Scott Myers

Hollywood Tales

“Once Jonathan [Demme] came on board [The Silence of the Lambs] and it was greenlighted and a start date was set, then everything began happening at once. While I was rewriting, we were also talking about everything else in the world, including casting. Jonathan is generous with all his collaborators.

Oscar Moguls: Amy Pascal (Sony Pics) Q&A

Deadline is running an interesting series of interviews with the heads of production at major Hollywood Studios. The focus of the Q&A’s is on the current Oscars race, but I’ve drilled down into each conversation to highlight information relevant to screenwriters. As I have said before,

Tom McCarthy to Pen Disney Sports Drama ‘Million Dollar Arm’

This is great news. Per THR: Walt Disney Pictures has set indie darling Tom McCarthy to write Million Dollar Arm, based on the inspirational story of how sports agent J.B. Bernstein discovered professional pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel through his Indian reality show. Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray’

Screenwriting Lessons: “The Social Network” — Part 1: Compelling Protagonist

As I watched The King’s Speech recently, I was struck by how many screenwriting lessons could be gleaned from the movie. So I decided this week and next to analyze The King’s Speech and The Social Network, the most likely winners of this year’s Academy Awards for

On writing

“You have to be brave to take out that white sheet of paper and put on it words that could be evidence of your stupidity.”   — Sol Saks Comment Archive

Screenwriting Master Class: Your Feedback Wanted

As Tom Benedek and I continue to roll out our online writing resource Screenwriting Master Class, we have several content areas we’re considering and would appreciate your feedback: * Live Webinars: Since Tom and I know a lot of industry professionals, we have been researching a way to do live

Profile: Danny Boyle (Part 1)

Our friend Trevor Hogg is back at FlickeringMyth with the first installment of a profile on Danny Boyle. An excerpt: “I come from a very ordinary, working class family in Manchester,” explained British filmmaker Danny Boyle. “It was a very strict Catholic family. I was an altar boy for eight

Ommwriter

Any of you writers who suffer from TDD (The Distraction Disease), have I found something for you: A wise man once said “We are all at the mercy of our wild monkey minds. Incessantly swinging from branch to branch.” With multiple windows and applications all vying for our attention, we

Written Interview: Cameron Crowe

Today’s written interview is via MovieFone with writer-director Cameron Crowe: Compared with the other four films you wrote and directed yourself, where does ‘Almost Famous’ rank in terms of importance to you personally? Cameron Crowe: [The most important is] definitely ‘Almost Famous,’ a script that was in my

Daily Dialogue — February 12, 2011

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is phone calls suggested by Lisa and Zeb Eckle. Lost Highway suggested by Kyle. Trivia: Fred’s phone number ends in the digits 666. This is revealed when he dials it at the prompting of the mystery man. Comment Archive

Reader Question: What does “literary style” mean in terms of writing a screenplay?

Over time, screenplays have become less ‘scripty’ and more ‘literary’. Question from Erik Rolfsen: Scott: I’d be interested in reading an elaboration on something you posted recently: “…the shift the last two decades has been away from using directing / editing lingo in screenplays toward more of what may be

What drives screenwriters crazy!

Press pieces like this: The 5 Secrets of Tom Hooper’s ‘King’s Speech’ Success: So how did Hooper do it? What are the secrets of his success? 1. Fail as a Child Actor Directed by Roger Mortimer. His ex-Royal Shakespeare Company drama teacher when he was 10 to

Screenwriting Lessons: “The King’s Speech” — Part 5: Moments

As I watched The King’s Speech recently, I was struck by how many screenwriting lessons could be gleaned from the movie. So I decided this week and next to analyze The King’s Speech and The Social Network, the most likely winners of this year’s Academy Awards for

Audio Interview: Jon and Erich Hoeber (“Red”)

This month, I’ll be posting an audio interview with a notable screenwriter each day. Today: Jon and Erich Hoeber who co-wrote Red. You can access the Creative Screenwriting podcast here. Comment Archive

Great Characters: Annie Hall (“Annie Hall”)

In honor of Valentine’s Day, how about a great movie character from a great romantic comedy: Annie Hall from the movie of the same name: The 1977 movie is written and directed by Woody Allen, and won 4 Academy Awards including Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.

Just a friendly reminder…

Read scripts. Watch movies. Write pages. Three keys to learning the craft of screenwriting. Comment Archive

Update: “Point Blank” search continues

Sheridan at myPDFscripts.com and I continue our quest: To find a copy of the original Alexander Jacobs script for Point Blank. Today Sheridan has the definitive post about the script including this interview excerpt from Jacobs: There is an interview with Alexander Jacobs available in Film Quaterly, Vol. 21,

The sky is falling!!!

With ledes like this — January 2011 box office: 29% drop from January 2010 — it’s pretty easy to start feeling vaguely apocalyptic about the state of the movie business. From BoxOfficeMojo: The January box office tallied $754 million, which paled compared to January 2010’s record $1.06 billion gross.

Screenwriting Lessons: “The King’s Speech” — Part 4: Shadow

As I watched The King’s Speech recently, I was struck by how many screenwriting lessons could be gleaned from the movie. So I decided this week and next to analyze The King’s Speech and The Social Network, the most likely winners of this year’s Academy Awards for

Spec Script Sale: “Voices from the Dead”

DreamWorks buys spec period thriller “Voices from the Dead” written by J. Michael Straczynski. Per THR: The thriller delves into the real-life relationship between magician Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. Houdini and Doyle, who was a leading Spiritualist at the time, met in 1920 and

The Business of Screenwriting: There is always another way

Between writing assignments, I wrote a spec script. It’s a contained thriller called “Legacy,” about a child psychiatrist who ends up on a remote Tennessee farm dealing with a suicidal 12 year-old girl and her close knit family… then all sorts of weird paranormal stuff starts to happen…

Reader Question: How should I handle an event where I will meet a Hollywood writer-producer?

Wherein I provide the single best piece of advice to a writer… ever. Just received an email from Anonymous and thought I’d slip it into the queue of reader questions as they need advice asap. Anonymous has been invited to a social event. Present at this event will be

Update: Amazon Studios: Their official response

I’ve covered Amazon Studios — here, here, here, and here. I’ve linked to Craig Maizin and John August who offered strong critiques of the initiative. As a member of the WGA for over two decades, I have serious misgivings about any corporate sponsored effort that uses a financial approach

Screenwriting Lessons: “The King’s Speech” — Part 3: Talismans

As I watched The King’s Speech recently, I was struck by how many screenwriting lessons could be gleaned from the movie. So I decided this week and next to analyze The King’s Speech and The Social Network, the most likely winners of this year’s Academy Awards for

Screenwriting 101: Nicholas Meyer

“I got hold of some screenplay, just so I could see the proper formatting. As the years went by, the only change I made was to eliminate the words ‘cut to,’ which always seemed redundant… They just take up space on the page… I just write “interior” and “exterior,” and