In a day and age of $50,000+ a year film schools, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better 90 minutes of screenwriting advice than Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3)—talking about insanely great endings. And this is totally free. (For years this talk was only rumored to exist, now you can link to […]
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This video by Toy Story 3 screenwriter Michael Arndt is one I return to often. It’s so well done. Just click on the “Watch on Vimeo” and enjoy.
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“I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues. There’s a phrase in West Africa, in Ghana; it’s called ‘deep talk.’ For instance, there’s a saying: ‘The trouble for the thief is not how to steal the chief’s bugle but where to blow it.’ Now, on the face of it, one understands […]
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He had a home, love of a girl But men get lost sometimes as years unfurl New York Minute Written by Don Henley, Danny Kortchmar, and Jai Winding. The original spark for The Fisher King (1991) was screenwriter Richard LaGravenese seeing two men crossing Third Ave. in Manhatten late one night. It triggered in his mind […]
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The original spark for The Fisher King (1991) was screenwriter Richard LaGravenese seeing two men crossing Third Ave. in Manhatten late one night. It triggered in his mind a bond between a handsome man and one who was mentally challenged. Informed by the book He: Understanding Masculine Psychology, this excerpt from The Moment with Brain Koppelman podcast covers […]
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“If more information was the answer, we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.” —Derek Sivers (@sivers) (I think this is from an interview he did with Tim Ferriss) As I try to wrap up what I hope is the final re-write on my book on screenwriting (like the greatest hits from this blog over the […]
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Yesterday’s post was long, so I’ll make up for it today. “Writing fiction or plays or poetry seems to me to be a very messy business. To be a writer requires an enormous tolerance for frustration, for anxiety, for self-doubt.”
—Writer Harry Crews (A Feast of Snakes)
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Note: I forget where and when I first read the memo from David Mamet to the writers of The Unit, but I know I wrote a post about it back in 2010 titled DAVID MAMET’S BOLD MEMO (?) The question mark was there because I could not confirm any sources where Mamet acknowledged that he actually […]
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“The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.” —Arthur Miller(Death of a Salesman) “A screenwriter friend of mine said your number one goal is to get to the end. So write it fast; don’t look back. If you have to have characters yak about […]
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“I love the idea of catching ideas. And they’re out there, millions and millions of ideas, and we don’t know them until they enter the conscious mind. And then we know them. And we see them and hear them and feel them. We know the mood of them, even if it’s just a small fragment […]
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