Saturday Hot Links
Time again for Saturday Hot Links!
Today: The Sky Is Falling Edition!
Berlin 2013: 19 reviews from this year’s festival.
Man calls his mom for a ride after his robbery attempt fails. Where else… Florida.
2013 BAFTA winners: The full list.
Why can some kids handle pressure while others fall apart.
One talented baby reenacts scenes from Oscar nominated films.
Amazing footage of Russia’s meteorite crashes.
FilmmakerIQ: 6 tips for those taking up graphic novel writing.
Everything you need to know about meteor strikes.
Brad Pitt’s account mysteriously disappears from China’s version of Twitter.
6 clever ways to avoid getting hit by an asteroid.
The Alamo Drafthouse is coming to Michigan.
11 controversial vanity license plates.
GITS Forum: How do you make a scene funny?
Iceland may ban online porn.
TotalFilm: 50 CGI scenes you didn’t notice.
An alien earth may be in our cosmic back yard.
Martin Scorcese project triggers $20M lawsuit.
7 tricks zoos use to get endangered animals to mate.
DenOfGeek: 12 ways to fix the Die Hard franchise.
11 cynical proverbs from around the world about love.
Harrison Ford confirmed to return to Star Wars VII?
Chuck Palahniuk announces his next three books.
25 filmmaking terms that sound like sex acts.
“The Submissive”: Hollywood buys another steamy sex fan fiction trilogy.
GITS Forum: Elevating conflict to CONFLICT.
Five stages of grief should be revised to include anxiety.
Rhythm & Hues goes into bankruptcy.
What happens to your brain when you fall in love.
All-female cast for Jason Reitman’s Glengarry Glen Ross reading.
The 12 weirdest animal penises in the world.
The 10 most dysfunctional couples in movies.
Why bottled water has an expiration date.
Star Trek bloopers [video].
Hacker hits Montana TV stations to warn of zombie attack [video].
GITS Forum: Self promotion for writers.
5 things to watch after North Korea’s nuclear strike.
Sandra Bullock to voice villain in Despicable Me spin-off.
NYT: Relax! You’ll be more productive!
“Homeland” hires first new writer for Season 3.
Ernest Hemingway’s top 5 tips for writing well.
Wired: Inside the battle of Hoth.
11 drinks and famous people known to drink them.
WGA looks ahead to talks on anniversary of 2007–2008 strike.
Chuck Wendig: 25 things you should know about narrative point-of-view.
Osama Bin Laden shooter on what Zero Dark Thirty got wrong.
Will Apple’s next new product be an iWatch?
2013 Nicholl Fellowship screenplay competition now underway.
11 things fossil dung scientists found in fossilized poop.
17 essays by female writers that everyone should read.
Who was Ponzi and what was his scheme?
The best pick-up lines in film history.
Creativity Post: 5 principles of creativity.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: I have a class coming up that goes to the heart of my take on character based screenwriting. Part of the Craft series, it’s called Character Development Keys and I’ve only taught it once, but the response was amazing.
The philosophy at Screenwriting Master Class is that everything in the story-crafting process begins and ends with characters. In this 1-week online course, you will learn how to use five archetypes — Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, Trickster — to develop your story’s characters and help them come to life.
- From questionnaires to confessionals to free association, you will learn keys to crafting coherent, compelling and charismatic characters.
- Workshop some of your own story’s characters and develop them by digging into their respective narrative functions.
Seven lectures written by me, special insider tips, a Character Development Tools sheet, daily forum Q&As, workshop your story with my feedback and comments from classmates, a live teleconference, and most importantly become empowered as a writer through the use of character archetypes.
Almost nothing excites an agent, manager, producer or studio executive more than reading a script with fully realized, three-dimensional, and compelling characters. Character Development Keys not only helps you to delve into your characters and understand your story more thoroughly, it gives you the understanding to help bring your characters to life.
The class starts Monday, February 25. I will only be teaching it this one time in 2013, so enroll now by going here.
I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!