by John Bucher (@johnkbucher) Minhal Baig’s Hala was one of the first films acquired by Apple TV+ after taking Sundance by storm in 2019. The semi-autobiographical story centers around a seventeen-year-old Pakistani American woman coping with the unraveling of her family. LA Screenwriter’s John Bucher sat down with Baig recently to talk about how she made such... Continue Reading →
Writer Jamie Grefe On How Social Media Led to His Big Break
by Ashley Scott Meyers Jamie Grefe talks about how his Facebook contact, Indie Filmmaker Jim Wynorski, led to his big break. Jamie's movie credits include It Hungers (2019) and The Wishing Forest. You can listen to the audio portion of the podcast by clicking here or through iTunes by clicking here. You can also read... Continue Reading →
How to Tell a Social Justice Story Effectively: A Look at MISS VIRGINIA
Uzo Aduba as Virginia in the drama “MISS VIRGINIA,” a Vertical Entertainment release. Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment. by Carrie Harris (@carrharr) This week, I had the opportunity to take in an advance screening of Miss Virginia and sit down for a chat with director R.J. Daniel Hanna. Miss Virginia is based on the life... Continue Reading →
Congratulations to the 2019 Write/LA Semifinalists!
Read the official announcement at the Write/LA website. We are proud to announce the 2019 Write/LA semifinalists. These fifteen writers have all created memorable stories and fascinating characters. Narrowing this field down to the Top 8 in two weeks will be quite the challenge! As semifinalists, these writers will receive a free copy of Movie... Continue Reading →
Video: How Christopher Nolan Created His Joker
With all the conversations going on around Joker this weekend, it seems like an apt time to revisit the version of the character acted by Heath Ledger and written by Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David S. Goyer in The Dark Knight. N.T. Jordan has done an excellent job pulling together interview clips from the... Continue Reading →
Lessons from the Screenplay: Getting Exposition Out, Matrix Style
The latest video from Michael Tucker's wonderful YouTube channel, Lessons from the Screenplay, delves into the always tricky topic of exposition. Exposition is information that you need to get across to the audience, but simply telling the audience a bunch of background info rarely goes well. So Michael takes a look at how the Wachowskis... Continue Reading →
Writer/Director Timo Vuorensola on His New Feature, Iron Sky: The Coming Race
by Ashley Scott Meyers On this week's episode, writer/director Timo Vuorensola talks about how he leveraged his 2012 success with the sci-fi epic, Iron Sky, into a sequel, Iron Sky: The Coming Race, which he crowdfunded, appealing mostly to the fans of the first film. And in today's interview, he goes into great depth about... Continue Reading →
Video: How They Wrote ‘Fight Club’
Behind the Curtain has posted a new video essay on the writing of Fight Club, and it's pretty friggin amazing. In the video, author Chuck Palahniuk shares his real life inspiration for this story -- which is fascinating -- then screenwriter Jim Uhls and director David Fincher weigh in on how the story adapted to... Continue Reading →
John August on Highland 2.5 and Writing the Movie You Want to See
I had the opportunity to speak to Mr. August about Highland as well as his own writing career.
The Best Screenwriting Competitions to Enter (and Why)
In my experience, these are the screenwriting competitions and film/TV fellowships that are worth entering/applying to.