More Than 80 New Classes At the Screenwriting Expo
"Lost" and "Heroes Panels Plus Hollywood's Top Female Writer-Director, Nancy Meyers...
and many more working writers, teachers
Plus The Golden Pitch, the most popular pitchfest in Town
Registration is open.
Click the image above or link to go to the new
Screenwriting Expo web site for information.
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Contest Deadline Extended To 10/15/08.
More than $105,000
In Prizes
$20,000 Cash First Prize Plus Access to Hollywood
Prizes Awarded At the Expo
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Free Podcasts — Jeff
Goldsmith's Interviews With
Writers And Directors At the Creative Screenwriting
Film Screening Series — Click
here
How Changeling Changed J. Michael Straczynski
BY JASON DAVIS
“There’s a point where you almost know
too much about something, and suddenly
you’re not sure how to tell the story,”
Straczynski says. In an effort to let the story
develop at its own pace, the writer put it aside
and allowed himself to forget less essential
events until he could bring into focus the
portions of the story he wanted to tell. “I see
structure in my head,” he explains. “In this
case, what I saw was two inverted triangles,
where the first triangle, with the point up, is
Collins’ story. You start with her, and her
story gets broader and broader and begins
having impact from all kinds of places. The
overlay on that was an upside down triangle
with the base on top, which is the panorama of Los Angeles at that time—1928. And it
begins getting narrower and narrower toward
the bottom, bearing down on her. Once I
could see that structure in my head, I knew
how to write the story.”
For Straczynski, who had previously focused
on science fiction work like Babylon 5
and the 1980s incarnation of The Twilight
Zone, dramatizing a true story offered up a
greater sense of responsibility toward the material.
“Having come from a reporter background,
I knew how to put together the facts
and the timeline,” he says. “Because the case
is so extraordinary, I didn’t want to overly fictionalize
[it]. The moment you start taking a
story as bizarre as this and adding fictional
elements, you call the integrity of the whole
thing into question.” To maintain accuracy,
Straczynski took dialogue from the court
transcripts and other documents “because
you really can’t top what people said.”
Straczynski cites examples, such as the police
captain instructing Collins to “take [the imposter]
home on a trial basis” or a doctor’s
statement that “trauma can shrink the
spine.” “You can’t make this stuff up,” says
Straczynski, who in an unusual move, included photocopies of the actual newspaper
articles within the format of the screenplay
to substantiate his story. A reader could digest
a page, believe it impossible, and then be
confronted with the exact quote in a newspaper
clipping on the next page. “It was almost
like writing a newspaper or a magazine
article in script form.”
Like
what you just read? Read Jason Davis'
entire interview with J. Michael Straczynski in the latest
issue
of Creative Screenwriting!
It's Always Funny in Philadelphia
BY SHELLEY GABERT
“I was lying in bed one night and thought
about someone going to their neighbor’s
house to borrow some sugar but when they
get there the person tells them they have cancer,”
he says. “I wondered how that would
play out, so I got up and wrote that scene in
20 minutes. The next day I brought it to
Glenn, and he thought it was funny.”
That scene evolved with Howerton as an
actor visiting his friend (Day), who tells him
he has cancer. In the end of what becomes a
30-minute episode, we find out that Charlie
is up for a part where the character has cancer,
and he’s really just preparing for the
role, Method-style, much to the consternation
of Howerton and McElhenney. They
shot “Charlie Has Cancer,” at Day’s the apartment
at Western and Franklin, with the
same type of camera (a Panasonic DVX 100)
that’s now being used on the show.
They also shot another 30-minute episode
in which McElhenney falls for a woman named Carmen. Eventually, they showed
their work to their rep, who set up meetings
at networks.
“At FX, but they watched our tape and
laughed through the whole thing and
bought the show in the room,” McElhenney
says. “They even accepted our demand that
we serve as the show’s executive producers.”
They’d hit the jackpot with their no-budget
television debut, but while their initiative
paid off, it’s not as unusual that they shot
their own pilot as it is that the material impressed
network executives.
Check
out the rest of Shelley Gabert's look at It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in the latest
issue!
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