Basic Instinct was written by Joe Eszterhas. The script sold for $3 million, a record at the time.
March 22, 2013
Screenwriter Profile: Joe Eszterhas
The Writer:
Joe Eszterhas is one of the most financially successful screenwriters of all time. After a bidding war, his script for Basic Instinct sold for $3 million, a record at the time — not to mention, a record he had already set and broken a few times already. He comes from the hay day of spec script sales, and he made a whole lot of dough off of his scripts for Flashdance, Music Box, and Showgirls, to name a few.
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March 21, 2013
50 Best Opening Scenes of All Time
Film.com has put together a wonderful list complete with video clips of the fifty best opening film scenes of all time. This list is Not America-centric, so you’re sure to come across several foreign films you haven’t seen. Look over the clips and Film.com’s review of each and get inspired to write a groundbreaking opening scene of your own.
Here are the top five films on the list:
5.) “Touch of Evil” (Orson Welles) 1958
The nearly wordless opening shot of Orson Welles’ other other *other* masterpiece is arguably more famous than the film it portends, a 200-second tracking shot that begins with an adorably old-fashioned bomb being planted in the trunk of a car, and ends with a bang (and a kiss). A self-contained (but not self-serving) masterpiece of cinematic suspense, the elaborately choreographed tracking shot is made all the more impressive by how firmly it anchors the nihilistic noir that follows. It may not be the cinema’s most impressive long shot anymore (thanks, “Russian Ark”), but it’s still the most perfect (except for that whole Charlton Heston in brownface thing). – DE
March 21, 2013
Quote of the Day: Joe Eszterhas
Screenwriters are supposed to be neither seen nor heard. I certainly violated that rule. Among others.
March 20, 2013
The Writing Routines of Famous Authors
This post on Brain Pickings shares the writing habits of a number of famous authors. Trends that carry through include personal rules for times of day and locations for writing as well as a strict adherence (with occasional opportunities to bend the rules) to regular routines. Here is a quote from Ernest Hemingway on his method (from A Moveable Feast), which I have found quite helpful in my own writing (italics are my own):
When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.
March 20, 2013
Quote of the Day: Oliver Stone
I will come out with my interpretation. If I’m wrong, fine. It will become part of the debris of history, part of the give and take.
March 19, 2013
Quote of the Day: James Cameron
There are many talented people who haven’t fulfilled their dreams because they over thought it, or they were too cautious, and were unwilling to make the leap of faith.
