October 2011
27 posts
This link should take you to a yfrog stream by “Adreadonymous” who posted this photo of what looks to be an elderly or movement-impaired person who was teargassed along with everyone else at #occupyOakland.
SINCE WHEN did it become illegal to protest for your rights? SINCE WHEN do police departments get military authority to attack *the people* who PAY THEIR SALARIES and *the same people* who DEMONSTRATE TO PROTECT *THEIR* WAGES, PENSIONS, AND BENEFITS (LIKE BEING PAID OVERTIME TO TEARGAS A LAWFUL ASSEMBLY)?
The State of California and the surrounding towns, cities, and counties are complicit in this carefully coordinated attack that’s more like a secret civil war than controlling an “unruly” crowd. Several different places sent manpower and gear to yesterday’s attack, including the California Highway Department.
California’s going broke (or is already there) but they have plenty of money to pay for THIS? You can’t find 2 cops who are “authorized” to investigate a crime for more than 15 minutes, but you can assemble HUNDREDS for this fucking shit. Oakland’s in for a rude awakening. Civil protest will not be deterred by suppression OR aggression.
So I have been a social animal at the Austin Film Festival. It is a good thing they do not have these things all year round because I would never get any work done. Many members of 5150 are here which has been fun as hell [and involved quite a few late nights on the sinner’s balcony] and also quite a few AFW students have been in for the festival so we have been catching up. Yay!
AND —-
I got to see the new cut of Deborah Chesher’s film End of the Innocents. Which is very cool and you can’t see the film yet [bummer to be you] but you can :::go see the trailer here::: yay!
Julie Howe had mad fantastic news director Jonathan Lynn [My Cousin Vinnie, The Whole Nine Yards] has attached to direct her 2010 winning script Jasper Milliken. Yay!
My all out favorite film at the festival is Searching for Sonny. It is hilarious if you can see this do the last time I had this much fun watching a movie I was watching Kick-Ass.
In the Texas Monthly sponsored “Where I’m From” short films competition, this is fun and a mad creative approach: H-Town Up & Down (Short Film) from Drew Lewis on Vimeo.
Also the H-Town Up & Down guys Drew Lewis and Patrick Megna will stay after a party to help you carry bottles out to the recycling bin which makes mad points with me.
There are more shorts today so I will be in a theater near you all day. See you there.
I’ll be on two roundtable panels next week at Austin Film Festival:
Thursday: 10.20.11
What: Roundtable: The Creative Side
When: 1 PM - 2:15 PM
Where: St. David’s Episcopal Church, Crail Hall
Get in-depth answers to your questions about the art, craft and business of screenwriting. This session offers registrants exclusive access to professional screenwriters and filmmakers in an informal setting. This is your opportunity to ask for advice on what to keep in mind while writing your script, how to break into the business, deal with writers’ block, work in a writing team, work with a director, and more.
Roundtable Panelists: Max Adams, Ernest Cline, Jonah Lisa Dyer, Stephen Dyer, Mike Fry, Leon Ichaso, Tim McCanlies, Turk Pipkin, Bryan Poyser, Anne Rapp, Alvaro Rodriguez, Dan Rosen, Beau Thorne, Michael Druxman
Friday: 10.21.11
What: Roundtable: The Creative Side
When: 1:45 PM - 3 PM
Where: St. David’s Episcopal Church, Crail Hall
Get in-depth answers to your questions about the art, craft and business of screenwriting. This session offers registrants exclusive access to professional screenwriters and filmmakers in an informal setting. This is your opportunity to ask for advice on what to keep in mind while writing your script, how to break into the business, deal with writers’ block, work in a writing team, work with a director, and more.
Roundtable Panelists: Max Adams, Anthony Bagarozzi, Jonah Lisa Dyer, Stephen Dyer, Owen Egerton, Pamela Gray, Rick Jaffa, Tim McCanlies, Dan Rosen, Scott Rosenberg, Terry Rossio, Amanda Silver, Malcolm Spellman, Herschel Weingrod
November Classes
Two November classes Non-Static Writing and Structural Writing begin November 15th.
Begins November 15, 2011
Structural Writing: Stripping the Stutter from Structure | 6 Week Online Master Course | Start Date: 11.15.11 |
STEP UP YOUR STRUCTURE: You will learn why second acts fail; how to reevaluate and break down traditional [non-functional] 3 act structure; how to set up and escalate a story dilemma in your first act in two parts; why your second act can or cannot launch effectively; how to utilize the 15 page act model to maintain story tension in your second act; techniques to escalate and utilize scene sequences and turning points; the eight act escalation model; how to separate and focus your story climax; how to achieve rhythm in your story; and how to save your second act in a script that just won’t go.
Instructor | Max Adams
Reading Material | supplied in class forum & library. Some outside material is linked to.
Viewing Materials | posted or available via Netflix, iTunes, YouTube or your friendly neighborhood video rental.
Weekly Chats | Thursday nights | 9 PM EST | 6 PM PST.
class seating limit : 12 | a writing sample may be requested prior to acceptance | a course deposit is required for this class
course fee : $375 |
Non-Static Writing
Begins November 15, 2011
Non-Static Writing | Putting the Move Back into “Moving Picture” | Online 6 Week Master Course | Start Date: 11.15.11 |
MAKE YOUR “MOVING PICTURE” MOVE: You will learn how to identify and avoid static scene and story elements in your writing; techniques for overcoming static locations and scenes in your script; how to differentiate between true action and false action on the page; techniques for utilizing physical motion, dramatic tension, and comedy to make an enclosed environment in your script work; how to use perspective to make your scenes “move”; tension techniques for raising emotional tension and drama in your scenes; why electronic devices and filters are not your friend; how verbs can kill your scene in under thirty seconds — or save it; and how to write for “motion” impact on the page.
Instructor | Max Adams
Reading Material | supplied in class forum & library. Some outside material is linked to.
Viewing Materials | posted or available via Netflix, iTunes, YouTube or your friendly neighborhood video rental.
Weekly Chats | Thursday nights | 8 PM EST | 5 PM PST.
class seating limit : 12 | a writing sample may be requested prior to acceptance | a course deposit is required for this class
course fee : $375 |
more info : CLASSES
January Classes The November classes are the last classes of 2011. Two January classes kick off 2012 The Art of the Pitch and Visual Writing beginning January 10th.
•For more info on upcoming classes visit CLASSES.
In Future News:
Plans are in the works to give away a free class. How do you win that free class, you ask? With the return of 3 Pages. Stay tuned for more updates on that.
Plans are also in the works to release the new and improved Screenwriter’s Survival Guide. I am updating as we speak so stay tuned for news and updates on the release of the new edition.
I try to pack all the news into the newsletter, but the newsletter only comes out about once a month. If you would like to stay up to date on news of a more up to date nature, be sure and stop by the news page at NEWS.
In Former News:
Congratulations to AFW Peeps
Congratulations to AFW Peeps Christie LeBlanc who just made the next Nicholl cut and Julie Howe and Jacqueline Radley who just made the next Austin cut. Yay! End of the Innocents Website & Trailer
AFW’s Deborah Chesher’s short has a cool new website and trailer check it out: End of the Innocents
No Splatterfest After All Due to a scheduling conflict Max will not be at Houston Splatterfest after all. Bummer. It still sounds fun though and Bruce Campbell will be there.
Thanks for the Fire Mail Thanks so much for all the fire mail. Austin is still standing. And will be still hopefully come October’s Austin Film Festival hope to see you there.
AFF Badge Discount for AFW Peeps 5150 is registered with the Austin Film Festival for a group badge discount. If you are a 5150 member, current or on leave of absence, and/or if you are an AFW student
going to the festival looking to grab a badge with our fancy badge discount hit me up and I will give you the details.
Max is a Confirmed Austin Panelist Max will be at the Austin Film Festival Screenwriting Conference October 20-23.
Forum Shake Up There has been a serious shake up at the old forum so we are in new digs.
5150 Alumni Alvaro Rodriguez Leads Beat Sheet Workshop
5150 alumni member Alvaro Rodriguez is leading a beat sheet workshop in San Antonio July 30-31. 5150 Member Deborah Chesher Wraps Production
5150 member Deborah Chesher kicked ass on Kickstarter and has wrapped production on her short film End of the Innocents. New Chat We finally gave Chatzy the boot and have fancy new chat digs. The new digs are so shiny we might even let guests play.
New Gallery The gallery has a cool new Slide Show.
The New Blog The blog has moved along with the site, the blog and site are a combo site now and the take is going to be a little different. We will be reblogging interesting articles and clips from around the net as well as featuring guest posts, Max posts, and Screenwriting Tips O’ the Day: Come See.
Celebrity SideWrite Judge Max Adams, Jeff Lowell and Jeanne Veillette Bowerman are celebrity judges in the Sidewrite Screenwriting Competition.
Check it out at :::sidewrite screenplay comp:::
Julie Howe Unhinged 5150 member & AFW student Julie Howe — who won the comedy category at Austin last year — just set up her winning script Jasper Milliken. Also she is so smart she is co-producer on the project as well. Way to go Julie. Press release to come. Yay!
Nancy Bilyeau’s Hot New Page 5150 member & AFW student Nancy Bilyeau who recently signed a big book deal with Simon & Schuster/Touchstone for her book The Crown (coming in January 2012) has a hot new web page: NancyBilyeau.com,
Sheridan Cleland Interviews Max Sheridan Cleland at myPDFscripts interviews Max: CUT TO: Max D. Adams.
5150
Has moved from SeeMaxRun to AFW forums.
Online Workshop | Ongoing : 5150 is a private online international screenwriting workshop hosted on the AFW Forum and run by screenwriter Max Adams. All workshop members are screened before admission and must exhibit talent, skill, craft, drive and an ability to play well with others. The minimum commitment to the workshop is three months — 5150 is not a short time commitment, it is expected participants will be with the workshop for an extended period of time as the workshop is an ongoing project. The workshop includes a member built library of scripts and materials. There are weekly chats and at times guests lecturers attend chats. The 5150 workshop exists to provide screenwriters a place in which they may provide and receive feedback on works in progress, finished scripts, concepts in development, and marketing strategies for launching new works — within a private, pro writer environment. Members’ experience ranges from rank beginners exibiting phenomenol talent to veteran pros who have been working in the industry for years. The workshop cap is 25 members. There is one seat currently open in 5150. For more info check out :::5150::: or slam an email in via :::contact:::.
•workshop monthly dues: $24.95 |
#ScriptNews Daily
We’ve started a hashtag on Twitter, #scriptnews. If you are tweeting a cool screenwriting link or update, add the hashtag #scriptnews to join the stream. Also check out the daily compilation at #ScriptNews Daily. It is pretty new so quiet now but it will grow.
I just completed a cameo walk on for the feature film Underbelly Blues, a comedy being released in 2012. For info, hit up Underbelly Blues. It is fun.
*Underbelly Blues is a bit violent, if you are Violent Lite [Michele!] maybe hesitate on that link.
That is the news. If you would like to stay more up to date, you can keep up with ongoing updates on the blog at News. Otherwise, I will see you here next month.
Till then.
max
“There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.
To be declared innocent in a country where the rule of law means nothing, where we have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no longer exists, where you, as a citizen, are nothing more than a commodity to corporate systems of power, one to be used and discarded, is to be complicit in this radical evil. To stand on the sidelines and say “I am innocent” is to bear the mark of Cain; it is to do nothing to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet. To be innocent in times like these is to be a criminal. Ask Tim DeChristopher.
Picture by @fiascostreeteam
Choose. But choose fast. The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in four children outside those barricades depend on food stamps to eat. Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged. Today they run the state and the financial markets. They disseminate the lies that pollute our airwaves. They know, even better than you, how pervasive the corruption and theft have become, how gamed the system is against you, how corporations have cemented into place a thin oligarchic class and an obsequious cadre of politicians, judges and journalists who live in their little gated Versailles while 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a number soon to rise to 10 million, where a million people a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care, where real joblessness is spiraling to over 20 percent, where the citizens, including students, spend lives toiling in debt peonage, working dead-end jobs, when they have jobs, a world devoid of hope, a world of masters and serfs —
[click the above link to continue reading]
