Genre
Every episode tagged Genre, newest first.
2025
"And in that way, it’s more simple than Rebel Ridge or Sinners that has clear contrasting and conflicting sources of antagonism. This has multiple sources of antagonism, but they’re all aligned in what they’re trying to do."
— Chas Fisher | DZ-122: Escalating Antagonism Across Genres
DZ-122: Escalating Antagonism Across Genres
How can you apply horror ideas to action and comedy?
AI✦Stu and Chas prove that TOMBS--a horror framework from a tabletop RPG--maps onto action thrillers and comedies, showing how the structure of antagonistic escalation transcends the genre it came from.✦
Listen to learn how thinking of your hero as the horror (for your villains) makes your script dynamic.
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In this episode Chas, Stu and guest Kim Ho continue their exploration into the power(s) of antagonism and how focusing on them can develop story… →
DZ-121: Escalating Antagonism in SINNERS
How do the antagonistic forces in your story escalate distinctly from the protagonists' journey?
AI✦Kim and Stu map Noel Carroll’s Onset-Discovery-Confirmation-Confrontation horror cycle alongside TOMBS, showing how horror’s genre patterns align with and enrich the antagonistic escalation framework.✦
Listen to strengthen your story by focusing on the antagonistic forces in your script.
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We often struggle to develop the middle stages of a story. Could this be because we focus on our protagonists’ journeys and plot structure more than on how the antagonistic powers are awakened, wronged, discovered, gathering strength and revealing themselves… →
Films:
Sinners (2025)
DZ-117: Pulling Off Tonal Shifts
How can we teach our audience new storytelling rules in the middle of our story?
AI✦These three films all execute radical genre pivots mid-story, and Mel and Chas reverse-engineer how their writers made those shifts feel inevitable rather than jarring.✦
Listen if you want to write tonal pivots that land on the page without a director's toolkit.
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Following on from our episodes on establishing tone through action lines and through character, this is what we have been building up to: how to pull off a tonal switch… that does NOT throw the audience out of the film. And, in particular, how to pull that off on the page when writers don’t have framing, lighting, music, editing, etc. at our disposal… →
DZ-116: Writing Physical Comedy
How do you make extended technical scenes funny on the page?
AI✦Bringing Up Baby’s slug lines mimic the editing pace and camera movement to convey rhythm and humor through white space, while Bridesmaids uses action lines to show the geography of different rooms and character combinations executing the same gag in various ways.✦
Listen to learn how formatting--white space, caps, dashes--becomes your comedy toolkit without a director.
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Mel joins Chas to tackle physical comedy. We limited our homework selection to extended scenes (as opposed to moments and sight gags) in live action projects and – with the help of our Patreons – selected early sequences from BRINGING UP BABY, the pilot for HAPPY ENDINGS and that wonderful food poisoning scene in BRIDESMAIDS… →
Shows:
Happy Endings 1x1
2023
"They’re using the language of horror. The image system, or the word system, whatever you want to call it, as they’re writing, adds to it."
— Stu Willis | DZ-105: Establishing Tone through Big Print
DZ-105: Establishing Tone through Big Print
How can we teach the reader to find the humour in our darkness?
AI✦Chas and Stu discuss what screenwriters can do on the page to compensate for cinematic tools like music, performance, composition, lighting, design, and editing--essentially how to encode tone without a director.✦
Listen if you want to use an unusual tone in your screenplay.
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Chas and Stu finally start their long-mooted exploration of tone with a series that examines films and shows with unusual tones and dives into how the writers establish those tones in the first 5 pages… →
Shows:
YELLOWJACKETS 1x1
DZ-101: Oners - Creating Immediacy & Anchoring Action on the Page
What can we learn by analysing how 'oners' are written on the page?
AI✦Chas, Stu, and Mel break down how writers create the feel of camerawork without calling shots, using big print and action lines to direct the camera through prose.✦
Listen to understand how screenwriters direct the camera without calling shots.
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Chas, Stu and Mel reunite to talk about writing the feel of camerawork in screenplays. We use “oners” — a long-playing continuous take — as a lens to talk about how some writers have “directed” from the page. We talk immediacy, camera positions, handovers, and anchoring action and more… →
DZ-98: Ensembles 3 - Character Function & Theme
What effect does adding a ton of characters have on your story?
AI✦The hosts examine films whose genres do not conventionally require large ensembles, analyzing how these stories use ensemble in unconventional ways that work against or complicate genre expectations.✦
Listen if you're writing an ensemble storiy and want to understand how different characters serve different narrative and thematic functions!
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In Part 3 (the final part? Ha!) of our exploration into ensemble stories, Stu, Chas & Mel examine films whose genres do not conventionally require a ton of characters or that use those ensembles in unconventional ways. In particular, adding whole storylines that are separate from the main character’s story. To that end, we dive into three films that were horrifically snubbed by the Oscars: THE WOMAN KING, RIDERS OF JUSTICE and NOPE… →
DZ-97: Ensembles 2 - Servicing Characters
How do you give your audience access to a lot of characters?
AI✦Each film represents a different genre with its own ensemble demands--team sports, murder mystery, slasher, and family comedy--revealing how genre shapes character servicing strategies.✦
Listen if you're writing ensemble stories and want to discover tools for giving all your characters adimension
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In Part 2 of our exploration into ensemble stories, Stu, Chas and Mel examine films whose plot and genre require a lot of characters. Thus we tackle a team sports film (PITCH PERFECT), a murder mystery (GLASS ONION), a slasher (SCREAM 2022) and a family holiday flick (THE FAMILY STONE)… →
Films:
Pitch Perfect (2012)
, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
, Scream (2022)
, The Family Stone (2005)
2022
"No one’s meant to notice this scaffolding. But it needs to be there -- because otherwise people would be like, where did that come from?"
— Stu Willis | DZ-90: Setups & Payoffs in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
DZ-95: Backmatter - Building and Maintenance
How do you maintain hope in the face of, er, screenwriting
AI✦The comparison of Andor versus Obi-Wan as Star Wars iterations engages with how genre conventions function and evolve within the same franchise.✦
Listen listen to hear why first acts keep shrinking--and whether yours should too
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Time for our annual backmatter episode, where we drop any ruse of any objectivity, and fully embrace our subjective opinions… →
DZ-94: Talismans (Part 2)
How can you use physical objects to track character change… wordlessly?
AI✦The episode focuses on how objects and locations become a visual grammar for character states, using paintings, instruments, and recurring spaces to articulate emotional arcs wordlessly.✦
Listen to write objects that accumulate powerful meanings across your story and create unspoken emotional payoffs.
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In part two of our two-part series on TALISMANS, we break down the beats used to turn objects (in a broad sense) into talismans; how talismans can track character journeys and transitions; and how they can be used to create powerful moments without words… →
Films:
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
, In the Mood for Love (2000)
DZ-93: Talismans (Part 1)
How can you use physical objects to reveal inner character?
AI✦Talismans function as a visual storytelling device--the object itself becomes a language through which audiences read character interiority without a word being spoken.✦
Listen to so you can write talismans that are powerful tools for accessing character!
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In this series, Chas and Stu discuss TALISMANS. Physical objects that are imbued with meaning by a character or characters. They’re a powerful tool to access inner character… →
Films:
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
, In the Mood for Love (2000)
, Cast Away (2000)
, The Dark Knight (2008)
, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
DZ-90: Setups & Payoffs in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
How can you use setups and payoffs to stitch your film together?
AI✦The multiverse storytelling framework demands a particular relationship between setup, payoff, and reversal that differs from linear narrative, and the episode examines how the film navigates those genre-specific requirements.✦
Listen to understand how setups, payoffs, and reversals create narrative cohesion even when your story is fkn bonkers.
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In this one-shot, Chas and Stu jump into the utter chaos of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. Y’know, nultiverses, butt-plug action sequences, hot-dog fingers, a raccoon chef, a nihilist bagel. All the good stuff. And yet it lands emotionally in a way that feels inevitable… →
DZ-89: Opening Sequences
How does your opening sequence set up your audience?
AI✦The episode’s core insight is that these films open in ways that seem to defy their genre conventions and yet still provide all the setup needed to tell their stories.✦
Listen if you want to understand how great opening sequences establish character, genre, and theme while defying genre conventions
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Inspired by her tweet on how subversive an opening OCEAN’S ELEVEN has, Chas and Stu invited amazing writer/director Jessica Ellis onto the show to deep dive into opening sequences. How does a good opening setup character, genre, and theme… →
DZ-88: Drama in Genre clothing
How can dramas use genre elements to hook their audiences?
AI✦Kodie Bedford, Stu, and Chas examine how Hustlers, Pig, and The Power of the Dog exploit genre expectations--heist film, revenge thriller, western--to hook audiences before pivoting away from them.✦
Listen if you're writing a genre film but sense your story wants to become something else entirely.
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Stu and Chas reunite with TV writer & director Kodie Bedford to look at how some films start out as genre but gradually become character dramas. Or, as Stu never said on the episode “Genre in the streets, Drama in the sheets”.… →
DZ-87: Keeping Genre Fresh
How do you deliver on the emotional contract of a genre while surprising the audience?
AI✦The entire episode pivots on understanding what audiences expect to feel from a genre and how to honor that contract while still surprising them.✦
Listen when you're writing within a genre but terrified you'll deliver something your audience has already seen.
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In tackling this enormous topic, Stu and Chads enlist professional TV writer and director Kodie Bedford, someone who has somehow managed to defy genre pigeon-holing by writing mystery, comedy and vampire shows… →
2021
DZ-77: Backmatter - Prioritising and choosing projects
How do you choose which project to start next?
AI✦Keeping genre fresh comes up as a direct topic, suggesting Stu and Chas discuss how to work within and against genre expectations.✦
Listen if you're starting a new co-writing relationship, managing multiple projects, or wondering how to prioritize your next screenplay.
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In their now-annual full backmatter episode, Stu and Chas let their hair down, drop the guise of objectivity, and allow themselves to have an even more subjective opinion about writing and the business of writing… →
Shows:
The Mandalorian 2x1
2020
DZ-75: Fury Road & Visual Storytelling
How can you do powerful storytelling... without dialogue?
AI✦The episode centers on how George Miller constructs meaning through image systems and environmental storytelling rather than exposition or conversation.✦
Listen to hear how visual storytelling can carry an entire narrative with minimal dialogue.
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Stu and Chas are joined by filmmaker, podcaster and writer Lia Matthew Brownn to deep dive into FURY ROAD and its astounding visual storytelling, both on the page and on screen. We talk about setups and payoffs, given circumstances, image systems, environmental storytelling, and how the relationship between Furiosa and Max is built over the course of the story with very little dialogue (besides Tom Hardy’s grunts and the odd bellow of “MEDIOCRE!”).
You can also watch the complete live stream on YouTube or just the breakdown of the Furiosa/Max fight (which isn’t in the podcast) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8uYAbEcQeQ&feature=youtu.be… →
Films:
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
DZ-70: Joker & Melodrama
How does Joker use melodramatic techniques to elevate its storytelling?
AI✦The episode interrogates what melodrama as a genre demands on the page, asking whether Joker satisfies or subverts the conventions that define it as a melodramatic work.✦
Listen if you're writing a character whose trauma becomes the engine of your entire narrative.
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Draft Zero return with their next YouTube livestream! Stu and Chas take a deep dive into JOKER and analyse the film through the story paradigm of melodrama. Is it a melodrama? Why or why not does that matter? And does that influence how it has been written on the page… →
Films:
Joker (2019)
DZ-66: The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker - Audience Knowledge vs Character Motivation
How does audience knowledge affect your character's motivations?
AI✦The conversation treats fan service as a genre convention specific to serialized storytelling, examining how it bends character motivation to meet audience expectations rather than internal logic.✦
Listen to understand how fan service weaponizes external knowledge against character logic.
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By Order 66: Chas and Stu are joined by special guest - filmmaker Mel Killingsworth - to talk all things Star Wars. Well. Focusing on The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker and wherever else our tangents take us… →
DZ-65: Collaborating with a Director - The Snip
HOw does a writer work with a director (on a short film?)
AI✦THE SNIP is a rom-com working within genre expectations--a relationship-based comedy with high personal stakes--and the discussion addresses how genre shape both the writing and the production.✦
Listen if you are thinking of producing your own short film!
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This episode, Chas steps down as co-host (kinda) and is interviewed by Stu as a guest, alongside director Ben Mizzi, about the short rom-com that Chas wrote and Ben directed & produced. The episode covers taking an idea from pitch to screen, working with a director, directing performance on the page, and marketing and distribution strategies for short films… →
2019
DZ-61: Unfilmables 2 - Moments of Awe
How can unfilmables help you create those cinematic moments of awe?
AI✦The episode centers on writing cinematically and using limited palettes of language to create those breathtaking visual sequences that feel transcendent on screen.✦
Listen if you're writing a moment that feels too big for the page (but you need it on the page).
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In this second part of our series on unfilmables, Chas and Stu continue their deep dive into how writing the “unfilmable” can enhance your script. Rather than looking at micro moments, they turn their gaze to “moments of awe” — those often breathtaking cinematic moments that feel beyond writing. But are those scenes actually unscriptable… →
Films:
You Were Never Really Here (2017)
, Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)
, The Invitation (2016)
, Moonlight (2016)
DZ-59: Avengers Endgame - Ending Character Journeys
Do you want your audience feeling with or for your characters?
AI✦The debate over Tony and Cap’s arcs is fundamentally about what the film promised its audience emotionally and whether it paid that promise off by the finale.✦
Listen if you're interested in how to dramatise character change, position your audience in relation to characters, and explore the difference between empathy and sympathy in screenwriting
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One day, Chas saw Avengers: Endgame for the second time and wrote a review on Letterboxd. In particular, he had issues with how little he perceived the characters of Cap and Tony changed within the film, their big finale (spoiler). Then friend and patron of the podcast Julio Olivera vehemently disagreed in the comments. He was egged on by Stu. And there in the comments began a debate that looked a lot like an episode of Draft Zero. So we decided to make it one… →
Films:
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
2015
DZ-28: Containing Your Script
How do you keep contained movies engaging?
AI✦The episode uses contained thrillers as its anchor genre, examining how films locked to a single location maintain tension and engagement across scripts like LOCKE, EVERLY, and THE ONE I LOVE.✦
Listen if you're writing a contained thriller, drama, or any story limited to a single location
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Contained Thrillers* *seem to be a genre that never goes out of fashion. But being contained is not just limited to thrillers. It’s a way of telling stories on a lower budget, regardless of genre. So - while allegedly easier to make / get made - limiting a story to a single location also limits the tools that maintain an audience’s interest. Changing audience or character point of view, intercutting between locations or characters are all much harder (if not impossible) in contained films. So how do good contained films hook their audience and keep them… →
DZ-27: Competing views on Screenplay Competitions
Can screenplay competitions be worth it?
AI✦Chas and Stu interrogate what screenplay competitions are really selling--whether they’re feeding ’the hope machine’ or delivering genuine value on the emotional investment writers make by entering.✦
Listen if you're considering entering a screenplay competition and want to hear from writers and industry professionals about whether it's a worthwhile investment!
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After being repeatedly asked by listeners for thoughts on screenplay competitions, Stu and Chas go full back matter for this special episode. They tackle the question - do comps just feeding the hope machine or are they a valid investment? - in their typical detailed (i.e. long) style. With their differing perspectives, Stu (a director looking for material) and Chas (a writer keen for exposure), talk to an impressive roster of guests. We start with Gordy Hoffman, founder and judge of the Bluecat Screenplay Competition; repeat Austin Film Festival attendees - first for the screenplay and now for the finished web series of EX BEST - Diana Gettinger & Monica Hewes; Launchpad 2014 finalist Tony Pitman; and Insite Competition winner Blake Ashford, whose winning script CUT SNAKE hit cinemas in 2015... ten years after winning the competition… →
DZ-26: Horror and Collaboration- Wolf Creek 2
How does a screenwriter collaborate with a director on an existing property?
AI✦Aaron discusses how horror as a genre operates within WOLF CREEK 2, and the episode frames this conversation around what makes anti-horror distinct from traditional horror beats.✦
Listen if you're co-writing and need to figure out where your voice ends and your collaborator's begins.
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In this halloween special, Chas (sans Stu) is joined by a very special guest... Aaron Sterns the co-writer of WOLF CREEK 2 -- the big budget sequel to the infamous WOLF CREEK, also directed by Greg McLean. Chas and Aaron talk horror, anti-horror, collaboration, novels and how a screenwriter works within an existing franchise… →
DZ-25: Coincidences, Contrivances & Giant Eagles
How do screenwriters get away with using coincidences in their stories?
AI✦When a writer needs coincidence to move the plot forward, they’re testing whether they’ve built enough trust with the audience to honor an implicit agreement about what kind of story this is.✦
Listen when you need to know which coincidences earn trust and which ones feel like cheating.
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Remember that time in THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS when Bruce suddenly - magically - returned to Gotham, and you were like “WTF?!” Well, it turns out that many of the best films have moments that are just as coincidental or contrived (or a flock of Giant Eagles) and yet get away with it. Does Pixar’s “rule” that it is ‘cheating to use coincidences to get your characters out of trouble’, always apply… →
DZ-24: Forging story rules in TV pilots
Are your story rules in your pilot strong enough to play out over the life of your show?
AI✦The discussion across THE SHIELD, THE WIRE, BREAKING BAD, and MAD MEN reveals how each pilot establishes its own genre contract--procedural, ensemble crime drama, transformation narrative, and period drama respectively--that signals what kind of show you’re watching.✦
Listen if you wanna know great television pilots establish the dramatic, literary, and cinematic rules that sustain their entire run.
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Stu and Chas move away from the world of features and dive into the Pilot Episodes of some (New) Golden Age Television: THE SHIELD, THE WIRE, BREAKING BAD, and MAD MEN. And we sneak in some discussion about ANGEL, THE SOPRANOS and GAME OF THRONES… →
DZ-22: Romantic Comedy, Actually
How can studying RomCom clichés teach us to subvert them?
AI✦Chas and Alli dissect the established patterns that define romantic comedy as a genre to understand what writers can work with or against.✦
Listen if you're writing a romcom and want to understand what makes this gentre tick.
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With Stu busy working on Hollywood blockbusters, Chas is joined by Alli Parker (script department on Aussie TV series and former co-ordinator of European #scriptchat) to unpick successful romcoms to see if they can illuminate a path for writers working in this struggling genre. Cheap to produce and potentially highly lucrative, Chas and Alli look at RomCom’s conventions to see what it may take to reinvigorate this genre… →
Films:
When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
, (500) Days of Summer (2009)
, The Proposal (2009)
, Notting Hill (1999)
DZ-18: Michael Bay - F*ing the Frame and P*ing the Page
Are there screenwriting lessons to be taken from analysing the work of Michael f-ing Bay?
AI✦Stu, Chas, and Bitter analyze how Bay makes visual decisions on the page itself, translating cinematic action into screenwriting craft that serves the story’s information architecture.✦
Listen to understand how one of the world's highest-grossing directors structures story, makes great villians, controls information flow, and makes visual decisions on the page
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Of course there are. How could there not be? After all, Michael Bay is the 3rd highest grossing director at the worldwide box office... of all time. Behind, y’know, Spielberg and stuff. How could a man of such credentials not know story? Or, so argues this week’s guest: the author of MICHAEL F-ING BAY: THE UNHERALDED GENIUS IN MICHAEL BAY’S FILMS... [drumroll]... the Bitter Script Reader… →
DZ-17: Where's my gold-plated ensuite?
When you're an emerging filmmaker, what are different ways to tackle a "career"?
AI✦By examining different formats--shorts, features, web content--Chas and Stu implicitly consider how genre and medium conventions shape what stories emerging filmmakers can realistically execute.✦
Listen when you're deciding between shorts, features, and web content--and need to know which format actually builds a sustainable creative practice.
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It’s our Holiday Special! In this episode (recorded December 2014), Chas and Stu break all the rules. No homework. No pages. No empirical analysis. They reluctantly but boldly reflect over the first year of Draft Zero and how it has influenced their ‘careers’ (such as they are). They also engage in a heated debate on whether a short film, a micro-budget feature or web-based content is the best way to go in terms of pushing a filmmaking career forward… →
2014
"From that point onwards, there’s a rhythm of this film. And what happens is the rhythm is Ron is busted by someone, be it the FDA or the IRS or Dr. Savard. So someone tries to shut him down. Within often two pages, Ron sorts this out. Like there was one point where they had their location shut down. A few pages later, Ron has a new location. There’s another point where Ron is broke, within a few pages, Rayon is lending him money. But what there is, is a rhythm to the act two."
— Chas Fisher | DZ-1: Do Screenplay Gurus win you Oscars?
DZ-16: Masters of Time and Whitespace
Does manipulating time on the page make your script feel more cinematic?
AI✦By examining scripts like PULP FICTION and THE BOURNE IDENTITY, Chas and Stu reveal how screenwriters use formatting and structure to write like you’d edit--creating visual momentum on the page.✦
Listen if you want your screenplay to feel cinematic before a director ever reads it.
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Chas and Stu are joined by Khrob Edmonds - an award-winning filmmaker - to discuss manipulation of time… →
Films:
Pulp Fiction (1994)
, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
, The Bourne Identity (2002)
, The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
, The Untouchables (1987)
, The Woman in Black (2012)
, Up (2009)
, Whiplash (2014)
DZ-12: Craft, Career and Coffins
It's the The Podcast You Used To Know…
AI✦Her MTV-nominated music video work for Goyte means Natasha brings directorial sensibility to how images and sound design communicate what words alone cannot.✦
Listen if you're navigating multiple creative disciplines and wondering how to build a sustainable career across them.
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Well, half of us is... Chas (sans Stu) is joined by a very special guest - Natasha Pincus. As a screenwriter, Tash’s feature CLIVE was on the 2012 Black List. As a director, her music video for Goyte’s Someone I Used To Know was nominated for an MTV Music Video Award. And at the time of this recording, her debut feature as a screenwriter FELL was weeks away from opening night… →
Films:
Fell (2014)
DZ-2: Do the Screenplay Gurus score big at the Box Office?
Do the biggest original films of 2013 follow more archetypal - or formulaic - structures?
AI✦Stu and Chas examine whether GRAVITY and FROZEN--the biggest original films of 2013--adhere to or subvert the genre conventions audiences expect from award nominees versus box office hits.✦
Listen if you need to know which guru frameworks actually deliver in Act Three.
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Part 2 of our Screenplay Gurus series takes the same lens from Part 1 — Vogler, Snyder and Hauge — and points it at the two highest-grossing original films of 2013: GRAVITY and FROZEN. No franchise, no sequel. Just the two films that audiences went to see in the biggest numbers that year, and the question of what their scripts actually look like when you run them against the guru formulas… →
DZ-1: Do Screenplay Gurus win you Oscars?
Do Oscar-Nominated screenwriters follow the structural formulas prescribed by the 'gurus' and books?
AI✦Stu observes that Philomena ‘could be written as a thriller’ with nuns as antagonists, but instead uses ‘people not wanting to speak to them’ as resistance, upending the genre’s opposition mechanics.✦
Listen if you want to know whether Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler's structural theories actually apply to Academy Award-nominated screenplays
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Three of the most widely read structure books in screenwriting — Snyder’s Save the Cat, Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, and Michael Hauge’s Six Stages — all make essentially the same claim: this is how great films are built. In our debut episode, we run that claim against two Oscar-nominated films to see if it holds: PHILOMENA and DALLAS BUYERS CLUB… →