Scott Myers

The Business of Screenwriting: Surviving a script notes meeting

Filmmaking, they say, is a “collaborative” effort. To a screenwriter, what this effectively means is that everybody gets to screw with your script. Of course, you know this going in because you’ve read this postso you understand that “auteur” is French for “the director gets to screw with your

Got a Web Video Script Lying Around? Break and Scripped.com Want It

This in from our friends at Scripped.com: Break Media, home of Break.com, has gone on record saying they are planning on producing more than 1,000 original videos this year. And even the great Andy Signore, Sr. Producer in Break’s Creative Lab which actually comes up with

When Harry Met Sally 2

Studio notes gone awry: Gotta hand it to all the actors involved, especially Billy Crystal and Helen Mirren who really sank their teeth into this story conceit. Comment Archive

Movie Story Type: Mistaken Identity

In an ongoing series of posts on movie types and sub-genres. So far we’ve looked at: Body Switch Buddy Picture Fish-Out-Of-Water (FOOW) Frustration Comedy Road Picture Today we look at Mistaken Identity. The basic premise is that a primary character is identified wrongly as someone

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 6

This story idea gives me the opportunity to promote the Beautiful Game: Paul the Octopus picks correctly eight out of eight World Cup matches: UPDATE: PAUL THE OCTOPUS IS NOW EIGHT FOR EIGHT. AMAZING. The brilliant octopus finishes the World Cup with a perfect record, and as many correct picks

Screenwriting 101: Robert Towne

“A movie is really only four or five moments between two people; the rest of it exists to give those moments their impact and resonance.”   — Robert Towne (Chinatown, Shampoo)

Kurt Cobain died 17 years ago today

April 5, 1994. The day Kurt Cobain shot and killed himself. Like many millions of people, I was a huge fan of Nirvana and especially fixated on Cobain. How he managed to emerge from his troubled childhood into a “spokesman for Generation X,” as some in the media dubbed him

Spec Script Sale: “Wild Guns”

Warner Bros. buys spec western “Wild Guns” from writer T.S. Nowlin. From THR: Set shortly after the Civil War, legendary gunslingers Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday team-up to rescue the daughter of Sitting Bull, who has been kidnapped by a powerful Shaman with mysterious powers who is terrorizing

Question: “Who is the Protagonist in ‘Ferris Buller’s Day Off’”?

Stumbled on this in a conversation with one of my UNC students. Man, I post some interesting stuff on this site! Definitely worth a re-post here. Received an email from Eve Montana: Scott, I am working on a feature in which my character is similar to Ferris Beuller in

Movie Story Types: The [Blank] From Hell

This was a popular story conceit back in the 80s and 90s. The [Blank] from Hell. The basic idea is that the Protagonist (and often their family / loved ones) intersect with a character who starts off as seemingly normal, then turns out to be a threatening presence. Examples include: * Fatal

All you grindhouse fans

Got an email from one of the participants in a trailer contest at Hobo With A Shotgun: Online Voting will be open until April 7th at 11:59 PM EST. Once the voting period ends, Jason, John and Rob, along with our special judges Joe Dante, Brian Trenchard Smith, and

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 5

Do you follow The Onion? It’s not only some of the best and funniest writing around, there are also some good ideas for movies. Like this one: Hatred of marriage counselor brings couple together: TEMPE, AZ — Area couple Tom and Becky Witthauser credited the successful resolution of their ongoing

Hollywood Tales

“[James] Cameron was young. He had just directed Terminator. Cameron had called a meeting to discuss his “next project.” Everyone knew Cameron had written a treatment for Alien 2 that nobody would touch because Alien was not a massive financial success. Alien 2 was not on the table. We expected

George R.R. Martin: Felt cheated and frustrated by the ending of “Lost”

Oh, great. A feud has just broken out online. From io9, this article about George R.R. Martin: Now that George R.R. Martin’s long-awaited next book is coming out, and the television version of hisGame of Thrones is coming soon, he’s getting a lot more attention

“Hanna” Director Joe Wright Slams “Sucker Punch’s” Girl Power, Spice Girls: ‘That’s Marketing Bullshit’

On the heels of the grossly underperforming movie Sucker Punch, which dropped 68% its second weekend and has grossed only $29M on an $82M budget, here comes another punch its way. From Movieline: In San Francisco to present his upcoming teen assassin thriller Hanna at WonderCon, director Joe Wright threw

Movie Story Types: Bio-Pics

Either traditional or ‘snapshot’ bios. A bio-pic (or biopic) is a biographical movie of a person’s life. The person can be well known such as Patton (1970) and Ali (2001), or an unknown like Erin Brockovich (2000) and My Left Foot (1989). They can cover every genre: historical

Popcorn Fiction: “The Last American” by Eric Heisserer

Screenwriter-novelist Derek Haas who runs the terrific genre writing site Popcorn Fiction is back with another short story: Eric Heisserer’s last Popcorn Fiction story “Hours” was extremely popular around here. If you haven’t read that one, please go back into the archives and check it out. It’

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 4

There are many ways to generate story ideas. This month, I focus on one: Looking for ideas in news sources. Each of the items I’ll be posting for the next 30 days comes from a news site. Today’s story idea: Michelangelo’s secrets in the Sistine Chapel? At

On writing

“There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.”   — W M Thackeray

The New Indie Film Arthouse: Is It Moving Online?

Per The Wrap: As theater owners stew in Las Vegas over the major studios’ plans to shorten their exclusive windows, a quiet revolution is taking place for smaller films, where theatrical distribution can be at best a brief stopover on the way to life in a big online arthouse. Companies

Profile: Martin Scorcese (Part 5)

Our friend Trevor Hogg has another profile at Flickering Myth, this one on Martin Scorcese. Noted as one of America’s most distinctive directors, Scorcese also has 14 film writing credits including Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and Age of Innocence. Here is an excerpt from the Part 5 finale of the

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 3

Here’s another reason you should look for movie story ideas wherever you can: You never know when inspiration may strike. Back in 1986, Steve Siegel saw a news story about a local K-9 policeman and his canine partner. That news item changed his life — and mine — after we

Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Double Entendres

I say we go with double entendres as suggested by Danny. What exactly are they? Per Wikipedia: A double entendre (French pronunciation: [dubl??t??d??]) or adianoeta[1] is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the

“Movie industry hits ticket sales decline on the nose: It’s put out some stinkers”

Wonder why the spec script market is up considerably compared to last year? Perhaps it has something to do with this: Reporting from Las Vegas and Los Angeles — With movie theater attendance in the U.S. and Canada down a whopping 20% so far this year compared with 2010, cinema

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 2

Another reason for you to generate story ideas: The only way to find a great story idea is to work your way through a bunch of crap ideas. Ira Glass (“This American Life”), arguably one of the most knowledgeable people around today re storytelling, said this: “You have to record