BEYOND WORDS 2018 – Insights From Writers Guild Award-Nominated Writers

Photo by Michael Jones

by Kelly Jo Brick

The Writers Guild Foundation, The Writers Guild of America, West and Variety brought together several of this year’s Writers Guild Award-nominated writers for a panel discussion to reflect and share insights about creating their films.

Moderator Graham Moore (THE IMITATION GAME) led writers Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor (THE SHAPE OF WATER), Greta Gerwig (LADY BIRD), Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani (THE BIG SICK), James Mangold and Michael Green (LOGAN), Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber (THE DISASTER ARTIST), Jordan Peele (GET OUT), Steven Rogers (I, TONYA), Aaron Sorkin (MOLLY’S GAME) and Virgil Williams (MUDBOUND) as they talked about how they decide what story to tell, the relationship between the words on the page and what’s seen on the screen, the craft of writing from treatments to inspiration and dealing with notes.

THESE AWARD-NOMINATED WRITERS SHARED WITH TVWRITER.COM THE BEST ADVICE THEY RECEIVED AS THEY WERE STARTING OUT read article

Kelly Jo Brick: Highlights from the Austin Film Festival & Screenwriting Conference

Austin Film Festival’s Matt Dy with writers Daniel Petrie, Jr., our own Kelly Jo Brick & Jimmy Mosqueda. Photo by Arnold Wells.

by Kelly Jo Brick

With days packed with panels, workshops and roundtables and evenings jammed with films and parties, the Austin Film Festival and Screenwriting Conference brings professional and aspiring writers and filmmakers together in a celebration of the art, craft, and business of writing.

In this, the event’s 24th year, attendees found a slate of educational, informative and inspirational panels on screenwriting, television writing, playwriting, and podcasting. TVWriter.com’s own contributing editor, Kelly Jo Brick, was in Austin as a panelist this year and she brings us highlights from the festival.

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Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 7/10/14

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
by munchman

  • Simon Rich is adapting his book, The Last Girlfriend on Earth, Man Seeking Woman, into a comedy series for FXX. (The show is described as being about a man who “enters the dating scene, a nightmarish hellscape of untold horror.” Hey, they got that right. Now we’ve just got to hope for a few laughs.)
  • Dan Harmon (where have we heard that name before?) is prepping a 6th season of COMMUNITY for Yahoo, of all places, now that the show has been axed once again by NBC. (Which could mean that we’ll have to take Yahoo seriously when it comes to laughter. Um, anybody see what Yer Friendly Neighborhood Munchman did there? Anybody care?)
  • Jeff Pinkner (FRINGE), Josh Appelbaum “>(LIFE ON MARS),Andre Nemec (STAR-CROSSED) and Scott Rosenberg (LIFE ON MARS) are co-writing the pilot for the new CBS drama series, ZOO, based on the novel of the same name by James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge. (Which means a big payday for all the writers involved, you can bet your muncher on that – and also big aggravation for the WGAW credits department, which is not known for its love of 4-person writing teams. As in they’re generally denied.)
  • Bryan Fuller (HANNIBAL) & Michael Green (THE RIVER HEROES, whatever that is) are co-writing a pilot for a Starz series adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s, um, masterpiece actually, American God. (Which my munchiness would greet with unmitigated pleasure if I hadn’t wanted that gig so #@!$ing much. But this is still the best TV development news I’ve heard since I started writing this department! Fucking AMERICAN fucking GODS!)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 7/11/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Graydon Sheppard & Kyle Humphrey (NEWBS) have made a deal with Style Media to develop their Twitter/Web series, SH*T GIRLS SAY, for Style Network, an NBCUniversal production company. (To which we can only add, “See, you lazy motherfuckers? Your insane interweb ideas can get you the love and money you want, you just have to, you know, write the damn things!” Yep, that’s what we say.)
  • John McLaughlin (THE BLACK SWAN) has written the pilot for a drama series to be based on James Patterson‘s book series, PRIVATE, and some actor name of Robert De Niro is pitching it all over town. (Well, actually, Bobby isn’t the one who does the pitches. His genius – we mean it – production partner, Jane Rosenthal, handles that end of things, which means you can bank on getting to see the series on the air somewhere important soon.)
  • Nigel Trantor’s historical novels about Scottish heroes William Wallace and Robert the Bruce are being adapted into a miniseries for Discovery Channel. No word on the writer, so have your people talk to Discovery’s people ASAP. (And if you know Ridley Scott and/or David W. Zucker, who are executive producers of the project, well, that can’t hurt, can it?)
  • Michael Green (HEROES) is adapting Alan Moore‘s LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN series of graphic novels into a series for Fox Network. (The good news: It’s bound to be better than the feature film version. The bad news: Nobody’s telling us how Alan Moore feels about this project.)

Million $$$ TV Writer Deal, Yeah!

Be nice to this guy

Michael Green Signs Overall Deal With 20th Century Fox TV
by Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, writer-producer Michael Green has signed a two-year overall deal with 20th Century Fox TV. The rich seven-figure pact is for development only, and will focus on cable as much as broadcast. Green will work with 3 Arts’ Erwin Stoff on projects, which the two will executive produce together. The deal comes on the heels of a development deal Green had with 20th TV, which resulted in Gotham. The supernatural procedural, about a female cop who discovers a magical world that exists within New York City, went to pilot at ABC, which landed Francis Lawrence as director.

The project got very close to a series order, with ABC extending the pickup conversations with 20th TV beyond the upfronts, but ultimately a deal couldn’t be reached. “Michael delivered a fantastic pilot for us in Gotham, and we knew we wanted to stay in business with him exclusively going forward,” 20th TV chairman Gary Newman said. “He has an incredible talent for creating new worlds, which are richly inventive and yet undeniably accessible at the same time. He’s one of the most sought-after writers in both features and TV, and his projects always attract the best talent.”

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