On writing “I keep little notepads all over the place to write down ideas as soon as they strike, but the ones that fill up the quickest are always the ones at my nightstand.” — Emily Logan Decens
“Analyst Admits to Being ‘Dead Wrong’ After Disney’s ‘Up’ Is Big Earner” We already pounced on Wall Street here for being wrong about the market viability of Pixar’s movie Up, but now comes this: A mea culpa, of a sort, came Wednesday from the Wall Street analyst who was the most prominent (but not the lone) prerelease naysayer about “Up,” the
More from “Screenwriting Tips… You Hack!” A few tips (with edge!) from the blog of script reader Xander Bennett Screenwriting Tips… You Hack: Screenwriting Tip #20 Seriously, could you stop describing in drooling detail the incredible, smoking hot curves of your female characters’ bodies? It’s just uncomfortable for everybody. Screenwriting Tip #25 What format should
“Without the Art of Screenwriting, Hollywood’s Greatest Movies Would Not Have Been Great” Screenwriter Irving Belateche gets a H/T for this, emailing me a WAPO article with the provocative title “Without the Art of Screenwriting, Hollywood’s Greatest Movies Would Not Have Been Great”: On the surface, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “The Hurt Locker” might deserve to be mentioned in
Video interview — Robert Altman The late Robert Altman is known primarily as a director. But did you know he has over 40 writing credits, many of them movies including McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), A Wedding (1978), Short Cuts (1993), and Prêt-à-Porter (1994)? This 4-minute video is from the Hamptons Film
Interview — Simon Kinberg StoryLink has a nice interview with screenwriter Simon Kinberg. His writing credits include Mr. & Mrs. Smith, X-Men: The Last Stand, Jumper, and the upcoming Sherlock Holmes. The interview has some pretty choice advice. Here are a couple of excerpts related to Kinberg’s writing process which I thought
“Screenwriting: It’s Not Just for Movies Anymore” One of my students Jas Lonnquist is currently featured on the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program website. Jas won the 2006 UCLA Extension Screenplay Competition with a script she worked on in my class (and in additional courses with other fine Writers Program instructors). We swapped emails a few months back
Friday Movie Reviews Bruno (Universal) Daily Variety (Todd McCarthy) Hollywood Repoter (Kirk Honeycutt) Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey) New York Times (A.O. Scott) I Love You, Beth Cooper (Fox) Daily Variety (Brian Lowry) Hollywood Reporter (Stephen Farber) Los Angeles Times (Mark Olsen) New York Times (A.O. Scott)
Q&A: Screenwriter Jeff Morris An interview with screenwriter Jeff Morris who sold the spec script “The True Memoirs of an International Assassin” in April 2009: How did you come up with the core concept for The True Memoirs of an International Assassin (i.e., the Protagonist [Joe] takes on the persona of a fictional
Great Scene: “Rocky” How budget issues helped to create the memorable ice rink scene. A while back, I was talking with a friend Kevin Wild and asked him for a Great Scene suggestion. He said, “Hey, you should do some that came about because of budget issues.” And he immediately thought of the
“Capitalism: A Love Story” Director Michael Moore revealed the title of his newest documentary — “Capitalism: A Love Story”: “It will be the perfect date movie,” Moore said in an announcement Wednesday. “It’s got it all — lust, passion, romance and 14,000 jobs being eliminated every day. It’s a forbidden love, one that
Merriam-Webster dictionary adds new words Writers by default are ‘wordsmiths,’ therefore it’s important to keep up with language as it evolves. And yesterday, the people who publish the Merriam-Webster dictionary announced the inclusion of more than 100 words to the newest version of their dictionary. Here are some highlights: Cardioprotective (1984): serving to
More thoughts on Disunity to Unity Another interesting discussion in the online screenwriting class as a student (Lucy) said she had an “aha!” moment when re-reading a lecture on Narrative Throughline: I’ve revisited your Narrative Throughline a few times since I took “Scenewriting” with you. For some reason, it just wasn’t completely clicking.
IndieWIRE: Mid-year speciality box office winners & losers report While overall B.O. is up, indie movies continue to struggle. IndieWIRE offers this mid-year report. Winners and losers: Winner: Documentaries That Came Out Of Toronto Loser: Pretty Much All Other Documentaries Winner: Films Starring Sam Rockwell and Sam Rockwell Loser: Films Starring Zooey Deschanel and Paul Dano Winner:
MakingOf: Interview with John August The site has been created by actress Natalie Portman and her longtime friend and producer Christine Aylward. Here’s what Portman has to say about the genesis of the site: When friends come to the set, they always want to know: Who are the many individuals who take part in
2012: Disaster Porn Quick before it gets taken down. Check out this “disaster porn” recut trailer for the upcoming movie 2012: The movie, which debuts in November, is described this way on IMDB: An epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle
Screenwriting 101 — Trey Ellis “I noticed that race colors the perception of me in the film community today much more than I would have thought a decade ago. I call it my “Lion Theory.” Being black in Hollywood sometimes feels like being a lion. You might think of yourself as a happy lion, an
Daily dialogue — July 8, 2009 “Maybe I’m spending too much of my time starting up clubs and putting on plays. I should probably be trying harder to score chicks.” — Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), Rushmore (1998), written by Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson Comment Archive
“Cure for the Transformers Blues” In addition to comments here, I get a lot of email from GITS readers. Here’s something Jeff Messerman sent to me last week after I posted this review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Hi Scott, So I finally took the plunge and saw Revenge of the Fallen. I
Pitch sale: “Untitled D. V. DeVincentis Project” Mandate Pictures picks up untitled comedy pitch from writer D. V. DeVincentis, based on the book “You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero”: The untitled comedy will follow a nice guy thrust into a series of unusual circumstances after a blind date goes awry. Powers’ book was published last
“Character development” In the screenwriting task I’m teaching, a student noted how they some times avoid spending time on character development because it’s such “hard work.” Here’s my response: It can not only be hard work, it can also be a bit frightening. In interacting with our characters, especially
Seriously?! Jaw on floor re this: Click. Click. The View-Master may be coming to the bigscreen. DreamWorks has tapped Brad Caleb Kane to pen a script based on the nostalgic toy that showed 3-D images from movies and tourist sites. What other nostalgic toy can Hwood exploit next as
Hollywood tales “In the early 1990s, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion wrote an original for Disney based on the life of 1980s television journalist Jessica Savitch — this is one installment of the notes the studio sent them: We agree we need to make Talley (Savitch) a more sympathetic character and define
Daily dialogue — July 7, 2009 “And I said, I don’t care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I’m, I’m quitting, I’m going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they’ve moved
