Scott Myers

2010 Hollywood movie release schedule — Not Scheduled (M-Z)

If you’re serious about selling a spec script to a Hwood movie studio, you’re well advised to keep up with what stories they’re buying and what movies they’re releasing. For the former, GITS posts every spec script and original pitch that sells as they occur. Re

“USC professor creates an entire alien language for ‘Avatar’”

Imagine being an academic and getting a call to do this: This modern era of moviemaking has plenty of peculiar challenges for actors — on green-screen sets, for instance, they have to watch a ping-pong ball hanging from a string and convince the camera that they actually staring down

Video interview: Aaron Sorkin

Today’s video interview is with screenwriter-TV writer Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin’s movie credits include A Few Good Men (1992), Malice (1993), The American President (1995), and Charlie Wilson’s War (2007). His TV credits include “Sports Night” (45 episodes, 1998–2000), “The West Wing” (155 episodes, 1999–2006)

“The Wire” — 50% off

GITS reader Jeff emailed me this link: The entire HBO series “The Wire” currently half-off at Amazon. Thanks, Jeff, for the heads-up! Comment Archive

Question: Bolded sluglines — yes or no?

Open forum question from The Douche Guide: bolded sluglines thoughts? Let me back into the subject by talking first about transitions — CUT TO, DISSOLVE TO, SMASH CUT TO, etc. My sense of style trends is that they are being used less and less. Why? I suspect because they can prove

2010 Hollywood movie release schedule — Not Scheduled (A-L)

If you’re serious about selling a spec script to a Hwood movie studio, you’re well advised to keep up with what stories they’re buying and what movies they’re releasing. For the former, GITS posts every spec script and original pitch that sells as they occur. Re

“Three Less Orthodox Story Structures”

Lee Mathias at his screenwriting blog The Last Reveal offers up his latest post: “Three Less Orthodox Story Structures”. They are: 1) The Sonata Musical Form  2) Five-Act Structure 3) Nine-Act Structure with Two Goals and a Reversal Per the first one, Mathias notes: Scott Myers, at his

Interview: Joe Penhall (The Road)

Today’s interview is from MovieFill.com with British playwright and screenwriter Joe Penhall, who adapted the Cormac McCarthy novel “The Road” for its screen treatment. Here is an excerpt from the interview: Q: Can you talk about your first reactions reading the book and some of the challenges of

Question: What is the best way to read a script?

Open forum question from Frank Buckley: I have a question about the reading of scripts. I have often read that it is most beneficial to read a screenplay in one sitting, in order to truly learn from the experience. I can see the wisdom of this as you are better

2010 Hollywood movie release schedule (4th quarter)

If you’re serious about selling a spec script to a Hwood movie studio, you’re well advised to keep up with what stories they’re buying and what movies they’re releasing. For the former, GITS posts every spec script and original pitch that sells as they occur. Re

“Top Movie Turkeys of 2009”

On the LA Times “Circuit” blog, this post: To celebrate the consumption of so much turkey on Thanksgiving Day, we invited Harry Medved, senior director, public relations for Fandango (and a pioneer in the field of Bad Movie Study as co-author, with his brother Michael Medved, of “The Fifty

“Anatomy of a Contender: Up”

The latest in my neverending fawning admiration for all things Pixar: THR has this article which provides some background on the genesis and development of the story for the movie Up. Here is a key excerpt: Over lunch one day, Docter sketched an old man on a napkin with a

Great Scene: Sideways

Miles on pinot noir. Maya on the “life of wine”. Subtext abounds! If one of my students can’t quite grasp the concept of “subtext,” often I’ll have them read this scene in the movie Sideways. Written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor (based on the novel by Rex

Question: Are we too cynical nowadays for Capra-esque movies?

Open forum question from itstartedwithawindmill: Is the modern viewing audience too cynical for Capra-esque movies? I just wrote one and wonder if I’m battling yet another windmill. The script got some interest from a producer, but I really doubt that I’ll get any feedback. First off, let’

2010 Hollywood movie release schedule (3rd quarter)

If you’re serious about selling a spec script to a Hwood movie studio, you’re well advised to keep up with what stories they’re buying and what movies they’re releasing. For the former, GITS posts every spec script and original pitch that sells as they occur. Re

The Auteurs: 3 Bunuel films online for free!

I posted on the great new site The Auteurs here back in September: Not everyone can make it to the Cannes Film Festival-especially if you are a school teacher or you live in Winnipeg (or both)-but that doesn’t mean you can’t recite all of Kubrick’s

“The Definitive List of Clichéd Dialogue”

Just about a month ago, I posted this: Writer Kevin Lehane, whose script “Grabbers” made the most recent Brit List, the UK equivalent of The Black List, has a blog called The Anthology of Codology. I was bumping around it the other day and hit this post: “The Definitive List

Daily Dialogue — November 26, 2009

“Maybe dad didn’t abandon us. Maybe he just forgot who we were.”  — Wendy Savage (Laura Linney), The Savages (2007), written and directed by Tamara Jenkins Comment Archive

This day in history: “The Hollywood 10”

On today’s date in 1947, this happened: Movie studio executives meeting in New York agreed to blacklist the “Hollywood 10,” who were cited a day earlier and jailed for contempt of Congress when they failed to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Who are the Hollywood 10?

Question: How to misdirect reader in scene description?

Open forum question from E.C.: How do you format a scene where you want to open on an image, THEN reveal where it takes place at? The rub lies in do you have to give away the suprise of where you’re at in the first shot heading, OR

2010 Hollywood movie release schedule (2nd quarter)

If you’re serious about selling a spec script to a Hwood movie studio, you’re well advised to keep up with what stories they’re buying and what movies they’re releasing. For the former, GITS posts every spec script and original pitch that sells as they occur. Re

Writers on how they write: Laura Lippman

The Wall Street Journal had a great article a few weeks back: “How to Write a Great Novel”, reflections by novelists on how they approach writing. Since the article is subscription only, I’ve been featuring one writer per day here, highlighting their process with a key excerpt from the

Screenwriting 101: David Lynch

‘’For seven years I ate at Bob’s Big Boy. I would go at 2:30, after the lunch rush. I ate a chocolate shake and four, five, six, seven cups of coffee — with lots of sugar. And there’s lots of sugar in that chocolate shake. It’s a

The 2009 Turkey List

By now, you all know about The Black List, as noted here (2008) and here (2007) — the best unproduced scripts in Hwood. But The Black List is nothing compared to this: The 2009 Turkey List: THE TURKEY LIST is an index of the most questionable unproduced specs of 2009, based

Question: Should I have CGI budget concerns in a spec script?

An Open Forum email question from Patrick: My question today has been bothering me for some time. At the moment I’m working on a script that revolves around a group of adopted brothers. I’d say it’s an Action/Thriller. I won’t really go into it, unless