Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 328th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

DGA Awards 2018: Full Winners List, from Guillermo del Toro to Jordan Peele.

‘Coco’ Takes Annie Award for Best Animated Feature.

The Best Scene from Every Movie Nominated for Best Picture 2018.

Berlin Festival Unveils Competition Jury.

Berlin: The European Film Market Builds on 30 Years of Global Success.

Dwayne Johnson Eyes $20M Payday for Action Thriller ‘Red Notice’.

Universal, Legendary Land ‘Red Notice’ After Ferocious Auction For Dwayne Johnson Vehicle.

Uma Thurman’s ‘Kill Bill’ Crash Sparks Outrage in Stunt Community.

‘Kill Bill’ Stunt Coordinator Breaks Silence on Uma Thurman Crash.

Hollywood’s Stunt Community is Receiving a Reckoning of Its Own.

Sony’s Steve Bersch on Taking Over Screen Gems and the State of Indie Filmmaking.

Screenwriters Liz Hannah and Howard Rodman Receive Final Draft Awards.

Final Draft Awards Screenwriters Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech.

Donald Glover Gave ‘Black Panther’ Script Notes to Ryan Coogler and Is Thanked in the Credits.

‘A different kind of superhero’: Why ‘Black Panther’ will mean so much to so many.

Explaining Hollywood’s ’80s Obsession.

We Need Better Trailers.

‘Lady Bird’: The History of the Title and Character Name.

‘The Shape of Water’ Has Inspired Its Very Own Sex Toy, and It’s Selling Out Online.

‘Cloverfield’ Is The Definitive Movie Franchise of The Internet Age.

Disney is Creating Multiple ‘Star Wars’ TV Shows.

‘Star Wars’: ‘Game of Thrones,’ Sequels, and the Cheapening of a Franchise.

‘Star Wars’: 96% of Its Film Universe Writers and Directors Are White Men.

George Lucas Back in Director’s Chair for ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Scene.

Marvel Studios Begins Celebrating 10th Anniversary with a Massive Cast Class Photo.

If you’re dreaming of a career in Hollywood, here’s where the jobs are.

Note to Hollywood: Ad Agencies Enlisting More Female Directors for Big-Budget TV Spots.

The #MeToo Movement Has Found Its Way Into Hollywood Contracts.

Alamo Drafthouse’s Long History of Minimizing Sexual Assault and Harassment.

Inside the Santa Barbara video shop keeping indie cinema alive.

MoviePass cuts price to $7.95, now includes access to Fandor streaming service.

A TV Writer’s Adventures in Dating Post-Weinstein: The “Office Romance Is Dead”.

Altered Carbon’ Creator Laeta Kalogridis: How I Made It in Hollywood.

ESPN Streaming Service Coming This Spring for $4.99.

Hey, Netflix: Let’s Talk VOD Domination.

Netflix and ‘The Cloverfield Paradox’ Made Exhibition History With Just 4 Words: ‘Only on Netflix Tonight’.

Amazon Video Direct Dramatically Changes How It Will Compensate Indie Creators.

Why Amazon Just Hired the NBC Exec Behind ‘This Is Us’ to Replace Roy Price.

Amazon Studios’ Bold New Leader Faces a Film Division With an Identity Crisis.

Hulu Lost $920 Million in 2017, After Parents Invested $1 Billion.

New Studios Could Ruin the Future of Specialty Distribution.

Watch: Jordan Peele discusses GET OUT at UCLA.

Jóhann Jóhannsson, ‘Theory of Everything’ Composer, Dies at 48.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

On February 27, I’ll be offering a terrific one-week online class. It’s called Scene Description Spotlight which sounds super practical. And in a way, it is because at one level, it’s an immersion into the nuts and bolts of the writing craft. However, what it’s really about is this: Exploring and expressing your voice as a writer.

You hear this over and over and over again in Hollywood development circles. Agents, managers, producers, execs, talent. All looking for writers with distinctive voices.

If you think voice just means character dialogue… think again. Voice also involves scene description. You know, that boring stuff you write to set up and play out a scene.

Over the years, professional screenwriters have learned to use scene description as a way to create strong visuals… convey mood… entertain the reader… and express their voice. Like this from The Matrix:

The Big Cop flicks out his cuffs, the other cops holding a
bead. They've done this a hundred times, they know
they've got her, until the Big Cop reaches with the cuffs
and Trinity moves --It almost doesn't register, so smooth and fast, inhumanly
fast.The eye blinks and Trinity's palm snaps up and his nose
explodes, blood erupting. Her leg kicks with the force of
a wrecking ball and he flies back, a two-hundred-fifty
pound sack of limp meat and bone that slams into the cop
farthest from her.

Or this from Wall-E:

It hovers gracefully above the ground.
White. Egg-shaped.Blue-lit eyes.
Female.
Eve.Wally is transfixed.
Inches closer.
Watches Eve from behind the device.
Tilts his head.
Time stops.
She's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Or this from Little Miss Sunshine:

No one knows what to make of Olive rocking, her back turned.However, when the first verse begins, Olive turns and
strides up on the stage -- hands on hips, shoulders swinging
-- with an absolute and spectacular physical self-confidence.She rocks out, busting crazy moves this stage has never seen:
shakes, shimmies, twirls, dips, undulations -- a melange of
MTV rump shakin', Solid Gold Dancers re-runs, and
out-of-left-field inventions of her own. Other moves are
clearly drawn from Grandpa's sixty-year career of strip-bar
patronage.She dances with a total command -- an exuberant, even witty
mastery of her body, the music, the moves, everything.Most of all, she's doing it for herself -- for her own sense
of fun -- and the judges are instantly irrelevant.The audience is stunned. No one moves. Mouths hang open.

In my 1-week Scene Description Spotlight class, you will learn about:

• How Genre + Style = Narrative Voice
• The crucial importance of ‘editorializing’
• Using tempo and pace to make scenes spark to life
• The freedom screenwriters have to break grammatical rules
• Directing action through line management
• Imagematic, psychological, and action writing

And much, much more!

The class includes dozens of examples from notable movie scripts as well as some of the most recent selling spec scripts to give you a clear sense of how to use scene description to give expression to your voice and make your script worthy of one of Hollywood’s highest compliments: It’s a good read.

I’m really excited about this class and you should be, too. Take something as seemingly simple and mundane as scene description… and use it to show off your voice.

To learn more and enroll, go here.

The class begins Monday, February 19. As always, I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!