Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 119th installment of Saturday Hot Links!

Today: The Monty Python And The Flying Circus In German Edition!

Sundance Film Festival 2014: Why this year’s Sundance is all about arrested development.

Sundance Film Festival by the numbers [infographic].

Ben Gibbard, Beastie Boys’ Ad-Rock score Sundance films.

Get to know the 2014 Sundance filmmakers before the festival.

2014 BAFTA Award nominations announced.

2014 WGA videogame nominees announced.

2014 USC Scripter nominations announced.

Paul Mazursky named for Writer’s Guild Screen Laurel Award.

Santa Barbara International Film Festival reveals 2014 lineup.

The President of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival jury: Jane Campion.

35 perfect examples of the art of the short story.

EVP Sam Dickerman departing Columbia Pictures to Disney.

The treadmill originated in prisons.

A.O. Scott comments on controversy about his Inside Llewyn Davis tweet-as-advertisement.

13 ailments 19th century doctors said electrostatic could cure.

Writer-director Akiva Goldsman completes his Winter’s Tale quest.

Why did 10,000 dead bats suddenly fall out of the sky in Australia.

Shia LaBeouf “retiring from all public life.”

5 science tips on how to stay warm outside.

In the Coen brothers’ punishing world, morals are everything.

Top 10 fantasy writing tips from George R.R. Martin.

1973 A Clockwork Orange interview with Malcolm McDowell [video].

Rejection letters received by bestselling authors.

Why “Treme” is better than “The Wire”.

Watch every day of World War II in this amazing timelapse [videod].

Darren Aronofsky makes New Regency home for filmmaking, HBO for TV.

6 pieces of advice from successful writers.

How Lorimar bred Hollywood’s ruling executive class.

ThinkFilm, a short-lived but wily distributor, still influences industry.

Vimeo launches rebuilt faster video player.

How much would it cost to make public college education free for students: $62.6B.

8 promised movies that haven’t been made.

Apple’s app stores = $10B in 2013.

Alfred Hitchcock’s unseen holocaust documentary to be screened.

Watch the huge, last minute play that saved Florida State’s title hopes [video].

Ted Hope’s bold new move [I will be posting an interview with Hope in the near future].

Jerry Seinfeld’s Reddit AMA.

Draft Day goes from R-rating to PG-13.

Here’s who we’ll one day live in space.

Was the Matrix even necessary in The Matrix.

Warner Bros. heiress sells Hollywood home.

Studios won’t let Netflix become a monopoly.

See what your favorite dead rock stars would look like if there were alive today.

Louis C.K. will sell his directorial debut for $5.

Read Meryl Streep’s Walt Disney-dissing NBR speech in its entirety.

Every single curse word in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Martin Scorcese explains why future of film is bright in open letter to daughter.

How to rob a bank in the 21st century.

Paranormal Activity creators have grand franchise finale planned.

Is your computer a ‘Her’ or a ‘Him’.

25 great 80s movies time has forgotten.

The 5 indie filmsd you must see this year.

Bechdel Test films triumph at the box office.

Terry Gilliam sounds off.

4 relationship lessons I learned from The Spectacular Now.

Why web series are becoming the new wild West.

TV pilots: 2014 guide.

Why 2013 was a banner year for documentaries.

2013 wasn’t all sequels and spin-offs.

The 15 highest grossing foreign language films in 2013.

How to improve Hollywood in 2014: 9 experts on the future of film and TV.

The 10 best Hollywood coffee shops for screenwriters.

Finally 1995 interview with Roger Ebert [video].

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: I have been teaching online for over a decade now, so it’s become second nature to me… which is why every so often, I have to remind myself there are writers who have yet to discover the numerous benefits of this type of educational platform. Therefore let me take this space to describe the online experience for you.

When you enroll in a course through Screenwriting Master Class, you are given access to an exclusive online site. You can access it any time, day or night. This is what is known as asynchronous education which is a big fancy word for doing stuff on your own schedule.

You can download and read all lectures… on your own time.

You can peruse message boards and post comments… on your own time.

You can work on writing pages and upload them to the course site for review… on your own time.

The only live scheduled events are the teleconferences. Tom and I use Skype which allows us to record the sessions for later review. Skype is free and easy, and allows us to have group sessions with writers from anywhere in the world.

On that point, this is one of the major benefits of the online experience: Writers hail from all over. In the time I’ve been teaching and off the top of my head, I’ve worked with writers from these countries: United States, Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Pakistan, India, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Poland, France, Switzerland, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, United Kingdom, Ireland. I’m sure I’ve missed some.

It’s actually incredible the diversity of backgrounds in our classes. To be able to workshop stories where we have writers on the call from Asia, Europe, South America and North America… remarkable things can and do happen,

That’s another thing: The incredible sense of community that can emerge… in some ways, more so than an on-site class experience. In fact, I recently received an email and photo from five writers who met in an online class I taught back in 2003. They created a writers group and still critique each others’ work after all these years. Now that’s community!

And there’s this: Because most of the feedback from your peers is written, the quality of the comments can be considerably higher than in an on-site setting. Why? Because participants have to actually think about what they want to say and they do so with more seriousness because their words are going to be posted in public forums for all to read.

Finally I can attest to the value of online education on a personal level: I learn something from every class I teach, sometimes a lot. There is something almost magical about the energy that can evolve in the context of an online class setting… at least the ones we teach at Screenwriting Master Class.

So if you haven’t given one of our courses a try, why not now? Tom and I have a wide selection of 1-week Craft classes that are an incredible value: $95. A full week of activity, multiple lectures written by Tom or myself, forum feedback, teleconferences. You will learn principles and practices you can use for the rest of your writing life… plus have a heck of a lot of fun in the process.

To check out the class schedule through June, go here.

As always, we look forward to the opportunity to work with you… online!

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