Daily Dialogue — March 19, 2014 Bowtie Driver: Me and the bookkeeper are walking out of here, getting into a car, and driving away. Or else he dies! He dies! And you ain’t got nothing! You got five seconds to make up your minds! Ness: You got him? Stone: Yeah, I got him. Bowtie starts
People are stories Monday was a travel day for me. In some respects, it was quite unusual, beginning with an earthquake in Los Angeles, ending with an ice storm in Chapel Hill. In one other way, however, it was utterly typical: I was surrounded by people every step along the way. And almost
Interview (Part 2): Rob Meyer and Luke Matheny When I saw the trailer for the movie A Birder’s Guide to Everything, I immediately sought out its filmmakers: Writer-director Rob Meyer and writer Luke Matheny. It’s a wonderful story starring some terrific young talent as well as Oscar winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley. The movie comes
Movie Trailer: “Kid Cannabis” Screenplay by Mark Binelli and John Stockwell, article by Mark Binelli and Kevin Taylor An eighteen year old high school drop out and his twenty-seven year old friend start trafficking marijuana across the border of Canada in order to make money and their lives are changed forever. IMDB Release
Movies You Made: “Thirteen” March is Movies You Made month at Go Into The Story where we feature the work of some independent filmmakers. Today: Thirteen. Production notes from writer-director Markham Cooke: Thirteen is a short I wrote and directed. It premiered at the Palm Springs Short Film Festival. It was shot in
Screenwriting 101: Horton Foote “For me there was a whole period of unlearning the bad habits I had picked up in my conventional training as an actor, which was to be very vocal and to work things out vocally rather than to find my inner life. They gave us a whole series of exercises
Daily Dialogue — March 18, 2014 Nice Guy Eddie: Let me say this out loud, ’cause I wanna get it straight in my head. You’re saying that Mr. Blonde was gonna kill you, then when we got back, he was going kill us, take the satchel of diamonds, and scram. I’m right about that,
Reader Question: Do you actually plot out the Protag’s Emotional Arc, or just go with your gut? A tweet from @CaveDude21: Do you actually plot out the Protag’s Emotional Arc, or just go with gut? I’m tempted to go to my default point: There’s no right way to write. Every writer is different. Every story is different. But you know what? I’m going
Interview (Part 1): Rob Meyer and Luke Matheny When I saw the trailer for the movie A Birder’s Guide to Everything, I immediately sought out its filmmakers: Writer-director Rob Meyer and writer Luke Matheny. It’s a wonderful story starring some terrific young talent as well as Oscar winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley. The movie comes
Movie Trailer: “13 Sins” Screenplay by David Birke & Daniel Stamm, based on “13: Game of Death” by Chookiat Sakveerakul and Eakasit Thairatana A cryptic phone call sets off a dangerous game of risks for Elliot, a down-on-his luck salesman. The game promises increasing rewards for completing 13 tasks, each more sinister
Movies You Made: “Things To Keep” March is Movies You Made month at Go Into The Story where we feature the work of some independent filmmakers. Today: Things To Keep. Production notes from writer-director Jared M. Gordon: My short film, Things to Keep (11 min.) was an official selection in the Bare Bones Film and
On Writing “Creation of character is, like much of fiction writing, a mixture of subjective feel and objective control.” — Julian Barnes
Daily Dialogue — March 17, 2014 Harry: I suppose you’ve got a gun up there. Ray: Yeah. Harry: What are we gonna do? We can’t stand here all night. Marie: Why don’t you both put your guns down and go home? Harry: Don’t be stupid. This is the shootout. Ray: Harry, I’
Go Into The Story Week In Review: March 10–16, 2014 Links to the week’s most notable posts: Character Introductions: A consistent challenge for screenwriters Daily Dialogue Theme for Next Week: Standoff Dispatch from the Front Lines: Nayan Padrai Great Character: Donnie Azoff (The Wolf of Wall Street) Great Scene: Apocalypse Now “How to write a screenplay” is NOT the
Movies You Made: “Yellow Sky” March is Movies You Made month at Go Into The Story where we feature the work of some independent filmmakers. Today: Yellow Sky. Production notes from writer-director Hector Cortez: Yellow Sky is about a young woman who returns to her childhood home to retell of the destructive event that
Interview [Video]: John Gatins A DP/30 interview with John Gatins, screenwriter of such movies as Real Steel and Flight. Comment Archive
Daily Dialogue — March 16, 2014 “It is an incredible scene here in Pittsburgh. A capacity crowd is on hand and they are viewing one of the most storied moments in sports. It is a sports happening. There is pandemonium all around me. Incredible, as the Pisces make their way from the sky!” — The Fish That
Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Standoff This week’s theme: Sports Announcer, thanks to @dproII. Next week’s theme: Standoff. Two characters or more. A struggle looms. Perhaps guns involved. Or worse. Which ones jump out in your memory? Here’s one of the most famous: The usual drill: * Copy/paste dialogue from IMDB Quotes or
My Character Introductions class begins Monday! The average screenplay features between 15–25 characters. Because you have been working with those characters for months, you may know how they sound and what they look like. But what about a script reader? Think about how hard it is for them to sort out, distinguish between and remember
Great Scene: “Apocalypse Now” Protagonists often begin a movie in a state of what I call Disunity: At the very least, they are disconnected from some authentic part of their Self, something of their Core Of Being that needs to emerge into consciousness and practice. At worst, they are near a state of self-
Movies You Made: “Capps Crossing” March is Movies You Made month at Go Into The Story where we feature the work of some independent filmmakers. Today: Capps Crossing. Production notes from writer-director Mike Stahl: Capps Crossing was shot over 8 days in the Tahoe National forest. The cast and crew put in extremely long
Interview [Written]: Lena Dunham A WGA.org interview with writer-director-actor Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture, “Girls”). You said in a recent interview that when you saw Les Misérables as a kid it was kind of life altering, that you adored Cosette and wanted to play her, but at the same time felt like
Daily Dialogue — March 15, 2014 “Stan Ross’ first week at bat was kinda like his first week out of the womb. A whole lot of just flailing around.” — Mr. 3000 (2004), screenplay by Eric Champnella & Keith Mitchell and Howard Michael Gould, story by Eric Champnella & Keith Mitchell The Daily Dialogue theme for the
Reader Question: What are keys to a sparse style of screenwriting? Do all scripts have to feature a lean, spare approach to scene description? From Michael Traven. Part two of a two-part question: If I remember correctly, wasn’t Amini’s script for DRIVE only 60 pages? (It’s on IMSDB.com, but not as a PDF, so I can’
Spec Script Sale: “Hot Air” Route One Films acquires drama spec script “Hot Air” written by Will Reichel. From Deadline: Written in the tone of About A Boy, Hot Air tells the story of a powerful right-wing talk-radio host who has the world on a string until the teenage niece he never knew
