Scott Myers

Interview (Part 1): Brad Ingelsby (2012 Black List)

[The movie Run All Night rolls out in theaters on Friday, March 13, reason enough to reprise my March 2013 interview with the movie’s screenwriter Brad Ingelsby.] Brad Ingelsby is one busy writer with at least six projects in various states of development and production including Hold on to

Showrunner Rules from Jeffrey Lieber: Numbers 221–230

Jeff Lieber is a screenwriter and TV writer. His movie credits include Tuck Everlasting and he is currently an executive producer of the CBS series “NCIS: New Orleans”. On Twitter (@JeffLieber), he has run a series of tweets called Showrunner Rules. For background on Jeff and this Twitter series, go

Movie Trailer: “A Royal Night Out”

Screenplay by Trevor De Silva, Kevin Hood On V.E. Day in 1945, Princess Margaret when she and her sister Elizabeth allowed out from Buckingham Palace for the night, where they encounter romance and danger. IMDb Release Date: 15 May 2015 (UK)

Movies You Made: “Vintage Vehicle”

March is Movies You Made month at Go Into The Story where we feature the work of some independent filmmakers. Today: Vintage Vehicle Cast & Crew Josh Mitchell Alycia Dean Rey Engelhard Joe Newkirk Alexander Michael Helisek Written and directed by Josh Mitchell Here is the 7 minute movie Vintage

On Writing

“There’s no such thing as writer’s block. That was invented by people in California who couldn’t write.” — Terry Pratchett Comment Archive

Daily Dialogue — March 2, 2015

SANDECKER (O.S.): Better not hurt my boat! GIORDINO: Engine two is out! Ward them off, man, what do you wanna do? PITT: Uh…I think we need to pull a Panama! GIORDINO: Panama? A Panama? SANDECKER: Panama? GIORDINO: You think? Really? PITT: Yeah! Really! SANDECKER: Somebody pick up — They’

Go Into The Story Script Reading & Analysis: Whiplash

This week, we read and analyzed the script for the movie Whiplash, written by Damien Chazzelle. IMDb plot summary: A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student’s

Interview: Donald Margulies

Donald Margulies, one of America’s most widely-produced playwrights, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dinner with Friends (which was made into a Emmy Award-nominated film for HBO directed by Norman Jewison) and was a finalist twice before for Sight Unseen and Collected Stories. His many

Great Character: Malcolm X (“Malcolm X”)

The Great Character theme for the month: Spike Lee. Today: Malcolm X from Malcolm X (1992), screenplay by Arnold Perl and Spike Lee, book by Alex Haley and Malcolm X. Here is Jason Cuthbert’s weekly Great Character post. The long gestating biographical drama of the African American human rights

Interview (Video): Nicolas Winding Refn with Gaspar Noe

Writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn, whose writing credits include Valhalla Rising and Only God Forgives in conversation with Gaspar Noe, writer-director of Enter the Void among many other film projects. Filmed in 2014 at the Danish Film Institute. Via Indiewire.

Daily Dialogue — March 1, 2015

Jake: Happy birthday, Samantha. Make a wish. Samantha: It already came true. — Sixteen Candles (1984), written by John Hughes The Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Birthday. Trivia: The German title of the film, “Das darf man nur als Erwachsener”, translates to “One may do that only as an adult”

Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Chase

The Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Chase. “Who are those guys?” There’s a ton of great chase movies and chase scenes. Let’s see if we can get together 7 kick-ass examples with some memorable dialogue for this week. The usual drill: * Copy/paste dialogue from IMDb

Interview: Eric Koenig

First-timers. Tyro scribes. There are several ways Hollywood development people refer to writers who break into the business via a spec script, but the one writers want to have hung on us is this: Fresh Voice. One such writer is Eric Koenig. Matriarch — Eric Koenig (Paramount) — 11/12/14

Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 175th installment of Saturday Hot Links! Today: The Lately I’ve Been Thinking A Lot About Mitch Hedberg Edition. Oscars: Watch all the memorable speeches [videos]. Related: The complete list of Oscar winners. Related: Oscar scorecard by movie and studio. Related: The 2015 Oscars in memoriam tribute

2015 Dialogue-Writing Challenge: Week 4

Here are all of Week 4’s prompts for this year’s Dialogue-Writing Challenge for which you can win one of my Craft classes — for free. Day 16 challenge: Someone applying for a job. Day 17 challenge: A drunken tirade. Day 18 challenge: A conversation involving texting. Day 19

Interview (Written): Mark Duplass

An A.V. Club 11 Question interview with writer-actor-director Mark Duplass: 1. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Mark Duplass: I will not name it, but I had a do a rewrite for a certain studio on a screenplay, and — uff. I don’t even

Daily Dialogue — February 28, 2015

“Make a wish, Harry.” — Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (20010), screenplay by Steve Kloves, novel by J.K. Rowling The Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Birthday. Trivia: Warner Bros. originally considered making the entire “Harry Potter” series as a set of CGI animated films, or attempting to

My thoughts on “constructive critique”

All the screenwriting classes I teach have some sort of workshop component to them, where participants are invited or depending upon the course expected to post pages for peer review. It occurred to me with this most recent class, I don’t think I’ve ever shared my take on

Interview (Part 3): Donald Margulies

Donald Margulies, one of America’s most widely-produced playwrights, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dinner with Friends (which was made into a Emmy Award-nominated film for HBO directed by Norman Jewison) and was a finalist twice before for Sight Unseen and Collected Stories. His many

Video: “Fake Movies in Movies” (Supercut)

From Screen Junkies. HT Indiewire.

Script Analysis: “Whiplash” — Part 5: Takeaways

Reading scripts. Absolutely critical to learn the craft of screenwriting. The focus of this weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. Our daily schedule: Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown Tuesday: Major Plot Points Wednesday: Sequences Thursday: Psychological Journey Friday: Takeaways Today: Takeaways. This

Movie Trailer: “Regression”

Written by Alejandro Amenábar A father is accused of a crime he has no memory of committing. IMDb Release Date: 28 August 2015 (USA)

2015 Dialogue-Writing Challenge: Day 20

As noted in this post last month: What if in February, we put the spotlight on writing dialogue? A Dialogue-Writing Challenge! Here’s my idea: We crowdsource a bunch of dialogue-writing prompts. From that, we choose the 20 best ones. Then next month, Monday through Friday, much like

Great Characters: Howard Beale (“Network”)

It’s one of the most memorable movie roles in the last 50 years: TV anchorman become crazed prophet, and Dark Mentor Howard Beale, an Oscar-winning role for actor Peter Finch in the 1976 movie Network: A TV network cynically exploits a deranged ex-TV anchor’s ravings and

Daily Dialogue — February 27, 2015

“I don’t want to shop at old lady stores. I don’t want to go to J. Jill and Chico’s and Ann Taylor.” — This is 40 (2012), written by Judd Apatow The Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Birthday. Trivia: The main characters from “Knocked Up”, Ben (Seth