September is Scene-Writing Month: Day 5 As noted in this post, September is Scene-Writing Month here at Go Into The Story. Every Monday-Friday at noon Eastern / 9AM Pacific, I will upload a post with a prompt for writing a script scene. Each day, write a scene per those guidelines. If you really want to
On Writing “Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.” — George Singleton
Daily Dialogue — September 9, 2013 Paul: [honks horn] Ten years, man! Ten! Where’ve you been for ten years? Martin: I freaked out, joined the Army, went into business for myself, I’m a professional killer. Paul: Oh, do you have to do post-graduate work for that or can you jump right in, I’
Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Reunion NOTE: I am re-posting this because in a GITS first, not one person made a suggestion for this week’s Daily Dialogue. I’m sure I can come up with seven examples myself and will gladly do that, however in the grand tradition of this series with 1,800+
Go Into The Story Week In Review: September 2-September 9, 2013 Links to the week’s most notable posts: Audio Q&A: Liz W. Garcia (“The Lifeguard”) Audio Q&A: Zachary Heinzerling (“Cutie and the Boxer”) Audio Q&A: Lynn Shelton (“Touchy Feely”) Audio Q&A: Rawson Marshall Thurber, Nick Offerman (“We’re the Millers”) Audio Q&
Documentary: “The Human Comedy” (Billy Wilder) A wonderful 55-minute documentary on my favorite filmmaker Billy Wilder. “The Human Comedy” is narrated by Walter Matthau and features a slew of interview subjects, plus some rare footage of Wilder and his longtime writing collaborator I.A.L. Diamond. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 In
Studying Aristotle’s “Poetics” — Part 9(A): Poet and Historian As I’ve been interviewing screenwriters, I typically ask what some of their influences are. One book title comes up over and over again: Aristotle’s “Poetics”. I confess I’ve never read the entire thing, only bits and pieces. So I thought, why not do a weekly series with
Screenwriting News (September 2-September 8, 2013) Sean Anders and John Morris rewriting Horrible Bosses 2 with Anders to direct. Alan Ball adapting memoir “I Am Chippendales” for Permut Productions for Ball to direct. Emma Donoghue adapting drama novel “Room” for Element Pictures with Lenny Abrahamson to direct. Ian Driscoll adapting remake of horror science fiction “Shivers”
Video Interview: Robert Towne Via the wonderful people at the Writers Guild Foundation (@WritersGuildF), this nearly hour-long interview with famed screenwriter Robert Towne just posted on August 8, 2013. HT to Roman Sidenko, a writer from Vladivostok, Russia taking one of my classes, for the link.
Daily Dialogue — September 8, 2013 LEON: What kind of a girl are you, anyway? NINOTCHKA: Just what you see. A tiny cog in the great wheel of evolution. LEON: You’re the most adorable cog I ever saw in my life. Ninotchka, Cogitska, let me confess something. Never did I dream I could feel like
Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Reunion After a week’s worth of seductive movie dialogue (thanks for that theme, Despina), next week we go with this: Reunion, suggested by Laura Deerfield: High school reunions, college reunions, family reunions, lots of source material. Let’s come up with 7 great reunion scenes with some memorable dialogue, okay!
2013 TIFF Video Tribute to Roger Ebert We miss you, Roger! You can see a bunch of videos including movie press conferences from this year’s TIFF here. Comment Archive
Dispatch From The Quest: Miranda Sajdak Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding
Great Scene: “North By Northwest” I’m sure there are Hitchcock experts out there who can correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall that the genesis of North by Northwest (1959), the classic thriller written by Ernest Lehman and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, began with two images from Hitchcock’s imagination:
Saturday Hot Links Time for the 104th installment of Saturday Hot Links! Today: The Beatles Deconstructed Music and Documentary Edition! Toronto: Todd McCarthy previews the Festival. Toronto: How did last year’s films do. Toronto: Jeff Skoll foresees massive growth for Participant Media. Toronto: Day 2 roundup (Studio System News) Alex Billington (FirstShowing)
Written Interview: Ray Bradbury Paris Review interview (Spring, 2010) with noted author Ray Bradbury: INTERVIEWER: In Zen in the Art of Writing, you wrote that early on in your career you made lists of nouns as a way to generate story ideas: the Jar, the Cistern, the Lake, the Skeleton. Do you still do
Daily Dialogue — September 7, 2013 SLIM: You know, Steve… you’re not very hard to figure. Only at times. Sometimes I know exactly what you’re going to say. Most of the time. The other times… The other times you’re just a stinker. STEVE: What did you do that for? SLIM: I’ve been
Write. Your. Story. Sometimes it’s important to remember what this site is about. We honor screenwriters. We promote good screenwriting practices. We want to see better movies made based on great stories. The site is not about me. It’s about the craft. I don’t post items to generate controversy and
Dispatch From The Quest: Christian Fontenot Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding
Audio Q&A: Scott Walker (“The Frozen Ground”) For two weeks in this time slot (Mon-Fri), I am featuring Q&A’s from L.A. based screenings recorded and edited by Wendy Cohen. It’s a fantastic resource for those of you who live outside Hollywood or in Southern California, but missed these events. Here is
“Iron Man: A Film by Mark Wahlberg” Affleck as Batman has created some repercussions in the Bay State: When Ben Affleck was announced as the new Batman the Internet was pissed. But when Mark Wahlberg announced he wanted to take over Iron Man nobody noticed. So he made this wicked awesome reboot trailer to show how an
Go On Your Own Quest — Week 8: Time The 2013 version of The Quest has entered Week 8! Don’t let this opportunity pass you by because you can Go On Your Own Quest by following the structure of The Quest to dig into screenwriting theory [Core — 8 weeks], figure out your story [Prep — 6 weeks], and write
Movie Trailer: “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete” Written by Michael Starrbury Two inner-city kids attempt to survive one summer in a hostile world, while fighting poverty, parental neglect, and worst of all, the authorities that are purported to help them.
September is Scene-Writing Month: Day 4 As noted in this post last week, September is Scene-Writing Month here at Go Into The Story. Every Monday-Friday at noon Eastern / 9AM Pacific, I will upload a post with a prompt for writing a script scene. Each day, write a scene per those guidelines. If you really
Great Character: Lester Bangs (“Almost Famous”) Since the kids are heading back to school, this month’s theme: Mentor. Today in his regular weekly guest post, Jason Cuthbert looks at Lester Bangs from the 2000 movie Almost Famous, written and directed by Cameron Crowe. “Lester Bangs.” This boisterous title sounds like the intellectual property of a
