David Mamet Memo
When someone types in all caps, I hear the words as if they were being screamed. Perhaps that was the intent here. From the CBS series The Unit, comes a 2005 memo from David Mamet, co-creator of the show. In…
William Robert Rich
William Robert Rich is a story analyst, screenwriter, and co-author of Story Maps: The Films of Christopher Nolan. He's currently based in Austin, Texas.
Robert Towne on Chinatown
I don’t have a favorite film. I have favorites and Chinatown is one of them. My two cents: it’s about as perfect as a screenplay can get. The structure, theme, and dialogue fires on all cylinders. Everyone — Towne, Polanski,…
Writing Faster
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell eloquently articulates the key to success is simply a matter of putting in the hours. 10,000 hours to be specific. That’s 250, 40-hour work weeks, nearly five years of practicing a specific task over and over…
John Hughes Interview
A rare interview with John Hughes from 1985. After beginning his career in advertising, Hughes would take a meager-paying writing job with National Lampoon for a nickel per word. At National Lampoon, he wrote Vacation ’58, a short story about…
Shawshank: King vs Darabont
Darabont knew what to leave in, what to leave out, what to add and what to alter. Stephen King depicted Red as an Irishman. Andy was a World War II vet who wore gold-rimmed spectacles and was smart enough to sneak…
Andy Hendrickson and the Importance of Story
There’s been a fair amount of commentary floating around the web on Disney Animation’s Chief Technical Officer, Andy Hendrickson, and his two cents on the wonderful world of story. For those of you who haven’t had the chance to read…
Always Sunny in Philadelphia Interview
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is one of the better comedies on TV. It’s been called “Seinfeld on crack.” The characters will do virtually anything to get what they desire. Blackmail is never out of the question, as it taking…
Zombieland
Zombieland is a fun, fast-paced, kick-ass, zombie movie. It clocks in at roughly 83 minutes, delivering eye-popping visuals with a tight, economical story to boot. It’s a great screenplay for the aspiring screenwriter to study. While the voice-overs are entertaining,…
Aaron Sorkin on Writing
Aaron Sorkin stands in the upper echelon of working screenwriters. Charlie Wilson’s War and The Social Network are phenomenal films. The upcoming Moneyball, based on the novel by Michael Lewis, looks fantastic. Sorkin was still in his twenties when he…
Final Draft Templates
Final Draft contains a wide variety of templates for graphic novels, scripts, TV shows and text documents (query letters, treatments, outlines, etc). Each template contains features of each script type, with element settings, page layouts, header and footer settings, mores…
