Writing Obsession: Nick Hornby on Brooklyn
Nick Hornby discusses his first rule of screenwriting, why he doesn’t trust characters without obsessiveness, and how indie filmmakers can “cast up” by creating interesting minor characters.
By Christopher McKittrick. With Brooklyn, novelist and screenwriter Nick Hornby adds another rich adapted screenplay to his filmography, this time one that explores the often-heartbreaking narrative of immigration and building a new life in a new world. In addition, Brooklyn follows Hornby’s previous adapted screenplays focusing on female protagonists after Wild and the Oscar-nominated An […]
The Final Girls: A Slasher Movie Inspired by Woody Allen
Joshua John Miller and M.A. Fortin on movies within movies, writing about grief, and attuning your dialogue.
By Christopher McKittrick. In The Final Girls, student Max (Taissa Farmiga) reluctantly attends a special screening of a schlocky slasher movie, Camp Bloodbath, which her mother Nancy (Malin Akerman) had starred in as a victim years ago. Max is uncomfortable enough with going to the screening because she saw her mother die in real life […]
A Year in Quotes Part III
East Coast Editor Christopher McKittrick takes a look back over our articles from 2014.
Compiled by Christopher McKittrick. For this three part series, I have undertaken the wholly enjoyable task of re-reading the articles first published in Creative Screenwriting in 2014, and choosing some of my favourite quotes. Some are from famous actors and screenwriters, some from less familiar faces, but all have something of interest to say. And if you want to read […]
Ed Burns: An Independent Force
Ed Burns discusses the long genesis of Public Morals, how his screenwriting process has developed and changed, and why he needed to relearn structure.
By Christopher McKittrick. Out of all of the independent film success stories to emerge from the Sundance Film Festival in the 1990s, writer/director Ed Burns has done the most of any of his contemporaries to champion independent filmmaking. While working as a production assistant in the early 1990s, Burns wrote, directed, and starred in The […]
Follow the Book’s Lead: Berman and Pulcini on Ten Thousand Saints
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini discuss their collaboration process as a married couple, and the similarities between adapting a screenplay and making documentaries.
By Christopher McKittrick. Husband and wife filmmakers Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini became known for co-directing two acclaimed documentaries, Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s, about the famed West Hollywood restaurant, and The Young and the Dead, about the restoration of the Hollywood Forever cemetery and the man who oversaw its rehabilitation, […]
