Screenwriting 101: Raymond Chandler “The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement.” — Raymond Chandler, “The Atlantic” (November, 1945)
Daily Dialogue — August 2, 2011 Forrest: What’s the matter, Mama? Mrs. Gump: I’m dyin’, Forrest. [motions to Forrest] C’mon on in and sit down over here. [Forrest sits on chair beside her] Forrest: Why are you dyin’, Mama? Mrs. Gump: It’s my time. It’s just my time. Oh, now. Don’
SMC: Got a concept but not the story? Let’s say you have a good story concept. One you know you want to write. Maybe a small, personal story that would make for a compelling indie film, perhaps one you can write and direct. Or a big, commercial story concept you think could translate into a big spec
Spec Script Sale: “The Outsider” Warner Bros. with preemptive purchase of spec script “The Outsider” from writer Andrew Baldwin. Per Variety: Story’s based on an American who’s a prisoner of war in Japan during World War II and becomes a member of the Yakuza, the highly organized Japanese crime syndicate. Art Linson and
THR: The 25 Best Film Schools Rankings Via THR, here are their list of the top 10 best film schools worldwide: 1. American Film Institute 2. University of Southern California 3. Beijing Film Academy 4. New York University Tisch School of the Arts 5. University of California Los Angeles 6. California Institute of the Arts 7. The
Is reality TV killing scripted TV? Or leading to the end of “civilization”? Those are some of the subjects that arose in a recent panel discussion at the TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour. This from veteran scripted TV show runner Phil Rosenthal: Rosenthal — who recently directed and starred in the documentary Exporting Raymond, about his
Popcorn Fiction: “Las Vegas” by Eric Heisserer Another Monday short story from Popcorn Fiction, the site hosted by screenwriter-novelist Derek Haas: This story from Eric Heisserer rocks. I think it’s one of the best stories we’ve ever run, and I don’t say that lightly. If you remember Heisserer’s other works on here,
Writers on how they write: Richard Powers The Wall Street Journal has a great article: “How to Write a Great Novel”, reflections by 11 novelists on how they approach writing. I’ll feature one writer per day, highlighting their process with a key excerpt from the article. Today’s writer is Richard Powers, whose books include Plowing
On Writing “If we had to say what writing is, we would describe it essentially as an act of courage.” — Cynthia Ozick HT to @Quotes4Writers for the quote
Steven Spielberg’s ‘curriculum’ Courtesy of Nate Winslow: This is a list that someone sent me during a conversation on Twitter. It’s unofficially referred to as “Steven Spielberg’s List of Movies You Have to See Before You Can Work With Him” aka “Steven Spielberg’s Curriculum.” Weirdly enough, I could only find
“‘Porcelain Unicorn’ Wins Phillips Parallel Lines Short Film Competition” GITS reader Atlanta forwards this news: Phillips sponsored the Parallel Lines short film competition, in which participants had only the following lines of dialogue with which to tell a short story on film: What’s That? It’s a Unicorn. Never seen one up close before. Beautiful. Get away, get
Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Deathbed As we wind up a week’s worth of Daily Dialogue posts spotlighting factoids, it’s time to dig into next week’s theme. And I want to push back a week Teddy’s suggestion [interrogation / extracting information] to have a go at Gabe’s suggestion: deathbed. There are dying
Don’t write like this! Time once again for the annual award for bad writing, otherwise known as the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. This year’s winners are: Grand Prize Winner “Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a
Movie Trailer: “Red Tails” George Lucas produced this movie: “The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II.” Yahoo! Video PlayerEdit descriptiond.yimg.com Set to come out in January, 2012. UPDATE: Some good background on the movie via Anne Thompson at
Saturday Hot Links Think Comic-Con is all fun and games? Evidently this year, it went to the dark side. Speaking of Comic-Con, here is Vulture with winners and losers from this year’s event. Morgan Spurlock has a book and a film about Comic-Con. George Lucas loses U.K. Star
Written Interview: Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus (“Captain America”) Today’s interview is the screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus whose writing credits include The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the current release Captain America: The First
Writing advice from YOU! A few weeks back, I asked this question: What is the single best writing tip you know? Here are your answers: JamesHutchinson said… FINISH. Foley said… The best tip I’ve got is also the hardest to follow: If something you’ve written isn’t serving the story, no matter
“Nine rules for writing fiction”: Helen Dunmore Several GITS readers emailed me about a great series The Guardian ran: Ten Rules For Writing Fiction. Today we feature Helen Dunmore: 1 Finish the day’s writing when you still want to continue. 2 Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may
For those of you who want MORE comic book movies… Look what Dark Horse has in store. Per Variety: It’s been three years since Dark Horse Entertainment’s last film, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” arrived in theaters. But the studio responsible for “The Mask” and “30 Days of Night” has no shortage of projects in development. Here are
Writers on how they write: Michael Ondaatje The Wall Street Journal has a great article: “How to Write a Great Novel”, reflections by 11 novelists on how they approach writing. I’ll feature one writer per day, highlighting their process with a key excerpt from the article. Today’s writer is Michael Ondaatje, whose novels include The
Great Character: Bree Daniels (“Klute”) It’s perhaps the best performance in Jane Fonda’s acting career, one for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress: Bree Daniels in the 1971 mystery-thriller Klute. The IMDb plot summary: A small-town detective searching for a missing man has only one lead — a connection with
Writing Question: Do you have any writing superstitions? I was talking to a writer the other day. They were finishing up a script and had to make it end on an even-numbered page (in this case, 108 instead of 109). When I asked why, she said, “Because odd numbered scripts are bad luck.” I can relate. The
Character archetypes and plot twists / turns The Role of the Trickster in ‘The Dark Knight’ In a recent Screenwriting Master Class course, we had an interesting discussion about the role of Coleman Reese in the movie The Dark Knight. His is a short subplot [only three scenes in the script], but it provides an important narrativfunction.
“Ten rules for writing fiction”: Roddy Doyle Several GITS readers emailed me about a great series The Guardian ran: Ten Rules For Writing Fiction. Today we feature Roddy Doyle: 1 Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide. 2 Do
“How Do I Get An Agent?” Chad Gervitz writes a column at Script magazine. Lately he has been tackling the question on all your minds with these two articles: How Do I Get an Agent — Part 1 How Do I Get an Agent — Part 2 Then he responded to several follow up questions with this column.
