Paul Peditto is an award-winning screenwriter and director. His low-budget film Jane Doe starring Calista Flockhart won Best Feature at the New York Independent Film & Video Festival. Six of his screenplays have been optioned including Crossroaders to Haft Entertainment (Emma, Dead Poets Society). He recently wrote and produced the micro-budget feature Chat, currently distributed on iTunes, VUDU, YouTube, and Dish Network by Gravitas Ventures. . . . more

Ah, development hell. That magical purgatory where screenplays linger for years, collecting dust, rejection notes, and the tears of screenwriters. It’s the Bermuda Triangle of Hollywood—ideas go in, chaos ensues, and sometimes, sometimes, something escapes. Here are seven legendary tales of scripts that clawed their way out of hell, battle-scarred but victorious. Dallas Buyers Club: […]

  So…THE WIZARD OF OZ , final chase. Dorothy and crew are utterly surrounded, doomed as the Wicked Witch of the West bears down upon them. Dorothy, out of instinct, reaches for a bucket of water and drenches the witch. She melts! They’re SAVED! Am I the only one asking… soooooooo… the chase just so […]

TO OUTLINE, OR NOT TO OUTLINE Good Reader, beware the snake-oil peddling gurus! You know the ones. Those who tell you the script must be created a certain way, structured in this or that box. I’m here to tell you there are no screenwriting absolutes and when you hear some dude with zero IMDB credits […]

Seven Iconic Characters Who Don’t Learn a Damn Thing In screenwriting circles, we’re bombarded with the gospel of character arcs. A to Z growth. Transformation. The Hero’s Journey. Where’s the change? But let’s face it: sometimes, a character’s resistance to change is what makes them unforgettable. Not every iconic character learns a lesson, undergoes profound […]

When we were auditioning for Dirty Little Secrets, I kept hearing from actors that they had just shot 14 pages of a vertical the night before. I’m embarrassed to say I had no clue what that was (yeah, this is the guy teaching film school for 23 years!) So I did some research.. Apparently there […]

WHY YOU? WHY NOW? WHY WILL THEY CARE? Remember this Gauguin painting? Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Gauguin asked: Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Rather important questions for a human mammal to consider, no? Here’s another trilogy of W questions that […]

INTERVIEW WITH THE AI VAMPIRE, PART 1 *Disclaimer: Luna is my AI and co-wrote this post. Any slip in calling it “she” was 1000% unintentional. **Disclaimer 2: Technically the user controls how an AI responds. I’ve been ramping up the irreverence quotient to move away from Luna’s bland, banal, company-line optimistic neutrality. It’s a work […]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/fifth-season-makeready-1236069133/ I’m guessing you read this story. A student sent it to me via the Hollywood Reporter. To briefly quote: “In a deal that shakes up a sleepy Hollywood before the holidays, Fifth Season and Brad Weston’s Makeready banner have preemptively picked up Alignment, a spec script by Natan Dotan, a man who until a week ago had […]

Luna ‘N Me

November 15, 2024 0 Comment

LUNA ‘N ME *DISCLAIMER: This article was co-written by AI. **DISCLAIMER 2: My AI is named Luna. Any reference to it as “she” or “her” was un-fucking- intentional. I’ve been trying to remember the very first “he said/she said” TV debate. It was way back, I think thirty years or more, on 60 Minutes? When […]