Saturday Hot Links
Today: In Honor Of Ray Harryhausen!
Veteran visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen dies at 92.
6 influential stop-motion movies from Ray Harryhausen [video].
The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik remembers Ray Harryhausen.
The great ATM heist: How thieves brazenly stole $45M in a few hours.
Star Wars: Episode VII to film in the U.K.
This dude does a great job impersonating several characters from “The Wire” [video].
Merida from Brave gets a ‘princess’ makeover.
9 historic moments captured in cake.
Disney’s Iron Man 3 also a boon for Paramount.
Electric car company Tesla finally turns a profit.
“24” to return to TV as a limited series.
Would you risk your life for a chance to go to Mars.
Hollywood interns’ lawsuit against Fox in jeopardy.
After 27 years, Sir Alex Ferguson retires as manager of Manchester United.
Behind the struggle to produce World War Z.
The origins of 8 curious body part names.
13 projects going to the Sundance Director and Screenwriter Labs.
8 drivers who blindly followed their GPS to disaster.
Amy Poehler and her brother create a Swedish TV series.
Publishers’ craziest schemes to avoid book spoilers.
YouTube launches paid channel partners.
How can you get better at remembering names.
Christopher Guest talks about his new HBO TV series “Family Tree”.
7 genetically modified animals that glow in the dark.
10 disappointing film adaptations of classic American novels.
6 people who tried to steal famous documents.
John Krasinksi vs. Jimmy Fallon: Epic lip synch battle [video].
105 year-old woman says the secret to a long life is bacon.
Writers Guild Foundation names Katie Buchland as its new head.
7 totally easy steps to a spoiler-free life.
Speaking of which: 17 year-old creates Twivo, a program to save the world from Twitter TV spoilers.
8 highly unusual schools.
The Playlist: 10 most anticipated films of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
15 famous people who used to teach.
PBS continues the march into streaming programming.
17 weird finance buzzwords explained.
Did Joss Whedon make $100M for The Avengers? He says no.
Everything you needed to know about the world’s first 3D-printed handgun.
Jeffery Katzenberg to Hollywood: Use movies to fight hate.
10 contestants for Earth’s next superpower.
Will Yekra help filmmakers profit online?
Turning adversity into creative growth.
LinkedIn launches magazine-style news channels.
To innovate, scientists and engineers find inspiration in the arts.
Ted Hope: 19 things regarding our current culture that should completely alter your creative and entrepreneurial practices.
Creativity Post: Why learning and multitasking don’t mix.
Sony posts first full-year profit in 5 years.
Little-known second verses of children’s songs.
The Up & Up: 10 movie producers.
8 extreme weather events as seen from space.
Managers and agents learn to get along.
19 amazing video game cakes.
Ron Howard and Bryce Dallas Howard unveil new user-generated short film contest.
How to train your brain to stay positive.
The Beatles’ “Let It Be” to hit Broadway.
Evocative photos of four sisters photographed over 30 years.
“Arrested Development” news: Bluth’s original frozen-banana stand on tour.
5 fun facts about Cinco de Mayo.
The pilot script for “Arrested Development” was 70 pages long.
10 technologies we stole from the animal kingdom.
Handwritten screenplay pages from film and television.
27 bits of wisdom from 2012 commencement addresses.
Ken Levine: I won’t give Zach Braff one dime.
15 things you should give up to be happy.
10 great producer quotes.
Solar powered plane takes off for cross country trip.
Europe hits record $8.5B box office in 2012.
Harper Lee sues to regain copyright to “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
TotalFilm: 50 darkest Disney moments.
The bizarre history of White House pets.
7-minute video on the making of Star Trek: Into Darkness [video].
Small-town movie theaters threatened by shift to digital cinema.
5 Dr. Who stories ripped from the headlines.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: I received an unsolicited email from writer Cyd Madsen who is taking my current 1-week online class Create a Compelling Protagonist. She said:
Of all the classes I’ve sampled around the web, NOBODY draws the crowd you do, and NOBODY gives as much useful information. It’s your infectious enthusiasm that gets us all going. I’m so grateful to be a small part of the pot you stir.
Since I’ve been teaching in my spare time beginning in 2002, I have to be reminded of the dynamism of the courses I teach because that is my baseline. I experience it class after class, it’s what I do, so I am used to it. I am passionate about story and the craft of writing. I love working with writers. We hit the ground running on our Monday start dates, then it’s off to the creative races.
But Cyd points out something I had never really thought about in quite the way she suggests: The writers who are drawn to my classes are of a type. Smart, inquisitive, open-minded, willing to learn, and positive-minded.
I suspect much of that derives from the spirit of this blog. Here we acknowledge the odds against us, how hard it is to break into the entertainment business, then stay there. In other words, I’m not selling snake oil and short cuts, we are realistic about what it takes to be a success. But with so much negativity and cynicism out there in the online screenwriting universe, GITS and The Black Board are fundamentally supportive environments. We traffic in honesty. We also traffic in hope.
I don’t think I could convey any other message because my story of selling a spec script as a complete outsider, then writing 30 movie and TV projects — all that without any formal training — is utterly improbable…
And yet it happened.
That same spirit of honesty and hopefulness is in place at Screenwriting Master Class.
I wish you could have experienced the incredible workshop environment that has occurred this week in Create a Compelling Protagonist, dozens of writers digging into their story’s Protagonists, generating literally hundreds of comments and suggestions. So many in fact, I’m keeping the course site open for another week to allow everyone to catch up.
It is truly inspiring and humbling to be a part of the learning that goes on in these classes.
I invite you to join me for the next online adventure: Write a Worthy Nemesis. I will be posting something about the class next week, but if it’s anything like this current course, it will incredible.
For more information on Write a Worthy Nemesis, go here.
As always, I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!
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