Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 179th installment of Saturday Hot Links.
Today: The Classic 1950’s Science Fiction Serials Edition!
Deadline’s Too-Much-Diversity Article: Journalists Weigh In On Why It Hit a Nerve.
Related: The 13 Most Ignorant Quotes From That Awful Deadline Article.
VICE and HBO Enter Major Deal to Expand News Programming.
Related: HBO-Vice Deal Should Scare the S*** Out of TV News.
Twitter Launches Live-Streaming App Periscope.
Related: 16 Hollywood Stars to Follow on Periscope: Aaron Paul, Shonda Rhimes, Seth Meyers.
Related: Hollywood Jumping on Meerkat Bandwagon After App Dazzles at SXSW.
Hollywood’s New A-List: Lupita Nyong’o, Chris Pratt and the 15 Stars Getting All the Offers.
Hollywood’s Indie Darlings: Meet Six In-Demand Actors.
Start Your Morning Right With an Alarm Clock That Makes You Coffee.
How Silicon Valley Can Change Its Culture to Attract More Women.
Controversial Russian Tycoon Threatens to Sue 20th Century Fox.
Students Invent a Fire Extinguisher That Uses Sound.
HBO’s Going Clear should be the final nail in Scientology’s coffin.
Watch President Obama discuss the war on drugs with the creator of ‘The Wire’.
Balls of Steel: Which Screenwriting Experts Should You Believe?
Black List: 500 Feminist Films.
Black List: Age Is Just a Number…Right?
Chicks Who Script [podcast]: Episode Thirty-Three (Max Landis).
Chuck Wendig: Should you quit writing.
Gavin Polone on TV’s Dirty Secret: Your Agent Gets Money for Nothing.
The Dissolve [podcast]: Episode Thirty-Two.
Rolling Stone’s UVA Rape Story Review Will Be ‘Damning’.
Hollywood’s New Comedy Kings and Queens: Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer and, Yep, Zac Efron.
The creepy reality behind the Heinz-Kraft mega-deal.
Max Landis Shares His Full 4,700 Word Treatment For ‘Ghostbusters 3’ With Slimer, Gozer, & More.
You Can Now Download Pixar’s Rendering Software — For Free!
Quentin Tarantino’s List Of His 20 Favorite Spaghetti Westerns.
5 Ways Positive Thinking Can Transform Your Health.
Why Sundance Isn’t the Only Answer for Indie Filmmakers.
There’s no way around it: mastering creativity takes time.
The Four Types Of Will Ferrell Movies.
How to Change Your Habits with Dr. Art Markman.
Paul Feig to Hollywood: Solve Your Woman Problem, Don’t Just Accept It.
Nachos On A Stick Is Baseball’s Latest Attempt To Put Us Six Feet Under.
Great Resource: BBC Script Library.
29 Awesome Books With Strong Female Protagonists.
‘The Jinx’ Ushers in Golden Age for Documentaries, Fueled By Netflix Push.
9 Things Lost or Found on Trains.
The True Story of Pretty Woman’s Original Dark Ending.
The 100 most common words in Beatles songs.
Related: Lollapalooza 2015 Lineup Includes Paul McCartney, Metallica.
Banished From ‘The Breakfast Club’: Actress Recalls the Burn of Getting Cut From John Hughes’ Film.
11 American Behaviors That Are Considered Rude Around the World.
Life After the Finale: 20 TV Shows Brought Back From the Dead.
Related: Fox Revives ‘X-Files’ With Original Cast for Six-Episode Run.
10 Would-Be Assassins Who Tried To Kill Hitler.
6 Ways Virtual Reality Will Change Filmmaking.
Related: Film Is Not Dead.
50 Facts About Earth, From Top to Bottom.
Every Tom Hanks Movie in 7 Minutes (with Tom Hanks and James Corden).
Zombie Simulator Tells You The Best Place To Hide In Case Of Outbreak.
Paramount to Absorb Insurge Label.
11 Marvelous Mars Missions.
There’s One Big Plot Hole In ‘The Little Mermaid’ That Would Have Changed Everything.
8 Drivers Who Blindly Followed Their GPS Into Disaster.
25 Quotes from ‘Star Trek’ Space Philosopher Captain Kirk.
7 of the Biggest Treasure Troves Ever Found.
Could Producer Shivani Rawat Be the Next Megan Ellison?
50 free online courses for creatives and entrepreneurs.
Paramount Wants ‘Transformers’ to Become Marvel-Style Connected Universe.
Students are Building the World’s Largest Telescope.
10 Body Parts You Could Do Without.
Oppression by Omission: Women Soldiers Who Dressed and Fought as Men in the Civil War.
How to Stop Burnout, Reduce Stress & Boost Creativity.
China has built the highest bridge in the world.
A 12-Year-Old Girl Allegedly Tried To Poison Her Mom Twice After She Took Away Her iPhone.
Finally watch ‘Jurassic Park’ Re-Created with $100,000 Worth of LEGO Sets [video].
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: If there’s one question I get asked about screenwriting theory more than any other it’s what’s my deal with character archetypes? Here’s your chance to find out what that deal is with the Screenwriting Master Class course: Character Development Keys.
It’s a 1-week online class where you do pretty much everything on your own time schedule: download and read lectures, review and post comments on the public forums, upload ideas and optional writing exercises. You want to do that in bed in your pajamas sipping coffee? Be my guest!
There is one teleconference which is live, but I record and upload that, so you can even check that out on your own time, too.
As to the course itself, there are seven lectures written by yours truly:
1: Character Archetypes and Story Structure
2: Protagonist
3: Nemesis
4: Attractor
5: Mentor
6: Trickster
7: Switch Protagonist
The study script for the course: The Dark Knight, screenplay by Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, based on characters created by Bob Kane. If you’re a fan of this movie, that alone is probably reason enough to take this class because you will understand the film in a whole new way, through the lens of character archetypes.
In addition, you will get the opportunity to put the theories you learn into action by workshopping one of your own stories.
And as a bonus: I’ll be presenting a set of character development tools I have assembled over the years to help you dig into characters even further to uncover their unique personalities and voice.
This is a great chance to immerse yourself in what I consider to be one of the most fascinating and helpful ways of approaching character development and indeed, the story-crafting process as a whole: character archetypes.
All of that in only 1-week. The course runs begins Monday, March 31. And again, you can do the entire course in your pajamas! Sucking down caffeine! Devouring chocolate bon bons! The beauty of the online experience!
For more information, go here.
As always, I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!