United Artists - The screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky(1923-1981) won an Academy Award for his jeremiad “Network” (1976), starring Faye Dunaway

By DAVE ITZKOFF

LAMENTING the lack of “satirical clarity” in the screenplay he was laboring on in the early 1970s, Paddy Chayefsky was mad at himself and American television viewers at large. He was seeing the venomous spirit of the era of Watergate and the Vietnam War infiltrate every program the broadcast networks offered, from their news shows to their sitcoms, and he concluded in a typewritten note to himself that the American people “don’t want jolly, happy family type shows like Eye Witness News”; no, he wrote, “the American people are angry and want angry shows.” He had set out to write a comedy, but if his film script was funny at all, he said, “the only joke we have going for us is the idea of ANGER” —

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kitty sibille, max adams, patricia burroughs

60 Best Blogs for Aspiring Screenwriters

Creative industries seem impenetrable for those attempting to launch their careers, owing to the minimum amount of jobs and exhausting crush of people thinking they hold the next Citizen Kane in their hot little hands. The film and television industries especially suffer from this phenomenon, intimidating many who genuinely have something to offer the mediums. As countless G.I. Joe episodes have touted, “knowing is half the battle” — and this mantra especially applies to aspirant screenwriters and filmmakers. Staying on top of the latest people, places and pieces, opinions, and trends is almost as crucial to forging a career as completely understanding the narrative devices that make a script stand out. The internet, per usual, delivers on this front with a cascade of reading material poking and prodding every nook and cranny of the cinematic arts. While this list is by no means comprehensive — nor does it dismiss the contributions of other resources out there — it does provide a hopefully valuable and diverse starting point for anyone hoping to see their stories get told. Screenwriting

1. Go Into The Story: UNC-Chapel Hill and UCLA screenwriting professor Scott Myers updates several times a day with wonderfully diverse material suitable for beginners and professionals alike.
2. johnaugust.com: Any screenwriter looking for handy advice should read — if not submit to — the regular Q&As featured here. In addition to everything else, of course.
3. Complications Ensue: Screenwriting involves television programs and films, and this blog has been providing valuable advice on both paths since 2004.
4. The Thinking Writer: Stay on top of the latest conversations on the screenwriting industry and read over some nice insights into the creative process.
5. …by Ken Levine: This Emmy Award-winner thoughtfully dissects television and film with humor and more than a few great writing lessons.
6. Screamwriter: Aspirant screenwriters frustrated with the steady stream of rejections and minimal leads can certainly relate to the harrowing process of getting produced. Be sure to read the reviews and analyses of television shows and films as well!
7. Screenwriting from Iowa: Scott W. Smith philosophically peers into screenwriting and the creative process that goes into the craft.
8. Running With My Eyes Closed: Three screenwriters voice their opinions on television, film, digital media and, of course, their art!
   
   
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The Misogyny Machine That Rules Hollywood Comedies

Some days I wake up thinking that things can’t be really as bad as I think they are, then, I see a story like Tad Friend’s piece in this week’s New Yorker on Anna Faris and the state of Hollywood comedies for women and I think, wow, it’s even worse that I thought it was.

Friend’s piece Funny Like a Guy (hidden behind a paywall) is an overview of Faris career to this point. But what it does—I believe intentionally—is lay out how bad it is for women in comedy. And Friend is able to get people on the record to talk about the misogyny and sexism that is pervasive in this world.

I’ve been hard on Anna Faris because of Observe and Report and The House Bunny, but after reading the piece I have a much better appreciation of her. Part of the problem is that comedy is very hard for women today. I grew up on the comedy of Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Madeline Kahn, Gilda Radner and Lily Tomlin among many others. There was no problem with women being funny and self-deprecating in the 70s and 80s. These women were funny not just to women, they were funny to everyone and men and women went to see their movies together.

But comedy has clearly changed as has movie going has changed and now we live in a world where men won’t go see anything that stars women especially in comedies —

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Updated: Kevin Smith on Writers

Kevin Smith

Writer/filmmaker Kevin Smith (Red State) dropped some heavy words of wisdom about writers today.

Smith responded, as he normally does to his 1.7 million followers via Twitter, this time to @amydezellar, who inquired, “I need a locker-room style pep talk about continuing to write.”

Smith, not one for the 140-character limit of Twitter, went on a multi-tweet “Smonologue” (a term he recently coined to coincide with his Smodcast Network) on the power and the importance of the writer. No matter what you may think of Smith’s filmwork, the man can certainly preach a good sermon. Here’s his response in full:

Writing is the closest any man or woman will ever come to playing God (or A god). Some will say childbirth, but that’s giving life, not playing God. Some will argue the cruel play at angry gods, but any animal can inflict pain; cruelty is not playing God, it’s playing Man —

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CUT TO: Max D. Adams (Screenwriter/Author)

When I first approached Max for this interview, I was surprised to find her a bit hesitant. She asked a few questions about the site and the interview process and why I was interested in what she had to say, exactly. Of the few writers that I’ve interviewed, she was the first to be somewhat standoff-ish. But what I came to learn very quickly is that Max is of a very rare breed in this industry: she doesn’t like to waste her time… or yours. She’s direct, to the point, and will not sugarcoat any bullshit. And it’s refreshing to speak to someone so brutally honest about this profession because screenwriting is not all happy-go-lucky; showered in puppy dogs and rose petals, and she’s the first in line to slap you in the face with that reality.

But don’t get me wrong, she is not — by any means — a pessimist. When it comes to screenwriting she is extremely pragmatic and what you’re about to read is some extremely exceptional advice from someone who has stormed the beaches, waded through the trenches, scaled the precipice, and stared into the black abyss — the very belly of the Hollywood Beast — and told it to go fuck itself. I have no doubt that when all other screenwriters have thrown in the towel, accepted defeat, and disappeared into obscurity, Max will still be there tapping away at her keyboard because she marches to her own beat, follows her own rules, and has acquired the very essentials to surviving this industry: resilience and determination —

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Max Adams’ “Pitching A Script”

Max Adams Teaches Pitching your Screenplay

I attended The Hollywood Filmmaking and Screenings Meetup at the Neon Venus Art Theater on Melrose last night. Max Adams presented “Pitching a movie script.” Max is the author of The Screenwriter’s Survival Guide and has worked with Hollywood Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Universal, Tri-Star and Columbia Pictures. Her produced works include Excess Baggage [credited] and The Ladykillers [uncredited].

Max gave a standing room only group of about 70 people a refresher on the basics with a few great tips. She says establishing genre is the most important thing you can do when you start your meeting. You need to give the suits “permission” to laugh. Then establish a verbal 3 paragraph essay – this is what I am going to tell you, then tell them your story and conclude with, this is what I just told you. Also tell them who is the protagonist.

Max also shared some good advice for a new independent film maker – shoot the money scene first – even if it isn’t convenient, so that you can pacify the executive producers immediately. Otherwise, if you show them basic early footage, they’ll wonder what you are doing with their money —

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*max is a faculty member of :::gotham writers’ workshop::: and :::the university of utah::: and is the founder of :::the academy of film writing:::

Man, last week? I read this post written by some guy? And it was all like, “Blah blah blah, seriously, you don’t want to be a writer because it sucks and I whine a lot.”

What a jerk, am I right? And by “jerk,” I really mean, “cock-waffle.”

You can borrow that, if you like. “Cock-waffle.” It’s all yours. I just made that up. I just wrote that. You know why? Because I’m a writer. And you know what? Being a writer is awesome. Hell, it’s not just awesome. It’s the tits. That’s what all the cool kids are saying, right? “The tits?” Like, “Dang, this McRib sandwich is the tits,” or, “Hoo boy, those Castilian Band poets — in particular, Patrick Hume of Polwarth — were the tits!” I dunno. Sounds right to me.

See, you’re over there thinking that being a writer is one big giant sack of squirming misery. That you’d be better off sticking your pink parts in a rat-trap. That the only way to be a writer is to be a starving, broke, syphilitic lunatic whose flesh is branded with the countless rejections he hath received.

No. Bzzt. Hell no. That guy who wrote that post? He’s just trying to rub out the competition. As someone said, he’s hoping to thin the herd. But don’t you listen to him. Let me invite you into the warm, nougaty embrace of the writer’s life. We will dance on mushroom tops. We will ride giant butterflies across rivers formed of spilling ink. We’ll tickle dragons until they vomit up words of encouragement and wisdom!

Here is why you should really be a writer. Sit back as I fill your head with dreams.

Because You Make Shit Up, And Then People Give You Money

You know what I did today? I wrote about a vampire. And that vampire was being chased by zombies. And someone is going to give me money for it. That is totally absurd. In the world? People are out there doing real work. They’re fitting pipes and jiggering transmissions and manipulating the stock market from secret underwater bunkers. But me? I sit here. I make up insane bullshit. And then someone sends me a check. It’s like getting paid to eat ice cream or invent Rube Goldberg machines. This should be illegal.

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[seriously, click it, it is the rebuttal and also funny as hell]

EXCLUSIVE: With Sony Pictures’ permission, Deadline Hollywood presents Aaron Sorkin’s full screenplay here for The Social Network. Also, my interview with this frontrunner for Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar follows:
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Aaron Sorkin set out to be an actor, but those early career plans were trumped when he began writing for the stage. In 1989, at the age of 28, he was named Outstanding American Playwright by the Outer Critics Circle for A Few Good Men. Just three years later, he wrote the screenplay for the film version which was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. His subsequent success in film has included scripts for Malice (1993), The American President (1995), Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) and the upcoming Moneyball. As an Emmy-winning television writer and producer, he was behind critically acclaimed Sports Night, long-running The West Wing, and the short-lived Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. But he has never been nominated for an Academy Award:

DEADLINE: This script about the behind-the-scenes of the founding of Facebook is technically an adaptation but not based on the actual book?
AARON SORKIN: Initially, I was given a 14-page book proposal that Ben Mezrich wrote for his publisher about these guys and the friction between them. The publisher wanted to get simultaneous film deals and took it to Hollywood and that’s how it ended up in my hands. And I said yes on page three. That’s the fastest I’ve ever said yes to anything. And it was because it’s set against this very modern backdrop of this very modern profession that I didn’t know very much about at all. It was a classic story of friendship, loyalty, betrayal, power, jealousy and class: things that Shakespeare and Chayefsky wrote about yet none of those guys was available so I have it.

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Oscar’s real Cinderella storyteller: David Seidler, screenwriter of ‘The King’s Speech’

If anyone is living out a stranger-than-fiction Cinderella story this Oscar season, it’s David Seidler, the colorful 73-year-old screenwriter of “The King’s Speech.” For several months, the film has been viewed as a best picture front-runner, making Seidler a favorite when it comes to the original screenplay category. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by Seidler, who told me over lunch the other day that he’s already done the research: If he were to take home the statue, he’d be the oldest writer to win for an original script.

Seidler is in justifiably high spirits these days. As he sees it: “After a checkered career like mine, it’s nice to be an overnight success.”

Overnight is an understatement. As recently as September, Seidler was so down on his luck that he didn’t even have an agent. In a career that stretches back to the 1960s, he’d never written a hit movie. Though he’d been a prolific TV writer, most of that work had dried up in recent years thanks to the explosion of reality television, leaving him laboring on such fare as “Kung Fu Killer” and the “Son of the Dragon” miniseries.

After nearly 30 years of working with his writing partner, Jacqueline Feather, he wrote “The King’s Speech” on his own. Why? Well, Feather was also his wife, and after 30 years, she’d divorced him.

Through it all, Seidler —

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— by Bill Martell

Josh Olson (Oscar nominee for A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) bumps into me in the hallway on the way to the restaurant as does Ian Abrams (writer creator of EARLY EDITION TV show) and we share a table. I know Josh from the old days of the Wordplay website, when it was a magnet for professional screenwriters and serious “pre-pros”. Many of those folks had come over from the AOL Follywood Message Boards that Ted & Terry ran, and I *almost* ran (I turned down free AOL because it sounded like a lot of work, and T&T took the job). Online Josh has a very strong personality and will fight you to the death. Online we have tangled before… but in real life he’s a nice guy. Ian Abrams I met at my first Santa Fe Conference - he’s a pro screenwriter who got tired of the Hollywood bullshit and now teaches film at Drexel University. He’s a big guy, but it looks like he’s lost some weight —

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*The above story is from Bill Martell’s blog,
I find it immensely entertaining for reasons
better left unsaid. Click the orange link above to
continue reading.