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Spec Spotlight: Pete Barry discusses MARIAN

March 22, 2017

From playwrighting to the big screen, Pete Barry has been involved in creating stories and telling them in various mediums for a long time. With his recent script, he takes a twist on the character Marian from the original Robin Hood. The project has...

Screenwriting Role Models: Colin Higgins

March 21, 2017

A unique voice and iconoclast, Colin Higgins was one of the most important screenwriters of the 1970s and early 1980s. Born in France but raised in Australia by an Australian mother and American father, Higgins was a young man searching for his place...

Five Things Writers Can Learn From The Breakfast Club

March 20, 2017

John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club is one of the most beloved films ever made. Many of its themes—such as bullying and alienation—ring as true for teenagers today as it did when it was first released in 1985.

Jaws: A Masterpiece Created by Collaboration and a Deadline

March 17, 2017

With contributions from various writers, a director and even the actors, the screenplay for Jaws is one of the best examples of cinema being a collaborative art form. And the circumstances surrounding the writing prove that sometimes a deadline is go...

Reader Profile: Spotting a Unicorn: How to Stand Out From the Pack

March 14, 2017

FINAL DRAFT: How did you start out reading? READER: I was just out of college and running around Los Angeles making pennies as a Production Assistant on various film shoots, and needed a way to pull in a little more income. A friend at a production c...

Spec Spotlight: Liz Hannah, Writer of "The Post"

March 6, 2017

The publishing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 represents a crucial turning point in modern U.S. history. So it’s no surprise that Pascal Pictures was eager to acquire Liz Hannah’s spec script The Post, which explores the Washington Post’s role in exp...

Writing Crime: It's all In The Details

March 3, 2017

The crime genre unites the tragic and the absurd like little else. Before focusing on fictional mayhem, I was a crime journalist for 10 years. I covered a rail-riding serial killer who clubbed people to death in three states, a bank robber unfortunat...

Spec Spotlight: The Stefanie Leder, Writer of "Real Love"

March 1, 2017

As if selling a TV pilot weren’t challenging enough, Stefanie Leder pitched her series Real Love while she was eight months pregnant. In the hospital. In labor.

John Zaozirny of Bellevue Productions Talks Selling Scripts

March 1, 2017

John Zaozirny, principal at Bellevue Productions, takes time out of his busy schedule to talk with us about selling scripts, scripts that top the Black List and what it means when a script is "set up".