Hidden Movie Gem: “Shifty” Today’s Hidden Movie Gem guest post comes from Robert Moniot. Movie Title: Shifty Year: 2008 Writer/Director: Eran Creevy Lead Actors: Riz Ahmed and Daniel Mays Plot Summary: Shifty, a young crack cocaine dealer in London, sees his life quickly spiral out of control when his best friend returns
Screenwriting 101: Craig Mazin “I want comedies to be about something. I want movies to be about something. I want them to have some sort of argument to make. I have to believe that on some level, even though the movie [Identity Thief] opened well, the fact that we kept holding and only dropping
Daily Dialogue — October 22, 2013 William: Shit! Bugger! Anna: God! William: I’m so sorry. Here, let me… He tries to sop up the mess on her blouse, but she leaps back. Anna: Get your hands off me! William: I’m sorry, I live just over the street, I have water and soap. You can
Reader Question: What are the keys to a great opening scene? From Keith: What are some principles you use for opening scenes? What makes an opening scene really hook the reader, and get behind our “hero” for the long haul? This is a great subject because as we have discussed before, an opening scene can be hugely important to a script.
Dispatch From The Quest: Christian Fontenot For the last 14 weeks, the Questers have been sharing their experiences with us through weekly Dispatches. Now that they are typing FADE IN and plunging into the page-writing part of the process, I have absolved them of this responsibility in order to focus on the task at hand.
Spec Script Sale: “Untitled Cantwell & Rodgers” Media Rights Capital acquires an action thriller spec script written by Chris Cantwell and Chris Rogers. Cantwell and Rogers are repped by Management 360 and Verve. By my count, this is the 71st spec script sale of 2013. There were 81 spec script sales year-to-date in 2012.
“The only way out is through” I don’t know where I read or heard this phrase. The nearest association I can make with it is studying Roman Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain when I was at Yale, something about his Aristotelian embrace of the material world as compared to Neoplatonism, but that’s as far as
Movie Trailer: “Frozen” Written by Jennifer Lee & Shane Morris Fearless optimist Anna teams up with Kristoff in an epic journey, encountering Everest-like conditions, and a hilarious snowman named Olaf in a race to find Anna’s sister Elsa, whose icy powers have trapped the kingdom in eternal winter. IMDB Release Date:
Hidden Movie Gem: “A Perfect World” Today’s Hidden Movie Gem guest post comes from Bretton Zinger Movie Title: A Perfect World Year: 1993 Writer: Original screenplay by John Lee Hancock Starring: Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Laura Dern, T.J. Lowther Director: Clint Eastwood Plot Synopsis: A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor:
On Writing “By the end, you should be inside your character, actually operating from within somebody else, and knowing him pretty well, as that person knows himself or herself. You’re sort of a predator, an invader of people.” — William Trevor HT to @AdviceToWriters, collected by John Winokur
Daily Dialogue — October 21, 2013 “Excuse me, lady. But that upon which you sit is mine.” — It Happened One Night (1934), screen play by Robert Riskin, short story by Samuel Hopkins Adams http://static.movieclips.com/embedplayer.swf?shortid=Pprsn The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is meet cute, suggested by bolo boffin. Trivia:
Screenwriting News (October 14–20, 2013) Paul Attanasio writing “Hot Wheels” for Legendary Pictures. Jonas Cuaron writing “The Lost City” for Warner Bros. Tim Firth writing “Daylight Robbery” for Exclusive Media Group. Chad Hayes and Carey Hayes rewriting “San Andreas” for New Line Cinema. Matthew Johnson adapting “Encyclopedia Brown” for Warner Bros. Lisa Joy sells spec
Hidden Movie Gem: “The King of Masks” Today’s Hidden Movie Gem guest post comes from John Nilsson Acosta. Movie Title: The King of Masks Year: 1997 in China (1999 in USA with DVD released in 2000) Writers: Chen Wengui — Story, Wen Minglun — Screenplay Lead Actors: Zhu Xu as Wang Bianlian “King Face Change” or King of
Video Interview: Julian Fellowes A BAFTA lecture by Julian Fellowes, writer of movies such as The Tourist and TV series including “Downtown Abbey.” Comment Archive
Daily Dialogue — October 20, 2013 “Let’s get something straight here. I spent fourteen years in an eight by nine cell surrounded by people who were less than human. My mission in that time was to become more than human.” — Cape Fear (1991), screenplay by Wesley Strick, novel by John D. MacDonald, earlier screenplay by
Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Meet Cute After going psychotic for a week [suggested by JasperLamarCrab], next week’s theme is Meet Cute, volunteered by bolo boffin. The usual drill: * Copy/paste dialogue from IMDB Quotes or some other transcript source. * Copy/paste the URL of an accompanying video from YouTube or some other video source. I’
Dispatch From The Quest: Christian Fontenot Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding
Great Scene: “Se7en” When a movie builds to the climactic face-off between Protagonist and Nemesis, I call that the Final Struggle. Typically it’s a case of fists-versus-fists or guns-versus-guns. But the movie Se7en (1995), written by Andrew Kevin Walker, provides an unorthodox twist — befitting a movie with
Hidden Movie Gem: “Christmas in Connecticut” Today’s Hidden Movie Gem guest post comes from Nora Berry. Movie Title: Christmas in Connecticut Year: 1945 Writers: Lionel Houser (screenplay) and Adele Comandini (screenplay) and Aileen Hamilton Lead Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet, S.Z. Sakall Director: Peter Godfrey Plot Summary: Barbara Stanwyck plays Elizabeth Lane,
Written Interview: Richard Price An interview in the Paris Review (Spring 1996) with screenwriter and novelist Richard Price (Sea of Love, Clockers): INTERVIEWER: You intended to go to law school, but you ended up a writer . . . PRICE: I always wanted to be a writer, but coming from a working-class background it was hard
Daily Dialogue — October 19, 2013 Mr. Blonde: Listen kid, I’m not gonna bullshit you, all right? I don’t give a good fuck what you know, or don’t know, but I’m gonna torture you anyway, regardless. Not to get information. It’s amusing, to me, to torture a cop. You can say
Question: Where to start when developing a story? Another open forum question — from attatt: When you write a script, do/did you usually start with a character, a specific plot point, or a specific ending you want to reach? Curious how others write because I tend to have plot point ideas out the yang, then have to connect
Dispatch From The Quest: Paul Wie Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding
Studio wanted major changes in “Gravity” Check this quote from Gravity co-writer and director Alphonso Cuarón in io9: Did you have to fight for the film to be more of a small, character-focused piece? Instead of focusing on all of the destruction? When we set up to write the script, it was about that.
Go On Your Own Quest — Week 14: Prep The 2013 version of The Quest starts Week 14 today. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by because you can Go On Your Own Quest by following the structure of The Quest to dig into screenwriting theory [Core — 8 weeks], figure out your story [Prep — 6 weeks], and write
