"There's a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us."
- Maria and Tony - West Side
Story

When the spoken word simply can't convey deep emotions, there is song. Musicals can tell epic tales and paint a huge canvas with a chorus of voices, or tell an intimate story with an isolated solo. Big or small, they reach deep into audiences and make them tap their toes, get up and dance, or weep with despair.

Perhaps the first musicals were the Greek dramas, which

Boy meets girl, girl dumps boy, boy and girl realize they're made for each other as sappy music swells into the happily ever after. Since everyone already knows how the story ends, the challenge with "rom-coms" is keeping your audience engaged and guessing. The trick: crafting a fierce tug-of-war between 1) the magical attraction or "rightness" of the couple that makes you root for their union, and 2) seemingly insurmountable obstacles that stand in the way. Sometimes these obstacles are external (one character is a "beast", lives across the country, or occasionally turns

"There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it."
— Alfred Hitchcock

Adrenaline, anxiety, tension—if you're pinned to the edge of your seat, chances are you're watching a thriller. Because this genre thrives on the chilling sense that "this could happen to you," the thriller protagonist is almost always someone just like you or your parents—someone with whom the audience can identify. The action starts when this unsuspecting victim is thrust into circumstances

Is this thing on? (tap, tap) While every genre employs some level of humor, there's a certain type of film that gives the old funny bone a resounding whack by making jokes, silliness, and laughter their essential ingredient. Probably the most loved of all the genres, comedy comes in countless forms: dark comedies and romantic comedies, slapstick comedies and gross-out films, parodies and mockumentaries. What they all share is a universal equation for humor: pain + distance = funny. Whether

The classic tragedy is an emotional journey so complete and so gut-wrenchingly sad, audience members are forced to participate with their very souls and often come out of the show nearly as changed as the main characters. It is one of the oldest genres in theater, and one of the most formulaic. Over the years, it has strayed from the strict and philosophically based formula, but many plays from the Renaissance to today keep the basic structure: a plot

A versatile and ever-changing format, animation has pushed the boundaries of cinema, and taken on nearly every movie genre. From Winsor McCay’s lovable experiments with Gertie the Dinosaur in the 1910s, to the hyper-real, computer-generated images (CGI) of today, animation films have always ridden the advancing wave of technology. Borrowing heavily from the framing and story conventions of live-action films, the best animated films also take

Mistaken identity, entrances, exits, props, dimwitted characters, pratfalls, and even the odd-ball chase scene are the hallmarks of farce. Whatever happens, it is going to be hilarious. It can be absurd, meaningful, or even a sophisticated commentary on the world around us.

Farce combines physical humor with a carefully woven plot

"Never get involved in a land war in Asia."
- Vizzini in The Princess Bride

Flying nannies. Swashbucklers. Talking cars. As rare as they are in everyday life, these whimsical characters are regular players in the ever-popular genre of family films. One of the broadest of genres, family flicks are defined less by what they include than by what they leave out: Excessive violence, nudity, and strong language are all left out in an effort to obtain a coveted G or PG rating. But don't equate family films with silly, kids-only entertainment. No, the goal for family film writers is to create a complex story that will successfully hold the interest of an all-ages

Three-thousand warriors, swords in hand, await their command from a man on a white horse. “Chaaaargggeee!” he yells, and the order descends into chaos. If the journey is great, sweeping spectacles are the norm, or a great swath of time is compressed into a two- or three-hour running time, you're probably writing an epic film. Often set in another time period, epic movies are large in scope, and tend to focus on power struggles between clearly defined forces of good and bad. Similar in structure to war movies and adventure films, epics push the boundaries of the medium to compress huge scenes and expanses in time into the 2-D world of cinema.

Usually a once-normal man or woman who has received a

“You've been given a great gift, George. A chance to see what the world would be like without you.”
Henry Travers in It’s a Wonderful Life

Alakazam! You’ve just been turned into a frog. Or at least your protagonist has. If the magic in your script is real, or the monster has come out of the closet for a bedside chat, or talking trees and philosophizing rodents are par for the course, you’re most likely penning a fantasy film. Unlike science fiction films, which are usually based on some type of empirical science, fantasy films take their inspiration from myths, legends, and fairy tales. Often focusing on one or more ordinary people (or people-ish beings) coping with an extraordinary world or set of

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