Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 376th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

Box Office Preview: ‘Glass’ to Top MLK Weekend With $60M-$70M

Cinereach and The Black List Announce Collaboration to Help Independent Filmmakers

Critics’ Choice Awards: ‘Roma,’ ‘Americans,’ ‘Mrs. Maisel’ Top Winners

Critics’ Choice Awards: 12 Things the TV Cameras Missed

USC Scripter Awards Nominations Often Tip Adapted Screenplay Oscar Race

WGA Awards: Jenji Kohan to Receive Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Prize

Why Aren’t Awards Campaigns Taking Measures to Bury Offensive Tweets?

Palm Springs: Why a Secret Haven for Cinephiles Is Hiding in the Desert During Oscar Season

SXSW: Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Charlize Theron and Matthew McConaughey to Premiere New Work

SXSW 2019 Film: 10 Promising Selections, From Robert Rodriguez to Beto O’Rourke

Berlin Film Festival Unveils Forum Lineup

Cannes 2019 Announces Full Selection Committee, Including Four Prominent Women

Inside Netflix’s all-out blitz to win a Best Picture Oscar for Roma

Is ‘Roma’ the Priciest Oscar Campaign in a Decade?

‘If Beale Street Could Talk’: Why Black Love Is a Revolutionary Act

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Why the ‘Green Book’ Controversies Don’t Matter

Sundance Institute Theatre Program Unveils 2019 Participants

AFI Announces Latest Participants in Directing Workshop for Women Program

AFI Directing Workshop for Women Reveals Class of 2020

Hollywood Studios, Unions Support Parents and Educators as L.A. Teachers’ Strike Rages

Los Angeles Almost Set Record for Local Filming in 2018

Lionsgate Lays Off 25 Staffers in Motion Picture Group Restructuring

Disney CEO Bob Iger’s Annual Pay Rises 80 Percent to $65.6 Million

Did Warner Bros. Overpay With Its RatPac-Dune Deal?

APA Names Three New Literary Department Co-Heads

ICM’s Lorrie Bartlett Becomes First Black Board Member of a Major Talent Agency

Ex-Agent Stuart Manashil Ordered to Repay CAA in Fraud Case

John Lasseter’s Second Chance: Will He Survive at Skydance?

NYC Arthouse Cinema Metrograph Launches Theatrical Distribution Company

Every Studio Film Directed by Filmmakers of Color, Set for Release in 2019 and 2020

The most anticipated new Disney movies of 2019 and beyond

Beyond Bollywood: The 10 Best Indian Films You Missed in 2018

Fox’s Indian Streamer Hotstar Unveils Ambitious Originals Slate

Britain No Longer Permitting Rape Scenes, Sexual Violence in Films Rated for Under 15 Year Olds

Here Are All 893 Of Martin Scorsese’s Favorite Films

Hugh Grant Says Script Was Stolen From Car

Aaron Sorkin Admits Interest In ‘Social Network’ Sequel & Says There’s Plenty To Cover

What It’s Like Making Your First Film After 18 Years in ‘Movie Jail’

Salka Viertel’s Forgotten Account of Old Hollywood

‘Unbreakable’ Was a Superhero Movie Years Ahead of Its Time

NBC Launching Its Own Streaming Service

NBCUniversal Sets Up Executive Showdown to Succeed CEO Steve Burke

Emmys to Eliminate DVD Screeners for 2020 Awards

Inside a ‘Making a Murderer’ Lawsuit and the Hidden Dangers of TV’s True-Crime Craze

Women Take Lead in U.S. Network Dramas

Edwin Chung Named 20th Century Fox TV’s Comedy Development VP

ESPN’s Ex-President Wants to Build the Netflix of Sports

Will Netflix’s Latest Price Hike Spur a Customer Backlash?

Netflix Posts Record Subscriber Growth, Strong Q4 Earnings

‘You,’ a Dud for Lifetime, Has Become Netflix’s Latest Water-Cooler Hit

As Netflix Goes Global, Saudi Arabia Isn’t the Only Trouble Spot

Jason Katims Will Leave Universal TV for New Deal With Apple

As Apple Bets More on Its Services, Who Benefits?

Brands Who Stan: How Entertainment Companies Started Tweeting in the First Person

Grindr Lays Off Entire Editorial Staff at LGBT News Site in ‘Shift to Video’

Mic Quietly Comes Back to Life With New Writers, Fresh Content

Crowdfunded Video Games Saw a Decline on Kickstarter in 2018

John Falsey Dies: Co-Creator Of ‘St. Elsewhere’, ‘Northern Exposure’ Was 67

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver dies at 83

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

I am excited to announce a three-day writing master class in Paris, France: Go Into The Story: Character Driven Writing, March 20–22, 2019.

All too often, studios, networks, producers, and financiers are flooded with formulaic script submissions. Stories are so much more than this plot point happening at that page number. As screenwriter David Seltzer (The Omen, Punchline) says, “If you go in with formula, you come out with formula.”

The single best way to avoid formulaic writing is to tap into the lives of a story’s characters and follow them into and through the story-crafting process. As this writing mantra:

Begin with character. End with character. Find the story in between.

That is the guiding principle of this three-day Go Into The Story writing class. It is the characters who live in their story universe. It is their backstories and destinies, their wants and needs which provide the raw material out of which the narrative emerges.

This is what you will study in this writing course: An immersion in character driven screenwriting and storytelling.

Day One — March 20, 2019
The Protagonist’s Journey as Metamorphosis

Due to their central role in the narrative, engaging the Protagonist is the most important aspect of the story-crafting process. In our first session, we will study:

• The primacy of the Protagonist character
• Protagonist metamorphosis
• Metamorphosis arcs (e.g., Positive, Negative, Refusal to Change, Change Agent)
• Screenplay universe: Plotline (External World) and Themeline (Internal World)
• How events in the Plotline support the Protagonist’s metamorphosis
• Disunity: The Protagonist’s beginning state disrupted by the Call to Adventure
• Deconstruction: New World trials which test the Protagonist’s Old Ways of Being
• Reconstruction: The Protagonist connects with untapped inner potential
• Unity: The Protagonist’s metamorphosis moves toward a state of wholeness
• Four Themeline Movements: Inactive, Reactive, Proactive, Coactive
• The endless variety of metamorphosis journeys
• Carl Jung’s theory of individuation and the Protagonist’s journey

Day Two — March 21, 2019
The Protagonist’s Journey as Family of Characters

Five narrative dynamics common to movies and television represented by these archetypes: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, Trickster. In our second session, we will study:

• Primary Character Archetypes
• The Protagonist’s Family of Characters
• Nemesis: Conflict created through opposition to the Protagonist
• Attractor: Connection with the Protagonist’s emotional development
• Mentor: Connection with the Protagonist’s intellectual development
• Trickster: Shapeshifter tests the will of the Protagonist
• Subplot = Relationship, mini-stories which service the Protagonist’s journey
• Character map: The structure of the Protagonist’s relationships with key characters

Day Three — March 22, 2019
The Protagonist’s Journey as Narrative Imperative

By immersing ourselves in the lives of our characters — and especially the Protagonist — we discover the story’s structure. In our third session, we study:

• A Proven Professional Approach to Breaking Story
• Protagonist Character Treatment: Seven Essential Questions
• Brainstorming: Six Character and Story Development Exercises
• Finding the Spine: Four Primary Plotline Points
• Psychological Journey: Four Themeline Movements
• From Spine to Backbones: Ten Major Plotline Points
• Narrative Throughline: Scene By Scene Outline
• Writing Strategies: First Draft and Beyond
• Narrative Imperative: The Inevitable Protagonist’s Path

After this three-day session, you will have learned the foundations of character driven writing and a practical approach to story prep which you can adopt and adapt for all your future writing projects.

The content we will be covering is the essence of what I am writing as a book commissioned by noted publishing company Palgrave Macmillan.

If you live in Europe or know someone who does, this is a great opportunity to learn how to Go Into The Story and discover how Character Drives Plot.

For more information, go here.