articles, news, and resources for working and aspiring screenwriters
The Writer:
Oliver Stone has written, directed, and produced some of the most powerful films of the last thirty years. His films are always controversial, dark, and unforgettable. Known for writing such classics as Scarface, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Natural Born Killers, and Evita, Stone is a true Hollywood legend.
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Writing is a deeply immersive experience. When the words are flying, the house could be burgled and I wouldn’t notice. I have a low boredom threshold and I like intensity – writing is a way of escaping the quotidian.
The King died and then the Queen died. That is a story. The King died and then the Queen died of grief. That is a plot.
This script for Tower Heist was written by Adam Cooper & Bill Collage.
Here is the Oscar-nominated script for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. This script was written by Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan based on the novel by John le Carré.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
Billy Mernit of Living the Romantic Comedy has written a new article commenting on another article, Perfectly Happy, Even Without Happy Endings. Mernit writes:
An article in this past Sunday’s NY Times strikes me as required reading for any screenwriter who has ever attempted to answer the question, “What does the audience want?”
Perfectly Happy Even Without Happy Endings, by Carrie Rickey, explores what Lindsay Doran (who produced Sense and Sensibility and Stranger Than Fiction, among many other films) has learned from her extensive research on how movies work upon our emotions, and from the teachings of Dr. Martin Seligman, a “catalyst of the positive psychology movement” who has identified the five essential elements of well-being as: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Analyzing hits and critical favorites, Doran confirmed what she’d intuitively suspected about what audiences responded to in movies that worked:
She broke down their emotional components, isolated the elements of mood elevation and tested her findings against those of market researchers. She concluded: Positive movies do not necessarily have happy endings; their characters’ personal relationships trump personal achievements; and male and female viewers differ in how they define a character’s accomplishments. Ms. Doran had long been drawn to “funny dramas and comedies that make you cry,” she said. Now she knew why.
