Go Into The Story

Screenwriting 101: Larry Ferguson

“There was a girl who came to me with her first screenplay. It was a good first shot. I gave her some advice. I told her, ‘I want you to go home and take a yellow Marks-A-Lot and highlight every verb in this 120-page screenplay, and then

Daily Dialogue — October 20, 2010

The doctor draws two circles and says “What do you see?” the guy says “Sex.” So the doctor draws trees, “What do you see?” the guy says “sex”. The doctor draws a car, owl, “Sex, sex, sex”. The doctor says to him “You are obsessed with sex”, he replies “Well

1,000,000!

Check this out: This is a snapshot I just took of a graph from StatCounter.com, tracking activity the last 2 years on GITS. You’ll note with the blue column on the right, we just went over the 1 million mark for unique visits to the site in 2010.

Keith Richards autobiography: Thought Johnny Depp was a drug dealer

Rolling Stones’ lead guitarist Keith Richards has an autobiography coming out soon. Apart from dishing on Mick Jagger and his “tiny todger,” he has this to say about Johnny Depp: [Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones] today revealed that Johnny Depp was a frequent visitor to his home for two

Complications, Reversals, and Roadblocks

In a story, a reader wants to see the Protagonist overcome obstacles along the way. Here are three ways for you to approach writing those hurdles. Imagine: Here is your Protagonist at the Beginning. And way over there, 100 script pages or so away is where your Protagonist will hit

Sleeper Films: “Tampopo”

I thought it might be interesting this week to bring to the attention of the GITS community favorite movies of ours that might have slipped beneath the radar. They could be indie features, foreign movies, or older films, but while they may not have achieved much in the way of

Zuckerberg responds to “The Social Network”

Zuckerberg responds: Not everyone appreciates screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s depiction of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network.” Especially Zuckerberg. In the video below, Zuckerberg says he has been dumped by girls a lot, not just once. He was impressed that the fimmakers got all his shirts right. But

Hollywood Tales

“My only hope is that you will have a moment of clear thinking. That you’ll ask some intelligent and disinterested person to look at the two scripts. Some honest thinking would be much more valuable to the enterprise right now than an effort to convince people you’ve improved

Daily Dialogue — October 19, 2010

“I was thrown out of N.Y.U. my freshman year for cheating on my metaphysics final, you know. I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me. When I was thrown out, my mother, who was an emotionally high-strung woman, locked herself in the bathroom

Spec Script Sale: “Columbus”

Per Deadline, Virgin Produced (Richard Branson) buys “Columbus” from writer T.S. Nowlin: McG [is] attached to [produce] a 300-style film about Christopher Columbus and his discovery of America. Per SlashFilm, this reminder about the recent mondo-failures of Columbus movies: However, the last time Hollywood tried to dramatize

Spec Script Sale: “Dark Moon”

Per Deadline, Warner Bros. drops “high-six figures” to buy spec sci-fi / drama “Dark Moon” from writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi: The spec explores the possibility that manned moon missions did not stop with Apollo 17. Using found footage, it makes the case for a black ops post-Apollo mission

How important was Ripley as a female (“Alien”) to sci-fi genre?

“Hero Complex” (LAT) offers this overview of the recent Scream 2010 event: There are a half-dozen actors who might be crowned as the “King of Sci-Fi Films,” but a few of them, like Harrison Ford of “Star Wars” and “Blade Runner” fame, might run screaming from the genre’

Sleeper Films: “Local Hero”

I thought it might be interesting this week to bring to the attention of the GITS community favorite movies of ours that might have slipped beneath the radar. They could be indie features, foreign movies, or older films, but while they may not have achieved much in the way of

“Screenwriting & Solitude”

Scott at ScreenwritingFromIowa with this terrific post: “(Screenwriting is) all pretty much sitting alone in a room staring at a screen. That solitude is interesting to me.” Screenwriter David Koepp (Spider-Man, Jurassic Park) “Solitude is the school of genius.” Edward Gibbon (Writer of the classic book, The History of

On writing

“The day job pays you for showing up. Writers get paid for FINISHING.”  — Alexandra Sokoloff H/T to GITS reader Martin_B for sourcing the quote

Daily Dialogue — October 18, 2010

Pick-up Guy: This reminds me of a joke. This guy comes into a bar, walks up to the bartender. Says, “Bartender, I got me a bet for you. I’m gonna bet you $300 that I can piss into that glass over there and not spill a single, solitary

Weekend Box Office preliminary results: “Jackass 3D” kicks ass!

Per TheWrap: Like planning outlandish homemade stunts, motion-picture tracking is often followed by unanticipated results. One such anomaly occurred over the weekend, with the third installment of Paramount’s low-budget freak show “Jackass” opening to $50 million, according to studio estimates — about twice what was expected. If Sunday’

John McPhee: “The Art of Nonfiction”

In response to a recent post about the importance of prep-writing, GITS reader Daniel MacDonald gave me this heads-up via email: Scott, John McPhee has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1963 and he’s a hero of mine. Maybe the only one. The attached

Profile: David Fincher, Part 3

Our friend Trevor Hogg’s latest FlickeringMyth.com profile is on director David Fincher, currently out with his new movie The Social Network. Some excerpts from Part 3: David Fincher’s seventh cinematic endeavor The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) is an adaptation of a fictional short story by

“Lost unpublished Dr. Seuss manuscript”

This is cool. Per what looks to be a fantastic site Booktryst: Over forty years ago, Theodore S. Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, began work on a book. Per usual, he had assistants working with him, one of whom managed the project. For reasons noted below, he put the manuscript aside.

Daily Dialogue — October 17, 2010

Donald “Red” Grant: We were keeping you alive until you could get us the Lektor. James Bond: So, you had me deliver it on a silver plate? That’s brilliant. Go on, I’m fascinated. Donald “Red” Grant: Now that we’ve got it, you and the girl are expendable…

“Alien” prequel news

Exciting news from Moviesblog.MTV.com: Surprise, surprise: Damon Lindelof’s rewrite of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” prequel has allegedly made the film infinitely more awesome. Culture Vulture got the exclusive that executives at Fox read the new draft of the screenplay (originally penned by Jon Spaihts) and were “very

Written Interview: Jim and Brian Kehoe (Date Night, Couples Retreat)

From Script magazine, this feature on screenwriters Jim and Brian Kehoe: With the success of movies like Couples Retreat and Date Night, it seems there’s a new kind of romantic comedy in town — the one where the guy and the girl are already married. Brothers writing team, Jim and

Daily Dialogue — October 16, 2010

Noah Cross: Well, Mr. Gittes, you don’t look too much the worse for wear, I must say! Now where’s the girl? Jake Gittes: I’ve got her. Noah Cross: Is she alright? Jake Gittes: She’s fine. Noah Cross: Well, where is she? Jake Gittes: With her mother…

Reader Question: How to balance writing and family time?

From GITS reader Sharat: I’ve reader question for GITS, that I would like to see your answer. This question has become so important to me recently and I am trying to find how people have worked around. How do you keep writing and still stay married fulfill the family