Scott Myers

Interview: Liz W. Garcia — Part 1

Liz W. Garcia is an American television producer and writer. As a writer, her credits include “Dawson’s Creek,” “Wonderfalls” and “Cold Case”. With her husband, actor Josh Harto, she created and produced the TNT series “Memphis Beat”. Most recently Liz wrote and directed the independent feature film The Lifeguard

Holy crap! The sky is falling!

If you’ve been paying attention to any sort of media that covers the movie business, lately it’s all gloom and doom. The whole cycle of paranoia started with this comment from Steven Spielberg at a USC event featuring he and fellow blockbuster buddy George Lucas: “…there’s eventually

Movie Trailer: “Jobs”

Written by Matt Whiteley The story of Steve Jobs’ ascension from college dropout into one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of the 20th century. IMDB Release Date: 16 August 2013 (USA)

30 Days of Screenplays, Day 24: “The Social Network”

Why 30 screenplays in 30 days? Because whether you are a novice just starting to learn the craft of screenwriting or someone who has been writing for many years, you should be reading scripts. There is a certain type of knowledge and understanding about screenwriting you can only get from

On Writing

“Artistic temperament sometimes seems a battleground, a dark angel of destruction and a bright angel of creativity wrestling.” — Madeleine L’Engle

Daily Dialogue — June 24, 2013

“My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself. I’ve told you my name: that’s the Who. The Where could most readily be described as a prison cell. But there’s a vast difference

“Scott, all poems are about death”

It was Father’s Day morning, just last week, when Laure-Anne called me. “Scott, I am so sorry to tell you this, but our dear, sweet Kurt has died.” This is going to be a long and personal post. If you care to read about the passing of Kurt

Go Into The Story Week In Review: June 17-June 23, 2013

Some notable posts from this week: 30 Days of Screenplays — Day 17: The Usual Suspects 30 Days of Screenplays — Day 18: North By Northwest 30 Days of Screenplays — Day 19: Broadcast News 30 Days of Screenplays — Day 20: Platoon 30 Days of Screenplays — Day 21: When Harry Met Sally 30

Interview: Daniel Kunka

Screenwriter Daniel Kunka wrote the 2009 movie 12 Rounds and has sold two high profile spec scripts: Agent Ox and Bermuda Triangle. In addition, Daniel is working on the project “Crime of the Century” with Chris Morgan producing. Recently Daniel and I had an excellent conversation which I am happy

30 Days of Screenplays, Day 23: “Pan’s Labyrinth”

Why 30 screenplays in 30 days? Because whether you are a novice just starting to learn the craft of screenwriting or someone who has been writing for many years, you should be reading scripts. There is a certain type of knowledge and understanding about screenwriting you can only get from

Studying Aristotle’s “Poetics” — Part 6(A): The 6 Parts of Tragedy

As I’ve been interviewing screenwriters, I typically ask what some of their influences are. One book title comes up over and over again: Aristotle’s “Poetics”. I confess I’ve never read the entire thing, only bits and pieces. So I thought, why not do a weekly series with

Exclusive photo from behind the scenes: “Draft Day”

The #1 script on the 2012 Black List is “Draft Day,” written by Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman. It is currently shooting in Cleveland and what we have here is an exclusive behind the scenes photo courtesy of producer Ali Bell: That is director Ivan Reitman studying the script on

Screenwriting News (June 17-June 23, 2013)

Dennis L. Baxter writing untitled George Jones biopic for 28 Entertainment. Douglas Carter Beane adapting musical comedy play “Lysistrata Jones” for Peck Entertainment with Andy Fickman directing. Douglas Cook and David Weisberg sell action spec script “Criminal” to Millennium Films. Adam Cooper and Bill Collage adapting Pulitzer Prize winning book

Video Interview: Jeff Nichols (“Mud”)

DP/30 with yet another great interview: Screenwriter-director Jeff Nichols who has an indie hit on his hands with the movie Mud: The movie’s premise: Two teenage boys encounter a fugitive and form a pact to help him evade the bounty hunters on his trail and to reunite

Daily Dialogue — June 23, 2013

INT. THE APARTMENT — EVENING Buddy-boy is bending over a hot stove, preparing an Italian dinner. He takes a saucepan of spaghetti off the fire, and picking up the tennis racquet with the other hand, pours the spaghetti on top of the racquet strings. Then he turns on the faucet,

Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Interrogation

As we wrap up a week’s worth of dinner scenes, thanks to a recommendation by Turambar, we move into solicitations for next week’s Daily Dialogue. That theme: Interrogation, suggested by Def Earz. “Where is she!” I can think of dozens of great interrogation scenes. How about you? Got

Writing the 60-minute spec pilot

Tom Benedek has some thoughts for those of you interested in writing TV: The original TV pilot script vs. the spec feature. Spielberg just bought a one hour spec pilot that people in the business were flipping over. This used to only happen with feature scripts But now spec pilot

Interview: Daniel Kunka — Part 6

Screenwriter Daniel Kunka wrote the 2009 movie 12 Rounds and has sold two high profile spec scripts: Agent Ox and Bermuda Triangle. In addition, Daniel is working on the project “Crime of the Century” with Chris Morgan producing. Recently Daniel and I had an excellent conversation which I am happy

Great Scene: “Good Will Hunting”

In 1997, two young actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, co-starred in the movie Good Will Hunting. They also co-wrote the screenplay, which ended up winning an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, Written Directly for the Screen. There are a lot of great scenes in the movie, but

30 Days of Screenplays, Day 22: “Double Indemnity”

Why 30 screenplays in 30 days? Because whether you are a novice just starting to learn the craft of screenwriting or someone who has been writing for many years, you should be reading scripts. There is a certain type of knowledge and understanding about screenwriting you can only get from

A retired police dog watching “K-9”

I was going to tweet an old Business of Screenwriting post that included a clip from K-9, but of course it had vanished from the web. So I was checking to see if I could find another version when I bumped into this: A 14 year old retired police

Saturday Hot Links

Time for another installment of Saturday Hot Links! Today: The We Remember James Gandolfini Edition. Deadline: Unfinished Business: The projects James Gandolfini left behind. Eonline: James Gandolfini on The Sopranos: His 5 top Tony moments. Flavorwire: Why James Gandolfini’s death feels so personal. Flavorwire: James Gandolfini’s most underrated

Written Interview: David S. Goyer

An interview in JewishJournal with Man of Steel co-screenwriter David S. Goyer: Q: What did you take from Jewish texts to depict The Man of Steel? A: I read the Old Testament again, especially the book of Exodus and the story of Moses. I also read the New Testament,

Daily Dialogue — June 22, 2013

INT. MESS HALL CLOSE ON breakfast, a substance with a consistency somewhere between yogurt and cellulite. TANK: Here you go, buddy. Breakfast of champions. Tank slides it in front of Neo and takes a seat with the other crew members enjoying breakfast. APOC: You mean the breakfast, lunch, and dinner

Update: The 10 Quest Initiative Finalists!

If you are interested in learning the identities of the finalists for The Quest Initiative, hit MORE. I made the choices based on the quality of each logline, my sense of the commercial viability of a script based on the story concept, as well as some other considerations including trying