Scott Myers

Daily Dialogue — October 30, 2014

“LOOK UPON ME! I’LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND!” — Barton Fink (1991), written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Madness. Trivia: Written by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen after a trip to see Baby Boom (1987) while suffering writer’s block

Scene-By-Scene Script Breakdown Challenge

The GITS community never ceases to amaze me. On October 16th, I put out this challenge: Here’s what I’m thinking: We have 4 weeks in November. What if we choose one script per week from here, the free and legal screenplays we host on the site. I’m

Spec Script Sale: “Midnight”

Radar Pictures acquires horror thriller spec script “Midnight” written by Travis Baker and Richard Tanne. From Deadline: The horror-thriller described as “I Know What You Did Last Summer meets Prisoners” centers on a small-town mayor’s daughter who goes missing and the detectives, family and friends who discover

Video: Jill Soloway Keynote Address | 2014 Film Independent Forum

Screenwriter-director Jill Soloway delivers the Filmmaker Keynote Address at the 2014 Filmmaker Forum. Via Indiewire.

Movie Trailer: “Avengers: Age of Ultron”

Written by Joss Whedon, comic book by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and it is up to The Avengers to stop the villainous Ultron from enacting his terrible plans. IMDB Release Date: 1 May 2015 (USA)

Great Scene: “The Matrix”

“You take the blue pill, the story ends… you take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland.” One way to up your screenwriting chops is to study great scenes. Analyze their structure, themes, character dynamics. Why do they work? What are their narrative elements that elevate them to greatness? Let’

Script To Screen: “Boogie Nights”

A key scene from the 1997 movie Boogie Nights, written by Paul Thomas Anderson. IMDB plot summary: The story of a young man’s adventures in the Californian pornography industry of the late 1970s and early 1980s. INT. RAHAD JACKSON’S HOUSE — NIGHT — THAT MOMENT A really big fat black

Daily Dialogue — October 29, 2014

“But, man, you’re never gonna get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell. We’ll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer, and that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker’s house, and no matter how

“Character drives TV”

A guest post from screenwriter Tom Benedek (Cocoon), co-founder of Screenwriting Master Class: “Character drives plot.” We say it over and over again in every film script workshop we do. Same goes in TV writing, naturally. Plot, story are crucial in television, too. But it is all about that

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life”

The wisdom of Joseph Campbell pertains not only to our own life-journey, but to that of the Protagonists we write in our stories. Here is an example: From a psychological, even spiritual standpoint, each of us has work to do, a never-ending interplay between the exploration of our

Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work: “Don’t Finish That Scene!”

Let’s say you’re in the middle of writing a script — and it’s a slog. You’re finding it really tough to drag your ass onto the chair and start writing the next scene. Well, let’s roll back the clock. What if yesterday, you hadn’t finished

Movie Trailer: “The Water Diviner”

Screenplay by Andrew Anastasios, Andrew Knight An Australian man travels to Turkey after the Battle of Gallipoli to try and locate his three missing sons. IMDB Release Date: 26 December 2014 (Australia)

Great Scene: “Metropolitan”

October is Great Scene month at Go Into The Story whereby we put a spotlight on notable movie scenes, then analyze and discuss them. Their structure, themes, character dynamics. Why do they work? What are their narrative elements that elevate them to greatness? Let’s face it: In a fundamental

Screenwriting 101: Mickey Fisher

“I used to never outline in a real way, it was mostly just brainstorming and bullet pointing ideas for scenes and figuring out what the characters wanted until I had enough of a foothold to really sit down and write. I typically wouldn’t start until I knew at least

Daily Dialogue — October 28, 2014

Mal: [Sitting on the ledge, to Cobb] I’m asking you to take a leap of faith. Cobb: No I can’t. You know I can’t do that. Take a second, think about our children. Think about James. Think about Phillipa now. Mal: If I go without you they’

Go Into The Story Week In Review: October 20-October 26, 2014

Links to the week’s most notable posts: Austin Film Festival: Do you have questions for John August, Richard Kelly and Jim Uhls? Austin Film Festival: Do you have questions for Craig Borten, Tom Schulman and Jim Uhls? Austin Film Festival: Do you have questions for Whit Stillman? Daily Dialogue

Declare Your Independents — Vol. 35

GITS development assistant Wendy Cohen here, and welcome back to Declare Your Independents, our new series highlighting the latest developments in the world of independent film! This week… The Best Foreign-Language Films of 2014 Justin Simien on Dear White People Interstellar’s Christopher Nolan, Stars Reveal Secrets of the

Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work: 1 Page A Day

I heard this idea from producer Larry Gordon about how to knock out a script: Write one page per day. Think about it — at one page per day, in 4 months you’ve generated a 120 pages. So if you take this approach: * 1 month: Research, brainstorming, character development, plotting

Movie [Teaser] Trailer: “Inside Out”

Story by Pete Docter Growing up can be a bumpy road, and it’s no exception for Riley, who is uprooted from her Midwest life when her father starts a new job in San Francisco. Like all of us, Riley is guided by her emotions — Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and

Great Scene: “Scarface”

October is Great Scene month at Go Into The Story whereby we put a spotlight on notable movie scenes, then analyze and discuss them. Their structure, themes, character dynamics. Why do they work? What are their narrative elements that elevate them to greatness? Let’s face it: In a fundamental

On Writing

“You will either write or you will not — and the only way to find out whether you will or not is to try.” — Jim Tully

Daily Dialogue — October 27, 2014

JOKER: You. You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you? Huh? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won’t kill you

Screenwriting News (October 20-October 26, 2014)

Joe Ballarini adapting toy line “My Little Pony” as a family comedy for Hasbro. Zach Dean rewriting action adventure “Methusaleh” for Warner Bros. Will Eubank and Philip Hawthorne writing action drama “World Breaker” for Warner Bros. Eric Heisserer sells supernatural thriller pitch “Exposure” to Sony Pictures Entertainment. Charlie Kaufman rewriting

Great Scene: “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

Fight scenes. Whether swords or knives, guns or fists, lasers or kung fu, fight scenes are a staple of the movies. One problem: They’re so common, what can a screenwriter do to distinguish theirs from all the previous examples? William Goldman came up with an unexpected twist with this

Interview [Video]: Diablo Cody

A 13-minute interview with screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno, Young Adult, Paradise). HitFix - Entertainment News, Events, Exclusives & Reviews for Movies, Film, Television, MusicHitFix offers breaking entertainment news, insider information, and exclusives in film, movies, music, local events and…www.hitfix.com Via HitFix. Comment Archive