Life On The Bubble

Tales From The Script: Advice for New Screenwriters

Hat tip to Andrew Stroscher for retweeting the link to the below.  It's a promotional piece for a new book called "Tales from the Script:  Advice for New Screenwriters" by Script magazine contributor Peter Hanson, but don't let that stop you from watching.  It's definitely worth watching if you're in an aspiring screenwriter.  Hope there's a Kindle version of the book...

I dig Girl on Girl Action (girlongirlaction.wordpress.com)

So here is the not-ridiculous part of the post: I have been thinking back on this past year of pseudo-career as a young pseudo-screenwriter. I mean, I kind of am a screenwriter in the sense that I have been able to con Manager Guy and Agent Guy into representing me, and I have specs, and I go on a lot of meetings, and people in those meetings seem to think that I am a Real Writer, and like sometimes the assistant will be all “Elana?!? Oh man, it’s so good to meet you, I loved your sample!” – which makes me think that they don’t realize that I am just some chump off the street or whatever.

BASICALLY: I am a screenwriter, but only in the sense that I am expected to function as though I am one, with the writing and the meetings and the being available all the time and the pitching, etc etc. Of course I am totally clear on the fact that nobody is paying me, so it’s not like I’m a REAL screenwriter. You know? It’s just like I have this weird full-time job I don’t actually make any money doing.

I have a couple of friends who are in this same place, and I was talking to them recently about what’s going on. We all had many of the same comments. So I thought I would write them down and post them on the internets and maybe someday in the future some young baby writer will happen on them and find them useful.

via girlongirlaction.wordpress.com

(Come on, if Elana can make that joke, I can rip it off.)

So I'm probably late to the party and Elana Frick's blog has already been bookmarked by everyone who's anyone, but I stumbled over it this afternoon for the first time and am a big fan. If you haven't, you should check it out, not just because she's got several great posts on how she almost died a month or so ago (seriously) but also because she's in a stage of her writing career that's all too common and writes about it winningly (and humorously, and candidly, and self-effacingly, and so on).  I dig her voice.  And the name of her blog.

Go read it. Right now.

A Modest Proposal: Uniform Script Notes

Most professors believe that clear and effective writing is important in all levels of psychology and in most of the professions for which we are training our students. And most professors give their students writing assignments because they believe that practice will improve students’ writing. And as part of this process, most professors (and their teaching assistants) believe that their feedback will improve the quality of students’ writing, so they spend countless hours providing written comments on these papers (after all, psychologists have long known that practice without feedback is futile, right?). Of these three assumptions, probably only the first one is true.

via www.psychologicalscience.org

Interesting article. I was tempted to joke that you could replace "professors" with "managers" and "students" with "aspiring screenwriters" (NOT "clients"), but I there are enough comments about the particulars of students' writing habits that I know I'd get in (unintended) trouble. In any case, I think it makes sense to use a set of standardized feedback like the list in the article.  Not unlike the now-ubiquitous (and for good reason) Save The Cat! structure.

[Hat tip to Anne Thompson for retweeting the link to the article.]

Scriptmag/Dwayne Alexander Smith: Screenwriting is Hard

My dear, dear pal looked at me with the most sincere expression ever and said oh so matter-of-factly … "Oh, I need to make some quick money so I figured I’d just write a horror film or a comedy or something and sell it real quick.”

via scriptmag.blogspot.com

Good post by Dwayne Alexander Smith on Script Magazine's blog. Love that quote.

Shameless plug: Check out www.itsonthegrid.com

I just posted the Spec Market Roundup for October, and since that always means a bump in traffic here, I wanted to post a reminder to check out www.itsonthegrid.com, the new feature film development website that launched last week.

I dig Courier 12

If you haven't checked out John Gary's blog, Courier 12, you should.  It's a great addition to the ScriptShadow oeuvre.  Nice work, John.  Keep 'em coming.

johnaugust.com: Pitching "Prince of Persia" with video

Jordan Mechner has posted the game-footage trailer we used when we pitched the feature film version of Prince of Persia to the studios six years ago.

Most movie pitches don’t involve video, but with PoP, most of the studio executives weren’t familiar with the game at all, so it became an important way to introduce them to both the franchise and the world. As Jordan notes in his post, this trailer doesn’t really tell the story of the movie, but it does give a sense of the characters and style: the dashing prince’s acrobatics, the devoted priestess/princess, the dagger with its time-reversing slickness.

via johnaugust.com

Man, John August's site is such a great resource. Click through to read his description of the pitch for "Prince of Persia," which includes a link to Jordan Mechner's site, where Jordan has posted the game-footage trailer they used during their studio pitches.

Looking forward to PoP the movie, by the way. Heard earlier this year that it could end up being the most expensive film ever made, and have the biggest marketing budget ever, even adjusting for inflation.

[Hat tip to proseriesalumni.com for pointing out the johnaugust.com post.  If you haven't discovered ProSeriesAlumni, check it out.  It's always got a great bunch of links to screenwriting-related articles, interviews, etc.  And I'm not just saying that because they usually repost my Reports...]