Let’s just get this out of the way: screenwriting is no easy field to break into. Sure, one could argue that holds true for any role in film and TV, but a quick look through the top 100 grossing films over the past several years can make it seem that there is a relatively small pool of screenwriters who tend to get hired again and again to helm big studio films. Nonetheless, there are countless aspiring screenwriters out there itching to get their foot in the door, as sites like The Black List house thousands of scripts itching to be optioned.

With that in mind, we decided to take a look at some of the screenwriters operating at both the independent and studio level who look poised to break through (or in some cases, already have).

Nic Pizzolatto

To say that newcomer Pizzolatto’s meteoric rise is a tad unusual is probably the understatement of the decade. This former professor of comparative literature left academia in 2010 to pursue screenwriting with two books under his belt. A spec script for the FX series Justified led to him writing on the first season of AMC’s The Killing. However, his promising career went into total overdrive when he was able to sell HBO, Matthew McConaughey, and Woody Harrelson on the strength of the first two scripts of his nihilistic detective series, True Detective, which has already arguably become this year’s most buzzed about show. That said, expectations for the show’s second season, which will feature an entirely new cast and plot, are insanely high as viewers await with bated breath to reacquaint themselves with Pizzolatto’s philosophically probing style.

Jennifer Lee

Another screenwriter who has taken an unusually accelerated path to success, this former art director was struck by the screenwriting bug and, after enrolling in film school and honing her skills, was asked by her friend Phil Johnston to take over writing duties on the charming and quirky Wreck-It Ralph. The film’s success led Disney to commission her to stay on and pen and co-direct the insta-classic Frozen. The film earned Lee an Oscar for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards and has gone on to be the highest-grossing animated film of all time. Audiences will soon get to see her live action script writing chops in her screenplay The Round-Up, which is currently in development.

Shaka King

Having cut his teeth as a director and writer of several shorts, 2013 saw the emergence of King’s singular voice in the nuanced, warm, and challenging stoner romance film Newlyweeds. Born and based in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, King does not shy away from the intricacies of race, love, and the city and how all three interact to create a portrayal of black culture that is seldom seen on screen. So far, King’s year is off to a solid start with him winning a $25,000 unrestricted grant as part of his Someone To Watch Film Independent Spirit award. While this writer anxiously awaits to see what King has up his sleeve next, in the meantime, do yourself a favor and check out Newlyweeds on Netflix.

Greta Gerwig

While many an internet tear was shed when it was announced that CBS did not pick up How I Met You Dad starring actress, screenwriter, and director Gerwig, this writer for one was quite excited at the prospect that Gerwig would have more time to apply her remarkable voice to future feature films. After all, having co-written 2013’s excellent Frances Ha, Gerwig was instrumental in helping to create the most enjoyable and memorable Noah Baumbach film in ages. Coming up in the mumblecore scene, Gerwig brought a novel tone to Baumbach’s film that was at once quirky and brutally honest. Although she will continue to delight in front of the camera, here’s hoping that Gerwig’s incisive pen stays active in the future.

Danny Strong

While readers of a certain disposition will most likely remember Strong’s work playing Jonathan Levinson on Buffy the Vampire Slayer amongst a host of other roles, Strong has found remarkable success as a screenwriter in recent years. His first film, the HBO feature Recount about the 2000 US presidential election, was voted number one on the 2007 Hollywood Black List and earned him a Writers Guild of America Award. Strong continued to prove his chops as a writer of political dramas with 2012’s Game Change for which he an Emmy award. However, Strong truly broke through when his script for Lee Daniels’ The Butler helped the film to earn the film over $100 million at the box office. Viewers will get the chance to see Strong working outside of the political genre as he was tapped to write the two-part Mockingjay, which will wrap up the massive Hunger Games series.

Barbara Marshall

Not to leave out sci-fi and horror films, Marshall has emerged as an exciting new talent in the genres, having first cut her teeth on the shows SGU Stargate Universe and Terra Nova. Marshall was inspired to chase her screenwriting ambitions after seeing the SyFy Channel’s reboot of Battlestar Galactica. In 2012, her Black List script Peste was optioned by IM Global and she has since been tapped to write the upcoming Lionsgate film The Exorcism Diaries. Despite her penchant for the macabre, the future looks mighty bright for this spooky scribe.

Author: Bill Einreinhofer, Chair, Broadcast Journalism Department, New York Film Academy

At first glance, talking about Broadcast Journalism means discussing technology. Microprocessor-based HD cameras produce stunning images. Nonlinear editing software allows for intuitive, imaginative editing. “Live shot” reports are sent back to studios via powerful microwave transmitters. Stories are uplinked to satellites, and then distributed around the world.

Technology is useless, however, without meaningful content. A good news story must always address what in Journalism School are called “the 5 W’s” – Who? What? Where? When? Why?

Classic narrative storytelling actually dates back to the start of human civilization. It is the most basic, and most effective, way to share information. The structure is deceptively simple. In every story there is a beginning, middle and end.

Often this is termed “writing a story in three acts.” The first “act” provides basic information: the time of the story, the place where it is taking place, and the characters. This locates your story, and the people within it, in an understandable context. Without context, most information is meaningless.

The Weather Bureau says it is going to snow tomorrow. But where will it snow? When? Why?

In the second “act” complications and conflict are added. Good journalists know that there are at least two sides to every story. Sometimes there are five or even six. Like life itself, these stories are complicated. As the storyteller, you have to make sense out of them for your audience.

“Act” three provides a resolution and outcome, or sometimes sketches out what might happen next. Because complex stories can continue for days, months, even years. After all the votes are counted, it’s usually clear who has won or lost an election. In life things are seldom resolved so neatly.

While Shakespeare had the luxury of time, broadcast journalists don’t. We work in an environment where a two-minute news package is considered “long.” That’s one of the reasons why we are always looking for “compelling storytellers.” Audiences respond to intriguing, empathetic characters. In fact, when you are sent out to cover a story, you become something of a “casting director.”

But the people you are dealing with aren’t “characters,” they are real people. In telling their story, you must respect them. It is their story, not yours. You have a duty to honestly represent them in your report. One of my mentors once provided me with a basic guideline to judge the accuracy of my reporting. “If you show your story to the people in it, will they feel they were authentically represented?”

If they don’t, then I haven’t done them, or my audience, justice.

Narrative Storytelling is a technique you can use in a variety of ways. In fact, look at the structure of this essay. It has a beginning, middle, and an end…

Bill Einreinhofer is Chair of the NYFA Broadcast Journalism department. A three-time Emmy Award winner, he has developed and produced programming for PBS, CBS, ABC, Discovery and HBO. His work has been seen on major broadcast and satellite channels in North America, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

Author: Salvatore Interlandi, Interim Chair, Cinematography Department, New York Film Academy

When we look at the latest digital cinema cameras, there are many design goals that cinematographers have come to expect: lower noise, higher sensitivity, better color reproduction, and higher dynamic range. However, industry leaders like Red and Arriflex have been working on something you might not have expected:

Digital Black & White

In addition to the standard color models, Red has created both Epic and Dragon Monochrome cameras, while Arri is bringing out the Alexa Monochrome. This is an exciting development for cinematographers who have been mourning the recent loss of Kodak Plus-X motion picture stock, as we now have new formats created specifically to create black and white images.

While it is possible to desaturate a color image from a standard digital camera, these new monochrome cameras possess a number of advantages:

• Higher sensitivity
While a standard Red Epic has a recommended ISO of 800, the Epic Monochrome has an ISO of 2000. For low light scenes, this is a tremendous advantage.

• Sharper image
You may be surprised to learn that a CMOS sensor can only record black and white information. Cameras with CMOS chips (like Red cameras) use a complex process known as “Bayer filtering” to recreate color information from the monochrome data that is recorded, which effectively lowers the resolution of the chip. These new monochrome cameras don’t require the Bayer filtering step, therefore the image is sharper than what is possible with a color camera.

• Less compression
The new digital cinema cameras have very high-resolution chips and these create a lot of data. To record this huge amount of information, the camera applies compression and discards some parts of the image that are less important. Generally the first thing to go is color information, as the human eye is less sensitive to this than other things like resolution or dynamic range. Because the monochrome cameras have no color information, they can record with less compression than their color counterparts.

For a great example of this new technology in action, take a look at Justin Timberlake’s “Suit and Tie” music video, directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en) and photographed by Matthew Libatique, ASC (Black Swan, Iron Man). This was shot on the Red Epic Monochrome:

For an additional example of stunning black and white cinematography, take a look at this commercial shot for Audi. Arriflex has taken advantage of another attribute of digital cameras: the increased sensitivity of digital sensors to infrared light as compared to film. This commercial was photographed by Bill Bennett, ASC using a prototype camera. This particular camera began as a Monochrome Alexa, however it has a filter that blocks out all visible light. Instead, it captures only light from the infrared portion of the spectrum, bringing us incredible images very different from what our eyes are used to seeing!

Audi X Factor Shoot from ARRI Channel on Vimeo.

Author: Jim Jennewein, Chair, Screenwriting Department, New York Film Academy Los Angeles

What are the two top industry trends that most affect the lives and careers of screenwriters today? The new dynamics of television and the ever-changing landscape of new media.

In short, digital has rewritten the rules.

In the past five years, mostly thanks to the popularity of new web-based digital media platforms, there has been a marked increase in those buying new original content. Now, in addition to all the old traditional broadcast television networks and the pay cable and basic cable networks, the streaming platforms like Hulu, Amazon and Netflix are buying original series as well—a change that bodes well for writers. Not only are these streaming services finding critical and ratings success with these shows, the series themselves are redefining the way people watch—and emotionally engage—with series television. Some even say that the Emmy-winning success of Netflix’s flagship hit House of Cards, with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, marks the end of so-called “appointment television” itself.

SVOD—streaming video on-demand—is finally here and finally changing our viewing habits in a big way. Watching what you want, when you want, and where you want! That’s the mantra that consumers of filmed entertainment are chanting now, and the big entertainment conglomerates are listening. And it’s not only viewing habits that are changing—there is real evidence that what viewers expect from storytellers is changing too.

Weaned on the trailblazing hit shows of pay-cablers HBO and Showtime, television viewers have long since shown a real appetite for subscription-based ad-free television. Now, with the advent of instant downloads and binge-viewing, viewers are consuming television differently than ever before, and showing more interest in—and a growing demand for—a far more diverse range of television fare. Limited-run series (Sherlock on BBC America). Quirky single-camera half-hour comedies (Louie on FX). Open-ended procedurals with serialized story arcs that span a whole season (AMC’s The Killing). Series driven more by character than by plot (HBO’s Girls). While the movie business still seems allergic to investing in period pieces, television seems to embrace them wholeheartedly. Think Deadwood, Boardwalk Empire, Rome, Copper, Downton Abbey, Mr. Selfridge. For writers, this new openness to a wider variety of stories—and the worlds the stories are rooted in—spells a new kind of storytelling freedom, the chance to explore subjects and time periods previously untouched.

So if you have a world that fascinates you—a period of history, a curious subculture, a character—jump in and start writing. There’s never been a better time to be a television writer—even if viewers watch your show on a laptop, tablet or a mobile device! (Where once it was a limited window of a few short months, the buying of television pilot scripts is now a year-round business, too. Another good thing for writers.)

And now after you write it, you don’t even need a network to say yes. You can shoot it, edit it and distribute it yourself by posting it online—either on YouTube or Vimeo or a whole host of other user-generated video sites—building your own fan base in the process (and possibly leveraging that into real ad revenue). Whether it’s a traditional length movie or your own web series, the digital revolution has put the means of production in the creative person’s hands like never before. In the past year alone, several projects that began as cheaply-produced web series have been picked up by various TV networks and found their way to television.

Even if you are a writer of movies and have no interest in television per se, the new digital technology and the digital distribution platforms create opportunities for writers to produce and direct their own films and sell them straight to these SVOD services.

Content is king, as they say, and no one can create content like writers can. The New York Film Academy Screenwriting Department believes in empowering writers with all the tools of craft and the practical skills necessary to master storytelling—in television, film and new media—and fulfill their vision as creative artists.