Julie is one of my students. I would love to take credit for everything she has accomplished, but I can’t. I am her teacher, I guide. I’m a good teacher and a good guide. Hell, I’m a good writer, if it comes down to that. But. A guide can only guide someone willing to be guided who has drive to push through. I could be walking someone up Kilimanjaro, but Read More ...
This is a guest post from Richard Dane Scott. Richard recently wrote a piece for the AFF blog titled AFF IS MY BFF. It’s a good piece. You should read it. What stood out to me was Richard’s blatant honesty about his early days being THAT Guy: “When Austin Film Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary, I will be celebrating my tenth consecutive year of attending. When I look back Read More ...
Guerrilla Tactics: Interview With Author & Screenwriter Max Adams ~ by Nancy Bilyeau In the middle of attempting to write my first screenplay, I bought a paperback called The Screenwriter’s Survival Guide: Or, Guerrilla Meeting Tactics and Other Acts of War, by Max Adams. It was a fast, smart read, very funny, with an insider’s wisdom about how to get off the ground as a screenwriter. Max, I learned, had Read More ...
This is a great blog post about scripts, films, and development by Geoff LaTulippe: Yesterday, in a forum on Done Deal Pro, I posted in a thread where the discussion had turned into theories as to why some movies that come out of Hollywood are so bad. A few aspiring writers postulated that (and I’m not only paraphrasing here, but including musings I’ve heard many times in the past) it’s Read More ...
Prior to classes starting September 18, it seemed like a good idea to spruce the forum. It was falling behind on software version updates and something about that needed to be done. So right before classes started, I bit the bullet, pulled the theme, moved up two levels, managed to do that all without blowing up the forum, and pasted in a new theme and presto, we were up Read More ...
Adi Shankar, Eric Red, Max Adams, David Paterson
I found this at Letters of Note. Visit them AFTER you read this: In March of 1962, acclaimed author John Steinbeck wrote the following letter to Edith Mirrielees — a lady who, as his professor of creative writing at Stanford 40 years previous, had been an enormous influence on his development as a writer and, he later claimed, one of the few things he respected about the university. His fantastic, insightful letter Read More ...
Someone on Twitter just posted, “I keep seeing things about filmmakers needing to brand themselves. Honestly, filmmakers need to make their contact info easy to find first.” That was funny as hell to me so I retweeted it. But it is also true. Which is maybe why it is so funny. Type your name into Google. See what comes up. Are you there? How many pages Read More ...
I find Kevin Smith enormously entertaining. He is enormously entertaining in general actually which may explain his notoriety despite being primarily an indie filmmaker with a relatively small stack of credits. The guy just goes out and does stuff. Here he is talking about protesting his own film, Dogma — and ending up on the news doing it. This so cracks me up. Also, if there is Read More ...
This is hilarious it is from Nick Mamatas’ Live Journal blog: TEN BITS OF ADVICE WRITERS SHOULD STOP GIVING ASPIRING WRITERS 1. DON’T GIVE UP Consider your audience. Who are you telling not to give up? The illiterates, the douchebags, the certifiable graphomanics, the people who think watching a movie is the same as reading a book? Some people should give up. Most people should give Read More ...
This is another brilliant post from Chuck Wendig I am lifting and distributing with abandon because the guy’s posts are brilliant and should be read and read a lot: 25 THINGS WRITERS SHOULD STOP DOING (RIGHT FUCKING NOW) ~by Chuck Wendig I read this cool article last week — “30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself” — and I thought, hey, heeeey, that’s interesting. Writers might could Read More ...
This is a wonderful interview with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, South Park creators and writers. *Where that clip comes from: That is from Mentorless About || Classes || Projects || News || Gallery || Contact || Register || Links ||