Scott Myers

Tom McCarthy Narrates a Scene From ‘Spotlight’

Spotlight is an excellent new movie and should garner quite a bit of attention in the Academy Awards. Here is a scene with commentary by the movie’s director and co-writer Tom McCarthy. NYTLogo_gray#888888Edit descriptiongraphics8.nytimes.com Who’s seen Spotlight? What do you think of it?

Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 217th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest. For Your Consideration: Breaking Down the 2016 Oscar Race, Distributor By Distributor. 2015 is the Year When Genre Films Get Some Oscar Love. Oscars: At

Interview (Audio): J.J. Abrams with Howard Stern

An interesting interview by Howard Stern with Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens director and co-writer J.J. Abrams. Whether you thought SW:VII was great or just good, you have to be impressed with how Abrams handled EVERYTHING associated with this franchise. Enormous pressure. Hellish shoot. And

Interview (Written): Lucinda Coxon, Nick Hornby, and Abi Morgan

Via The Wrap: Three British writers were responsible for making timeless and timely films. Novelist and screenwriter Nick Hornby brought Colm Toibin’s novel Brooklyn to the screen, while playwright/screenwriters Lucinda Coxon and Abi Morgan each worked for more than a decade on The Danish Girl and Suffragette, respectively.

Daily Dialogue — December 19, 2015

Darth Vader: I am your father. Luke Skywalker: No. No. That’s not true. That’s impossible. Darth Vader: Search your feelings, you know it to be true. Luke Skywalker: NOOOOOOOO! — Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back (1980), screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, story by George

Deadline Extended: 2015 Black List Word Cloud Logline Challenge!

It’s simple. Every year after the annual Black List is released, we take the loglines from each of the Black List scripts and create a word cloud. Here is this year’s version: Then I invite anyone and everyone to participate in the Black List Word Cloud Logline Challenge.

Writing Goals: 2016 [Part 5] — Going Public

So after four days of looking at the Past, Present, Future, and Practical Matters, the big day has arrived: Time to etch in virtual stone our writing goals for 2016. Oh, and one more little thing: It’s important that you go public with your goals. Today: Going Public Why

Rewriting Your Script (Part 10): Final Edit

In November, upward to 1,000 writers — myself included — took a crack at pounding out a script as part of the Zero Draft Thirty Challenge. Many of them reached FADE OUT / THE END. They’re probably like me, staring at my 86 pages of diamonds-in-the-rough amidst pages

Interview: Craig Borten

Go Into The Story Interview: Craig Borten I first met Craig Borten at the 2014 Austin Film Festival where he was a panelist in a session I moderated. We discussed the movie he co-wrote and was nominated for an Academy Award: Dallas Buyers Club. Craig kindly agreed to an

Daily Dialogue — December 18, 2015

Phil: Excuse me. Where’s everybody going? Woman: To Gobbler’s Nob. It’s Groundhog Day. Phil: It’s still just once a year, isn’t it? — Groundhog Day (1993), screenplay by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, story by Danny Rubin The Daily Dialogue theme next week: Denial, suggested by

Ctrl, Alt, Del: Three Act Structure

I’m always looking for different ways to think about story structure because you never know when some metaphor or language is going to resonate with one of my blog readers, suddenly the proverbial light bulb going off in their minds: “Oh, now I get it!” So a few weeks

Update: “Twas the night before Black List…”

Last weekend, we launched a contest in honor of the 2015 Black List: Finish the poem screenwriter Chris McCoy started some years ago as a lark: “‘Twas the Night Before Black List and all through the LA / Writers were nervous — could this help them get pay?” “Their loglines were sharp

Writing Goals: 2016 [Part 4] — Practical Matters

This series of daily posts, starting Monday and going through next Friday (M-F), is not about resolutions which we make on December 31 and break by January 30… or sooner. This is not about wish lists and ephemeral fantasies. This is about each of us committing ourselves to ply

Rewriting Your Script (Part 9): Polish

In November, upward to 1,000 writers — myself included — took a crack at pounding out a script as part of the Zero Draft Thirty Challenge. Many of them reached FADE OUT / THE END. They’re probably like me, staring at my 86 pages of diamonds-in-the-rough amidst pages

Great Scene: “The Dark Knight”

Some scenes just surprise the crap out of you. And then later, when you think back on it, you realize how well conceived it was from a story point of view, how perfect it was. In the movie The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), a paragon of virtue, loses

Daily Dialogue — December 17, 2015

“Lemme tell you something. There ain’t nothin’ out there than can kill fuckin’ Ron Woodruff in thirty days.” — Dallas Buyers Club (2013), written by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack The Daily Dialogue theme next week: Denial, suggested by Liz Correal. Trivia: Such were the budgetary constraints on this 25-

Update: Award season screenplays — The Hateful Eight!

It’s that time of year again when studios and production companies make available PDFs of movie scripts for award season. As in years past, we will be tracking them and posting links as they become available. UPDATE: Current total of 2015 scripts for download: 41. Newly added script (1)

2015 Black List Word Cloud Logline Challenge!

We did this the last few years and had a helluva lot of fun, so following in footsteps of Hollywood’s studios, it’s sequel time! Yes, it’s the 2015 Black List Word Cloud Logline Challenge! Here is a word cloud based on the loglines for the 2015 Black

Your writing time should be “non-negotiable”

My alma mater, the University of Virginia, just hired a new football coach and he has a name I would have loved to give to one of my story’s characters: Bronco Mendenhall. He’s been a coach at BYU for 12 years and from what I’ve seen and

Writing Goals: 2016 [Part 3] — Where Do You Want To Go As A Writer?

This series of daily posts, starting Monday and going through next Friday (M-F), is not about resolutions which we make on December 31 and break by January 30… or sooner. This is not about wish lists and ephemeral fantasies. This is about each of us committing ourselves to ply

Rewriting Your Script (Part 8): Revision Outline

In November, upward to 1,000 writers — myself included — took a crack at pounding out a script as part of the Zero Draft Thirty Challenge. Many of them reached FADE OUT / THE END. They’re probably like me, staring at my 86 pages of diamonds-in-the-rough amidst pages

Writing and the Creative Life: Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling (Part 4)

In Part 1, we considered a Harvard Business Review article about the influence of stories on the brain, how much of it apparently boils down to the reaction of a chemical called Oxytocin. In Part 2, we considered additional chemical reactions in the brain related to storytelling: Cortisol during tense

Daily Dialogue — December 16, 2015

King Arthur: You fight with the strength of many men Sir Knight. The Black Knight doesn’t respond. King Arthur: I am Arthur, King of the Britons. No response. King Arthur: I seek the finest and the bravest knights in the land to join me in my court at Camelot.

2015 Black List: Final

Yesterday morning, the 2015 Black List was released to the public. Here is the list ranked per the number of votes each script received along with loglines: Bubbles by Isaac Adamson (44) A baby chimp is adopted by the pop star Michael Jackson. Narrating his own story, Bubbles the Chimp

Writing Goals: 2015 [Part 2] — Assessing Where You Are

This series of daily posts, starting yesterday and going through next Friday (M-F), is not about resolutions which we make on December 31 and break by January 30… or sooner. This is not about wish lists and ephemeral fantasies. This is about each of us committing ourselves to ply