This week’s Screenwriter Website of the Week is Script Doctor Eric. Eric is a script reader and consultant who shares interviews with industry professionals, supports indie filmmakers’ crowdfunding campaigns, and also blogs, at least every Sunday. Script Doctor Eric is very active on Twitter, so be sure to follow him, @scriptdreric.
Recent Articles
The Scoggins Report: May 2012 Pitch Sales Scorecard
The Scoggins Report is a compilation of sales and trends in the industry. The Report is reprinted at ScriptMag.com by permission of the authors. The Scoggins Report by Jason Scoggins & Cindy Kaplan May 14, 201 May 2012 Pitch Sales Scorecard This week’s edition of the Scoggins Report was a blast to pull together, thanks [...]
Behind the Lines with DR: Writer as Sacrificial Lamb aka Doug a la Carte
Gary Ross, writer-director of films such as Seabiscuit and Pleasantville, invited me to join in a round-table luncheon with Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey. The congressman had shown interest in meeting with movie-making word-merchants to discuss a subject plaguing that particular news quarter: Violence in Movies. The tragic events of Columbine were still in the rearview [...]
Beyond the Page: Funny Changes Everything
If you ask a comedian what it’s like to perform onstage, don’t expect a lighthearted response. “Doing standup is like walking on a tightrope over a tank filled with sharks while the audience is hacking at the tightrope with machetes,” notes J.D. Shapiro, a regular at venues including world-famous L.A. club the Comedy Store. Yet [...]
Ask the Expert: Can an Out-of-the-Box Indie Succeed?
This week’s Ask the Expert is answered by screenwriter of Buried and ATM, Chris Sparling. Before I say a word, let me simply ask why the default settings for Microsoft Word are eleven point Calibri font? Has anyone ever – and I mean ever – written something in those settings? This might seem like a [...]
Balls of Steel: Give to Receive
I’ve mentioned the power of paying it forward before, but I’d like to discuss what makes someone want to help a person. What do they get out of it? How do they decide who to help and who to walk away from? In this cutthroat industry, it’s imperative to learn how to attract those who [...]
How The Writers Store Changed My Life
I never set out to become Dr. Format. Oh, no. In the mid to late 80s, I was a marketing executive and doing good work. One day, my Muse Betty whispered to me, “Teach. Write.” I whispered back, “Let me think about it.” So I thought about how much I enjoyed teaching marketing to employees [...]
Adapting for the Screen: Heaven and Hell
Adapting a novel to a screenplay can be heaven or hell, and it’s usually a little of each. Why is adapting a joy? For most screenwriters, the problems of adapting a book are outweighed by the joys of working with very rich source material. Novelists put in so much work to create vivid characters, interesting [...]
Scoggins Report: April 2012 Spec Market Roundup
The Scoggins Report is a compilation of sales and trends in the industry. The Report is reprinted at ScriptMag.com by permission of the authors. The Scoggins Report by Jason Scoggins & Cindy Kaplan May 7, 2012 April 2012 Spec Market Roundup Year-over-year spec sale totals are down slightly (36 so far in 2012, compared [...]
