I think audiences are starting to get really hungry for content again.
October 13, 2011
Quote of the Day: Frank Darabont
October 12, 2011
Script: Moneyball
Here’s the script for Moneyball. This script was written by Steven Zaillian and the great Aaron Sorkin based on the novel by Michael Lewis.
October 12, 2011
Quote of the Day: Raymond Chandler
The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement.
October 10, 2011
Quote of the Day: Amy Holden Jones
One of the big things you have to learn is who to listen to and when; and you can’t listen to everybody.
October 7, 2011
Script: The Wedding Date
This draft of The Wedding Date (originally titled Something Borrowed) was written by Dana Fox.
October 7, 2011
Quote of the Day: Lawrence Konner
I think the first thing you should do before writing a script is to sit down and write a biography of that person.
October 6, 2011
Script: Drive
I’m personally very excited to read this script for Drive. It was written by Hossein Amini based on the novel by James Sallis.
October 6, 2011
Quote of the Day: Peter Rader
Your ego and your conscious mind already have way too many rules. To receive another set of rules about having 3 acts and 1st act twists and all sorts of things like that, I think, is a way of homogenizing movies. It’s very destructive to the industry. On the other hand, your sub-conscious, the crazy person, that’s the one who needs the rules.
October 5, 2011
The Trick to a Script Like Bridesmaids: Write, Then Rewrite, Then Rewrite…
This new article from Living the Romantic Comedy delves into the writing process that Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumulo went through to get to the funniest possible film — they wrote, then they re-wrote a dozen-plus times, and then they embraced a lot of improv in the actual filming (download the script here). There’s a big lesson to be learned here about not settling for the first or even the tenth idea that comes to you:
In the “Line-o-Rama” bonus on the just-released Bridesmaids DVD, a bonanza of alternate takery, there’s one sequence where Melissa McCarthy improvises variations on the same brief line, over and over again, trying out a different gag every time. How many takes? Reader, I counted them: there are forty-eight.
The last question asked in the Q & A of my Screenwriting Expo seminar on “Comedy Craft for the Contemporary Romantic Comedy” came out of discussing Bridesmaids, which I’d worked on as a story analyst at Universal. I’d shown some clips from it and mentioned the screenplay’s long (3-4 years) gestation, noting how co-writers Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumulo had been in the enviable position of writing and rewriting on the studio’s dime, under the guidance of producer Judd Apatow.
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October 5, 2011
Quote of the Day: Jim Hart
I think too many screenwriters try to be commercial as opposed to being accessible. Find that material which speaks to you and has a certain truth. Forget about whether it’s commercial.
