Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 384th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
Writers Guild Begins Voting on ‘Code of Conduct,’ Setting Stage for Agent Firings
Showrunners, Screenwriters Back WGA in Agency Battle, Sides to Meet Again Tuesday
The Hollywood Fight That’s Tearing Apart Writers and Agents, Explained
Propaganda: ATA Blasts WGA For Threatening To Throw “Industry Into Chaos” As Latest Talks End
Writer Claims CAA Ripped Off TV Pilot
Live-Action ‘Dumbo’ Hopes Nostalgia (and Tim Burton) Will Bring in Moviegoers
Box Office: ‘Us’ on Track for Second-Highest Debut of 2019 With $67 Million
Jordan Peele Breaks Down Religious Themes Of ‘Us’ & Calls His Latest A “Dark Easter” Film
‘Us’: Here Are 8 of the Craziest, Greatest Theories, From Duality to 11:11
Jordan Peele says he doesn’t see himself “casting a white dude as the lead” in his movies
‘Fault in Our Stars’ Writers: Fox 2000 Was Home for Literary, Midbudget Films
Fox 2000’s Elizabeth Gabler Courted by Paramount, Sony
CinemaCon 2019: What If Theaters and Streamers Complement Each Other, Rather Than Fight?
How America’s Biggest Theater Chains Are Exploiting Their Janitors
Vice Media Agrees to $1.87 Million Settlement for Paying Female Staffers Less Than Men
Tribeca Film Institute Announces 2019 Sloan Foundation Winners
Village Roadshow Teams With Loyola Marymount for Student Filmmaking Grants
Sony Sells Majority Stake of Crackle to Chicken Soup for the Soul
Muslim Writers Call for More Positive, Authentic Portrayals in Film, TV Stories
10 Big Questions As Emmy Season 2019 Starts To Rumble
‘Law & Order: SVU’ Renewed for Record-Setting 21st Season on NBC
Brad Falchuk Sets Overall Deal at Netflix
Apple’s Hollywood Plan Becomes Clear: The “Cable Box of Streaming”
The YouTube Takeover of Late Night
Disney Eliminates All Smoking Areas in Theme Parks
Agnes Varda, Pioneering Filmmaker of the French New Wave, Dies at 90
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: Write a Worthy Nemesis
Workshop your story’s antagonist character in my 1-week online course. Begins Monday, April 2nd.
If the Protagonist is most often your story’s most important character, the Nemesis is not far behind. Indeed some of the greatest characters in film history have been Nemeses including Darth Vader (Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope), the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wizard of Oz), Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs), and the shark (Jaws).
If conflict is the stuff of great drama, there is perhaps no conflict more compelling than that of a Protagonist versus a Nemesis. But what makes for a worthy Nemesis? How to develop them?
Following up on my recent Create a Compelling Protagonist course, I’m offering Create a Worthy Nemesis. It is a 1-week writing course that takes a unique approach to developing this pivotal character in that we start the process with the Protagonist.
I found Scott Myers’ online workshop on writing a “worthy nemesis” extremely helpful as a first time screen writer it answered some key questions about character construction and relation, gave me a lot of food for thought and was overall a great experience. I will surely come back for another course once I have applied all that I learned on this one. — Zeba Bakhtiar
Here are the 7 lecture titles:
Lecture 1: Nemesis v. Antagonist
Lecture 2: Shadow v. Light
Lecture 3: Fear v. Need
Lecture 4: Disunity v. Unity
Lecture 5: Overlord v. Underdog
Lecture 6: Intelligence v. Wisdom
Lecture 7: Empathy v. Sympathy
Without a doubt, I’ve gotten more useful information out of this course than any other single course I’ve ever taken. I especially enjoyed the discussions of the applications of Carl Jung’s work to screenwriting. You’re doing great work. — Scott Gunn
Notice the clever theme of v. for versus? There’s a reason for that, one you will discover when you take the class. In addition to the seven lectures that I am writing, there is 24/7 forum feedback, six insider tips, a teleconference, and an opportunity to workshop one of your story’s Nemesis characters.
The most recent Create a Compelling Protagonist session has been phenomenal. In fact, I have extended the class for at least another week because of all the incredible conversations we’ve had along with great workshopping of participants’ Protagonists. I fully expect the my Nemesis class will just as stimulating.
This was my first time taking one of Scott’s classes, and it was totally worth it. He was full of unique insights, from his daily lectures to his Insider Tips (my favorite part of the course). Further, he was highly responsive to the myriad questions posed by students. I very much enjoyed the exchange of knowledge and advice that occurred among participants, another highlight. Would definitely recommend this class! — Jace Serrano
I have presented a condensed version of the Write a Worthy Nemesis class at the London Screenwriters Festival, Austin Film Festival, and Willamette Writers Conference to packed rooms. You can get the complete take in this week-long online course.
So sign up today right here and join me for a week’s journey into the dark side of the human soul, the place where great Nemeses figures dwell, waiting for you to find them.
Class start date: Monday, April 1.
