Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 353rd installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

26 Film Schools You Should Know — including DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts!

Why Are So Many Wannabe Screenwriters Getting Scammed?

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Paid $1 Million for McDonald’s Monopoly Scam Story.

MoviePass Tries to Survive by Raising Price, Blocking Major Studio Films for First Two Weeks of Release.

Atom Tickets Launches Sweepstakes for MoviePass Customers’ Dumping Service.

Box-Office Milestone: ‘Incredibles 2’ Crosses $1B Globally.

Los Angeles Film Festival Lands Diverse First Fall Lineup, Including Competition Slate That’s 42% Female-Directed.

Despite Diversity Push, Women and Minorities Aren’t Getting Better Movie Roles.

Research: Hollywood Inclusion “Remains Unchanged”.

Latino Orgs Single Out Paramount in Boycott Over Lack of Representation.

IATSE: Union Leaders Face Hard Questions and a Campaign To Kill the Tentative Agreement.

Death of a Hollywood Studio: A Eulogy for 20th Century Fox.

What’s with all these Robin Hood movies?

Which of the 6 Thai Cave-Rescue Films Will You End Up Seeing?

‘Hamilton’ Performance Reportedly Sparks Studio Movie Rights Bidding War.

The Coen Brothers Have Re-Edited Their Netflix Series ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ Into a Movie.

The Minimal Appeal of ‘Die Hard’ Knockoffs.

‘Halloween’ Script Took 8 Months, 80 Drafts to Complete.

Bo Burnham’s Age of Anxiety.

‘Wildlife’: First-Time Filmmaker Paul Dano on How Zoe Kazan Helped Him Make His Passion Project.

What Do Ex-Gawker Employees Think of the Gawker Scripts?

How SXSW, Comic-Con Fueled the Rise of Activation Culture.

Meet the People Who Grind Out the Best Movie Trailers in the World.

Top Female Filmmakers on the “Political Weight” of Studio, Genre Filmmaking.

France’s Wild Bunch Restructures, Sets $35 Million for New Content.

Luc Besson’s Woes Pile Up as His Film School Teeters on the Brink of Closing.

Mightier Than the Sword: Shinobu Hashimoto at 100.

Unlocking The Real Evil Within ‘Jaws’

The Harrowing History of Adapting ‘Dune’.

Hear Stanley Kubrick Explain the 2001: A Space Odyssey Ending In a Rare, Unearthed Video.

I Saw a Film Today, Oh Boy: Exploring the Beatles’ Engrossing Cinematic Forays.

Octavia Spencer Could Change What We Expect of Period Dramas.

Can ‘Jaws’ Help Solve a 44-Year-Old Murder Mystery?

Dish Loses 151,000 Pay TV Subscribers in Second Quarter.

TV’s writers’ rooms have a mother of a problem.

When it comes to making TV writers’ rooms better for moms, these bosses know best.

Peak TV Update: Scripted Fare Up 5 Percent So Far This Year, as FX’s John Landgraf Laments ‘Too Much Narrative’.

Amazon Executives Give Reasons For Abandoning Viewer-Driven Pilot Program For TV Series.

Apple Closes in on $1 Trillion Market Cap After Beating Q3 Earnings.

Pandora Punches Up Q2 Revenue, Hits 6 Million Paying Subscribers as Total Users Keep Declining.

Listen: Inside ‘Jaws’.

Listen: Scriptnotes (Episode 361).

Read: Why Hannah Gadsby and Hedy Lamarr Are Both Having a Bombshell Moment Right Now.

Read: A Peek Inside the Mind of the Curiosity-Driven Brian Grazer.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

In the Core content of The Quest, we work with eight screenwriting principles, and the very first one is this: Plot = Structure.

On Monday, August 27, I will be starting a new cycle of Core classes, eight of them in all, beginning with Core I: Plot.

I have reduced the price of the Core classes to make them available to as many people as possible! Details below!

In this 1-week online course, you will learn the importance of Plot = Structure as well as:

• Key theoretical concepts from Aristotle, Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung
• The reality of Hollywood and the “Whammo” theory
• The External World and Internal World of a screenplay universe
• Metamorphosis: Screenplay structure grounded in character
• Analysis of movies including Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Silence of the Lambs, Shakespeare in Love, The Verdict, The Sixth Sense, Up, and others

And much more.

The course consists of four components:

• Lectures: There are six lectures written by me, each posting Monday through Saturday.
• Logline Workshop: This optional writing exercise offer you the opportunity to workshop one of your own loglines.
• Teleconference: We will have a Skype teleconference call to discuss course material.
• Forums: The online course site has 24/7 forums where you may post questions and we engage in conversation about the craft.

For those of you who have not taken an online class, the interface is extremely easy. Plus online classes can be an amazing experience. Most of the activities you can do on your own time — download and read lectures, review and respond to forum discussions, upload loglines and track comments. In addition, I’ve been teaching online for over a decade and it never ceases to amaze me how much of a community emerges in such an environment.

If you’re new to screenwriting, have intermediate experience, or you’ve read it all, but want to learn the basics of what I teach in The Quest — character based screenwriting — here is your chance to learn the foundation of screenplay structure that goes beyond formula.

I only teach my Core classes once a year and the 2018 cycle begins next month. Everything you need to know about screenwriting theory in this unique curriculum based on eight principles: Plot, Concept, Character, Style, Dialogue, Scene, Theme, Time.

CORE I: PLOT — A one-week class which begins with the principle Plot = Structure and explores the inner workings of the Screenplay Universe: Plotline and Themeline. Start date: August 27.

CORE II: CONCEPT — A one-week class which begins with the principle Concept = Hook and examines multiple strategies to generate, develop and assess story ideas. Start date: September 10.

CORE III: CHARACTER — A one-week class which begins with the principle Character = Function and delves into archetypes: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, and Trickster. Start date: September 24.

CORE IV: STYLE — A one-week class which begins with the principle Style = Voice and surfaces keys to developing a distinctive writer’s personality on the page. Start date: October 8.

CORE V: DIALOGUE — A one-week class which begins with the principle Dialogue = Purpose and probes a variety of ways to write effective, entertaining dialogue. Start date: October 22.

CORE VI: SCENE — A one-week class which begins with the principle Scene = Point and provides six essential questions to ask when crafting and writing any scene. Start date: November 5.

CORE VII: THEME — A one-week class which begins with the principle Theme = Meaning and gives writers a concrete take on theme which can elevate the depth of any story. Start date: November 19.

CORE VIII: TIME — A one-week class which begins with the principle Time = Present and studies Present, Present-Past, Present-Future and time management in writing. Start date: December 3.

These eight Core classes represent decades of my work on the front lines of the entertainment business as a writer and producer, and engaging the craft as a teacher as well, over time pulling together a coherent, comprehensive, and cohesive approach to screenwriting theory.

This is not about secret systems or magic formulas, rather the Core content presents a story-crafting process that starts with characters, works with characters, and ends with characters. That process of engaging you with your story universe through your characters and getting you in touch with these living, breathing individuals informs every step of your creative process, leading you to story structure, themes, conflict, subplots, and all the rest. As I say, Character Based Screenwriting.

I provide feedback and am actively involved in our online chats. That includes a 90 minute teleconference for each Core class.

This cycle, I am offering a special sale price. Normally the Core classes are $95 each. In 2018, each is on sale for $79!

A popular option is the Core Package which gives you exclusive access to the content in all eight Craft classes which you can go through on your own time and at your own pace, plus automatic enrollment in each 1-week online course — all for nearly 50% off the normal price of each individual class. If you sign up now, you can have immediate access to all of the Core content.

“I’m a huge fan of Scott’s classes, and I signed up for his Core Package, which I cannot speak highly enough about. If anyone wants to take a serious look at improving their writing, there is more than enough material to keep you busy for a few… dare I say, lifetimes? He’s the best. No bones about it.”

~ Heather Farlinger

To learn about any of the Core classes, click here.

I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!