Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 309th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

2018 Best Original Screenplay Oscars Predictions.

2018 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars Predictions.

Are You Ready for the Most Exciting Oscar Race in Years?

A New Animation Festival Launches, With Plans To Impact the Oscar Race.

The 10 best movies to see at the 2017 New York Film Festival.

Fantastic Fest 2017: 26 Films We Can’t Wait to See.

MoviePass Is Luring Millennials Back to the Multiplex. Why Is Hollywood So ‘Meh’?

‘House of Cards’ Creator Beau Willimon Elected President of Writers Guild of America, East.

‘Star Wars’ Director Drama: How J.J. Abrams Jilted Paramount for ‘Episode IX’.

How the Russo Brothers Plan to Embrace Disruption in the Movie Business.

Rob Reiner and a Few Good Men Are Investigating Russia.

Celebrating Greta Gerwig’s Creative Rise.

Amblin Shake-Up: Michael Wright Stepping Down as CEO.

Fox’s Stacey Snider Gets Candid About Netflix, Diversity and the Future of Wolverine.

Sony Buys Into Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s Stolen Picture Production Company.

CAA Promotes 4 Trainees to Agents, Executives.

Horrible Misogyny in the Film World Is Surfacing, But Are We Really Surprised?

The Decade’s Worst Summer Box Office Could Have Exclusion to Blame.

Female film casting same as 100 years ago.

Does ‘It’ Stand Up to Scrutiny on Second Viewing?

‘It’ to Pass ‘The Exorcist’ as Highest Grossing Horror Film Ever.

Psychological Horror Has Been A Thing Since ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’.

Why Linda Hamilton and Jamie Lee Curtis Will Save TERMINATOR and HALLOWEEN.

When the Nazis Tried to Exterminate Hollywood.

Director of Mel Gibson Movie ‘Professor and the Madman’ Seeks to Seize and Destroy Producer’s Cut.

What the 19 Movies to Ever Receive an ‘F’ CinemaScore Have in Common.

How ‘Mother!’ and More CinemaScore Failures Fared at the Box Office.

Darren Aronofsky Responds to ‘mother!’s’ “F” CinemaScore.

Mel Brooks Thinks ‘Blazing Saddles’ Never Could Have Been Made in Today’s ‘Stupidly Politically Correct’ Climate.

Martin Scorsese to Teach His First-Ever Online Filmmaking Class.

The 25 Most Important Families in Hollywood History.

Top 50 Film Schools of 2017 Ranked.

Foreign Film Upheaval: Why Esoteric Cultures Outpace European Mainstays at the Box Office.

In New Zealand, a Translated ‘Moana’ Bolsters an Indigenous Language.

Emmy Awards: Complete Winners List.

NFL TV Ratings Slide Worries Wall Street.

Pay-TV Losses Could Accelerate to More Than 5 Million U.S. Households per Year.

Nielsen Unveils New Ad Yardstick for Madison Avenue.

“The Deuce” Renewed for Second Season by HBO.

Damon Lindelof Begins Work on His ‘Watchmen’ TV Show For HBO.

There’s Yet Another Contender for the ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel Throne.

Vice Video Employees Unionize With Writers Guild East and Editors Guild.

‘Firefly’ at 15: How a Canceled Show Became a Cult Favorite.

After 50 Years, Rolling Stone Will Go Up for Sale.

Listen: Scriptnotes (Episode 318).

Read: Review — ‘The Florida Project’.

Read: Jeff Willis — Profit Participation.

Watch: Baby Driver — A Lesson In Storytelling.

Watch: ‘Psycho’ — Ending Scene.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

Whatever degree of importance you attribute to your script’s story concept… it’s probably not enough. Here’s how I begin Lecture 1 of my Core II: Concept class:

The foundation of any movie is the screenplay. The foundation of any screenplay is the concept. Therefore it stands to reason which story concept you develop and write as a script is a critical choice. And that is precisely why I created the second part of the Core curriculum — to understand how movie industry insiders think, provide you with proven methods to generate story concepts, and develop analytical skills to help you decide which ideas are the most viable ones for you to write.

Don’t believe me? How about this:

“Most aspiring screenwriters simply don’t spend enough time choosing their concept. It’s by far the most common mistake I see in spec scripts. The writer has lost the race right from the gate. Months — sometimes years — are lost trying to elevate a film idea that by its nature probably had no hope of ever becoming a movie.”

— Terry Rossio (Aladdin, The Mask of Zorro, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)

“Ideas cost NOTHING and require ZERO risk. And yet, oddly, the LEAST amount of time’s usually spent in the idea stage before a small fortune is dumped on a whimsy that’s still half-baked… Ideas cost nothing yet have the potential to yield inexplicably long careers and happy lives.”

— Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Zak and Miri Make a Porno)

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

Concept = Hook

On Monday, September 25, I will begin teaching Core II: Concept. In this 1-week online course, you will learn:

• The lowdown on high concept
• Genre, Cross Genres and Sub-Genres
• Hollywood’s obsession with ‘similar but different’
• Brainstorming and recycling
• Gender bending and genre bending
• How to test your story concept

And much more. The course consists of four components:

• Lectures: There are six lectures written by me, each posting Monday through Saturday.
• Writing Exercises: These optional exercises offer you the opportunity to workshop one of your own loglines and receive feedback from class members and myself.
• Teleconference: We will have a Skype teleconference call to discuss course material.
• Forums: The online course site has message boards where you may post questions / comments, a lively source of some great conversations.

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 with writers from all around the world including Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa.

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.

If you sign up for The Core Package, you gain 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.

“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

Here are the eight courses offered in the Core curriculum:

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 [Already offered].

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.

Check out the Core Package to ground yourself in a proven, professional approach to screenwriting theory and practice.

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

I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!