The Twist
Only after I wrote my last blog post on favorite endings, I realized I was missing an important category, The Reveal. You know, that moment at the end of every great (and not-so-great) mystery or thriller when the culprit is brought to light or the truth is revealed. When The Sixth Sense came out, I think I stayed indoors for a week, all due to that creepy ending (I See Dead People). This may not have made it my favorite movie ending, but indelible enough…
Approachability
The other day in the midst of studying I wrote “approachable” in my notebook and drifted back into my new life of physics equations. Despite the all-consuming science courses, I have been thinking about that word a lot lately and what it means to writers. I think my favorite books and movies are the kind that inspire me to write my own. I return from Faulkner’s Mississippi and I think, Wouldn’t it be great to rewrite Yoknapatawpha County but this time make it Montgomery? Of…
One from the Heart
Recently a friend emailed me an excerpt from a new book about “making it” in Hollywood. I read it and I wanted to respond to it but I really didn’t know what to say. The advice was the kind I had heard before: Don’t be a jerk, always be respectful, you get one chance to prove yourself in Hollywood and then you’re done. The author used an anecdote to prove her point. A guy starts his first job assisting a big shot director, someone he…
Getting Over
A late night. A packed auditorium full of raucous UCLA students. And front and center: my short film plays. Thirty seconds of silence. A few cat calls, and then the projector stops. The emcees appear again onstage. They ask whether the film should continue or if it should be gonged off. After a chorus of boos, the decision is made. The audience has spoken. The film is over. Meanwhile, I’m having one of those out of body experiences–every emotion, every gesture I record in my…
Story Notes: Lifting the Veil
In between everything else in my life right now, I am recording some footage for a documentary about downtown Los Angeles, and its efforts at recovery. I am especially interested in the push to breathe new life into the old movie palaces that dot downtown, like the Cameo or the Orpheum, all now closed or repurposed. I had decided the other day to attend the unveiling of the old façade at Clifton’s. Sure it didn’t have anything to do with the movie palaces, but anyone…
Story Notes, Part One
The following question has come up a lot lately for me: How do you tell a good story? The short answer: I don’t know. The longer answer: Nobody knows. Not even the Hollywood bigwigs, development executives, studio consultants, or screenwriters. In fact, as William Goldman so succinctly put it: “Nobody knows anything” in Hollywood. Nevertheless, everybody knows a good story or two. So there must be a way to tell a good, compelling, page-turning, stick in your seat type story. The more I thought, the…
On Editing
Many people who read this blog come here because they are either in college, film school, or some combination of the two and are considering the move to Los Angeles. I am writing this blog post for you. When you come to Los Angeles (because it’s never if it’s always when, trust me), you will be faced by two disarming facts: -There are very few jobs left in this industry. -Many of the few remaining jobs are being outsourced to other regions or overseas. But…
A New Game: Screenwriterland!
As screenwriters, we all play this game: the constant back and forth between making a career and making rent. Any writer knows that the obstacles, power-ups, and twisty turns of fate are all part of the landscape–land an agent one day, lose her the next day. That’s how this industry works, and well, if it’s a game already, let’s lay out the ground rules. 1) Everyone gets a turn to spin. 2) Money is limited to whatever you can find in your savings and what…
Occupy Hollywood
Let’s occupy Hollywood. Got your attention yet? Look, I don’t want you to think I’m going to set up a tent in front of the Bank of America building on Sunset and Vine. First, I don’t think the tent would brook much support with the LAPD, and second, it’s October, and it’s still freaking hot out here in LA. My idea of an occupation happens at the cineplex and on the television screen. It begins with questions: Are there enough television programs, enough films, and…
7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Moving to LA
LA is a tough read. Sure, there are people with connections, family, and the like, but more often than not the sort of people who move here are totally free agents. Especially for “creatives,” those odd people who want to be in entertainment, there aren’t too many instructions and even fewer allies. Misleading road signs on the 10 Freeway, these instructions (from friends, friends of friends, distant cousins) should only be used with caution and the clear certainty you know the way back. That written,…
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