Go Into The Story / The Black List: Your questions On Tuesday, September 5 — as they say in the South, “Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise” — Go Into The Story will officially become the screenwriting blog of The Black List. I have written several posts — here, here, and here — doing my best to explain the transition. Now it’
Genre-bending So earlier this week I post the movie trailer for Take Shelter and that spawned an interesting discussion. Later we considered the possibility that there is an interest in exploring mental illness in stories tied to the zeitgeist. Today let’s look at another topic that arose in the conversation
Great Character: The Joker (“The Dark Knight”) I watched The Dark Knight [screenplay by Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer, based on characters by Bob Kane) again recently, such a fantastic movie and in large part because of the Nemesis character — The Joker: The movie’s plot summary via IMDB:
Go Into The Story / The Black List: What it means (Announcement) On Tuesday, September 6, Go Into The Story will officially become the screenwriting blog of The Black List. What does that mean? What will not change I will still have 100% editorial control of all content that passes onto the GITS daily feed. GITS will continue to have on average
“10 Things The Fall Fests Can Tell Us About Award Season” With the Venice, Telluride and Toronto film fests happening, IndieWire puts out 10 questions to ask about notable movies that could emerge. Here are three questions: 1. How many nominations could George Clooney receive? Nominated five times previously (for acting in “Syriana,” “Michael Clayton” and “Up In The Air” and
“Firefly” infographic Many thanks to CarSort for this infographic: “18 Things You Didn’t Know About Firefly”. I still miss the show. Perfect Friday night viewing for our entire family. In fact, Luke and I watched the entire run of the series again on the Science channel. For me, the series blended
Screenwriting Lesson: “True Grit” (Part 2 — Fish Out Of Water) Knowing the importance of creating a connection between the reader and the Protagonist, one way to accomplish that is by creating sympathy for the character. And one of the best ways to do that is by using the Fish-Out-Of-Water dynamic. The phrase “fish out of water” refers
The Business of Screenwriting: Script readers, Hollywood’s threshold guardians Outside of yourself, the single most important person in the life of your spec script is more than likely the reader assigned to it. Almost no material gets submitted in Hollywood without coverage and that coverage is written by a script reader who is paid — or sometimes not — to read
GITS Script Reading and Analysis Series: “Gladiator” For those of you who may have missed this announcement, let me remind you about the GITS Script Reading and Analysis Series: As longtime GITS readers may remember, in the past we have done a variety of script reading and analysis series including 40 Days of Screenplays, 6 Days of
Franklin Leonard, The Black List, Go Into The Story and synergy [Announcement] In the post yesterday announcing the news that Go Into The Story is becoming the screenwriting blog of The Black List, I focused on The Black List itself, how it has become an important brand in Hollywood, putting a spotlight on talented screenwriters and great screenplays. Today I want to
Dispatches from the Front Line: Joshua Caldwell Here is our second in the new GITS series Dispatches from the Front Line [description below], a first-person account from Joshua Caldwell about breaking into the entertainment business: In June 2006, recently engaged and having just graduated from college, I won an MTV Movie Award for my short film
‘Raiders’: Damon Lindelof’s love letter to a ‘perfect movie’ The always excellent Hero Complex (LAT) features a terrific guest essay today by Damon Lindelof in which he writes a love letter to Raiders of the Lost Ark. An excerpt: And here’s the thing: Although it’s easy to reduce “Raiders” to a “popcorn” movie — a piece of escapist
Screenwriting Lesson: “True Grit” (Part 1 — The First 10 Pages) Screenwriting Lessons: “True Grit” — Part 1: The First 10 Pages Five-part series exploring lessons from the Coen brothers screenplay. Perhaps the single most important set of pages in a screenplay is the first ten. They not only serve as a general introduction for the reader to the story universe,
Script To Screen: “Being John Malkovich” The 7 1/2 floor scene from Being John Malkovich (written by Charlie Kaufman). Setup: Craig (John Cusack) goes to an unusual office for an interview. INT. OFFICE BUILDING LOBBY - DAY Craig. in sport coat and tie, studies the business listings board. He finds LesterCorp, and sees that it is
The Black List [Announcement] On July 6, 2008, not even two months after I started this blog, I wrote this: I’ve posted the “Top 101 Screenplays” as judged by the WGA and the Daily Variety’s 2008 list of “Ten Screenwriters to Watch.” There’s another list that has become quite popular since
There’s something happening here… what it is ain’t exactly clear… I posted the trailer for Take Shelter here yesterday and it spawned an interesting discussion in comments. First this from Saint716: Mental illness has seen its share of films in the last few years as well. Take Shelter Jane Eyre The Beaver The Defender Super Brothers Shelter Island It’s
Writer Max Brooks visits the set of “World War Z” Screenwriter and novelist Max Brooks visited the movie set in Glasgow (standing in for Philadelphia!) of the film adaptation of his book “World War Z. Here are some of his reactions to the zombie movie production starring Brad Pitt: “It’s incredible. Brad Pitt really conquered the city. I’ve
Screenwriting Lesson: “Inception” (Part 2 — Exposition as Revelation) Handling exposition — the conveying of setting, information, data, and backstory — is a tricky business. If one of the first rules of writing a screenplay is “Don’t bore the reader,” exposition can present significant challenges because often it is anything but entertaining. Nothing can bog down a script quicker and
Screenwriting 101: William Goldman “Rule of thumb: You always attack a movie scene as late as you possibly can. You always come into the scene as the last possible moment, which is why when you see a scene in a movie where a person is a teacher, for instance, the scene always begins with
Daily Dialogue — August 30, 2011 Bluto: Hey! What’s all this laying around stuff? Why are you all still laying around here for? Stork: What the hell are we supposed to do, ya moron? D-Day: [to Bluto] Let it go. War’s over, man. Wormer dropped the big one. Bluto: What? Over? Did you
What is a “professional quality script”? Last week, I posted this about a 1-hour doc available for free on YouTube called Malkovich’s Mail. Here is the description of the project: This hour long pilot for AMC takes a look at the bizarre solicitations received by John Malkovich’s production company and traces them back
“Eleven Lessons Hollywood Should Learn From Summer Movie Season” Via Vulture. Here are excerpts from 5 of them: #1: Fewer Movies = More Money: “This summer, fewer films were scheduled, making for sparser weekends and less competition.” #2: Sequels Yay, Remakes Nay: “Regardless of their actual quality, sequels continue to be powered by our love of the past, while remakes
Movie Trailer: “Take Shelter” Saw this trailer in the theater for the first time last night: Set for release on October 7th, the Jeff Nichols film stars Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon and Kathy Baker and features a small town Ohio resident, Curtis LaForche (Shannon), experiencing visions that drive him increasingly
Popcorn Fiction: “The Final Shot” by Michael Moreci Another Monday short story from Popcorn Fiction, the excellent site hosted by screenwriter-novelist Derek Haas: I hear from a lot of you: publish more scary fiction. Crime fans are rabid but friendly; sci-fi fans are rabid but docile; horror fans are just rabid. Well, wait no further. I’
Screenwriting Lesson: “Inception” (Part 1 — Story Concept) It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the story concept to the viability of a screenplay in the Hollywood script marketplace. This sentiment is echoed by Terry Rossio, one of the top screenwriters working today who with writing partner Ted Elliott has co-written the screenplays for such hit
