The Thinking Writer – Page 2 – Classic Posts About Screenwriting….

If You Know These People, Suck Up

Everything Is Copy

Nora Ephron with a vampire — flickr|david_shankbone

Nora Ephron tells the Kansas City Star how coming from a f%^&d-up family helped her to be a successful screenwriter/novelist/director/etc. If only that were they key….

Amazon Lets People Screw With Your Script

How’s this for a deal:
(1) Upload your script (or feature length film) to Amazon.com
(2) Give Amazon a free 18 month option
(3) Amazon lets anyone in the entire world rewrite your script (or re-edit your film) to try to sell their version
(4) You hope to be picked out of the millions of scripts (and films) to win some dough and a meeting with some real live Hollywood studio executives.

If this is your idea of a great deal, then Amazon Studios is the place for you.

Disarming Interview

Here’s a quick interview with screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, writer of highly entertaining, but excruciating film 127 Hours. (Via Critics Choice Movies YouTube channel.)

He Really Wanted To Be A Lawyer

Liam O’Donell moved to Los Angeles in order to try to get into law school. Good thing he took a screenwriting course in college to have something to fall back on. His new film is Skyline. Do you want to scream or pout?

Commie, Pinko, Screenwriter

Today, how about a Marxist book review (are there really still Marxists?) of a new tome about brilliant (communist) American screenwriter John Howard Lawson. If you do not know Lawson, consider that his book Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting (1949) today sells used on Amazon.com for $225. It is a seminal work on dramatic writing and much more thoughtful than the still ever-popular Lajos Egris book The Art of Dramatic Writing (1946). However, you can get Egris’ book for less than $15 new. Sounds like a socialist plot.

The Rubik’s Cube That Saved The World

Do you happen to have a screenplay featuring a Rubik’s Cube that saves the world? This is your big chance. CAA is trying to find a story to go with its newly acquired Rubik’s Cube rights. Pitch away, pitch away….