Scott Myers

Question: How to search for and find inspiration in similar films to the one I want to write?

Open Forum question from Itstartedwithawindmill (Scott) via email: As a relatively new screenwriter, it is difficult for me to come up with a list of movies (& scripts) to help with the writing process. For example, I have a Fugitive-ish script that needs a little inspiration. Where can I

Dialogue, Part 1: The Sounds of Silence

Once again, I return to you fresh from digging into the prodigious reserves of my online screenwriting lectures with something I thought you might find interesting: Thoughts about writing dialogue, but with a specific slant on the topic which is not generally covered. I’ll break up the lecture into

Movie Story Type: Post-Apocalypse

Witness the current box office success of The Book of Eli and The Legion, following up on the recent film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, clearly audiences are interested in all things apocalyptic. Indeed Hollywood has had a long-standing fixation on post-apocalypse stories. Here are

Wanted: Your suggestions for Daily Dialogue

From our last Daily Dialogue contest, we had this suggestion from Greg Colburn: Notable questions in dialogue. Here are some examples: High Fidelity Rob Gordon: What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of

On Writing

“The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.”  — Jules Renard, “Diary,” February 1895 Comment Archive

“The 100 Cheesiest Movie Quotes of All Time”

From our friend hh1edits in the U.K., his latest offering: Comment Archive

Weekend Box Office

Per the LA Times: The №1 broadcast network got a lesson in big screen disappointment this weekend. “Extraordinary Measures,” the first release from CBS Films, debuted to an anemic $7 million, according to a studio estimate. “Avatar,” meanwhile, once again dominated the box office charts with a very small decline,

Daily Dialogue — January 24, 2010

“[referring to Deb’s milk] I see you’re drinking 1%. Is that ’cause you think you’re fat? ’Cause you’re not. You could be drinking whole if you wanted to.”  — Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder), Napoleon Dynamite (2004), written by Jared Hess & Jerusha Hess Comment Archive

Sundance reports

Because Variety has said a big F.U. to non-suscribers and THR’s reporting thus far has been rather spotty, let’s see what The Wrap has to say about the Sundance Film Festival: A Powerful Opening Night for Sundance: The Sundance Film Festival opened with the usual fanfare

Movies You Made: “The Take Home Final”

Received an email from GITS reader Robert Gati: My senior year of college I made a short film called “The Take Home Final” that poked fun at my school and Ivy League life in general. It had a good run on campus and even got press on our school newspaper

“You’re Fired!”

H/T to Mystery Man for digging this up: “The 9 Most Epic Movie Firings”. The list: Robocop American Beauty Fast Times at Ridgemont Hig Good Fellas Philadelphia Jerry Maguire Fight Club Back to the Future II Trading Places Any list with Back to the Future II is suspect in

Written Interview: Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart)

Today’s interview is with Scott Cooper, the screenwriter and director of the movie Crazy Heart (2009). Fox Searchlight is distributing the movie and here is their marketing department’s summary of the story: Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had

Subplots, Part 2: “Back to the Future”

Following up on an earlier thread in comments, I promised to try and find a lecture I did analyzing the movie Back to the Future to explore the subject of subplots. Here it is: BACK TO THE FUTURE (written by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale) is a script which makes

How They Write A Script: George Axelrod

For about a decade during the 50s and 60s, screenwriter and playwright George Axelrod was one of the hottest and most prolific writers in Hollywood. His movie credits include The Seven Year Itch (1955), Bus Stop (1956), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Paris — When It Sizzles

Rob’s Finds

GITS contributor Rob Fuller is back with some more nuggets he’s dug up on the Web. First up, a fantastic interview on io9.com with the Hughes brothers: “Is Book of Eli A Christian Movie? We Ask The Hughes Bros.: Eli really walks the line of being an evangelical

Friday Movie Reviews

Extraordinary Measures (CBS Films) Hollywood Reporter (Stephen Farber): “Harrison Ford is always watchable in this otherwise routine tear-jerker.” Miami Herald (Rene Rodriguez): “Extraordinary Measures is the first release from the newly formed CBS Films, where the company credo seems to be ‘Let’s trick people into paying to see

Great Scene: “Duck Soup”

As much of a fan of movies as I am, I’m still shocked to remember that it wasn’t until I was in college that I saw a Marx Bros. movie for the first time. It was a double feature: Coconuts and Duck Soup. I’m not sure I’

The GITS Club

On Tuesday, we announced the beginning of The GITS Club. As the mastermind of the idea Jeff Messerman put it in the announcement: I’d like to extend to all of you a hearty invite to THE GITS CLUB. The idea is that this will be a small, safe community

Movies You Made: “Expiration Date”

I received a nice email from Noah Pohl last week. Noah, who works as an assistant in Hwood, has this background on a short film he shot called “Expiration Date”: Here’s the facts: I made EXPIRATION DATE for twenty dollars. I borrowed a camera, shot it in twelve hours,

“YouTube Will Use Sundance Film Festival To Test Rentals”

Interesting: YouTube has been working a lot with the majors when it comes to getting movies online. Now it’s using indie 2010 Sundance Film Festival to test rentals, announcing today via the YouTube blog that it will offer five festival films. The run is as limited as the festival:

Scene Description Spotlight: “The Deer Hunter”

During the Vietnam War, two American prisoners are forced to play Russian roulette. I can still remember seeing The Deer Hunter for the first time. I was living in Aspen, Colorado. Had a rare night off from playing music. Came out of the theater just gutted by the movie — and

Daily Dialogue — January 21, 2010

“I appreciate this whole seduction thing you’ve got going on here, but let me give you a tip: I’m a sure thing.”  — Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts), Pretty Woman (1990), written by J.F. Lawton Comment Archive

Movies You Made: “Shattered”

Another Movie You Made from recent USC film school grad Spenser Cohen: “Shattered” is my thesis project from film school. We shot it on 16mm film in Los Angeles over the course of four weekends, and spent three months in post production (editing, scoring, doing sound design, etc.) I’m

Feature: Webserials.com

I’ve been following web series and original web content on this blog from just about the beginning: Strike.tv, Kyle Piccolo: Comic Shop Therapist, The Guild, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and Circle of 8 among others. Recently I swapped some emails with Brian Walton about a web

“You Saw What in ‘Avatar’? Pass Those Glasses!”

We noted the ‘controversy’ here: From the LA Times blog “Big Picture,” hosted by Patrick Goldstein “Right wingers launch new attack on ‘Avatar’”: It seems as if the more money “Avatar “ makes at the box office (it’s now officially the second-biggest-grossing film of all time), the more