Great Scene: “Almost Famous” Sometimes it’s a great idea to put your story’s characters together in a situation that ‘rattles their cages’ — and that’s certainly what happens in this great scene from Almost Famous (2000), written and directed by Cameron Crowe. The movie’s premise per IMDB: William Miller is a
Daily Dialogue — April 23, 2010 “This is my rifle. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire
Reader Question: Great DVD commentaries by screenwriters? An email request from GITS reader Adam Belton: Scott, Hoping you could suggest a few key DVD commentary tracks that focus on structure and/or the screenwriter’s choices. This is a great idea that I wanted to open up to the GITS community: What movie DVDs have the best
Summer Preview: The 25 Must-See Films (IndieWire) Previous post was major movies coming out this summer. Now let’s check out IndieWire’s list of the top 25 indie films to see this summer: The summer movie season isn’t exactly best known for independent film. With billions of dollars set to be spent on the countless
Thompson on Hollywood: Summer Movies: “What Can Top Iron Man 2?” One of my favorite Hwood bloggers Anne Thompson provides this great overview of the 2010 summer slate of movies: It’s starting to look a lot like summer. Previews and forecasts are cropping up, as Hollywood hopes to best last year’s $4.31 billion domestic summer total. She focuses
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 22 Today’s story: The Fight to Preserve DeMille’s ‘Lost City’: In 1983, filmmaker Peter Brosnan set out to unearth a city buried beneath the desert sands near Guadalupe, Calif. The treasures below included sphinxes, hieroglyphs and sections of a Pharaoh’s city. Their provenance, however, was not an ancient
Scene Description Spotlight: “Avatar” There are many reasons to read and analyze the script to Avatar (2009), at last count about 2.7 billion of them by one measure. Today let’s focus on what screenwriter-director James Cameron does with scene description, specifically how he introduces us to a new world — Pandora. EXT.
Daily Dialogue — April 22, 2010 “You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!” — Tony Montana (Al Pacino), Scarface (1983), screenplay by Oliver Stone, based on the novel by Armitage Trail The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is characters talking about their weapons, suggested by Peter
Reader Question: What is the market viability of a time travel screenplay? An open forum question via email from JMay: Hey, Scott. Long time reader, often commenter. Been busy for awhile, so I haven’t been contributing as much but still reading regularly. Question: Is a Time Travel story that takes place mostly in the future a hard sell because it’s
“7 Great Wes Anderson Parodies” From Urlseque.com, a website I’d never heard of before: “7 Great Wes Anderson Parodies”: The wide angle shots. The overwhelming ennui. Unrequited love and suicidal longing. Primary colors and dry humor. The slow-mo sequence with accompanying glam rock. Titled stills with twee Mark Mothersbaugh instrumental accompaniment. These
John August: “Academy’s Film Noir series” Per John August: The Academy is hosting a Monday night screening series focusing on film noir: Fifteen film noir classics from the 1940s, all of which were nominated in the writing categories, will be celebrated in a summer-long screening series, introduced by contemporary screenwriters whose own work reflects the
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 21 How about this? The World’s Weirdest Micronations: Micronations are a lot of things, but actual nations they are not. Essentially a state that is formally declared yet not internationally recognized, Wikipedia notes that, “Micronations differ from secession and self-determination movements in that they are largely viewed as being
Screenwriting 101 — Paul Haggis “Guilt drives me. I know I have to write every day. During the story period, it’s so much harder, it’s much more fluid… When I start to write, I give myself a goal of five pages a day. I don’t stop until I get that done, whether
Daily Dialogue — April 21, 2010 “I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle! “ — Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley), A Christmas Story (1983), screenplay by Jean Shepherd & Leigh Brown & Bob Clark, based on the novel by Jean Shepherd The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is characters talking
Reader Question: What are some good movie analysis websites? Open forum question via comments from Mahmoud: Do you know any sites that analyze films and talk about the subtextual stuff? In other words, I mean the kind of criticism the analyze a film and tells you why it succeeds or why it failed and what could have been done
Beyond spellcheck You know, I like to think of myself as a pretty laid back guy. Not so big on the whole ‘rule’ thing. Yep, just an old hippie at heart. EXCEPT WHEN IT COMES TO SPELLING!!! That’s when I turn into your 5th grade teacher. You know, that mean sourpuss
Spec Script Sale: “The Architect” Per SlashFilm.com, RKO buys spec thriller “The Architect” from writer Craig Stiles: The story follows Mitch Avery, a New York City hot-shot up and coming architect who gets the opportunity of a lifetime — to build his dream building in Dubai. As you’ve seen, Dubai has been ground
Billy Mernit: “10 Screenwriting Clichés That Refuse To Die” Check out Billy’s list to see if you need to excise an overused narrative element from your script-in-progress. My two ‘faves’: Worst Screenplay Opening in the World Used to be “Protagonist wakes up in the morning,” but Screenwriting For Dummies must’ve put the kibbosh on that
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 20 As they say on “Law & Order,” this one is ripped from the headlines: “Ailing Mississippi Farmer to Oprah: ‘I am your father’”: An ailing, 84-year-old World War II veteran is making a desperate plea to Oprah Winfrey: Please admit I’m your father! Norh Robinson, a dirt-
Hollywood Tales “Sometimes they [other screenwriters] want to be [rewritten]. Or they go, ‘You know what, I’m tapped out.’ Or sometimes they’ll say, ‘Look, I don’t want to be rewritten, but it’s gonna happen.’ What I’m talking about is, I won’t rewrite someone who really doesn’
Daily Dialogue — April 20, 2010 Elrond: You’re outnumbered, Aragorn. You need more men. Aragorn: There are none. Elrond: There are those who dwell in the mountain. Aragorn: Murderers. Traitors. You would call upon them to fight? They believe in nothing. They answer to no one. Elrond: They will answer to the king of Gondor.
Reader Question: Are there movies where the Protagonist is the Nemesis? Is it possible for the Protagonist to also be the story’s Nemesis? A deep dive into Fight Club, The Shawshank Redemption, and Carl Jung. Question via email from Shawn Larkin: In “Fight Club,” I’m pretty sure Tyler Durden is the Nemesis to the Nameless Narrator / Protagonist (Edward Norton)
Student News: “Fury” goes into production I’ve been teaching screenwriting since 2002. Any of you who teach know how exciting it is when a student achieves some success in the field. So I am pleased to announce that Mike Hultquist, who took several online screenwriting courses with me, has a movie going into production in
Re screenplay structure The Bitter Script Reader has this interesting post today: Robert left this question on the Facebook page: I’ve heard it said from credible sources that if a screenplay follows this or that structure guru’s structure to a fault, and has beats exactly where a particular beat sheet says
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 19 I’m sure you saw this story: Conan Promises to Change One Woman’s Life… On Twitter: Sarah Killen loves gummy dinosaurs, coke syrup, peanut butter and now Conan O’Brien. The Michigan gal — not a fan of Russell Bigos, her sister-in-law’s treadmill singing or cleaning — happens
