Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 253rd installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
Telluride to debut Oscar hopefuls including Sully, Moonlight and Una.
Telluride Film Festival: These 7 Films Could Change the Awards Conversation.
The Oscar Contenders of Summer: 11 summer movies that might launch into the awards race.
Why ‘Kubo,’ ‘Jungle Book’ and Other Great Kids’ Movies Prove Hollywood Should Treat Adults Like Children.
Only One Studio Escaped the Summer of Box Office Flops.
Which Upcoming Movies Could Flop Harder Than Ben-Hur?
Summer Box-Office Wrap: Why Hollywood’s on Red Alert Despite Near-Record Revenue.
The summer of our discontent: When franchise overload killed movie originality.
Hollywood’s Summertime Bombs Got a Lot More Disastrous This Year.
Why Hollywood’s summer sequel slump won’t lead to change.
The Summer Sequel Slump Is Nothing New — and It Won’t Change a Damn Thing.
Look How ‘Pokemon Go’ Has Out-Grossed ‘Star Trek Beyond’ and Other Summer Hits.
This Was the Summer When Cultural Criticism Swallowed Film Criticism Whole.
Could This Be the Year Movies Stopped Mattering?
Why Movies Still Matter.
Why are movie studios scared of Labor Day weekend?
A24: The Distributor as Auteur.
Are Hollywood Blockbusters Worse This Year? Not Really.
‘Warcraft’ Is Better Than ‘Finding Dory’ and Other Terrifying Lessons of the Chinese Box Office.
China Advances Film Industry Law, Cracks Down on “Western Values”.
The All-Time Greatest Cinematic Universe Is Branching Outward.
A Complete Guide to the Horror Movies Still to Come in 2016.
Top Ten Box Office Takeaways: ‘Don’t Breathe’ Doubles Expectations as Horror Rises Again.
Specialty Box Office: Obama Love Story ‘Southside With You’ Starts Strong.
Arthouse Audit: ‘Hell or High Water’ Tops ‘Southside With You’ and ‘Hands of Stone’.
7 Indie Films You Need to Know About.
Ryan Reynolds Paid to Have ‘Deadpool’ Writers on Set When Fox Wouldn’t.
Mike Birbiglia’s 6 Tips for Making It Small in Hollywood. Or Anywhere.
I’m Marc Guggenheim, Writer and Executive Producer of Arrow, and This Is How I Work.
Pete Bridges on getting spec script ‘The Fall’ picked up by Spielberg’s Amblin.
I was a Teenage Screenwriter in Hollywood.
Mischa Barton told to pay $200G to screenwriter.
Artificial intelligence input into film script aims to shake up industry.
Writers On-Screen: The Idealisation Of The Creative Process.
The Race to Save the Films We Love.
The Beginner’s Guide: Screwball Comedy.
Silicon Valley and Hollywood: What’s behind their growing love fest.
AMPAS reveals 2016 Student Academy Award winners.
5 Back to School Tips for Film Students.
How We Made $1.5 Million Self-Distributing Our Doc: The Six-Step Playbook.
Oscars: ABC Renews Contract Through 2028.
MTV Video Music Awards: List of Winners.
MTV VMAs Reached Three Times More People on Snapchat Than on TV.
Books by Nine-Year-Old Journalist Hilde Lysiak Being Made into a TV Series.
What Happens When Your 9/11 ‘Seinfeld’ Spec Script Blows Up the Internet.
Where Is God on the Small Screen?
TV Dramas Are (Literally) Too Dark.
7 Films New to Netflix to Watch In September 2016, Including ‘Zootopia’ and ‘The Imitation Game’.
Twitter Gives Creators New Ways to Make Money.
Dear Internet: It’s Time to Fix This Mess You Made.
No, the Internet Has Not Killed the Printed Book.
The Bitter Script Reader: In the wake of DON’T BREATHE’s success, what can we learn about writing horror films?
Listen: /film (Episode 381).
Listen: Broken Projector — Vomit Draft (Episode 23).
Listen: Indiewire Screen Talk (Episode 113).
Watch: The 10 Best Structured Movies of All Time.
Watch: Mexican Standoff Movie Mashup.
Watch: Why ALIENS Is the Mother of All Action Movies.
Watch: Master Class of Darren Aronofsky at the 2015 Odessa International Film Festival.
Watch: Amazing new Spike Jonze commercial starring Margaret Qualley.
Watch: Several interviews with Gene Wilder who died this week at the age of 83.
Watch: The Top 5 Gene Wilder Moments.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week
This September, I begin a new chapter in my creative journey as an assistant professor of screenwriter at the DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts. As a result, I will only offer group workshops — Prep: From Concept to Outline, Pages I: Writing the First Draft, and Pages II: Rewriting Your Script — between May and August which means the next sessions I will lead will be in 2017.
However I do have a handful of slots available for private one-on-one workshops including the premiere program I offer: The Quest.
The Quest is an intensive 20-week online screenwriting workshop which consists of three stages:
Core [4 weeks]: Participants learn essential screenwriting principles covering Plot, Concept, Character, Style, Dialogue, Scene, Theme, Time. There are 12 written lectures each week which post daily, then a writing exercise due Sunday to put the theory into practice. I wrote all 48 lectures amounting to over 250 pages of in-depth content and believe it to represent a new, cutting edge way to think about screenwriting.
The approach presented in Core is unique in these respects:
Coherent: Rather than a writer being forced to pick a bit of screenwriting theory from this guru or that, this educational resource or that, the Core content comes from a specific perspective — my own — based on over 25 years experience as a screenwriter and over 10 years as an educator. Every concept presented in Core is tied together by an overall philosophy about screenwriting, writing and creativity.
Comprehensive: The content presented in Core provides writers all the knowledge they need to have to be able to write a professional quality screenplay.
Character-based: Whereas so much of the conversation about screenwriting is focused on structure [and by ‘structure’ most people mean ‘plot’], Core presents an approach that begins and ends with character. In my view, this is not only the best way for a writer to craft unique, compelling, and entertaining multidimensional characters, it’s also the most effective — and frankly logical — way to find your story’s plot.
For 8 weeks in Core, participants in The Quest are immersed in screenwriting theory. At the end of that time, they put their understanding of those essential principles to work writing an original screenplay of their own.
Prep [6 weeks]: Starting with an original concept, participants in The Quest develop it through a series of 6 weekly lectures and writing assignments, each building upon the other until they end up with a thorough outline of their story.
I have been teaching Prep at SMC since we launched in January 2011 and the course has proved to be extremely popular. It picks up on the theory laid out in Core and runs with it in a workshop environment. The six weeks lay out like this:
The first two weeks are about exploration, starting with the Protagonist and a series of key questions to help define some of the narrative’s fundamental elements, then a full week’s worth of brainstorming, three different ways to prompt the writer’s creativity and engage the story.
The next two weeks are about wrangling the narrative, the primary Plotline points that provide the spine of the plot, and the movements of the Themeline, the story’s emotional plot.
The final two weeks are about constructing the structure, scene by scene, sequence by sequence, subplot by subplot until the participant has a detailed outline.
Armed with their outline, the writer can approach the page-writing part of the process with confidence, primed to type FADE IN and go.
Pages [10 weeks]: Using their outline as a guide, participants pound out script pages through a series of 10 weekly lectures and writing assignments. Averaging about 10–15 pages per week, by the end of The Quest the writer has a complete first draft of their original screenplay.
Here, too, the process is founded on the principles presented in Core and put into use in Prep, all reflecting a character-based approach to screenwriting.
As noted, The Quest is a workshop and that means:
* Weekly writing exercises and assignments
* Detailed feedback on all exercises, assignments, and script pages
* Regular teleconferences
The Quest is not for everyone. It involves a big commitment in terms of time and — frankly — money. However the education gives writers a solid foundation in screenwriting theory and practice, all of it grounded in over 30 years experience as a professional writer and teacher. In my humble, it is superior to anything available. Here is one of many testimonials:
If you’re serious about screenwriting, you should already know you have a long journey ahead of you. Any chance you get to cross paths with Scott, whether it’s a one week class or The Quest, is a chance to expedite that journey.
Scott’s instincts as a mentor are spot on. He can tell the difference between when you need encouragement and when you need a good kick in the pants. Under his guidance, you become the kind of writer you want to be, the kind that doesn’t need to wait for inspiration.
The Quest changed my life. It gave me the structure to be immersed in screenwriting and the flexibility needed to write and accommodate work and family life.
The Quest exceeded my expectations. Not only did I come out with a quality screenplay, but a practical approach that I can apply to each script I write.
You can spend your time reading through screenwriting inspiration, tips or shortcuts, thinking it will help more than actually doing the work, or you can take the leap and do The Quest.
— Taylor Gordon
As I say, I have room for a few Questers for the remainder of 2016. I also offer private programs for Prep: From Concept to Outline, Pages I: Writing the First Draft, and Pages II: Rewriting Your Script. If you’re interested, email me: scott at screenwritingmasterclass dot com. More information here.