Amy Suto 12/16/15 Amy Suto 12/16/15

3 Steps to Successful Worldbuilding (How to Prewrite)

It's an absolute crime how pre-writing is so overlooked in the writing world. Have you read Stephen King's On Writing? That was one of my favorite writing books as a kid and I took his advice as gospel. One of the tenets of his book was that too much outlining and prewriting killed the story, which made me instantly afraid of killing my story before I could discover it through the actual process of writing.

Amy Suto 9/22/15 Amy Suto 9/22/15

5 Tips for Using Flashforwards in TV Writing

Flashforwards are the flashbacks of our era of TV writing. From the flashforwards in Lost that showed our merry ensemble cast finally off the island at last (and wanting to go back) to shows like Damages and Bloodline that structure entire seasons on the content of their jumps in time, this tool has become ubiquitous in our modern age of storytelling as a linear narrative faces more challenges in capturing an audience.

Amy Suto 8/28/15 Amy Suto 8/28/15

Trailers and Time Management

The past 8 months have been filled with the creation of this television miniseries, which is airing September 10th on Trojan Vision 8.1. The series will also be available online at ConTVShow.com. If you want to know more about the series, you can read interviews on that website so I don't sound like a broken record every time I blog about this series. Anyways, I'm incredibly proud of how the trailer came out, and can't wait to share the series! It was a challenge to get the show made and on the air, and every hurdle was worth it.

Amy Suto 8/1/15 Amy Suto 8/1/15

Writing 100 Pages and Second Seasons, #Scriptchat, & Passing the FBI Fitness Test

It's been a landmark summer filled with unexpected writing opportunities, a rollercoaster post-production process for CON, and lots of having to explain why my walls are covered in newspaper clippings, red string, and far too many color-coded notecards.

Amy Suto 5/17/15 Amy Suto 5/17/15

INTJ: One of The Rarest, Loneliest Personality Types [Introverts and Writing]

I hadn't put much stock in personality types up until now, but when I started reading more about INTJs, I began to realize that the kind of isolation I sometimes felt (and felt unable to express) even when surrounded by people I cared about had roots in my personality type.

Amy Suto 5/12/15 Amy Suto 5/12/15

Playing Pretend: On Set of CON and the Television Experience

Every week we have a quote of the day on our call sheet. My favorite was written by Irina, our Russian supervising producer: “We wrap by 5pm or else I’m sending you all to Siberia.”

Amy Suto 4/2/15 Amy Suto 4/2/15

Antidote 15: Web Festivals, TV Interviews, & More

The past seven days have been a whirlwind of press and exciting events to celebrate Antidote 15's season two and all the amazing people who are the lifeblood of the show. On Friday, Antidote 15 screened in the Charlie Chaplin theater at Raleigh Studios, and I was able to talk on a panel about the inspiration for the show, and why ex-boyfriends, deadlines, and drinking things you're not supposed to be are common college struggles.

Amy Suto 3/13/15 Amy Suto 3/13/15

CON: Writing Con Artists

So ever since the TV miniseries my writing partner Jen Enfield-Kane and I created went into production, I've been living that executive producer life again. Which sounds glamorous, but in reality it's more paperwork, scheduling, emailing, and budgeting than I ever thought I'd do in a lifetime.

Amy Suto 2/24/15 Amy Suto 2/24/15

Antidote 15 is Going to the Hollyweb Web Festival!

Antidote 15 started in January 2014 as a fun experiment to see whether or not I could do something waaaay outside my comfort zone, which was to independently produce a web series I had written. Up until that point, I had mostly just been studying the craft of screenwriting, with a small number of short films done for classes and for fun.

Amy Suto 10/20/14 Amy Suto 10/20/14

Creating Detailed Character Backstory

I'm working on some new characters for a feature I'm writing this fall, and am reminded that character backstory is like trying to get to know a person and they keep ignoring you, so you have to make up things about them until they tell you the truth.

Amy Suto 10/4/14 Amy Suto 10/4/14

Writing The Vision

I've been writing short films, short stories, and summaries inside and outside of the classroom of this idea since December of 2013, and I'm excited to finally use the power of deadlines and inordinate amounts of coffee to bring it to fruition. So partially in order to procrastinate from the writing I'm doing today and to hold myself accountable, here's an update on The Vision.

Amy Suto 9/11/14 Amy Suto 9/11/14

On the Importance of Adventures for Writers

In the past seven days, I've shot a balloon with an arrow at the Pasadena archery range, practiced cha-cha one night and learned break on two salsa another, put on boxing gloves and sparred with my self-defense partner as we learned headlocks and groundwork, learned the basics of Python and how to hack a computer to redirect to Bing everytime you type in "Google" (nefarious, I know), and am going to a concert on Friday in Hollywood and the Getty on Saturday for live music.

Amy Suto 7/14/14 Amy Suto 7/14/14

Web Series as Practice for the Real World

Today after the 10am staff meeting for Orientation I hibernated in my apartment and attempted to catch up on sleep, but then quickly realized that wasn't going to happen and I was better off catching up on work.For the past few months I've been in pre-production for season two of my web series, Antidote 15, which has (happily) been my life since December 2013.

Amy Suto 6/1/14 Amy Suto 6/1/14

How to Create a Web Series [Part Five: Marketing]

Here are some major points you need to think about when marketing your web series that I learned from marketing my thriller web series, Antidote 15.

Amy Suto 5/10/14 Amy Suto 5/10/14

How to Create a Web Series [Part Four: Post-Production]

Editing is the final rewrite, and you can change so much about your web series in this part of the process. If you don't know how to edit, find someone who does, because a polished final product requires time and skill. Here are some tips on how to edit your web series!

Amy Suto 5/8/14 Amy Suto 5/8/14

How to Create a Web Series: [Part Three: Production]

I am not saying I know everything there is about film production. As a screenwriter, my focus is on story and character, but I do have a handle on some of the basics like three point lighting, green screening, and wrangling erstwhile sound equipment.

Amy Suto 3/14/14 Amy Suto 3/14/14

How to Create A Web Series [Part Two: Casting]

Finding quality actors is so important, especially for a web series with recurring roles. With Antidote 15, we were incredibly lucky to find the cast we did. This article will teach you everything you need to know about casting for your web series!