Saturday Hot Links Special Christmas edition hot links: Let’s star off with a bang: Star Wars: Attack of the Models! What the recent tax bill Congress passed means for filmmakers. Via TotalFilm: 100 greatest behind the scenes photos. Here’s 10 Christmas movies for people who usually hate Christmas movies. Will Tony
Joseph Campbell quotes: Day 6 From Monday, December 20-Sunday, January 2, I’m going to post a Joseph Campbell quote each day at 9AM PST. Why? Because the end of the year is a time to reflect on our lives — what we do and what we hope to do, who we are and who
Written Interview: Joel & Ethan Coen (“True Grit”) Today’s written interview is with Joel and Ethan Coen about their movie True Grit which has opened this week. The Film.com interview was conducted by Cole Haddon: Cole Haddon: What was the most challenging part of making True Grit? Roger Deakins, your cinematographer, said it was keeping to
Daily Dialogue — December 25, 2010 Kate McCallister: I have a terrible feeling. Peter McCallister: About what? Kate McCallister: That we didn’t do something. Peter McCallister: No. You feel that way because we left in such a hurry. Kate McCallister: Did I turn off the coffee? Peter McCallister: No… I did. Kate McCallister: Did you
A few reasons why I keep doing this blog One reason is because of emails like this: My name is Matti Pasanen and I’m a 22-year old student from Lapland, Finland. I study media, specializing in TV and movies at the wonderful school of Keski-Pohjanmaan Aikuisopisto. I’m currently a freshman but I have previous experience
1982 Tron holiday special From FunnyOrDie: “A recently unearthed Christmas classic from 1982, starring most of your favorite Tron characters and laser bikes.” Comment Archive
Joseph Campbell quotes: Day 5 From Monday, December 20-Sunday, January 2, I’m going to post a Joseph Campbell quote each day at 9AM PST. Why? Because the end of the year is a time to reflect on our lives — what we do and what we hope to do, who we are and who
Great Characters: George Bailey (“It’s A Wonderful Life”) Who doesn’t remember this face? And this one? That contrast right there speaks to the heart of why George Bailey (played by my favorite actor of all time James Stewart) is a great character, representing the emotional core of the Christmas classic It’s A Wonderful Life. A Protagonist
Daily Dialogue — December 24, 2010 “Just a minute — just a minute. Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. You’re right when you say my father was no businessman. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I’ll never know. But neither you nor anyone else can say anything against
Great gift suggestion: Buy African school children desks to use In the spirit of the season, consider this: Imagine you are a child in Malawi. You go to school. And you have to sit on the floor because there are no desks available. Imagine how hard that is to sit for 6 hours a day, how much strain that puts
The dream of making a movie I have no idea what this video is promoting in terms of competitions or what not, so don’t consider this my imprimatur. However I thought it did a nice job in 2 minutes of capturing some of the essence of what it’s like to be part of a
What Went Wrong with Hollywood Romantic Comedies? Anne Thompson at Indie-Wire with Anthony D’Alessandro’s five reasons rom-coms failed this year: Rom-coms aren’t dead, but they’re in need of serious repair. The excuses for each film’s failure are myriad, but here’s five bad habits the genre exercised in 2010:
Joseph Campbell quotes: Day 4 From Monday, December 20-Sunday, January 2, I’m going to post a Joseph Campbell quote each day at 9AM PST. Why? Because the end of the year is a time to reflect on our lives — what we do and what we hope to do, who we are and who
Narrative voice “People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.” That is the first sentence
Daily Dialogue — December 23, 2010 Gin: Look here, get him outta here and I’ll go smooth things over with Chipeska, Tell him it was food poisoning or something. Marcus: What do you mean, get him outta here? Gin: Take him to the car. Marcus: In case you didn’t notice I’m a motherfucking
The only thing a writer controls is what they write In a response to this post about various end-of-year script lists, Courtney wrote this: Pardon the “newbie” vibe here… and if I’m incorrect please correct me as I continue to learn. But I thought the Black List was unproduced scripts… Unproduced meaning… scripts that have been purchased
Writing question: How do you handle organizing your ideas? A really good question from Don Lipper: I’ve got a very inside baseball question. I am starting to save my ideas in Evernote instead of OneNote because I can tag them easier. Idea # 57 (Back to the Future) might be tagged SciFi, Time Travel, Teen, Comedy, **** (four stars, I
John Madden videogame… a movie?!?! No, really: What started as a simple joke may now become a motion picture. Electronic Arts is developing “Madden Curse,” a sports comedy that incorporates the infamous jinx, believed to strike NFL players who appear on the cover of EA’s popular “Madden” video game with injury or poor performance.
Joseph Campbell quotes: Day 3 From Monday, December 20-Sunday, January 2, I’m going to post a Joseph Campbell quote each day at 9AM PST. Why? Because the end of the year is a time to reflect on our lives — what we do and what we hope to do, who we are and who
Screenwriting 101: Robert Towne “The single most important question, I think, that one must ask one’s self about a character is what are they really afraid of? What are they really afraid of? And if you ask that question, it’s probably for me the single best way of getting into a character.
Daily Dialogue — December 22, 2010 “You did it! Congratulations! World’s best cup of coffee. Great job everybody…” (awkward stares from the crowd) “It’s great to meet you. Hi.” — Buddy (Will Ferrell), Elf (2003), written by David Berenbaum The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is Christmas. Elf suggested by Annika W. Trivia: When
“The Tree of Life” The movie’s title is The Tree of Life. The IMDB summary simply reads: The story centers around a family with three boys in the 1950s. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence. But the only words that really matter are these: Terence Malick. Writer-director of such films
BBC “Hollywood Voices” archive I know our internationally based readers sometimes get frustrated over the inability to access certain video content based in the U.S.. Now it’s our turn to be bummed. Here the BBC has made available this incredible archive of radio recordings: From the early days of silent movies to
Generating story concepts Scott Smith at the blog Screenwriting from Iowa posted some background on the movie Back to the Future. Here’s a money quote from that movie’s co-screenwriter Bob Gale: We outline the story on index cards before we start detailing the individual scenes. And we come up with
Joseph Campbell quotes: Day 2 From Monday, December 20-Sunday, January 2, I’m going to post a Joseph Campbell quote each day at 9AM PST. Why? Because the end of the year is a time to reflect on our lives — what we do and what we hope to do, who we are and who
