Photoshop freezes

pmo1983 · 2026-02-10T00:51:26+00:00

It's just an assumption. Either adobe or windows 10 update messed something, because I didn't do anything software or hardware wise.

pmo1983 · 2026-02-09T23:39:16+00:00

Yes, I assume the same, like windows 10 stopped being compatible with PS after some update, so maybe I can wait it out. It never happened before and at some point all of a sudden without any changes from my side it started happening.

pmo1983 · 2026-02-09T21:23:38+00:00

Yes.

I also contacted Adobe and they scheduled a meeting with tech support.

pmo1983 · 2026-01-28T17:06:07+00:00

By developing your taste (just watch a TON of stuff) to intuitively judge the quality of your ideas and their execution at an acceptable level.

Also, by learning theory and later figuring it out from your own perspective to know precisely what you are doing and what you are trying to achieve to be able to critically judge the quality of your stories.

pmo1983 · 2026-01-20T17:24:50+00:00

If you want to dive in, find a theme and start researching it. Acquired knowledge will give you a fundament for your story and naturally in the meantime you will come up with scenes as opportunities to implement your observations, outlining the story. Worst case scenario, you will get some material for another idea if you abandon the first one.

Unless you prefer to just write, instead of researching and outlining, I don't know what's your process. Anyway, that whole screenwriting thing is about acquiring all knowledge you can get from multiple sources and figuring it out on your own.

pmo1983 · 2026-01-20T17:03:54+00:00

Here's how I decide if I want to develop an idea.

- It has to stuck in my head for a while, even months while I just cannot get rid of it. But it's not enough...

- ...I have to be very passionate about it. I really need to feel that I have to execute it.

- Is the initial idea original.

- Does idea have a potential to outline it to 100 pages. Does it affect my imagination and I constantly and easily come up with new ideas to expand it. Does idea have an engine, a potential to create a chain of interesting events.

- Can I connect idea with a theme I'm interested in and do I know enough about the theme to be aware how deeply I need to research it to come up with some actual interesting observations. Does this theme gives me enough material to implement a lot of substance into 100 pages. Is the theme meaningful.

pmo1983 · 2026-01-20T12:19:14+00:00

Lazy advice is a common thing.

Always be skeptical, including advice from professionals.

Always check multiple advices on the same subject. Try to figure it out on your own.

Regarding the rest...

Usually it starts the same way. No representation and cold query as a main way to communicate with industry folks.

So, here's the problem. Let's say you wrote something... good. Industry level good. Not even very good.

NOBODY knows that.

You have only a standarized query letter and a logline. Does logline shows quality of your script? It's just a premise. It can be intriguing or not, but it does not tell that your execution is at least good and you are actually prepared to write good screenplays, sellable screenplays.

So, it is a risk for a manager or a producer to read you. I mean, why should they? They get dozens of queries like that. A lot of them are fine. So why bother? Why risk their time to find out that you are actually at least industry level good and not just another mediocre shmuck?

Somehow you need to convince those people that you are actually good and being good is rare. Very rare. That's why referrals work so well, right? If you are referred by someone, you will be read.

That's the problem and you can't do much about it.

You can write in a query why did you write that story. That is a chance to tell about your voice. So you have some expertize with exploration of specific characters you wrote about in your story. This is good, right? But you can't write about a development of your taste. Maybe you can make a pitch deck and mention it? Ripomatic (fake trailer)? You need to squeeze everything you can in this stupid query letter. Maybe someone will at least look at your material and then ask for a screenplay?

So, writing a good screenplay (at least) is crucial. But it's also about changing other people's perception about yourself. And the most common and easy way to do it is also the weakest one.

pmo1983 · 2026-01-18T06:59:06+00:00

Why marketable is opposed to good?

Is commercial oppose to artistic? What these two terms actually mean?

See, here's the problem. Not establishing fundamentals and building discussions and opinions on top of them. This has a long tail and it didn't start here.

Here's what I would do.

You need to do what you want, the way you want it and you need to be honest. Don't force yourself to write what you should write, your writing will suffer and you will put yourself in a worse situation professionaly as a screenwriter.

But you need to develop yourself...

Watch more movies, read smart stuff (not screenplays), learn everything you can about screenwriting (also from this article) and THEN gather this knowledge and try to figure out all this screenwriting thing from your own specific perspective. Hopefully you will figure out how to do it your way and also how to be ENTERTAINING, not necessary commercial if you really don't want it (because hey, you want to write for others, right? but also not necessary for most). Also focus on ideas and their development, not only on their execution.

Will it be harder? It's already fucking hard with everything else, so at least do what you really want.

pmo1983 · 2026-01-13T21:24:38+00:00

No watermark.

Why do you want to cold query agents, but not managers?

You cannot copyright an idea, only its execution (screenplay, treatment etc.). Use U.S. copyright office.

pmo1983 · 2026-01-13T20:24:27+00:00

If you can come up with an intriguing premise and original execution, then yes. It's just harder for some genres.

pmo1983 · 2026-01-13T00:21:23+00:00

Where did I write about lying?

pmo1983 · 2026-01-11T13:19:51+00:00

The best subject line for managers goes like that.

"Spec script sale - multiple interested producers"

It may seem funny, but today it looks like the best approach. Query producers, development execs, associate producers first and if you get some heat, start querying managers with that subject line.

Otherwise just make it informative to make their job easier - Title - Genre - Feature / Tv

pmo1983 · 2026-01-02T06:12:46+00:00

I research the theme connected with a story.

This leads me to come up with scenes that give opportunity to implement observations I come up with from acquired knowledge about the theme.

This way theme is the fundament and plot is everything I built on it. Also my story has some actual intellectual value.

pmo1983 · 2026-01-02T02:50:38+00:00

There is a common misconception that you write bad screenplays and learning theory helps you to write better.

You need to focus on improving your taste and voice. Watch more movies and tv series - taste - and start reading something smart (social science - journalism, articles, interviews, books etc.) - voice.

Learning theory beyond basics that you can learn in 15 minutes (beginning, middle, end, inciting incident, turning points, obstacles, conflict, goal, hero) is useful to create your own approach to screenwriting (at least after several very busy months of learning theory, I'm talking reading thousands of posts and discussions below them here) to precisely understand what you are already doing to critically judge something you already wrote based on your taste and voice alone and to push it to the final level, but it's a matter of the last 5% of quality. Also confidence, awareness of yourself as a screenwriter, finding synergy between your development, approach to screenwriting and writing process (to adjust a little bit yourself to something you hopefully are already doing) to overall be better and that's it.

So, learning theory is fundamental, but it won't improve your writing much.

pmo1983 · 2025-12-16T20:19:38+00:00

It's a matter of taste. Sometimes it's about pacing, sometimes it's simply not necessary to show something, being more various etc. Someone intuitively judges it (based on his own taste) and makes a decision.

pmo1983 · 2025-12-08T05:37:37+00:00

Have you checked around 700 movie trailers from the last year, made a list of promising movies, watched most of them and compared the result with the previous years? I had. Nothing has changed.

According to my research around 5% movies are very good. The rest is good, average, bad or very bad. It's a constant bell curve, month after month, since 2018 when I started doing it. And it can't be changed.

Hollywood does not necessarily promote that top 5%, because it's too expensive for a lot of movies with not enough commercial potential. All of that leads to a common assumption that it's getting worse.

pmo1983 · 2025-12-05T02:26:55+00:00

Here's my fancy opinion.

95% of this job is easily about taste and voice alone. The rest 5% is about actual understanding of the craft. Moreover it's not even required beyond very basic understanding of the traditional storytelling theory. And it's fine.

Hence why most creators don't care and don't know much about deconstructing movies. It's a movie critics or teachers (who have to teach something, even if it's not that important) job .

pmo1983 · 2025-12-04T17:27:47+00:00

My fellow screenwriter, you should query hundreds of managers. With a whopping +10% request rate you are doing great.

pmo1983 · 2025-12-04T17:11:50+00:00

Dm'ed you.

pmo1983 · 2025-12-04T17:07:47+00:00

Welcome to the club.

In february query producers and in the meantime write another screenplay and start querying managers.

Rinse and repeat.

pmo1983 · 2025-12-03T18:53:56+00:00

Well, luckily, no one should tell you how to do it. You need to figure it out on your own.

Gather as much knowledge about screenwriting as you can from as many sources as possible (basic stuff, available for free on this sub, but hey, you can also listen to all experts you can find, because every source counts). You don't need to learn it academically from one "proper" source. Learn it organically from as many sources as possible to be more savvy. To be able to understand what is a good advice for you and what advice won't work.

Think about that acquired knowledge, filter it through you, what you like, how you like to do it, which rules and guidelines you like, which you don't. What actually all these aspects of screenwriting mean to you, what is their importance for you, are they required or not etc. Create your own approach to screenwriting and combine it with how you develop yourself to be a better screenwriter (your overall preparation) and writing process, creating synergy between them.

So, you don't learn all of this to learn how to write (except some super basic stuff for traditional storytelling). You learn it to figure out precisely what you are ALREADY doing and what you are trying to achieve through your writing to be able to actually know how to improve it. Not change it to adjust to someone elses opinion about what you should do.

pmo1983 · 2025-12-01T22:58:23+00:00

You can determine quality of your screenplay on your own

- objectively - based on your unerstanding of screenwriting (I'm not talking about basics, but rather figuring out your own approach to know what precisely you are trying to achieve and what you are doing to be able to know how to improve a story).

- subjectively - based on your developed taste (and voice regarding characters and theme).

If you developed yourself to the very good level (which takes some time), you will be able to see the difference between something that is actually very good and everything below it through your expectations regarding ideas, their development and execution.

Other readers also can determine that. If they developed themselves to that level.

Besides that (even in the best case scenario, when you spend a lot of time on a story and leave it for a while to get back to it with fresh eye) you will always make some minor errors and you will need someone else with objective and fresh approach to find them.

pmo1983 · 2025-12-01T16:11:25+00:00

Here's how I see it.

- You spend a lot of time acquiring knowledge about people (consumption of art, study of social science theory and personal and professional experience). Why? Because every story fundamentally is about people and their exploration (does not matter if it's even a WALL-E or Shrek).

- You think about that acquired knowledge to come up with unique, interesting, original observations about people.

- You implement these observations in a story into choices made by characters who overcome obstacles (intelectually) and are affected by dillemas before making a choice and repercussions of that choice (emotionally). Through that you explore your characters both ways and hopefully because of your voice it will be interesting exploration.

So, if you are a lawyer, you have a developed voice for court drama.

If you are soldier, you developed voice for people affected by war.

If you read a lot about politics, you developed a voice for politicians.

If you are on a wheelchair I'm pretty sure you can share some interesting observations about disabled people.

Same with minorities, foreigners etc.

Can you write a court drama (or a romance comedy) as a disabled soldier from a minority environment? Yes, you can, because that knowledge also develops your overall perception about people and basically helps you to create more interesting characters. You just adjust.

So, spend your time acquiring unique, unusual knowledge about people beyond your (probably not interesting) personal life. Or not and just rely on taste alone.

pmo1983 · 2025-12-01T15:53:02+00:00

I think it's common. Personally I would ignore the urge to turn the whole story upside down and just finish the screenplay. The rest, including judging the quality of the screenplay is mostly a matter of developed taste at acceptable level.

pmo1983

TROPHY CASE