Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 125th installment of Saturday Hot Links.
Today: The 86th Academy Awards Edition!
The Oscars will piss you off, but you’ll keep watching.
The 2014 hater’s guide to the Oscars.
5 shocking statistics about gender inequity and the Academy Awards.
10 fun and fascinating facts about the 2014 Oscar nominated movies.
58 Oscar stats you may not know.
Why are the Academy Award statuettes called Oscars.
Oscars 2014: Take a look at every visual effects winner ever.
20 celebrated directors who never won a Best Directing Oscar.
ABC to stream Oscars online for the first time.
Stream early films from Oscar nominees online for free.
10 Oscar winners whose speeches were under 11 words.
Oscar presenters and performers list.
Kareem: The Oscars addiction to lame historical dramas.
Best Picture math from Nate Silver and 538.
Supercut: The early roles of Oscar nominees [video].
11 0bscure regional phrases to describe the cold.
Why TV networks are interested in adapting online series again.
Why there are only 28 days in February.
LA Firsts: Screenwriter Brian Duffield.
“Fifty Shades of Grey” sales hit 100 million.
$50,000 Alfred P. Sloan Student Screenwriting Prize awarded to UCLA’s Laura Alsum.
25 times the Earth tried to swallow us.
Inception-inspired board game is a dream come true.
Why are there two Carolinas and two Dakotas.
Warner Bros. logo design evolution.
3 dirty songs by Mozart.
Topher Grace releases his Star Wars prequel re-edit trailer.
YouTube software developer Zefr raises $30M.
JJ Abrams ‘Mystery Box’ released Theory11.
6 people who accidentally found a fortune.
How The Sound of Music killed the movie musical.
7 ways to be the most interesting person in the room.
27 things we learned from Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day DVD commentary.
8 creative interpretations of Groundhog Day.
Inside the decade long feud between Bill Murray and Harold Ramis.
Lyndon Johnson’s rules of life.
The stunning hand-painted storyboards of Akira Kurosawa.
11 historical uses of invisible ink.
46 things I learned from making “Mr. Rogers and Me”.
ESPN launches 15 college conference channels on Apple TV and Roku.
The mind-blowing Hungarian posters for all your favorite movies.
Oldest known Holocaust survivor dies at 11o.
An open letter from entertainment lawyer Larry Zerner to WGA board members re script registrations.
Why are there Gideon Bibles in hotel rooms.
2013 movies by the numbers.
50 movies from 2013 spoiled in under 6 minutes [video].
10 famous musicians’ hilarious and surprising ad jingles.
David Fincher to direct Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs’ biopic.
Steve Jobs 1994 Rolling Stone interview.
How to get a job at Google.
5 ways “True Detective” can still blow it.
12 Years a Slave will be taught in schools.
Beat Super Mario Bros. in 500 points.
20th Century Fox dedicates production building to Richard D. Zanuck.
How much money will Sandra Bullock make on Gravity? At least $70M.
21 famous actors who quietly voiced cartoon characters.
Shock! DreamWorks plans another Shrek movie.
A massive list of upcoming grants all filmmakers should know about.
Is this the true identity of Andy’s mom in Toy Story.
The cutest crash course in cinema history you’ve ever seen.
Outlines are good, and 6 more fiction writing rules one hates to admit are true.
10 famous film scripts and what you can learn from them.
NBC’s “Heroes” to be revived as a mini-series.
This: Ben Hecht’s storied career as a Chicago journalist and a Hollywood screenwriter.
Finally Chaz Ebert on Roger’s last Oscars.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: When Tom and I were first discussing the concept of an online screenwriting resource, one idea we had from the start was that every class should have some sort of workshop component. Why? Because we wanted to ground whatever theory we taught in practice. At the end of the day, we believe writers only get better through the act of writing.
We have courses which are fundamentally workshops:
Prep: From Concept to Outline: A 6-week workshop in which participants develop a story from its core concept all the way to a Narrative Throughline.
Pages I: The First Draft: A 10-week workshop in which writers pound out pages, week after week, until they complete a first draft of an original screenplay.
Pages II: Rewriting Your Script: A 10-week workshop in which participants break down one of their scripts, then identify its strengths and weaknesses, brainstorm improvements, then rewrite the draft.
The Quest Writing Workshop: A 4-day intensive workshop in which writers learn three components of Character Based Screenwriting (Character, Plot, Theme), then use the Prep approach to develop an original story.
While one of the benefits of a workshop is the feedback from other writers, we also offer all of them as private one-on-one courses.
So several actual writing workshops. But even in our Core and Craft classes which offer more screenwriting theory, we always include a writing component. Whether it’s scene-writing or character development exercises, logline or synopsis assignments, there is always some sort of writing going on.
Again theory is great, but Tom and I want to mentor writers in the actual writing process.
If you feel like your writing could use a boost, consider one of the many classes we offer through Screenwriting Master Class. No matter which one you take, you will always have the opportunity to put theory into practice on one of your own stories, not only making progress on your scripted project, but also advancing your understanding of the craft… through the critical act of writing.
For more information about all of our upcoming classes into the summer, go here.
We look forward to the opportunity to work with you!
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