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Named "Best Screenwriting Magazine" by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, Creative Screenwriting brings you the finest articles on the craft and business of screenwriting 6 times a year.  Buy the magazine on these newsstands or:

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X-Files Bonanza:
Truth at 24 fps:

Writers Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz drop hints about the secrets behind I Want to Believe, the new movie spun from the series, and their own creative process.

Channeling the Past:

As the TV series approaches its 15th anniversary, Carter and Spotnitz join Creative Screenwriting in looking back through the episode files.

STORIES BY JASON DAVIS

Love Among the Ruins

In WALL-E, Andrew Stanton's new Pixar movie, a robot abandoned on a trash-strewn planet finds his soul mate.

BY DANNY MUNSO

Pilot Lessons

'Tis the season for selling original series. Despite a downturn in production, an original pilot is now an essential part of a TV writer's portfolio. Our roundtable weighs in on what to write and where things are headed.

BY SHELLEY GABERT

Riveting Recount

How first-time writer Danny Strong mined suspense from a story whose ending we know too well.

BY ERIC ELFMAN

School Craze: Our Annual Education Focus
Acting the application: Tips and a Timeline

A successful recent applicant helps you navigate the grad-school gauntlet.

BY LEAH CAMERON

UCLA vs. USC: The Cross-town Smackdown

Who's the best? Our handy chart compares screenwriting options at two of the best-known schools in the filmmaking capital.
BY NANCY HENDRICKSON

Leave the Light On
Short-stay MFAs, also known as brief residency programs, let students return home to write.
BY JACK EGAN



Click here to read a scene from Christopher Hampton's Atonement (Final Draft format)



Registration for the Screenwriting Expo is open.  

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Is Open --
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Prizes Awarded At the Expo
Next Contest Deadline Is Midnight 9/15/08.  
For information or to enter,  click here 

Free Podcasts — Jeff Goldsmith's Interviews With
Writers And Directors At the Creative Screenwriting
Film Screening Series — Click here


Excerpts From Our Current Issue!

Hancock

BY PETER CLINES

A large element of the comedy co-writer Vince Gilligan added was taking Hancock’s rude and boorish behavior to a higher level, which makes his eventual transformation all the more dramatic. “Again, I was building on a very solid foundation that Vincent Ngo had left me,” he says. “In the original draft he’s kind of an unpleasant guy. And it’s not that he intends to be unpleasant, it’s just that his unhappiness wells out of him in various ways that make him come across as antisocial and alienated and unpleasant. I just loved the idea of a superhero who was just repellant. And the question arises, how thankful do you have to be when you get saved by a guy like this?” Gilligan also credits some of his inspiration to the sequence in Superman III where Christopher Reeve’s sullen and drunk Man of Steel is shooting peanuts across the bar like bullets.

Portraying an unlikable person isn’t always desirable, Gilligan says, and he gives Will Smith praise for taking on such a role. “The thing you worry about is that movie stars come in and shave off the rough edges,” Gilligan explains. “They sand the sharp, pointy edges off the character and make him or her more likeable because they’re worried about their public not liking them. Will Smith is fearless.” No matter how abrasive or outrageous Gilligan was willing to push the superhero character, the leading man was always willing to back him up and be even more offensive.

Like what you just read? Read Peter Clines' entire interview with Vince Gilligan in the latest issue of Creative Screenwriting!

The Wackness
BY JEFF GOLDSMITH

In 2005 Jonathan Levine made a film called Love Bites about his Internet dating experiences, which in turn influenced the bourgeoning Wackness concept. “Inevitably there's a lesson to be learned about how the pursuit of what you're missing in your own life has nothing to do with something external fulfilling that,” Levine says. He was also spurred on by the thought of having an adult character (Squires) take a similar growth arc that mirrors the teenager he’s supposed to be guiding. “Everyone I know grows up, matures, regresses and then matures again,” Levine says. “I thought it would be interesting to have two characters of different ages learning a coming-of-age lesson at the same time.”

Levine chose not to outline before writing his first draft. “I wanted to just keep writing and then retroactively discover my through line,” Levine says. “I'm not sure I would do that again because it's very inefficient but, for me, it raised the ceiling much higher. After I got to certain point, I noticed through lines ranging from what it's like to grow up, or the fact that sometimes adults can be more immature than children along with notions of sexuality and love. So once I got to the end I went back and brought all those things out even more."

Check out the rest of Jeff Goldsmith's interview with Jonathan Levine in the latest issue!



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Creative Screenwriting is sold by subscription and at these and other newsstands:  Literary section of Barnes & Noble Bookstores. Also  B & N College Bookstores, Borders, B.Dalton, Books A Million, Virgin Megastores, Tower Records/Books, Hastings, Shinders (all over Minnesota), Joseph Beth Booksellers, and independent newsstands and booksellers in cities around North America and in Europe.

Why the Literary Section?
Creative Screenwriting is not just another gooey fan magazine. The Barnes & Noble people recognized the quality of content in Creative Screenwriting, and honored us by putting us in the same section as The New Yorker and journals and magazines for writers.  Barnes & Noble thinks Creative Screenwriting is serious writing about filmmaking.    

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