Niki Nikita That’s not her real name. Her real name still inspires fear. This, the woman with two Tony Awards on the mantle place of her upper-east side apartment. This, the woman who produced Jane Doe, taking a rough-and-raw true story about drug addiction and turning it a perfectly charming, and soulless, Lifetime movie. The […]
Script Gods Must Die! by Paul Peditto
Nobody wants to be Alan Smithee Resignation… Defeat… No fun at all. When you see this name it speaks to a soul-sucking experience so bad that it caused the Director to take his name off the movie. I wanted to use Allen Smithee on Jane Doe. I had to be talked out of it. The […]
How To Play The Trombone In 10 Easy Lessons, Or One Hard One
December 17, 2011
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NOTE: Have a terrific holidays, folks. Heading to the Big Apple to see the family, I’ll return January 1, refreshed and re-energized, ready for year 3 at Script Gods. I’ll have some news for you then about a pair of movies in the works. In the meantime, stay positive, and stay vigilant (see below). […]
Format: Down And Dirty, Meetup.Com Version
November 26, 2011
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Recently at a Meetup.com group here in Chicago, I was asked to give a down and dirty format lecture in about 55 minutes. Lightning round stuff, I barely had enough caffeine in my system to make it through. Concerning format, the first three words out of my mouth are The Screenwriter’s Bible, by Dave Trottier. […]
The Fallacy of Resolution
September 10, 2011
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INT. AUDITORIUM – MORNING Kaufman, bleary-eyed, sits in the back. McKee paces. MCKEE Anyone else? Kaufman timidly raises his hand. MCKEE Yes? KAUFMAN You talked about Crisis as the ultimate decision a character makes, but what if a writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens, where people don’t change, they don’t […]
