Scott Myers

Reader Question: Is it okay for the Antagonist drive the Plot?

A reader question from Jeff: Scott, I’m in the initial mapping/plotting stages of I guess what could be considered a traditional Hollywood blockbuster type movie. Y’know, tubs of nuclear-butter popcorn sold left n’ right, THX audio to shake their fillings right outta’ their skulls, eye popping

National Board of Review awards announced

Per this release: Partial list of film awards given by National Board of Review, announced Thursday: Best Film: “Up in the Air” Best Director: Clint Eastwood, “Invictus” Best Actor(s): George Clooney, “Up in the Air”; Morgan Freeman, “Invictus” Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, “An Education” Best Supporting Actor: Woody Harrelson,

“Blade Runner” dialogue analysis

This week, as determined by GITS readers, the Daily Dialogue has been featuring famous dying words from movie characters. On Tuesday, the movie was Blade Runner and the dialogue quote was simply “Time to die,” as uttered by Rutger Hauer’s character Roy Batty. That inspired this email from GITS

Update: Spec script sale: “Invasion”

Posted on this Monday, noting the trades hadn’t reported it yet. Now they have: Summit Entertainment and Participant Media are teaming on “Invasion,” snapping up a Ben Magid’s sci-fi spec script. “Invasion” is described as a sci-fi action movie with an environmental theme. Logline’s under

Question: What’s the deal with color coded index cards for script outlines?

Open forum question from Tom: When you posted the piece on how author Don Chaon uses color coded index cards for his first draft it made me wonder how? When I use color coded cards, I use them to identify either a theme or a particular character. How do you

How They Write a Script: Horton Foote

One of the most beloved American movies — and also one of my personal favorites — is To Kill a Mockingbird, the cinematic version of Harper Lee’s 1960 novel. The writer who adapted the novel into a screenplay is Horton Foote. A noted playwright as well as screenwriter, Foote’s movie

What to think about our first scripts?

In his latest book “Outliers,” author Malcolm Gladwell lays out something he calls The 10,000 Hour Rule: The search for success has spawned a motivational industry worth millions of pounds and libraries full of self-improvement books. It is practice, however, that makes perfect, according to the sociologist whose

“Twilight: New Moon” parody

Awesome! Comment Archive

Screenwriting 101: Anna Hamilton Phelan

“If I could say anything… it is to keep going. Don’t go back and fix that first scene. Don’t go back and fix that dialogue. Write yourself a little note saying, ‘Put in first scene such-and-such,’ if you happen to think of something, then get a

Insanely cool photographs

Actors revisiting famous movie roles: Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster — THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS Lots more at EmpireOnline.com. Comment Archive

“‘The Blind Side’ writes a new playbook”

In today’s LA Times: In one of the more extraordinary box-office stories of the year, writer-director John Lee Hancock’s movie about Baltimore Ravens lineman Michael Oher — who as a homeless black teen was taken in and nurtured by a well-off, churchgoing white couple — nearly toppled

Question: Does a story hook (1st ten pages) have to be suspenseful?

Open forum question from The_High_Dweller: In regard to hooking the reader in first 10 pages… Would you say that a “hook” consists of something shocking, mesmerizing, tantalizing, OR can a hook also be something that simply sets the stage for things to come in an interesting manner? In

“‘Panic’ pushes Hollywood buttons”

Michael Flemming is reporting this story in Variety: Ghost House Pictures has made a seven-figure deal with a Uruguayan commercials director to direct his pitch for an alien invasion film — an exceptional deal for a helmer making his feature directing debut.Most first-time helmers make $250,000, but

Spec script sale: “Invasion”

SlashFilm.com is reporting — but not the trades (that I can find) — that Summit has picked up spec alien thriller “Invasion” from writer Ben Magid: Ben Magid’s spec screenplay Invasion has sold to Summit Entertainment/Participant for low to mid six figures. The story, which is an alien invasion

Spec script sale: “The Low Self Esteem of Lizzie Gillespie”

Mandate Pictures picks up rom-com spec “The Low Self Esteem of Lizzie Gillespie” from “The Office” writers Brent Forrester and Mindy Kaling: Story centers on a woman whose lack of self-worth has limited her choice in men to losers. Just as she is about to hit the bottom

Spirit noms announced

Per THR: “The Last Station,” which looks at Russian author Leo Tolstoy’s final days, and “Precious,” the portrait of a troubled inner-city teenager, led the 2010 Spirit Award nominations announced Tuesday morning with five noms each. Both movies were nominated for best feature along with “(500) Days of

Hollywood Tales

“I think the worst fight we [Alfred Hitchcock] ever had was over the ending of To Catch a Thief. We had different ideas. I wrote twenty-seven different endings and still don’t like the one that was used. We had a couple of slam-bang script fights. Still, we

Question: What makes a great scene?

Open forum question from Manwhit: i was wondering if you could tell me what makes a great scene. in other words, ideally what should every scene have in it? conflict, argument, visual ques, etc? is there a checklist that you can create so that one could go through their screenplay

Hollywood Roaster: “Final Draft unveils special ‘Remake Edition’”

New satire from The Hollywood Roaster: In an effort to stay relevant in today’s marketplace, Final Draft has released a special edition of its famous scriptwriting software that focuses on remakes, sequels and adaptations. “We’ve compiled the original scripts from classic movies, cheesy TV shows and high-concept

“Here’s Proof Originality Doesn’t Pay in Hollyw’d”

Okay, I think we’ve all been feeling entirely too happy around here, so time to bum you out with this: “Here’s Proof Originality Doesn’t Pay in Hollywood”: Some enterprising Wikipedia contributor decided to pull together a list of the 50 films with the highest worldwide gross of

Studies in good scene description

Over the past year and a half, we’ve discussed scene description several times: Scene description as poetry Screenwriting and the present tense American Beauty and The Sixth Sense: Good ‘poetic’ writing Capitalization in scene description Butch Cassidy: One way to write an action scene Screenwriters confront a challenge with

On writing

“If you write a story today, and you get up tomorrow and start another story, all the expertise that you put into the first story doesn’t transfer over automatically to the second story. You’re always starting at the bottom of the mountain. So you’re always becoming a

Daily Dialogue — November 30, 2009

“Shoot straight, you bastards — don’t make a mess of it.”  — Lt. Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant (Edward Woodward), Breaker Morant (1980), screenplay by Jonathan Hardy and David Stevens and Bruce Beresford Comment Archive

“‘Call of Duty’ breaks $3 billion sales mark”

Check this out from THR: Activision Blizzard Inc. said its “Call of Duty” video game franchise has pushed past the $3 billion mark in global retail sales. Overall, the “Call of Duty” series has sold more than 55 million units since its launch in 2003, Activision said Friday, citing data

Reader Question: What are the keys to a great opening scene?

Reader Question: What are some keys to a great opening scene? Or how to grab the attention of a script reader right away? Question from Keith: What are some principles you use for opening scenes? What makes an opening scene really hook the reader, and get behind our “hero” for