Amy Tan, the author of, among others, The Joy Luck Club, discusses where her creativity come. http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_tan_on_creativity.html
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Three Exercises in Thinking Outside the Box
I teach a screenwriting class to teenagers once a week, and it’s challenging for a number of reasons. The first reason is that, being teenagers they have rather eclectic taste. When I mentioned how great of a director Alfred Hitchcock was, one of them asked me to compare him to Michael Bey. I can tell …
Cooking Your Screenplay, Pt. 2; Don’t Let It Get Overdone
A while back I posted that creating a screenplay was a lot like cooking a meal. Not only do you need the right ingredients, you also need to prepare them correctly and in the correct order in so that you can create the most delicious dish. There was something that I left out of that …
They Don’t Write ’em Like That Anymore
Last night I attended the last performance of the summer of Shakespeare in the Park at Griffith Park by the Independent Shakespeare Company. They performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it was a wonderful performance enjoyed by young and old alike. This particular company does a wonderful job of making Shakespeare accessible to the masses. …
Just wondering…
Has any director had a better year than Victor Flemming in 1939 when he had Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz?
The Germ of an Idea: Getting Started
I recently started teaching a screenwriting class to high school and junior high school kids who are home-schooled. As I’ve gone through a few weeks of classes, it’s gotten me to thinking about a lot of things and one of those is, how do we start writing a script? When I was writing on my …
Targeted Rewrites
Since I ventured out on my own as a freelance screenplay reader, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a few writers as they write several drafts of their scripts. This has given me a chance to see how different people handle rewrites, and it has given me ideas on how rewrites should be handled overall. Clearly, …
Rewriting: How Much Is Too Much?
Scripts are never finished. They’re abandoned. That is a common phrase around Hollywood, and it can apply to other things like completing a film, a TV episode, or any other creative venture. Usually, though, with films and TV shows, there’s a producer or an executive to take it away and make sure that it makes …
Happy New Year! 4 Goals to Set for 2012
Now that the calendar has turned, it’s time to assess 2011 and look forward to 2012. Like any other year, 2011 was certain to have had successes and failures. Hopefully you had more of the former than of the latter. Maybe you started a script and now you need to finish it. Maybe you completed …
4 Reasons to Get Your Script Covered Before the End of the Year
It’s the holidays and you’ve just finished writing your script. You feel like you’re ready to start shopping it around to studios and agencies, but there are a couple of reasons to get professional coverage first. Everyone is distracted Executives and agents are wrapping up their years along with wrapping their presents, and there are …