Showing Tag: "screenwriting" (Show all posts)

On Writing a Muslim-American Cop Show for HBO

Posted by Tom Brogan on Wednesday, February 11, 2015,
Playwright, attorney, new media journalist and consultant Wajahat Ali writes in The Atlantic about his experiences of writing a Muslim-American cop show for HBO alongside Dave Eggers.

"In hindsight, we believe HBO wanted MJ to be “Homeland–meets-The Cosby Show,” but we can’t be sure. They definitely didn’t want “The Wire with Muslims” and they told us that from the beginning. They had no interest in re-treading old ground and we had no interest in duplicating someone else’s nar...
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The Novel in Retreat from Screenwriters

Posted by Tom Brogan on Monday, February 9, 2015,
Bill Morris in The Millions looks at the Best Adapted Screenplay race at this year's Oscars. He makes the observation that only one script is based on a novel.

"But the novel is now in retreat — and not only in Hollywood — as screenwriters and moviegoers turn their gaze to movies based on established franchises, comic books, graphic novels, musicals, non-fiction books and magazine articles, TV shows, memoirs, and biographies. There’s nothing inherently wrong, or particularly new, about ...
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SBIFF 2015 - Writers Panel "It Starts With The Script"

Posted by Tom Brogan on Saturday, February 7, 2015,
At the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Writers Panel several of this year's Oscar nominated writers spoke about their films and their writing process.

Daily Nexus has a summary of the event.

Max Frye (“Foxcatcher”) likes to take an old-fashioned route via yellow legal pad and felt pen. But when he takes it to the computer, the transcript is, in essence, already a rewrite. The blend of old and modern writing tools seems effective, though Frye admitted that procrastination was still...
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Writers on the Writing Process

Posted by Tom Brogan on Thursday, January 8, 2015, In : Writing Process 
Here's some more writers talking about their writing process.

Dave Grohl talked to The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon about how he wrote songs for Foo Fighters' most recent album 'Sonic Highways'.

The band went to eight different cities and eight different studios. After recording instrumentals Grohl would go out to interview someone. Once he had enough interviews he gathered together the transcripts.

"I would pick out words, phrases and sentences from the interviews. Put those on this side ...
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Guillermo Arriaga on Writing '21 Grams'

Posted by Tom Brogan on Wednesday, January 7, 2015, In : Writing Process 
Script Magazine has an archived article from 2004 with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga on the process of writing the film '21 Grams'. It covers the initial nugget of the idea, themes, characters and the film's big questions.

"We all know that one scene has a meaning by itself and a completely different one when it is linked to a scene before and a scene after. I wanted to go beyond the conventional, so I went for symbolic choices. I started writing scenes in a contrasting order, so that the str...
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Dustin Lance Black's Writing Process

Posted by Tom Brogan on Tuesday, January 6, 2015, In : Writing Process 
I'm always interested in a writer's process. In fact, I should start a collection of posts with that as a theme. As such the Creative Spark section of the Academy's YouTube page is a goldmine. They have videos of several screenwriters discussing and showing their various ways of approaching writing.

It's interesting to see how their working methods vary greatly. My favourite of all the videos is this one from Oscar winning write of 'Milk' Dustin Lance Black. His approach to outlining is in...
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