than being told. By being able to actively participate in the unfolding of the story makes the overall experience for the reader a more visceral and luminous experience.

If in Citizen Kane you were told the meaning of the word Rosebud, rather than being allowed to learn its significance through visual discovery, would it have had the same impact? Of course not! The real magic of film is in the images that it embeds in our emotional memories; so powerful that they on occasion remain with us for the rest of our lives.

Whether you choose to ignore it or not, there is only one absolute about the screenplay — there is always an image on the screen. Even when you choose to tell rather than show your story, the visual aspect still remains. It doesn't disappear.

At no point in Citizen Kane are you told what Rosebud means, but when you see the sled thrown into the furnace you put the pieces together. You recognize the implications of his childhood and discover a certain surprising truth about Charles Foster Kane. The important point here is that you discover this truth and thus you own it.

The purpose of The Visual Mindscape of the Screenplay is to not only show how to create visual intent behind each scene, but to use this understanding to create a screenplay that moves beyond visual to visceral and emotionally impacts the reader or viewer. With examples from various well known screenplays, this text explores the various forms of the Visual Mindscape such as; withholding, discovery, the law of contradiction, location as Allegory, Visual Metaphors, Triggers and Anchors as well as seeking visual expressions for time, tense and flow of location.

What people say:

"We expe­ri­ence the world pri­mar­ily through our eyes, and there’s noth­ing quite like visual dis­cov­ery in film, which Bill Boyle thought­fully explores in his book. The prob­lem is that when we write, more often than not we’re locked in our heads. The Visual Mind­scape of the Screen­play con­tains prac­ti­cal advice on how to think in images while writ­ing — using visual metaphors to express your theme, find­ing visual anchors to help view­ers track sto­ries, and improv­ing expo­si­tion with imagery." — Daniel Cerone, Writer and Exec­u­tive Pro­ducer of Motive, The Men­tal­ist, Dex­ter, Dirty Sexy Money, and Charmed

"...an invaluable tool for me as a writer and teacher." — Maureen Bradley, Associate Professor, The Department of Writing

"Whether you are a novice or a seasoned writer, if you want to write an outstanding and engaging screenplay, Bill's wonderfully crafted book will guide you through the process from concept to completed script." — Evangeline Wilkes, J.D., Ph.D., College English Professor

"The Visual Mindscape of the Screenplay gives writers the tools to build intense, visceral moments that instill a surge of emotion with the reader." — Elisa Graybill, MFA Screenwriting USC

About the Author:

Bill Boyle is an award winning screenwriter and UCLA Instructor who has been rated by Creative Screenwriting Magazine among the top 10 per cent of script analysts and consultants. The author of The Visual Mindscape of the Screenplay, he has been involved in the film industry in both Canada and the U.S. for over 25 years as a writer, director, agent, producer, story editor, and mentor.