Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 303rd installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

Skydance Extends Paramount Deal Four Years.

How Sundance Is Trying to Make Smaller Films Profitable With Self-Distribution.

Broad Green: How Wall Street Wealth, A-List Talent, and Brash Decisions Made an Indie Player Implode.

Principato-Young Shakeup: Electus Becomes Majority Owner As Paul Young Exits & Peter Principato Re-Ups As CEO.

Stuart Ford Forced Out As IM Global CEO.

This List of Swear Words People Don’t Like to Hear in Movies Is Pretty F**king Shocking.

5 Reasons We Aren’t Seeing a Lot of Monster Movies as Explained Through Wu-Tang Clan Quotes.

From The Dark Tower to Batman & Robin, crappy blockbusters share one guilty party.

White Men Still Talk the Most in Movies.

The Rich Contradictions of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Unforgiven’.

David Fincher’s ‘Gone Girl’ Has 2,400 Shots, And Now You Can Study Every Single One.

Steven Soderbergh Quit Movies. Now He’s Back. What Gives?

Conservative Koch Brothers Are Secret Investors in ‘Wonder Woman’.

8 Ways Hollywood Writers Can Blow It With Their Agents or Managers.

Former Hollywood Assistant Posts Sexist Email She Received From Her Boss.

Why a Hollywood Billboard Features 43,412 Nude Scenes.

Peak TV: Scripted Series Tally Poised To Surpass 500, As Viewers and Networks Face Another Record Year.

NBC’s Comedy Streaming Site Seeso Is Officially Shutting Down.

FX to Introduce Ad-Free Service for Comcast Subscribers.

HBO’s Slavery Drama ‘Confederate’ Faces Minefield of “Fundamentally Problematic” Issues.

HBO’s ‘Room 104’: How to Shoot an Ultra Low-Budget Indie TV Show.

HBO Hackers Leak Top Executive’s Emails.

Netflix’s First Acquisition: ‘Kingsman’ Comics Publisher.

Disney to remove its films from Netflix in 2019, launching own streaming platform.

Why the Coen Brothers’ Netflix Series Could Be Good News for the Film Industry.

How the Internet Disrupted TV Comedy.

Hollywood Doesn’t Get Fitzgerald The Same Way Fitzgerald Never Got Hollywood.

Anonymous Content Extends Paramount TV First-Look Deal Through 2019.

Aberystwyth Uni studies Monty Python’s ‘lasting appeal’.

How to Become a Writer? Start Writing.

How to Write Plot Twists That Really Mess with People’s Heads.

The Toxic Drama on YA Twitter.

Lollapalooza 2017 Festival Review: From Worst to Best.

Watch: The Films of Steven Soderbergh: ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape’.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

In the Core content of The Quest, we work with eight screenwriting principles, and the very first one is this:

Plot = Structure

On Monday, September 11, I will be starting a new cycle of Core classes, eight of them in all, beginning with Core I: Plot. In this 1-week online course, you will learn the importance of Plot = Structure as well as:

• Key theoretical concepts from Aristotle, Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung
• The reality of Hollywood and the “Whammo” theory
• The External World and Internal World of a screenplay universe
• Metamorphosis: Screenplay structure grounded in character
• Analysis of movies including Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Silence of the Lambs, Shakespeare in Love, The Verdict, The Sixth Sense, Up, and others

And much more.

The course consists of four components:

• Lectures: There are six lectures written by me, each posting Monday through Saturday.
• Logline Workshop: This optional writing exercise offer you the opportunity to workshop one of your own loglines.
• Teleconference: We will have a Skype teleconference call to discuss course material.
• Forums: The online course site has 24/7 forums where you may post questions and we engage in conversation about the craft.

For those of you who have not taken an online class, the interface is extremely easy. Plus online classes can be an amazing experience. Most of the activities you can do on your own time — download and read lectures, review and respond to forum discussions, upload loglines and track comments. In addition, I’ve been teaching online for over a decade and it never ceases to amaze me how much of a community emerges in such an environment.

If you’re new to screenwriting, have intermediate experience, or you’ve read it all, but want to learn the basics of what I teach in The Quest — character based screenwriting — here is your chance to learn the foundation of screenplay structure that goes beyond formula.

I only teach my Core classes once a year and the 2017 cycle begins later this month. Everything you need to know about screenwriting theory in this unique curriculum based on eight principles: Plot, Concept, Character, Style, Dialogue, Scene, Theme, Time.

CORE I: PLOT — A one-week class which begins with the principle Plot = Structure and explores the inner workings of the Screenplay Universe: Plotline and Themeline. Start date: September 11.

CORE II: CONCEPT — A one-week class which begins with the principle Concept = Hook and examines multiple strategies to generate, develop and assess story ideas. Start date: September 25.

CORE III: CHARACTER — A one-week class which begins with the principle Character = Function and delves into archetypes: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, and Trickster. Start date: October 9.

CORE IV: STYLE — A one-week class which begins with the principle Style = Voice and surfaces keys to developing a distinctive writer’s personality on the page. Start date: October 23.

CORE V: DIALOGUE — A one-week class which begins with the principle Dialogue = Purpose and probes a variety of ways to write effective, entertaining dialogue. Start date: November 6.

CORE VI: SCENE — A one-week class which begins with the principle Scene = Point and provides six essential questions to ask when crafting and writing any scene. Start date: November 13.

CORE VII: THEME — A one-week class which begins with the principle Theme = Meaning and gives writers a concrete take on theme which can elevate the depth of any story. Start date: November 27.

CORE VIII: TIME — A one-week class which begins with the principle Time = Present and studies Present, Present-Past, Present-Future and time management in writing. Start date: December 11.

These eight Core classes represent decades of my work on the front lines of the entertainment business as a writer and producer, and engaging the craft as a teacher as well, over time pulling together a coherent, comprehensive, and cohesive approach to screenwriting theory.

This is not about secret systems or magic formulas, rather the Core content presents a story-crafting process that starts with characters, works with characters, and ends with characters. That process of engaging you with your story universe through your characters and getting you in touch with these living, breathing individuals informs every step of your creative process, leading you to story structure, themes, conflict, subplots, and all the rest. As I say, Character Based Screenwriting.

NOTE: I provide feedback and am actively involved in our online chats. That includes a 90 minute teleconference for each Core class.

A popular option is the Core Package which gives you exclusive access to the content in all eight Craft classes which you can go through on your own time and at your own pace, plus automatic enrollment in each 1-week online course — all for nearly 50% the price of each individual class. If you sign up now, you can have immediate access to all of the Core content.

“I’m a huge fan of Scott’s classes, and I signed up for his Core Package, which I cannot speak highly enough about. If anyone wants to take a serious look at improving their writing, there is more than enough material to keep you busy for a few… dare I say, lifetimes? He’s the best. No bones about it.”

~ Heather Farlinger

To learn about any of the Core classes, click here.

I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!