Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 381st installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other…
Time for the 381st installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
The Oscars Made Progress This Year (But Green Book Was Still a Bad Choice)
The ‘Green Book’ Best Picture Win Enters the Hall of Oscar Travesties
The Best Picture Oscar Deserves Better Than ‘Green Book’
‘Green Book’ Deserves Spike Lee’s Righteous Anger
Oscars Analysis: How ‘Green Book’ Won and Glenn Close Lost
Oscars: What ‘Green Book’s’ Best Picture Win Says About Film Academy
Oscars: The Academy Embraces ‘Green Book, Denying Netflix’s ‘Roma’ a Win
Did Netflix Backlash Cost ‘Roma’ the Best Picture Oscar?
Oscars Provide Stage for Participant Media’s Comeback Story
Oscars Party Diary: Inside the A-List Parties and Events
Early Oscars 2020 Date Sparks Anxiety: “There Goes Summer Break”
Oscars 2020: How Netflix Plans to Win Best Picture With Scorsese’s Mob Drama
Spirit Awards: ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ Wins Best Feature; Complete Winners List
Alejandro G. Iñárritu Announced As 2019 Cannes Jury President
Box Office: ‘How to Train Your Dragon 3’ Flies to Franchise-Best $55.5M Bow
Box Office: ‘The Upside’ Crosses $100M in Surprise Windfall for Lantern, STX
The 20 Highest Grossing Indies of 2019
Neon Nabs Sundance Prize Winner ‘Clemency,’ Starring Alfre Woodard
AMC’s Movie Subscription Service Grows to 700K Members
AMC Theatres Touts Box Office “Momentum” With Fourth-Quarter Profit Swing
Cinemark CEO Boldly Predicts Record Box Office Grosses This Year That Could Top $12 Billion
Bob Bakish Calls Pluto TV the “Cornerstone” of Viacom’s Direct-to-Consumer Strategy
Writers Guild “Preparing” to Sue Talent Agencies Over “Kickbacks and Conflict of Interest”
What’s at Stake as Hollywood Writers Go to War With Their Agents
How Female-Focused Version of the Black List Gave RBG Biopic, Sundance Winner ‘Clemency’ a Boost
And Now, Every Jordan Peele Project Currently in Development
Emma Thompson’s letter to Skydance: Why I can’t work for John Lasseter
USC Film School Turns 90: Famous Alums Gather to Share Memories of a Hollywood Incubator
How USC Film School Got Millions From Steven Spielberg (and He Didn’t Even Go There)
HBO and Turner Together: The Strategy Behind WarnerMedia’s Anticipated Bob Greenblatt Hire
WarnerMedia Eyes Bob Greenblatt for Major New Role
AT&T Weighs Combining HBO, Turner Units
How Animated Film Is Indicting Toxic Masculinity
Marvel to Create Episodic Superhero Stories Based on Black Panther, Thor and Other Characters
True Detective and the Wave of Crime TV About Murky Memory
‘Game of Thrones’ Beer is Coming This Spring Just in Time for the Final Season
Richard Plepler Departing HBO After Three Decades at Cable Giant
Breaking Good: Shows Like ‘Russian Doll’ and ‘Barry’ Map Paths to Self-Improvement
Netflix and the Economics of Bundling
Netflix Heads to Court: How Fox’s Poaching Trial Could Reshape Hollywood
Meet the executives who have made Netflix food TV
Twitter Plans to Test Moderated Conversations
The Trauma Floor: The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America
“Men Are Scum”: Inside Facebook’s War on Hate Speech
‘Decent learning curve for them’: Facebook will need to adapt its pitch to crack TV upfront market
YouTube Suspends Comments on Videos With Minors After Uproar
Instagram Takes Long View on Longform Video After Slow Start For IGTV
Everybody Makes Podcasts. Can Anyone Make Them Profitable?
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: Character Development Keys
Starting March 4, my 1-week online class not only immerses you in five key archetypes, you also use them to workshop one of your stories.
One question I get asked about screenwriting theory a lot is what’s my deal with character archetypes? Here’s your chance to find out with the Screenwriting Master Class course: Character Development Keys.
My mantra is this: Start with characters. End with characters. Find the story in between. As per the old adage, Character should equal Plot because it’s their story. By immersing ourselves in the lives of our characters and determining the nature of their interrelationships as well as their respective narrative functions, we can create a character map along the lines of the one above which informs the crafting of your story’s structure.
This process lies at the heart of Character Development Keys, a one-week online class which begins Monday, March 4. There are seven lectures written by yours truly:
1: Character Archetypes and Story Structure
2: Protagonist
3: Nemesis
4: Attractor
5: Mentor
6: Trickster
7: Switch Protagonist
The study script for the course: The Dark Knight, screenplay by Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, based on characters created by Bob Kane.
If you’re a fan of The Dark Knight trilogy, that alone is probably reason enough to take this class because you will understand the films in a whole new way, through the lens of character archetypes.
In addition, you will get the opportunity to put the theories you learn into action by workshopping one of your own stories.
And as a bonus: I’ll be presenting a set of character development tools I have assembled over the years to help you dig into characters even further to uncover their unique personalities and voice including: questionnaires, biographies, monologues, interviews, sit-downs, secondary character archetypes, and much more.
This is a great chance to delve into what I consider to be one of the most fascinating and helpful ways of approaching character development and indeed, the story-crafting process as a whole: character archetypes.
All of that in only 1-week beginning Monday, March 4.
Take advantage of the benefits of online classes where you do pretty much everything on your own time schedule: download and read lectures, review and post comments on the public forums, upload ideas and optional writing exercises. You want to do that in bed in your pajamas sipping coffee? Devouring chocolate bon bons? Be my guest!
There is one teleconference which is live, but I record and upload that, so you can even check that out on your own time, too.
“It was the perfect primer for all things character and has opened me up to the possibilities within my writing immensely.”
~ Jack Wesley
Who should take this course?
Screenwriters, TV writers, novelists, playwrights, and anyone interested in learning tools to dig into their characters and make their stories come alive.
For more information, go here.
Plus there’s this: For nearly 60% off, you can gain immediate access to the entire content of all 10 Craft classes as well as automatic enrollment in each 1-week Craft course. Check out the Craft Package here.
As always, I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!