This week’s rebroadcast collects posts from 2006 and 2012 to consider how selling a script isn’t a guarantee, and why writing a film that never gets made is still work worthy of compensation. You’ve said that “most scripts don’t become movies, and a hundred things could
This week’s rebroadcast brings together a few posts about structure, and reasons to consider that there’s not only one way to plan out a story. How do you know when the story has good bones? I’m a 28-year old writer with a very old problem. I do
If spoilers make you want to nope on out of here… That’s fine. You should see Nope before you read this. “Right here, you are going to witness an absolute spectacle.” The engine driving Jordan Peele's Nope is powered by people trying to exploit an unexplained organism
When helping to build Mad Max: Fury Road‘s character arcs for Max and Furiosa, screenwriter Nico Lathouris saw how three chases could bind the characters together: “The first chase brings the Road Warrior [Max] and the Praetorian [Furiosa] together, the second chase manacles them together in mutual obligation, and
This post contains spoilers. Don’t let that scare you off. You’ve likely seen all these movies, but even if you haven’t, knowing how a movie ends shouldn’t detract from the pleasure of watching a movie. Think about it: how many people skip out on Star Wars
The Simpsons episode “Marge vs. the Monorail” doesn’t feature any flesh-eating ghouls. But it does offer examples for writing zombies of another kind: people stuck in a mob mentality. When local billionaire C. Montgomery Burns pays a $3 million fine for burying nuclear waste around Springfield, a town meeting
In the film Galaxy Quest, Jason Nesmith and the rest of the cast of the Star Trek-like series Galaxy Quest are forced to travel into space for real. An alien race called the Thermians mistake broadcasts of the show for “historical documents” about the crew of the NSEA Protector. So
The Brothers Bloom tells a story of two sibling con artists. When Bloom (played by Adrien Brody) tries to quit the life, Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) offers him an out after one last job. The mark: A wealthy shut-in named Penelope (Rachel Weisz), whose longing for adventure pulls her into the