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Running With My Eyes Closed
Thursday, On Very Special Episode of Crushing It!
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday recaps. Young Neal declared himself, but Gam3rgurl wasn’t sure. June and Julian reconnected. Bootywatchman was close to scoring when Brad made a discovery. Lily went into labour. HollingPete hauled ass toward Toronto. And made it just in time. Tune in today at 1:30 and 6:00 for...
Monday and Tuesday on Crushing it. Dave’s mom embarrassed him. Then she embarrassed him some more. Then it really got bad. Barb and Laurence had another wedding disaster. Bootywatchman finally got his groove on, but Neal didn’t like it too much. Peter had a plan that Lily didn’t like too much. But why was Barb so high...
Tuesday February 2, 2010 on Twitter’s top comedy soap opera, David and Barbara met up for coffee accidentally on purpose. When Lily went into labour, David ended up as chauffeur. Turned out Lily wasn’t in labour, but but Dave turned things around with brownies. Barb offered to buy Dave a drink to thank...
Crushing It: An Update in Tweets
Two episodes down and here’s what’s happened so far. Lily got some good news. Peter did some math. Barbara considered calling off the wedding. Laurence tried to be the voice of reason. Laurence’s friend Brad might not be the best best man. David is having a bad day. And it looks like it may get worse. And worse. Lucky...
Our tale is about to begin, but there’s still time for me to introduce you to our players. Meet Barbara (@barbology) and Laurence (@about2bhitched), a lovely couple. If you make friends with them, perhaps they’ll invite you to there nuptials. Yes, they’re engaged and the wedding is this Friday at...
What was that just moments ago on Twitter? Did one of the characters in Crushing It just respond to an @? @youngneal’s feed has has a little activity over the last couple of days. Tonight, Ink Canada tweeted at him: It wasn’t long before Neal responded. If you want to follow Crushing It,...
Writersroom Blog
Hello. Apologies for missing a week - I was off in Bristol doing some acting and then I lost the email with my login details. Also, I'm only half way through series one of Mad Men so something had to......
The Wire (UK not USA, and radio not TV)
The new season of The Wire strand of original new dramas on Radio 3 starts this weekend with Alan Harris's play The Goldfarmer. The strand is in it's 10th season, has always been commissioned out of Writersroom by Kate Rowland......
Eran Creevy's script for his low-budget film Shifty is now available to read. The film was developed through the Film London Microwave scheme in partnership with BBC Films. As part of the BBC's support of the project, I spent some......
So, the year before last Russell T Davies puts this book out, right? All about writing Doctor Who. And to go along with it he published all of the scripts he wrote for Doctor Who that year. Well, now that......
Dotcommery, Tomfoolery, and Swywthery
Tim Wright is the writer of digital experiences including Online Caroline, Mount Kristos, and In Search of Oldton. His two new plays, Say What You Want To Hear, will air shortly on Radio 4 - and you can be a......
The shortlist that goes to the judges has been decided and congratulations to the scripts and writers below: Murder in the Lakelands by Patrick Nash Only One Problem by David Ireland The Dealer of Ballynafeigh by Rosemary Jenksinson A Pocket......
Mystery Man on Film
Hey guys,I’m back for one last post – links to 101 of my best articles!Who needs film school?-MM-----------------------------------------------Cinematic StorytellingI read Cinematic Storytelling, which was written by the great Jennifer Van Sijll, and I just LOVED IT. This should be in the library of every aspiring screenwriter on the planet and...
Hey guys,I’ve moved! You can find me athttp://www.mysteryman.org/ About the new site:- I was finding that most of the things I used to blog about ("news," "around blogosphere," "check out this article" type posts) I now tweet, which doesn't take up as much time. This new site will be premium...
Hey guys,I think it’s time for a new website, don’t you? Nothing terribly ground-breaking, just a little more organized, a little flashier. So we are devoting all of our energies to the as yet unnamed site, which I will announce here in due time. Until then, you can catch me...
Hey guys,Yesterday was Alfred Hitchcock’s 110th birthday. He was born on the east of London at Leytonstone on August 13, 1899.To celebrate, MTV posted Faith No More's video of "Last Cup of Sorrow,” a comical yet faithful homage to the master’s canon of great films. Lindsay Goldwert and Emily Christensen...
BALLS OUTA Truly Somewhat AWESOME Original ScreenplaybyTHE ROBOTARD 8000I can’t tell you how many e-mails I’ve received about this script. Over a hundred, I’ll bet, all asking (sometimes begging) me to do a script review. I added this to my to-do list. And God help me, the moment has arrived....
Hey guys,I’ve decided to give up the old Screenwriting News posts and Tweet Daily any and all screenwriter-worthy links as soon as I see them. I’ve also added the “Tweeted Screenwriting News” feed to my sidebar, and yes, you can follow me without joining.If you appreciate the news but...
clarkblog
Here's a bloody damned brilliant short story from SF writer Peter Watts. It's John Carpenter's 1982 classic horror movie The Thing told from the point-of-view of the shapeshifting alien: "I was so much more, before the crash. I was an......
If you want a great behind-the-scenes look at creating a TV show, click on over to Eureka Unscripted, where the writing staff is hammering out the fourth season of SyFy's hit show. The new eps don't air until summer, but......
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I've been accepted to the Warner Bros. TV Writers' Workshop. This intensive program is designed to prepare new writers for a career in television. It's one of the best such programs going in Hollywood and I'm thrilled and thankful beyond......
DOCTOR WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY
I've been reading Russell T. Davies The Writer's Tale, which is hands-down not only the best book on TV writing I've ever read, it's a great book on writing period. The Writer's Tale is mostly a series of emails Davies......
Explore the cultural and political influences that help shape TV's best show: The Footnotes of Mad Men....
MovieBytes - Screenwriting Contests & Markets Online
Movie Deal! Announces Grand Prize Winner
Michael Menta's Suburban Kings has been named the Grand Prize Winner of The Movie Deal! Screenwriting Competition....
HollywoodIQ: Lucky Crow Films Producer Kerry David on Bringing Like Dandelion Dust to the Screen
No stranger to MovieBytes, Lucky Crow Films Producer Kerry David served on a panel of Hollywood pros that helped launch this column a few years ago. When one of her recent films reeled in more than 30 awards (and we're still counting!), we couldn't resist inviting her back to...
Nevada Film Office Names Contest Winner
April Rouveyrol has been named the winner of the 22nd Annual Nevada Film Office Screewriting Competition for her script, American Child....
American Zoetrope Announces Contest Results
Baby Fat, by Michael Raphan, has been named the winner from among 2,600 entries to the 2009 American Zoetrope Screenwriting Competition....
MoviePoet.com Announces December Contest Winner
Tim Westland's Better Be Good has been named the winner of the MoviePoet.com short screenplay contest for December, 2009....
Scripts Savvy Announces December Contest Results
Script Savvy has named Michael Cravotta's Codex as the winner of their December, 2009 Screenwriting Competition....
Suite101: Writing for Stage/Screen Articles
The first act in a film script is the hardest act to write because much needs to happen in terms of setting and plot development....
Top Three Tips For Writing Drama
Whether writing a stage play, a television drama, or a film script, some basic pieces of advice apply....
Whether writing a stage play or a screenplay, the instructions for actors and director are an important element of the script....
The story plan, treatment and a three act structure are what make up the story structure of a film script....
Screenwriting Essentials -- Screenplay Layout
Learning the correct screenplay layout is essential as nothing is more important than the way a script looks when it arrives on the desk of a producer....
Elements of a Screenplay or Script
Anyone contemplating writing a screenplay needs to know the terms used in the writing of it....
johnaugust.com
I'm interviewed in a new book about screenwriters' experiences....
Prepping for the Directors Close-Up panels
Tonight and next Wednesday, I'll be hosting the Director's Close Up panels for Film Independent. Tonight's director is Jason Reitman, joined by cinematographer Eric Steelberg, editor Dana E. Glauberman and composer Rolfe Kent. We'll be talking about Up In The Air, Juno and Thank You For Smoking....
Index cards are a great tool for outlining. Use them wisely....
On Amazon, Apple and dick moves
When Amazon pulled Macmillan's titles over the weekend, it was a dick move. With the iPad, Apple is setting itself up for a series of dick moves....
I'll be narrowing down my top choices for the Director of Digital Things job beginning Thursday, February 4....
Are online film classes worth it?
Scott wonders if his online filmmaking classes are teaching him what he needs to know....
Writing for Performance
Mondays, E4, 10:00pmWednesdays, E4, 11:00pm************************************Tuesdays, ITV2, 9:00pmFridays, ITV2, 8:00pm************************************Tuesdays, Sky1, 9:00pmWednesdays, Sky 2, 9:00pm************************************Wednesdays, Fiver, 9:00pmFridays, Fiver, 8:00pm************************************Thursdays, Virgin1, 9:00pm************************************Fridays, Sky1, 9:00pmSaturdays, Sky2, 9:00pm...
It's the first of the month which means it's Back Up Your Data Day (although it should be done day-to-day!).We can also use this day to delete stuff we no longer need and defragment our hard drive(s) to keep our machine lean and clean, if you know what I mean.Windows...
The Times:"I gave up the day job to become a scriptwriter""I am about to leave the security of having a full-time job and salary to give myself a shot at making a living from writing movies. I would love to sit in a cinema as the credits roll and see...
"What is This 1950? Women Are Missing as TV Creators"
Women and Hollywood"While there are a fair amount of pilots about women, the story here is the lack of women who are writing and creating the shows. The only way I know about this is from a very disturbing email from a reader who sent me info that came from...
"Hello, I am the renowned Akinator. I speak and understand all the languages of this world. You woke me up from a centuries-long sleep. However, this long rest did not affect my prodigious skills. I am capable of guessing who you are thinking about with a few questions. If I...
David Tennant interviews Stephen Moffat - Dr Who
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The Artful Writer
And The New York Times Seems To Agree…
A few days after my blog on the ageism settlement, the New York Times has weighed in. …a deeper look at the settlement and its terms indicates that the defendants might not be giving up all that much, and that anyone who is expecting the floodgates to open with opportunities for...
There was once a time in America when great lawyers argued great cases in front of great judges. A number of those cases were about things far more important than contracts and regulations and petty crime. They were about the soul of our nation. Those cases literally changed our culture, our understanding...
Throwing Some Light on the Scriptshadow
First, I apologize for my absence. Work calls, and well…I hate to say it, but…I kind of got bored with blogging for a while there. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say. I did. I just didn’t feel like talking much. God knows there are plenty of people out...
WGA Screenwriters: Take The Survey!
If you’re a WGAw screenwriter, you should have just received an email from the guild inviting you to take an online survey. While I can’t print the link (the survey is for Guild members only…each of you gets your own link…), I can strongly urge you to take the five...
After the jet ski and poisson cru madness (which never really ended, but who needs to hear about that anymore?), the adventures really began. First, I want to point out that while Couples Retreat obviously did very well at the box office, I think there’s a lot more cinematically to Bora...
Between work and baseball and something viral in my lungs that wasn’t swine-derived, it’s been a tough couple of weeks for blogging. I’ve got the final installment of the Tahiti trip stuff, plus my thoughts on the WGA election and the recent foreign levies settlement…all coming up. Stay tuned. Or not! That’s...
Living the Romantic Comedy
It's that time of the year again. Romantic comedy lovers, lovers comedic or serious -- all humans with beating hearts know that as soon as February rolls around, there's a major holiday to be reckoned with, one that's come to......
The way he chooses his language and his descriptive phrases is amazingly perceptive and helpful. And if you don't listen very carefully, you might miss it. Bob directs using active verbs. You can play an active verb. You can't play......
In many films, people never discuss ideas, be they moral or political. And when those kinds of discussions are introduced, it often sounds false. What I've tried to do—and this is what I'm happiest with in my films—[is to] show......
It sounds like a parody right out of The Onion, but no less an authority than the New York Times has reported this: When a man ducked past security at Newark Liberty International Airport last Sunday to kiss his girlfriend......
Romantic Comedy in the 2000s Most of us are happy to be done with the Oughts, or Aughts (that no one's been able to come up with a better name for this discomfiting decade is telling), but I'm compelled to......
The Best in Romantic Comedy 2009 [Our Astas are named for the terrier film star who upstaged Cary Grant in such screwball classics as Bringing Up Baby and The Awful Truth. Award winners from 2008 can be found here, 2007......
By Ken Levine
The Writers Age Discrimination settlement
A lot of people have asked me this Friday question:Here’s Tod’s version --Ken, I'm sure you've received a packet in the mail recently concerning a "Notice of Settlement of TV Writers Age Discrimination Cases". It's a class action suit where, apparently, quite a few major studios and agencies have agreed...
The AMERICAN IDOL open auditions
Since all the open auditions are pretty much the same I thought I’d lump them all in one post. Call it AMERICAN IDOL IN A BOWL.The guest judges varied in quality. Neil Patrick Harris was terrific. I’d like to think he didn’t become the permanent new...
Guys are not going to want to f**k her
My heart always goes out to actors during pilot season (which this is). Here’s how hard it is to become a cast member of a hit series:When a writer/producer gets the good/bad news that his pilot has been greenlighted the first thing he does is hire a casting...
My favorite show is back! LOST returns tonight for its final season. We’ll finally get the answers to all of its many delicious mysteries.Is Terry O’Quinn playing Locke or Jacob or Vin Diesel this year?How will Sun and Jin patch up their marital problems now that she’s...
I can't believe I actually won!
I'm coming out with a book next month entitled "Acceptance Speeches I Never Got To Give", but today I won the Best Sports Talk Show Host award from the Southern California Sports Broadcasters. Thanks to many people, most of whom I acknowledged in my speech (which was supposed...
Do I Know how to read women, or what???
A few years ago I went to see a rather unusual play called TAMARA. The theater is actually a mansion and the audience follows around the various cast members as they perform their scenes simultaneously in different rooms. The idea is to attend with a few people and...
Scriptwriting in the UK
If you're familiar with the scribosphere, then you won't be any stranger to Julie Gray's website, recently revamped to Just Effing Entertain Me! If you're not, get on over there and check it out. Julie's one of Hollywood's leading script consultants and she shares her experience and advice through her...
Toby Finlay made his screenwriting debut with the recent adaptation of Dorian Gray. Toby's a former script reader for all the major companies in the UK, and one of his spec scripts, Canyonland, made the Brit List in 2008, ensuring his place in the spotlight as one of the hot...
Brighton's Lighthouse has, as ever, an interesting line-up of talks and courses over the next couple of months. These include:Breaking into Television, Tuesday 26 January 2010Lighthouse, 28 Kensington St, Brighton BN1 4AJEntry: £3.50/£3 concs.To book tickets, click here. Have you got a cracking drama series concept but aren‘t sure...
Nigel, one of the kind and generous souls who contributed to Origin, my short, has asked: what does one need to make a short film?Well, in this day and age, you need very little. You can shoot and edit a short film using your phone and your computer. Or, you...
So, there you have it. 2009. Whoosh. Gone. Just like that. "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." (RIP John Hughes)An interesting and exciting year, by all accounts. Two episodes of EastEnders, wrote & directed a short...
If you're keen to make it as a TV writer, then an inevitable step in the process is to write a trial episode for one of the soaps. These trials are also known as 'Shadow Schemes'. Essentially, you'll go through the process of writing a real episode from the official...
INDELIBLE FRECKLES
Let’s say you’re writing a thriller where your heroes are forced to take one of their own to a hospital, and for whatever reason the authorities MUST NOT KNOW whatever the hell they’ve been up to. How d’you wanna play the hospital trip – straight or strange? Straight: INT. HOSPITAL – DAY A REGISTRAR...
Let’s say your task is to write a one-page description of your project and, coming out of your ‘creative fugue’, you find yourself with three pages almost black with text. You ask yourself: What is my story about? What is my story in one paragraph of three to six sentences? What is my story...
The other day, I tried to google lyrics that had hardest words to say or similar but got distracted. (I spotted Chicago among the results and, having a sudden and intense urge to play their best-of CD – thanks, Stevo! – did so, sang along with Peter Cetera to...
– my iTunes randomed to Beyonce’s Single Ladies and I went like – – how could I forget Messrs Murphy, Falchuk and Brennan’s brilliant and irrepressible Glee? That show is responsible for my Goddess’s growing unease at seeing/hearing how many showtunes I can belt out....
(Yeah, okay: eight days since my last post is more than a few days – more than several days – more, even, thana week. Sorry.) It’s been so long since we’ve rolled into 2010 I won’t bore you with -0 This is my blog – and in the world of...
– belated ho-ho-ho’s. And hey: it’s 2010 and it’s been over a week since my last confession. I haven’t forsaken you, but. I’m on holiday with my Goddess, and I’ve only recently sorted out things like the six five remotes that our very kind host has for his entertainment system,...