Scott Smith’s Screenwriting From Iowa blog scores again:
by Scott W. Smith
“HOLLYWOOD is easy to hate, easy to sneer at, easy to lampoon.”
Raymond Chandler’s essay Writers in Hollywood published in the Atlantic in 1945
Category: Resources
40 years worth of TV writing experience and info, yours for the taking.
What Popular TV/Film Trope Makes You Want to Never Watch Anything Again?
For writer Alex Epstein it boils down to this: “If I never see a movie or script or novel about growing up as a writer again, it will be too soon.”
We’ll let him explain. (Cuz he does it so well.)
THIS IS NOT A REVIEW OF PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWERby Alex Epstein (Complications Ensue Blog)
We watched THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, an odd Oscar contender about coming of age in the 90’s. It’s well made, with lots of lovely songs. Emma Watson is fetching and lovely as the wide-eyed toxic pixie dream girl. There are some nice walk-ons from Dylan McDermott and Paul Rudd. There’s some great tunes in there — I suspect a big chunk of the budget went to getting “Heroes” and “Come on Eileen.” (Which I remember hearing when I was growing up in the 80’s, but people are allowed to listen to old songs, after all.)
Need Help K.I.S.S.ing?
As in, Keep It Simple, Stupid?
Of course you do. We all do. Because keeping our writing simple isn’t easy. It takes practice, thought, and editing, editing, editing.
Nicholas Meyer Talks About Screenwriting
And we certainly can’t think of many people who might be considered as qualified.
Since writing the best-selling novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (still one of, if not the best of the Sherlock Holmes pastiches), Nick has written the screenplays or teleplays for:
“Hire Me?!”
What’s that you say? The old employment Catch-22 got you down? You know, that thing where you can’t get a job unless you have experience, and you can’t get experience unless you get a job?
This breaking in business is a bitch. What’s a writer to do?
Well, you could always try a writerly variation of this: